你適合在家裏創業嗎?

Like many cash-strapped entrepreneurs, Sergio Moutela started his business from home. But what he saved in office rent, he lost in productivity, thanks to a neighbor's incessantly barking dog and nearby construction work.

'It was pretty distracting,' says Mr. Moutela, who was laid off from a logistics company before he launched Thruport International, a customs-brokerage firm, last year. 'I can imagine how it sounded on the other line when I was making cold calls.'

Home is where the office is for more than half of U.S. entrepreneurs, according to the Small Business Administration. The arrangement is particularly popular among those just starting out since leasing a commercial space, outfitting it with furniture and keeping it clean can be costly.

Still, starting a business from home isn't ideal -- or even possible -- for every entrepreneur. In addition to neighborhood noises, some would have to put up with chatty roommates, unwanted visitors or attention-seeking children or pets. Others may need to regularly meet with clients in person or hire several employees from the start. And some municipalities restrict certain types of businesses from being run out of a home, such as food manufacturers.

'There's no one-size-fits-all setting,' says Kristie Arslan, executive director of the National Association for the Self-Employed, a nonprofit trade group in Washington. An entrepreneur's finances, work style and business goals will usually dictate what kind of environment he or she will want to start out in, she says.

Ada Vaughan initially began building CuteyBaby, a cloth-diaper manufacturer, from the basement of her Chicago home in 2008. But she soon found herself working more on household chores than her business. 'It was too easy to do a load of laundry,' she says. 'Some folks have the personality where they can really detach. Not me.'

Ms. Vaughan, who started her business in anticipation of a pink slip from an advertising agency, says she was afraid to spend money on a commercial space because she wasn't sure her business would succeed. So she cleaned out a cluttered attic above her garage and made that her workplace. When she landed two large retail clients less than a year later, she says she finally felt comfortable investing in office space.

Mr. Moutela can now afford to operate out of an office building in Union, N.J. Though he says he's more productive in his new environment than he was at home, he doesn't regret his humble beginnings. 'If I got an office space from day one, I would've been eating a lot of pasta and crackers,' he says. 'My cash flow would've been out of the window and I wouldn't have been able to survive.'

Other entrepreneurs consider having an office outside the home critical from the get-go for meetings with clients. The problem is signing a commercial lease can be nerve-racking for those with limited start-up capital because property owners typically require at least a year-long commitment.

One alternative may be to suggest getting together with clients at their offices or a nearby coffee shop. Alex Membrillo and Stephen Popov did this when they started Cardinal Web Solutions, a search-engine-marketing business, in March 2009. The entrepreneurs both had just lost jobs at the same auto-auction company and were working out of their small apartments in Lilburn, Ga.

Mr. Membrillo says he and Mr. Popov would encourage prospective clients to pick a place that was 'more convenient' for them. Sometimes this resulted in conducting meetings at a crowded Starbucks. But when the partners started getting more business than they could handle alone and needed to hire employees to help out, they decided to rent office space.

'All those trials and tribulations we went through in the beginning only made us stronger,' says Mr. Membrillo. He projects the company's 2010 earnings to be about $650,000.

Another option may be to rent office space by the hour on an as-needed basis. Companies like Regus, Premier Business Centers and Office Suites Plus provide temporary private offices and meeting rooms complete with furniture, computers, Internet access, phone lines and other resources.

Hakan Nizam uses this strategy whenever he meets with clients from out of town for NetFoliage, an e-commerce consulting business he launched soon after getting laid off from a publishing company in 2007. 'You go there, have your meeting and get out,' says Mr. Nizam, who mainly works out of his one-bedroom apartment in Brooklyn, N.Y.

If you're building a business at home full- or part-time, there are ways to stay motivated and establish a professional image, says Mary Mihaly, author of 'The 250 Questions Every Self-Employed Person Should Ask.'

Set a schedule, add a business phone line and secure a post-office address.

Tell family, friends and neighbors to avoid interrupting you while you're on the clock.

Make time to meet with other entrepreneurs and professionals in your industry. Look for events hosted by trade associations, chambers of commerce and local business groups.

Get fully dressed before starting the day. While wearing business attire isn't necessary, Ms. Mihaly says, 'you won't feel like you're at work if you're paddling around in fuzzy slippers and jammies.'同許多囊中羞澀的創業者一樣，莫特拉（Sergio Moutela）也是從家中開始自己的生意的。但鄰居家不停叫喚的狗和附近建築工地的噪音令他無法靜心工作。雖然省下了辦公室租金，但也大大降低了工作效率。

莫特拉說，這些噪音很令人分心。我完全可以想像在打陌拜電話時，聽筒那頭的客戶聽到這裏的噪音會作何感想。他在被一家物流公司辭退之後自立門戶，於去年創立了一家名爲Thruport International的報關經紀公司。

據美國聯邦小企業管理局（Small Business Administration）透露，在美國的創業者中，居家辦公的人數超過了一半。這種做法在那些剛剛開始創業的人羣中非常流行，因爲租用辦公室、添置傢俱以及僱人保潔都是一筆數額不菲的支出。

然而，居家創業並非適合每一個創業者，有時甚至不可能做到。除了鄰居家的噪音，你可能還要忍受多話的室友，不速之客的拜訪以及需要關照的孩子和寵物。還有一些人需要定期親自會見客戶，或是在創業初期僱傭人手幫忙。而一些市政管理當局還會限制居家經營某些業務，比如食品製造業。

美國個體經營者協會（National Association for the Self-Employed）的執行董事阿爾斯蘭（Kristie Arslan）說，沒有一個放之四海而皆準的情況。該協會是位於華盛頓的一家非盈利性行業組織。在阿爾斯蘭看來，創業者的財務狀況、工作風格和業務目標通常會決定創業初期的辦公環境。

家住芝加哥的沃恩（Ada Vaughan）2008年在家中的地下室裏創建了布尿布（cloth-diaper）品牌“可愛寶貝”（CuteyBaby）。但她很快發現自己花在家務事上的時間比工作多。她說，不知不覺你就洗了一大堆衣服，有些人能做到對家務視而不見，但我做不到。

由於預計會被廣告公司解僱，沃恩開始自己創業。她說自己之所以不願花錢租用商業寫字間，是因爲擔心生意可能會失敗。於是，她將車庫上面堆滿雜物的閣樓清理出來，當作工作場所使用。此後不到一年，她成功爭取到兩個大型零售客戶，此時她終於決定花錢租用辦公室了。

莫特拉現在也租下了新澤西州聯合縣（Union）一幢寫字樓裏的辦公室開展生意。他說雖然在新的工作環境裏辦公比在家中的效率要高，但他並不後悔自己卑微的起步生涯。他說，如果從創業的第一天開始，我就擁有自己的辦公室，那麼我肯定老得吃意麪和餅乾。我的現金流恐怕早就枯竭了，我的公司也不會生存至今。

不過也有一些創業者認爲，由於得和客戶會面，從創業伊始就租用辦公室顯得非常重要。但問題在於對那些啓動資金有限的創業者來說，正兒八經租一個辦公室是一件很傷腦筋的事情，因爲業主通常要求租期至少一年。

一個變通的辦法是你可以建議到客戶的辦公室見面，或是到附近的咖啡店談話。門布里約（Alex Membrillo）和波波夫（Stephen Popov）在Cardinal Web Solutions公司的草創初期就是這樣做的。他們的公司成立於2009年3月，主要從事搜索引擎行銷業務。當時，兩位創業者被同一家機動車拍賣公司解職，在佐治亞州利爾本（Lilburn）的小公寓中開始了創業之旅。

門布里約說，他和波波夫會鼓勵潛在客戶挑一個“方便的”地方談話。不過有時這樣做的結果就是他們不得不在鬧哄哄的星巴克（Starbucks）裏舉行會議。但是，當業務規模開始擴大，手頭的活忙不過來且需要僱傭人手幫忙的時候，他們決定租用辦公室了。

門布里約說，在創業初期經歷的所有考驗和磨難只會使我們變得更加堅強。他預計公司2010年的盈利爲65萬美元。

最後你也可以選擇按需租用鐘點房。像雷格斯（Regus）、首席商務中心（Premier Business Centers）以及Office Suites Plus這類的辦公空間解決方案供應商都有提供私人辦公室和會議室的臨時租賃服務。這些房間大都完整配備傢俱、電腦、互聯網接入、電話線和其他辦公設備。

尼扎姆（Hakan Nizam）每次和紐約城外的客戶見面都是這麼做。2007年被一家出版社裁員之後，他創建了一家名爲“網葉”（NetFoliage）的電子商務諮詢公司。尼扎姆說，你訂下一個房間，和客戶開會，開完就可以走人了。他平時主要在位於紐約市布魯克林（Brooklyn）的一居室公寓裏辦公。

《個體經營者的250問》（The 250 Questions Every Self-Employed Person Should Ask）一書的作者米哈伊（Mary Mihaly）說，如果你在家全職或兼職創業，那麼總有辦法保持工作的動力，並建立起專業形象。下面便是一些實用的建議：

設定一個時間表，安裝一部辦公電話，並確保你有一個郵寄地址。

告訴你的家人、朋友和鄰居，在你工作的時候不要打擾你。

抽出時間和本行業的創業者和專業人士見見面，多多參與同業公會、各大商會以及當地商業團體舉辦的各種聯誼活動。

開始一天的工作之前請穿戴整齊，雖說穿上職業套裝沒有必要，但在米哈伊看來，如果你穿着拖鞋和睡褲在家裏閒逛，你是不會有工作的感覺的。