The very nature of 21st Century working means that home-based working is a very useful way of building a business from the ground up, but a move into commercial premises offers a number of long-term benefits to a startup in any industry.

Here are 5 indicators that you may experience when the time is right to consider expanding your business’s horizons by leasing office space:

1. Growing workforce

Perhaps the most obvious indicator that the time might be right to stop working from home and move into credible business premises is the need for a growing workforce. It is unlikely to be practical to have your staff working at your home; it is not likely to go down too well if you live with someone either!

2. Meeting clients

Are you increasingly required to meet new and existing clients? Ideally you would like to be able to host them at your place of work, but the dining room table may not have quite the right professional edge.

3. Steady income

If you are beginning to expand your client base and are comfortably turning over a profit with a steady income that is paying the rent, bills, and more, then it makes sense to use that extra cash to increase your work space and your capacity to take on additional work.

4. Regular distractions

Working from home has its benefits but it also has its problems, most notably the temptation to be distracted by household chores or programs on television or on the radio. If moving into an office would likely improve your productivity and foster the professional approach that any growing business requires, then so be it.

5. Long-term commitment

For many people who choose to work from home, it is not a long-term commitment. But, if you view your business as more than a fleeting venture then it may be time to take the plunge.

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This guest post is contributed by Workspace, the leading providers of commercial property to let in London for businesses looking to expand quickly. With over 5.4 million sq. ft. of office space in London-based homes to some 4,000 businesses throughout the capital, Workspace certainly understands work space.

There is no magic formula for building a technical team. However, I can offer advice based on my hard-won experience through meeting with over 60 developers, development shops and technical mentors.

Here are a few things that I learned the hard way about finding a technical co-founder:

1. Don’t be the “idea guy” looking for a “coder.”

Talented engineers can see “idea guys” from a mile away and will avoid them like the plague. No hacker wants to be the code monkey for your [insert hyperbolic superlative here] idea. The reality of the market is that there’s a great demand for developers, from growing startups to established companies like Google and Facebook.

The most talented are not merely one-dimensional tech geeks, but entrepreneurial-minded engineers who have ideas of their own. Get your perspective right from the start to attract top candidates.

I was able to attract and build relationships with a number of top-tier engineers because I was seeking true partners that could grow and shape my vision with me, not simply execute it for me.

2. Validate your concept before you start building.

Part of attracting talent is not only having a great idea, but also demonstrating that you are the right person to execute it. There are a lot of ways you can field test your concept early on before programming anything.

For example, you can collect invaluable feedback from potential users and customers with simple mock-ups that can help refine your product road map. InVision is a great user interface prototyping tool that turns designs into interactive mock-ups. Additionally, it takes minutes to set up a landing page with LaunchRock and Optimizely. With minimal ad spend, you can prove whether there would be interest in your product by getting actual signups and analyzing click-through rates.

When I started out, I got buy-in from key stakeholders on a simple video and deck, which I also used to sign up 75 retailer partners. The feedback I got from potential users on my front-end prototypes was invaluable in shaping and focusing our product road map.

3. Find advocates and supporters within the software engineering community.

If you don’t have a network in the developer community, build one! The relationships that I fostered were integral to my process and are paying off in dividends today. The developers I met early on have become friends who have made developer introductions, helped out with technical interviews and even reviewed GitHub accounts (a popular repository for code).

Additionally, these mentors have helped me understand how to manage development resources. To build these relationships, I generally avoided the “find a co-founder” type of meet-ups. Instead, I learned a lot more and made meaningful relationships at meet-ups for developers (e.g., Ruby Developers, machine learning, CTO School, etc.).

As Socialbrite.org suggests, data is transforming conversations. “These days everyone is releasing it, visualizing it, aggregating it, and mashing it up. And for good reason. Data is so much more than a stack of numbers or a server filled with client outputs. It can justify the work that your organization is doing, help others understand why it is critical, and offer exciting new ways to motivate others to help solve the problems your organization is working on.”

Here are 10 practical steps to help you plan, conduct and utilize market research data in your business:

1. Determine Your Purpose

What do you hope to gain from your research? Do you want to improve an existing product or service? Are you preparing for a new product launch? Start with your main objective  and then predict what you think the data will reveal. This helps you determine next steps to take, and provides a comparison of how you view your offering and how other perceive it in the marketplace.

2. Establish the Type of Market Research You Want to Use

There are two main types of market research. Primary research is taken directly from the source, such as current or potential customers. Primary research, when done right, can be very reliable.

Secondary research is data collected from existing research conducted by others. People usually gather secondary research data from government agencies, trade associations, local chambers of commerce, and other credible sources.

3. Confirm Your Target Audience

Make sure you have a target market in mind. Your target market is the group of people that are most likely to buy your product or service. For example, if you want to develop an eco-friendly baby sling, your target market would consist of mothers of young children, and you would probably want to choose a research method that doesn’t require a lot of time due to their busy schedules, such as a short online survey.

4. Conduct Primary Market Research

There are several different ways that you can conduct your own research. Online or mail surveys, face-to-face or telephone interviews and questionnaires are all effective ways to collect data from your target audience. You can use tools like Qualaroo, SurveyMonkey, and QuestionPro.

Questions may include factors customers consider when purchasing your product or service, appropriate prices, likes or dislikes about current products or services on the market, and areas of improvement. If you do not have the time to conduct it yourself, you can outsource your study to a market research firm.

5. Conduct Secondary Market Research

The bulk of your market research will usually come from secondary research. U.S. Census data, trade associations, professional journals, and community organizations offer data that may be relevant to your study such as: market trends, regional trends and information on your competitors.

Secondary research is easier to conduct because the data you’re collecting has already been analyzed and published. However, all of your data should not come from secondary research. A balanced mix of both secondary and primary research will ensure the credibility of your findings.

6. Determine the Reliability and Validity of Your Data

After you gather your data, weed out data that isn’t reliable. High quality data will be valid (i.e. you can trust the integrity of your data), reliable (i.e. the claims you assert about the accuracy of your data is correct) and be subject to triangulation — cross-examined through the lens of multiple independent sources of data to establish the truth and accuracy of your claim.

I’ve learned that the journey of entrepreneurship is littered with challenge, all of which essentially shapes who you are and how successful your business will be. And, no matter how you slice it, you’ll learn famous mistakes the hard way – even though many of those mistakes can be avoided by watching others and reading books.

You’re going to need to make those mistakes on your own though – and that’s the fun part. For those of you who are budding startup founders or Internet visionaries, here are five things I learned along the way on your behalf:

1. Validate the market before you start building your business. 

Every entrepreneur believes their business venture will succeed, but there are good reasons to seek quantitative market validation. Confirm the size of your target market and your competition, then subsequently create a financial model and build upon it.

Estimate your overhead cost and compare that to how much you think your business can bring in over the same time period. Not only does validating the market increase your chances of startup success, but potential investors prefer a validated business with financial projections. You’ll never hit your exact projections – most likely you’ll hit way under or way over.

2. Financing helps, but its not totally necessary.

The two most successful businesses I ever started raised no money. While, I saw many other funded startups go under. That said, sometimes you need seed capital, and you have many options to raise it. Here are several ways you can raise cash for early and mid-stage startups:

Pre-Money/Pre-Revenue:

- Kickstarter: An online funding platform for innovative ideas
- Prosper: A peer-to-peer lending marketplace
- Kiva: A micro-lending platform designed for international crowd-sourced loans
- Equity-based loans: You’re house, car, etc. Any bank will do it if the deal is right
- Credit cards: Yep, these things have launched many a business venture
- Venture capital: Be prepared to give up big equity but get a lot of money
- Local angel: This is a real pain, but sometimes it’s your only option
- Local or Regional incubator: Making the right pick is critical, and good incubators are uncommon

Post-Money/Post-Revenue:

- Line of Credit (LOC): You need a good amount of quality A/R
- Factoring: You need quality future receivables and contracts
- Term Loan/Airball: You need strong top and bottom line
- Forward-Looking Revolver: It’s like an LOC, but it goes forward not backward, and it’s based on revenue not receivables
- PE Growth Equity: You need strong revenues. Like a VC, but cheaper money
- Mezzanine lenders: For equity and interest deals. (They can be sharks sometimes)
- Asset-based lenders:They give you $.20 on the dollar valuations for hard assets. High interest, and can be risky

3. Master your pitch and audience.

What persuades an investor to write a check for a raw business idea? What coerces your first customer to sign on? The first few years of your startup is a formative time for networking, gaining investors, and bringing on new customers … and your success lies in crafting and delivering the perfect pitch.

Maybe it’s a brand new product, a variation of an existing proposition, or perhaps even a service that improves, and disrupts, an entire industry. For me it was an idea to help people connect with things going on around them. To solve information overload from the never-ending stream of social media.

Moving from Abstract Ideas to Fast Iteration

The idea quickly moved from an abstract thought in my brain to wireframes, technical specs and designs. As I began to pitch the idea to family and friends the first question I repeatedly encountered was: How will you make money?

Fast forward through several late nights coding, multiple home-delivered pizzas, a first round of funding, countless nerve wracking moments, and at long at last we are finally ready to show our app to the world.

It’s a very exciting moment for an entrepreneur when you are finally able to show friends and family something that resembles the product (or service) you’ve been talking about and obsessing over for months.

As our product improved so did our metrics — download numbers and active users. Soon our attention turned to questions of monetizing the technology. Some of my favorite apps that have millions of users still haven’t figured out how to monetize their success, which is worrying for smaller startups, as we don’t have proven methods to follow.

When Your Product Has the Wrong Focus

So, I began pitching to potential advertisers and hearing very consistent feedback that sounded like this: “We aren’t interested in advertising on a platform with fewer than ten or twenty million users,” they would repeat.

“Then why meet with us?” I thought.

When I pressed them further I found out that they were actually interested in the local data and analytics we were surfacing. Could this be right? Was I hearing that our product had the wrong focus?

Pitching the idea for the first time to a family friend and senior technology executive, she commented that the value of our product was the data analysis rather than the consumer audience. When you’ve been thinking about building a consumer audience to create an advertising opportunity, hearing that changing the ship’s course is key to monetization can be very unsettling, particularly when your gaining consumer traction.

However, after a number of very similar comments, and seeing first-hand the feedback we were receiving from advertisers, I came to appreciate that the valuable part of my business would not be what I’d first thought. While this was a really difficult pill to swallow, I was grateful that I’d worked it out before it was too late.

Massive Product Pivots and the Unexpected

We’ve all heard about massive product pivots that eventually created great companies like Groupon and Instagram where the initial concept was far removed from their final world-dominating product. However, in my case, a slight tweak to our initial product and placing emphasis on an enterprise market has meant our technology is resonating far more strongly with customers, which in the end, is the ultimate goal.

Would I consider this a big pivot, a small pivot or just the natural course of a startup? In the end it doesn’t really matter, as long as we’ve created something that customers want to pay for.

When building your startup, keep your eyes and mind open. The final commercial model might be something completely unexpected. Don’t ever stop validating what you build, stay close to your customers, ask the hard questions, and, above all, create an encouraging workplace that supports changes in direction.

Remember, when you identify a gap, know that there’s always an opportunity.

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Photo: Jonathan Barouch

Jonathan Barouch is an established entrepreneur, founding one of Australia’s first online businesses, Fastflowers.com.au in 1999 before founding Roamz in 2011 and its business counterpart Local Measure in 2012. Roamz helps people discover places and events nearby through updates and photos on popular social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook and Foursquare to provide users with suggestions for things happening near them. Local Measure helps businesses become more efficient and customer-focused by highlighting insights and conversations happening on social networking sites at individual business locations, in real-time.

A number of factors may influence whether or not a company makes it past those first few turbulent years, and understanding why many new business fail can help you avoid those pitfalls yourself. Because the leaders of a business have an oversize-effect on its success or failure. Do some self-reflection, and make sure you’re not making these common entrepreneurial mistakes:

Why do so many new businesses fail?

1. Underestimating Responsibilities

One of the most common reasons people claim they want to be an entrepreneur is for the “freedom” and the chance to “be my own boss.” That is a somewhat romanticized notion of owning your own business, and when the entrepreneur discovers that there is no such thing as “regular work hours” anymore, and that the or she must now answer to even more people (i.e. bankers, investors, employees, customers), it can come as something of a shock.

Business owners that succeed tend to thrive on the challenge and demands of starting a business. They understand that there is nowhere to pass the blame if something goes wrong, and they’re willing to put in all the extra hours that real success requires.

2. Believing the Easy Money Myth

Many entrepreneurs believe that their idea is the path to sudden fortune and that they can’t possibly fail. There’s nothing wrong with being confident in your plan, but what happens when it doesn’t work out exactly right?

Many companies fail because the road to success turned out to be longer and harder than expected. Most new businesses will go through a long period of bootstrapping, or incur extra debt, just to get through the initial startup phase and begin making a profit. Entrepreneurship isn’t about a quick fix and fast cash. Success will come when you’re willing and able to play the long game.

3. Being Unwilling to Change

Speaking of thinking your idea or business plan is so unique and special that it couldn’t possibly go wrong or fail, right? The truth is that ideas are cheap. A good entrepreneur can have wild success with a mediocre idea, and a poor businessperson can destroy the best ideas in the world.

If you want to succeed, you need to be ready to change and adapt to an evolving market. You can hang onto your ideas, but be willing to listen to advice from experienced and professional people. Don’t dismiss them outright because “they just don’t get your vision.” Listen, conduct some research, and make the necessary changes.

1. Three Common Challenges Entrepreneurs Face (And How to Overcome Them)

Starting a business and becoming an entrepreneur is exciting — it is also terrifying. After you leave the safety of a full-time job, you will face several common challenges that all entrepreneurs face–chief among them instability, stress, and solitude. In my experience, I have found that embracing these struggles is the first step to overcoming them. Read more

2. Startup Panic: How to Release “Right Now” Thinking and Make Powerful Progress in Business

It’s natural for business owners to want everything done as quickly as possible, making the most of the little time that they have. While business owners should maximize their productivity and utilize their time wisely, taking your time may be the best choice for your business instead of being driven by fear and panic. Read more

3. Starting a New Business: How to Land Your First Clients

Once you’ve developed and established your startup, the next step is to find your first clients. It may be harder than it looks to land those first clients, especially when your business still has that new car smell. Consumers tend to stay with what they know and trust, and with your business being new, they may be reluctant to try what you have to offer. Here are a few tips to help you lock in your first few clients. Read more

4. Starting a Business: One Thing Every Entrepreneur Should Do Sooner Than Later

New business owners should take every chance they can to strengthen their product knowledge and gain industry exposure. As a new business owner, you may naturally lack in these areas. Attending an industry expo as soon as possible may seem risky, but is one way to network and gain industry knowledge. Read more

5. Entrepreneurship is All About (Active) Risk Management

One of the most important lessons a successful entrepreneur has learned is the ability to manage risk. The ability to manage risk is what sets an entrepreneur with an idea apart from one that actually builds a business from it. The greatest risk any startup could run into is running out of cash or available credit. Entrepreneurs should relentlessly concentrate on controlling costs and managing this risk. Read more

6. 20 Reasons Why Entrepreneurship is Awesome

Entrepreneurship is the new American (and global) dream. Everyone wants it but few are bold enough to do what it takes to make that dream a reality. At YFS Magazine we know how awesome it is to be an entrepreneur and endeavor to empower you to know the same. Read more

7. Before You Quit Your Job to Start a Business, Read This

I recently received a message from a long-time friend who launched a part-time business several years ago and is now considering making the transition to full-time entrepreneurship. I decided to take a trip down memory lane to when I launched my first successful and profitable business. This is what I told her — and what I recommend that you consider before you quit your job and start a new business. Read more

8. The Art of Starting a New Business 

Everyone has at least one idea that could be turned into a viable business. The idea sparks something inside of us and ignites this little frenzy of passion which is difficult for some to ignore. When we feel this spark start to smoulder in that passion part of our being, we do one of two things – we either act on it or we let the spark sizzle until it dies. Read more

9. Starting a Small Business? Ten Ways an Accountant Can Help 

As a budding entrepreneur, you may be an expert on the day-to-day activities that directly impact revenue. However, many fail to acknowledge the importance of financial management. An accountant acts as a financial business advisor, focusing on the financial areas you may not be knowledgeable in or have the time to commit to. Read more

10. Startup Business Planning: To Plan or Not to Plan, That is the Question 

When it comes to starting your own company, nothing is more controversial than the preparation of a business plan. Mixed reviews abound on whether to spend time writing a business plan rather than just starting the business. Like many business decisions, it depends. Read more

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First off, the biggest difference between these two company types is in their top objectives. Small businesses are driven by profitability and stable long-term value, while startups are focused on top-end revenue and growth potential. Steve Blank (i.e. a Silicon Valley serial-entrepreneur and academician who has founded or worked within eight startup companies, four of which have gone public) shares great insight on the primary differences.

Blank suggests, “Founders wake up every morning saying, ‘I don’t just want to be self-employed, I want to take over the universe — I want to change the world; I want to do something important! This is the most exciting thing I could ever do.’ This … is the first major distinction between scalable startups in the technology cluster and small business.”

Earlier this year, I also got the opportunity to meet Mark Cuban, Kevin Plank, and Scott Case, who asked me a classic question with a special motive: “What do you want out of your life in five years?” I knew how Cuban and Plank had made eight-figure companies in their twenties, so I said, “Thirty million dollars,” thinking it would impress them. Instead, Plank said, “That’s a terrible goal!”

That remains the best piece of business advice I have ever gotten. Instead of focusing on great products and huge customer bases, I was too focused on dollar amounts — a small-business mentality instead of a startup mentality.

For the fourth year in a row, Massachusetts-based Babson College ranks #1 in graduate entrepreneurship programs, and #2 in 2011 for undergraduate programs. Babson also ranked #1 in entrepreneurship education, according to U.S. News & World Report, for 19 consecutive years. It’s safe to say that when it comes to world-class entrepreneurship studies, Babson College is a front-runner.

But what makes Babson College so special? What does it offer that sets it, as well as the other 49 schools on the list, apart from all other programs? Here’s a look at criteria believed to be essential to the success of a university entrepreneurship program, in random order:

1. Number of Entrepreneurship Courses & Tracks Offered

One of the first things to look for in a world-class entrepreneurship program is the number of entrepreneurship tracks and courses a program offers. A successful program should allow for students to enroll in courses that reflect their personal goals.

2. Availability of Internships & Cooperative Learning Experiences

One of the best ways to gain real world entrepreneurship experience is through internships and cooperative learning opportunities. Ask any entrepreneur and they’ll tell you: hands-on experience is essential in the startup learning process.

Students in successful entrepreneurship programs are allowed the freedom to test their knowledge and to learn from mistakes during college in order to avoid the same mistakes post-graduation. A good entrepreneurship program will require you to participate in a required number of internship hours before graduating. For example, at Babson, the course “Living the ‘Eta’ Life in Silicon Valley” requires students to spend three weeks in San Francisco to complete hands-on work in Silicon Valley.

3. The Students Are Entrepreneurs

One of the criteria the Princeton Review looks for in top entrepreneurial programs is the percentage of students that are actively involved in entrepreneurial endeavors. Students that are actively engaged in creating new small businesses foster innovation and ambition within the student body, and have taken the initiative to gain real world experience and application of the tools they’ve learned so far.

4. The Professors Are Entrepreneurs, Too

Princeton Review criteria also weighs the percentage of faculty that have started, bought or run a successful business. Professors that have put their teachings to practice for their own businesses have much more experience and advice to offer students than professors who only use their teachings in theory.

For example, The Wolff Center for Entrepreneurship at the University of Houston, which came in #1 for top undergraduate entrepreneurship programs, has a faculty that’s entirely comprised of entrepreneurs. A faculty full of current or former entrepreneurs provides students with practical hands-on, real world advice at their everyday disposal.

5. Clubs & Organizations Abound

Outside of the classroom, a successful entrepreneurial program should provide students with opportunities to participate in organizations and societies specific to their industry. Most schools establish their own entrepreneurial centers and societies as a support system for students within the program. Clubs and organizations provide enrichment and networking opportunities for members, as well as opportunities for campus involvement and résumé building.

Consider it your roadmap towards being profitable. Before you start lining up investors, or borrowing money for startup costs, here are some tips for creating a business plan that will help you map out your entrepreneurial journey.

1. Value Proposition

What do you have to offer consumers that other companies do not? If you follow the 10 elements of a sound business plan, this should be part of your executive summary. It is important to keep in mind that your business has to serve a real need, preferably one that is not being met by many competitors. Your business will stand a much greater chance of being profitable if you can fulfill the needs of a niche market that others do not.

2. Financial Analysis

Prospective investors have every right to know how you plan to spend their money. You want to show them a model that projects profitability as early as possible. Even if you are not courting investors, you need to know how you are going to make ends meet while you are building a viable business. Be meticulous about calculating your expenses and make sure that you have a plan to cover all of them, including unforeseen expenses.

3. Documentation

If you are seeking out investors, do not just expect them to take your word for it. Even if you are funding a business by borrowing money, it is still good to have everything in writing, especially when it comes to lease proposals, material quotes and other items that you will need to start your business. Do not let a property owner or vendor promise you one thing and then change his or her terms. Get everything in writing and include it as part of your business plan.

4. Competition Analysis

Every niche has competition. You need to size up your competitors and find a way to differentiate your business. Perhaps they do not have much of a presence online and you can build your business through online marketing. Another idea may be to offer products they do not. It is critical to know who your main competitors are and how you can gain an advantage over them and claim your fair share of the market.