Home-based businesses have become increasingly common over recent years, as this route to entrepreneurship is inherently accessible thanks to low startup costs and an advantageous work-life balance. However, there is one significant downside of home-based businesses: the word home.
The vast majority of home-based businesses are not actually related to the home itself. They are digital businesses, which the entrepreneur happens to run from their home – they could be run from an office if required; it’s just simpler, not to mention more affordable, for people to use their home as their office.
However, this can cause problems. Many businesses of this nature will have to list their residential address as their business’ address, which is problematic for a number of reasons.
- There is a serious privacy concern if an entrepreneur has to provide their residential address for business correspondence or on their website.
- Additionally, while home-based businesses have become more common, societal attitudes have not yet entirely shifted: many customers or clients may see a residential address as the business address, and immediately assume that the business is somewhat amateurish. There is something about offices and dedicated business premises that convinces people a business is more “real” and professional – this isn’t the case in reality, but the image lingers.
If you run a home-based business, you have almost certainly found yourself contending with these issues. You may have also reached the same conclusion as other entrepreneurs in this situation: the only way of solving the problem is to move your business out of your home, and into dedicated premises.
This, however, can be problematic
Dedicated business premises or office space are expensive, which can really cut into your business’ overall profitability. While it makes sense to make a move if you wish to expand or grow your business, embarking on such a route is not necessary if your only issue is a dislike of the ramifications of your business address also being your home address.
Thankfully, there are alternatives…
The first alternative to consider is a service such as https://physicaladdress.com, which provides you with a virtual address that you can provide as the address of your business. This option solves both problems; you won’t have to list your residential location as the business’ address, and your customers and clients will just presume the address is a standard office location.
Alternatively, you could consider co-working. This practice involves sharing a public space with other entrepreneurs and freelancers. Not all co-working spaces will also provide a physical address, but many do, so you could explore this option to see if it might be a suitable choice for you. However, it would be remiss not to mention that there are downsides to co-working as discussed on https://becomenomad.com – so it’s important to consider this decision carefully and be sure it’s the right choice for you before making a financial commitment.
In conclusion
If you have previously found the “home” element of your home-based businesses to be an issue, one of the options above should be the perfect halfway point, affording you the ability to work from home without the need to broadcast your residential address to the world.