Should I invest in office space for my early stage of startup?

If you *are* going the physical office route, I'd say setting up office space can be a major distractor for the founder responsible for setting it up and then maintaining it. A better choice is to pick serviced spaces or even co-working spaces so that you do not waste time on menial maintenance tasks etc. The premium you pay for a serviced space is worth it.

People are the core of a great business. If an office improves their ability to collaborate, it's a pretty great investment. If you are on a budget, coworking spaces can also work.

I'd say it depends. First do you have funds to cover it? If not, go go garage!

If it is just you or a couple in the team then I would strongly suggest NO. Find a co-working space if possible rather than paying all out for an office. With most co-working places you can pay for even just one day a week and still have a couple of hours access to meeting rooms when clients visit. Trust me, keep your overheads minimal so you can loop the cash back into your business. Cash is king

What do you need office space for? We have space in Old Street for various reasons - Been in the area for around 20 years, have no real space at home and kids running all over the place. I can technically work anywhere but prefer the space and 'going to work' as it were plus it's great for meeting clients. It gives me a base to go and concentrate in. Oh, and edit to say, no need to buy into a 1 year contract with someone like wework, just a desk in shared space would be perfect for a start-up.

So many variables, there's no one answer to this question except perhaps to encourage you not to think about it as an investment. The more successful your startup becomes, the less likely whatever you move the team into will still be what you need in 1-2 years' time. Be smart about what you use your capital for vs what you use investors' capital for. I'd rather you all got the SAAS subscriptions you need, new laptops and external displays.

Definitive no. Use your capital to scale your business. Then you can have any kind of office you want.

It depends on lot of things and changes from person to person. If one of you in your team has a good space in their apartment to work together then that's the way to go. If you are thinking of working alone in your respective homes you will definitely feel lonely after a while and I did go through this(and it is very depressing). Though I don't recommend standalone office space but I would definitely recommend a co-working space.

I am a huge proponent for starting in a coworking space... Get a private office if you can but chat with your peers, learn, and help where you can. We have gotten so many opportunities through connections forged around the beer (and soda) fridge.

Our team works remotely as it helps keeps cost down and the developers seem to be more productive with out the interruptions a open plan office can cause

@rrhoover any thoughts on this? 🤔

@alphahunter Depends whether you're a distributed team or not. But going for a co-working space before getting your own office space is a better idea.

@alphahunter It depends on what you're working on. If its an online startup, then you should probably wait until you start getting some promising ROI. However, In some situations it may become imperative to get a good working environment if it will help boost the confidence of the people working on the startup. Sometimes the level of decency of your workspace can also directly or indirectly impact on your level of commitment into the project. But, if you choose to set up an office early in your startup, my advice would just be keep to not spend too much yet on that. There will always be an opportunity to scale up later.

It depends on the stage of your startup. Almost, every startup should have people who are geographically reachable and can meet at frequent intervals without excess burn In the very-early-stages like problem discovery, customer discovery, MVP, etc. Assuming you are bootstrapping or only raised from friends and family - If you have a team and one of you happens to have an empty space then use it. Otherwise rent a warehouse/flat - If you are solo then use an empty space where there are least distractions. But move in to a co-working or rent a small warehouse/flat where you can assemble people to join your team. For early-stage and later when you are discovering product-market fit and market-product fit. - Get a working space If you have a physical product then have a dedicated workspace from the start. At any given time having a dedicated work area helps the team. Recently, I came across a startup which has a remote team. Majority of team members live in a city where co-working spaces are available. Instead of moving everyone to current office they have rented seats/cabins at co-working spaces in each of the cities.

Project come and go, the office ever last

Hey Mahesh. In my opinion - you should definitely have a good working space, and that isn't necessarily synonymous to having an office space. The two - working space and office space, are different. You can create a working space of any place that promotes your productivity and focus. It could be a cafe, a park, a room at your home, or any place that basically helps you work better. Having an office space, however, is required if your startup is something where your space is an integral part of the product/ service you are dealing in - for example, a real estate startup, or a service where you need to deal with customers walking in daily. If your work is more of a kind that is primarily online based, you can also opt for co-working spaces. This will save you a lot of money, will provide you with all the facilities your require, and will help you network with a great bunch of people doing cool stuff out there. Hope this helps : )

This is difficult to respond because we do not know what kind of business it is, what your ROI is, how long you have been on the business, what stage your business at...etc But unless your startup have started to generate very good ROI, I would not spend money on rent. Remember a lot of big Cos. started from a basement/garage/home and they were very conscious of spending their money until they generate RIO.Amazon, Zappos...etc. As a startup you want to cut/minimize initial costs as much as you can so that you will spend your money to scale up your business. Also I would rather spend the money on Marketing and Ad. I'd put the rent budget on a side for scaling my business...

Honestly! I think you have to focus only on your product trying to avoid as much as you can all the passive expenses (and office space is a passive expense). If your team becomes big enough and you have to work as a close team, then think about it. In any case try to spend the minimum on your office space

We work from home and we are happy about it. Everybody is working on their stuff. However, it depends on a team.

Ya was wondering this myself, for a software only smaller start-up. Came to the conclusion that for now best option for us personally is to look at co-working spaces, or to try to rent out a non-traditional office space, like a basement or a garage is always an option (abiding by local laws of course).