Working From Home

No matter how big my company gets, I will never work in an office. I love working from home. No commute, no dressing up, no meetings. I started my company 13 years ago in my apartment in Boston, but after a few years it got to the point where I needed an office. So, in 2000, I got one. But, I set it up 3000 miles away in California. Other people I know who run their own businesses decided to try a virtual office address which is great for introducing remote work for existing workers – something I know I enjoy and which can save a lot of money on rental and energy costs – but was ultimately not the direction we decided to go.

I figured even if I opened an office in the town where I lived, I would still never go to it, so a business friend of mine offered to setup an office for me in CA in an office suite on the same floor as his own office. He helped me hire a few employees to get it started, and he setup the furniture and computers for me. The fact that it was part of an office suite made it easier, because they provided much of what I needed.

This worked out great for a few years, but now that almost everyone can get high speed internet access and so many things are Web-based, I have all those same employees work from home.l for this and it’s one of the many perks I offer to my employees that I’ve learned from employee retention programs. Since then I also have hired 10 additional employees and independent contractors and they all work from home also. Many are overseas, from places like India, Romania, and Pakistan. Some are college students in the USA. I have never met any of these people, and including the original employees who have been working for me for the past 8 years, and I have never even spoken with most of them by phone. We just use email.