How to Launch a Startup Without an Office


This is not a rhetorical question, or a trick question. You can actually launch a startup without an office. It doesn’t mean you have to work from home, or your garage or basement. It can be a proper startup, located in a bustling tech hub, surrounded by all kinds of startups and large companies. How to do this? It’s called coworking.

What is a Coworking Space?

 A coworking space is where you can make use of office facilities and pay per use, instead of renting by the month. There’s no contract, and you don’t get a key. You just walk in anytime you want, ask for a hot desk (deskspace with WiFi and a computer) for a couple of hours. You could also just use a couch or a table in the space if you have your own laptop.

Even if you use a Coworking Space in Bangalore or Mumbai or Delhi all day long the entire week, you still end up paying less than 25% of what it costs to rent a full-time office in the same location.

Is Coworking Space a Real Office?

Apart from the desk space, you can additionally and separately use other office facilities like a meeting room or conference room or a board room, and again pay for use by the hour or day.
Thirdly, you can opt for a virtual office package, so that you get to use the same business address as your official office address. Put all this together, and what do you have? You have an office in a tech hub with a reception, office space, meeting rooms, board room, café, etc.  But you don’t have a private office with a key. This hugely reduces the amount you spend per month.

Why Should I Cowork if I Have Money to Pay For Rent?

Go ahead and wall yourself inside a cubicle, if that’s what you want. But the trend now is to open up the lines of communication with others in the same space. You could be sitting next to a goldmine of customers at a coworking space. It could be a valuable business partner, or talented employees or consultants that could help you complete projects.

Most importantly, the connections you make by networking while you cowork will be very useful in helping you grow your startup. It’s hard for new startup founders to leave their work and go meet people. You have to pay a lot to attend events, and then spend the whole day there introducing yourself and handing out visiting cards to complete strangers who are trying to sell to you while you’re trying to sell to them. It’s hard, and it impacts your business when you’re a new startup who can’t afford to leave your work for a whole day to go and meet people.

But when you’re in a coworking space, there are no such problems. You can simply talk to people around you during breaks, and anytime you have 5 minutes of free time to talk. The good news is that others want to do the same thing, so you quickly become a part of the community. Anything you need can be done by someone in the community, and you will likewise get more work from people who know you in the coworking space.

This coworking synergy is really helpful for startups. Surveys done annually by Deskmag show beyond a doubt that startups located in a coworking space are 4 times more successful than those that are outside.
So now ask yourself the question again – Should you cowork even if you have the money to rent an office? Try coworking and see how you like it. If you don’t like it, you can also go find a nice and comfortable office with no one around to help grow your startup.

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