你适合在家里创业吗?

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.'同许多囊中羞涩的创业者一样，莫特拉（Sergio Moutela）也是从家中开始自己的生意的。但邻居家不停叫唤的狗和附近建筑工地的噪音令他无法静心工作。虽然省下了办公室租金，但也大大降低了工作效率。

莫特拉说，这些噪音很令人分心。我完全可以想像在打陌拜电话时，听筒那头的客户听到这里的噪音会作何感想。他在被一家物流公司辞退之后自立门户，于去年创立了一家名为Thruport International的报关经纪公司。

据美国联邦小企业管理局（Small Business Administration）透露，在美国的创业者中，居家办公的人数超过了一半。这种做法在那些刚刚开始创业的人群中非常流行，因为租用办公室、添置家俱以及雇人保洁都是一笔数额不菲的支出。

然而，居家创业并非适合每一个创业者，有时甚至不可能做到。除了邻居家的噪音，你可能还要忍受多话的室友，不速之客的拜访以及需要关照的孩子和宠物。还有一些人需要定期亲自会见客户，或是在创业初期雇佣人手帮忙。而一些市政管理当局还会限制居家经营某些业务，比如食品制造业。

美国个体经营者协会（National Association for the Self-Employed）的执行董事阿尔斯兰（Kristie Arslan）说，没有一个放之四海而皆准的情况。该协会是位于华盛顿的一家非盈利性行业组织。在阿尔斯兰看来，创业者的财务状况、工作风格和业务目标通常会决定创业初期的办公环境。

家住芝加哥的沃恩（Ada Vaughan）2008年在家中的地下室里创建了布尿布（cloth-diaper）品牌“可爱宝贝”（CuteyBaby）。但她很快发现自己花在家务事上的时间比工作多。她说，不知不觉你就洗了一大堆衣服，有些人能做到对家务视而不见，但我做不到。

由于预计会被广告公司解雇，沃恩开始自己创业。她说自己之所以不愿花钱租用商业写字间，是因为担心生意可能会失败。于是，她将车库上面堆满杂物的阁楼清理出来，当作工作场所使用。此后不到一年，她成功争取到两个大型零售客户，此时她终于决定花钱租用办公室了。

莫特拉现在也租下了新泽西州联合县（Union）一幢写字楼里的办公室开展生意。他说虽然在新的工作环境里办公比在家中的效率要高，但他并不后悔自己卑微的起步生涯。他说，如果从创业的第一天开始，我就拥有自己的办公室，那么我肯定老得吃意面和饼干。我的现金流恐怕早就枯竭了，我的公司也不会生存至今。

不过也有一些创业者认为，由于得和客户会面，从创业伊始就租用办公室显得非常重要。但问题在于对那些启动资金有限的创业者来说，正儿八经租一个办公室是一件很伤脑筋的事情，因为业主通常要求租期至少一年。

一个变通的办法是你可以建议到客户的办公室见面，或是到附近的咖啡店谈话。门布里约（Alex Membrillo）和波波夫（Stephen Popov）在Cardinal Web Solutions公司的草创初期就是这样做的。他们的公司成立于2009年3月，主要从事搜索引擎行销业务。当时，两位创业者被同一家机动车拍卖公司解职，在佐治亚州利尔本（Lilburn）的小公寓中开始了创业之旅。

门布里约说，他和波波夫会鼓励潜在客户挑一个“方便的”地方谈话。不过有时这样做的结果就是他们不得不在闹哄哄的星巴克（Starbucks）里举行会议。但是，当业务规模开始扩大，手头的活忙不过来且需要雇佣人手帮忙的时候，他们决定租用办公室了。

门布里约说，在创业初期经历的所有考验和磨难只会使我们变得更加坚强。他预计公司2010年的盈利为65万美元。

最后你也可以选择按需租用钟点房。像雷格斯（Regus）、首席商务中心（Premier Business Centers）以及Office Suites Plus这类的办公空间解决方案供应商都有提供私人办公室和会议室的临时租赁服务。这些房间大都完整配备家俱、电脑、互联网接入、电话线和其他办公设备。

尼扎姆（Hakan Nizam）每次和纽约城外的客户见面都是这么做。2007年被一家出版社裁员之后，他创建了一家名为“网叶”（NetFoliage）的电子商务咨询公司。尼扎姆说，你订下一个房间，和客户开会，开完就可以走人了。他平时主要在位于纽约市布鲁克林（Brooklyn）的一居室公寓里办公。

《个体经营者的250问》（The 250 Questions Every Self-Employed Person Should Ask）一书的作者米哈伊（Mary Mihaly）说，如果你在家全职或兼职创业，那么总有办法保持工作的动力，并建立起专业形象。下面便是一些实用的建议：

设定一个时间表，安装一部办公电话，并确保你有一个邮寄地址。

告诉你的家人、朋友和邻居，在你工作的时候不要打扰你。

抽出时间和本行业的创业者和专业人士见见面，多多参与同业公会、各大商会以及当地商业团体举办的各种联谊活动。

开始一天的工作之前请穿戴整齐，虽说穿上职业套装没有必要，但在米哈伊看来，如果你穿着拖鞋和睡裤在家里闲逛，你是不会有工作的感觉的。