First employee/office?
Discussion
So, the business is going well but I am starting to get over run with dealing with customers and managing our jobs. My brain is going flat out and I'm awake at 4am most mornings as my head starts listing all the things I need to do.
I run the business from home but think I'd like to get someone to manage customer enquiries/paperwork/electricians so that I can concentrate on building the business. The business makes enough to employ someone but I really need an office for them to work out of too. I have a good friend with spare office space but he's 35 miles away so not ideal.
Has anyone on here been through this? How did you get on?
I run the business from home but think I'd like to get someone to manage customer enquiries/paperwork/electricians so that I can concentrate on building the business. The business makes enough to employ someone but I really need an office for them to work out of too. I have a good friend with spare office space but he's 35 miles away so not ideal.
Has anyone on here been through this? How did you get on?
I would definitely think about offering it as a home based position as it will open up a great talent pool for you.
There are tons of parents out their that could do a job like this if it offered a little bit of flexibility meaning you had a very capable, willing and appreciative employee.
My GF works part-time from home doing something similar and she does far more than her agreed hours, is far more experienced and capable than the salary would usually attract.
There's a lot of people out their looking for 16-20 hour positions so you could hire someone on that basis initially and then extend to a second person on 16-20 hours when demand requires meaning you have cover for if ones sick or goes on holiday etc.
There are tons of parents out their that could do a job like this if it offered a little bit of flexibility meaning you had a very capable, willing and appreciative employee.
My GF works part-time from home doing something similar and she does far more than her agreed hours, is far more experienced and capable than the salary would usually attract.
There's a lot of people out their looking for 16-20 hour positions so you could hire someone on that basis initially and then extend to a second person on 16-20 hours when demand requires meaning you have cover for if ones sick or goes on holiday etc.
Be very clear about where you want the business to go.
I recently downsized and did the opposite. I bring in less money but overall am better off and work less.
One employee could could be worse than none. With one you have to be sure you can cover holidays / absence as well as pick everything up yourself if they leave or for some reason can no longer work.
You'll almost certainly need professional HR advice, which doesn't have to be expensive, but you could just be swapping one set of problems for another.
I recently downsized and did the opposite. I bring in less money but overall am better off and work less.
One employee could could be worse than none. With one you have to be sure you can cover holidays / absence as well as pick everything up yourself if they leave or for some reason can no longer work.
You'll almost certainly need professional HR advice, which doesn't have to be expensive, but you could just be swapping one set of problems for another.
Yes, I agree with automating things but this is fundamentally about dealing with incoming enquiries, selling our product/service in, getting info from the customer and liaising with our engineers to create quotes. It's not very easy or desirable to automate much of that because a big part of building the relationship with each customer.
I don't want the business to be small and my intention is to grow it so keeping as it is in not my strategy.
I don't want the business to be small and my intention is to grow it so keeping as it is in not my strategy.
I'd park the ideas of having an office and having an employee to start with if you can, and look in to the possibility of taking on a self employed person who could work from home on a 3-6 month contract. Taking on premises and a first employee is a big jump in terms of cost and hassle to do in one go, it's worth trying out an intermediate step first if you can, get the operational side sorted and you coming to terms with handing over the organisation reins and then think about premesis if that works out.
The other thing to look at instead of going straight for your own premises is what options you have locally for co-working space (assuming it is literally an office you need ie. you and the employee don't need to be physically located with the vans / engineers). I went through this at the beginning of the year, moving my software business from "at home" to "an office" and locally to me there were loads of options for hiring cheap desk space by the day / week - as well as the usuals (Regus etc) there were some local enterprise zones and colleges offering cheap facilities for startups and small businesses.
The other thing to look at instead of going straight for your own premises is what options you have locally for co-working space (assuming it is literally an office you need ie. you and the employee don't need to be physically located with the vans / engineers). I went through this at the beginning of the year, moving my software business from "at home" to "an office" and locally to me there were loads of options for hiring cheap desk space by the day / week - as well as the usuals (Regus etc) there were some local enterprise zones and colleges offering cheap facilities for startups and small businesses.
Agreed. To clarify, I didn't mean rent a big office out for us, just rent one in a shared office and there are a few near me.
For example https://www.instantoffices.com/en/gb/available-off...
For example https://www.instantoffices.com/en/gb/available-off...
Edited by Frimley111R on Thursday 20th September 15:13
48k said:
Frimley111R said:
I didn't mean rent a big office
Well....don't knock it. I've ended up with a 600sqft office and there's only two of us that use it full time the third guy works from home. 
If you were closer to Milton Keynes I'd offer you some desk space!
That link is for an office 2 miles away and looks good value, might have a look there if i don't use a home based person as 'stage 1'.
48k said:
I went through this at the beginning of the year, moving my software business from "at home" to "an office" and locally to me there were loads of options for hiring cheap desk space by the day / week - as well as the usuals (Regus etc) there were some local enterprise zones and colleges offering cheap facilities for startups and small businesses.
That sounds exactly like my scenario - we have a customer who's asked us to increase resource so we really need formal space to train up new devs. until they could work from home/part work from home. Currently there are 4 of us working together but spread the home counties/London which makes growing a business challenging.Frimley111R said:
48k said:
Frimley111R said:
I didn't mean rent a big office
Well....don't knock it. I've ended up with a 600sqft office and there's only two of us that use it full time the third guy works from home. If you were closer to Milton Keynes I'd offer you some desk space!
That link is for an office 2 miles away and looks good value, might have a look there if i don't use a home based person as 'stage 1'.
The local college has scheme called "launchpad" which supports startups and small businesses and you can literally rent a desk by the day. That made my short list.
I looked in to desk shares and followed up an advert from a small interior design company which had more space than it needed so was offering to rent out a couple of desks. But that didn't feel right - the space was a bit too "intimate" and felt like we were going to be sharing desks with highly strung crayons types who would be having constant meltdowns because the bamboo partitions that just got delivered weren't the exact same shade of whispering oatmeal as it looked on their Macs or whatever.
I registered my details on the waiting lists of the local business centres and one came back only a few days later with a 400ish sqft office available which was pretty perfect if a bit on the pricey side. Absolutely great if you need meeting rooms, franking/postal services, photocopying, someone to answer the phone for you, and a bazillion other support services, but not if you just want a boggo no frills office space. I felt like we'd by paying a slice of money each month for services that we just wouldn't use.
I searched local ads and FB groups and found a few local farms where the farmers have converted barns and stables in to offices and I've ended up with one of those. A 600sqft empty office space with no frills for a fixed monthly cost to include all bills except internet. It's a nice location, the office is quiet and the landlord and landlady are really nice. Internet is slower than I'd like and you need a car to get here as it's not on a bus route and it's a good £10 in a taxi to Milton Keynes station so recruiting a graduate level person is going to be challenging but I'm really glad I've taken the jump to move the business from working form home to us having an office. Even just getting in to the discipline of putting on office casual clothes and "going to work" in the morning and seeing the others makes a big difference. I wouldn't go back now.
Hope that gives you a few ideas / options.
Personally I wouldn't go down the route of the serviced offices - too expensive for what they are.
You're still down the road from me, so I know a little of the area. The Harlington centre were doing some business support and space in Fleet if that helps you. Alternatively I may have some space available nearer to Christmas that could be ideal for you.
You're still down the road from me, so I know a little of the area. The Harlington centre were doing some business support and space in Fleet if that helps you. Alternatively I may have some space available nearer to Christmas that could be ideal for you.
Myc said:
I would definitely think about offering it as a home based position as it will open up a great talent pool for you.
There are tons of parents out their that could do a job like this if it offered a little bit of flexibility meaning you had a very capable, willing and appreciative employee.
My GF works part-time from home doing something similar and she does far more than her agreed hours, is far more experienced and capable than the salary would usually attract.
There's a lot of people out their looking for 16-20 hour positions so you could hire someone on that basis initially and then extend to a second person on 16-20 hours when demand requires meaning you have cover for if ones sick or goes on holiday etc.
I would agree with this. I have employed quite a few a people working from home from 9.30am-2pm (basically school run mums) who have been excellent employees. There are tons of parents out their that could do a job like this if it offered a little bit of flexibility meaning you had a very capable, willing and appreciative employee.
My GF works part-time from home doing something similar and she does far more than her agreed hours, is far more experienced and capable than the salary would usually attract.
There's a lot of people out their looking for 16-20 hour positions so you could hire someone on that basis initially and then extend to a second person on 16-20 hours when demand requires meaning you have cover for if ones sick or goes on holiday etc.
fellatthefirst said:
I would agree with this. I have employed quite a few a people working from home from 9.30am-2pm (basically school run mums) who have been excellent employees.
Slightly off topic this, but it drives me INSANE when I think about how many mums there are in the south east (particularly) who have post graduate degrees, doctorates, lawyers etc. who would and could crush flexitime work. Or who have massively transferable skills but perhaps not direct experience. Eg could drop into a business’ team management or project management roles.Seems such a waste.
What about creating some sort of partnership whereby this gap in your current ability could easily be filled by an existing business which already conducts the sort of operations you require?
You could sleep easy knowing everything that was keeping you awake was now being taken care of, if you find the right outfit and agreeable partnership terms, not to mention zero requirement for offices/property etc.
I suppose it boils down to: 'would you be willing to give up a share of your business after perhaps paying the intended provider for such services during an initial trial period, once their responsibilities/requirements are identified and set out?'
You could sleep easy knowing everything that was keeping you awake was now being taken care of, if you find the right outfit and agreeable partnership terms, not to mention zero requirement for offices/property etc.
I suppose it boils down to: 'would you be willing to give up a share of your business after perhaps paying the intended provider for such services during an initial trial period, once their responsibilities/requirements are identified and set out?'
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