How to Set Up an Office Without Killing Your Budget: Startup Edition [Infographic]

Alan Rita — April 19, 2017

— April 19, 2017

One of the most important steps for a Startup is the day in which a formal office is settled up, as it could be interpreted as the official launch of the product or service your startup plans to provide. However, certain factors should be considered prior even starting to spend a single dollar in mounting up the office itself. We can resume those elements in these simple questions:

1. Is it strictly necessary to count with an office? For some cases, yes, but if you happen to be geared towards digital media and work with people from different places of the world, then you should skip this process altogether, at least until you reached a more than significant client base and your business requires a physical HQ.
2. Am I ready to face such investment? If you are counting dollars to get moving the core elements of your Startup, then you are no way near to the moment of setting your office.
3. Is my team willing to commit to work at a particular physical place? One of the aspects that drive team members at the very early stages of Startups is the freedom of movement, considering that as long as goals are met, it doesn’t matter if you work in the very same area with your co-workers during most cases. Consider every piece of your working checkboard, and be ready to talk with your partners prior even spending a dollar on getting an office.

After reviewing all these elements, then it is time to discuss what could be done to set up our office while keeping the budget under control.

Finding Location

Latest trends in the market for Real Estate show that there is an increasing demand for rental under flexible terms. Reasons behind that could be ranked either by unstable incomes, the increased number of relocations within the same city and the fact that many buildings are being used for multiple purposes, which can often lead to inconveniences between neighbours if activities aren’t compatible.

However, critical factors for choosing a location can be labelled as:

• Value
• Strategical urban position
• Spatial necessities

If we take as an example the London situation, we can analyse the rental trends for office space that are taking shape in 2017 in this infographic by LondonOfficeSpace.

Downtown offices are known to pay higher wages than those placed in suburban areas. Put in balance the importance of your office location when sticking to your budget as this can easily be the point in which you can save the highest amount of money per month.

Using Voucher Codes

Sites like Amazon and many other stores offer considerable discounts on specific days for their office products and even furniture. By doing the proper research, you can save up to 25% on certain products, which, taking into account all the expenses to cover, is an immense help.

Evaluate Operative Expenses

Is it really important to buy donuts or bagels for your meetings? Or to offer TV cable to your crew while you are struggling to pay the monthly rent?

Photo courtesy of Margrethe Vesth-Wiersholm

You can certainly save a good amount of money by cutting off unnecessary expenses and create a fund for covering unexpected inconveniences, for covering up several months of rent in advance, or as a way to have a fund for upcoming projects to release. Craft a monthly budget for maintenance of your office, services, supplies and coffee, then stick to it: the sooner the better.

Go Green

A paperless office that works with storage on the cloud, using natural lighting instead of artificial sources of illumination, while at the same time it sums a tailored environmental design that minimises the thermal leaks during cold period and gives a pleasant natural ventilation during summer. It does sound good, right?

Photo courtesy of Unsplash

Electricity bills are, putting rent aside, the most important outcome of money for a company, thus reducing the dependence on artificial comfort elements not only will help us to lead a better lifestyle but also to save a good sum in the process.

Manage Your Own Advertisement Campaign

Finally, you can reduce your expenses a great deal if you let your own employees to manage the advertising area of your Startup. Of course this requires knowledge and a well-traced strategy to meet up with the goals originally established. However, if we consider the wage to pay to any social media manager, marketing agent or even graphic designer, you will most likely agree that there is no need to move capital towards a professional approach in advertisement during the early stages of your Startup if success isn’t to be considered a 90%+ chance by doing so.

In the end, it is all about tracing the right strategy and keeping close tabs with the books in what expenses and income regards.

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