When I woke up this morning, it looked like going to be a beautiful day but within minutes, the dark gray clouds started gathering and soon swallowed the whole blue sunny sky. Strong gusty wind rattled the clothes, windows panes and slammed the doors. There was shouting and screaming as people were busily collecting their clothes, closing their windows and dragging their children to school before it was too late. There was already a storm in my house as my family members were panicky rushing to get out to work before the rain started.

Within seconds, the drizzling turned into heavy downpour. It was a 2 hours marathon rain, causing disasters everywhere. Roads were flooded, trees were uprooted, pedestrians were drenched and the public transport system was paralyzed. The siren of ambulance and police added more anxiety to the air.

Since the buses and cabs could not function in the flood, people were rushing ferociously to the train station – their only hope to get to work dry and safe. The trains were already experiencing crush loads during normal day, just imagine the sudden overwhelming amount of passengers, it put even more pressure on its capacity. To rub salt against the wound, the public transport companies had just increased the transport fare despite no apparent improvement in their infrastructure and services. The daily journey to work has become a daily struggle. This morning heavy down pour just added more insult to the injury. As a result, many people were late – reaching offices exhausted, hungry and drenched.
 
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Despite all the drama, I still managed to start work on time …. safe and dry.

No, I didn’t fly to work by private jet.

But simply because I work from home. You see, my office is my bedroom; it is just a crawl away.

No other times, I would appreciate it more than I did this morning. While my family members were rushing out to work, I was sipping my tea and eating my favorite toasts. While they were battling against the rains and struggling in the trains, I was reading newspaper and watching TV. I was cozy and warm at home while it was wet and stormy outside. I was able to empathize with them as I went through similar experiences when I was working in the corporate world.

Joy of Working at Home
My nightmare stopped when I started to work at home five years ago. It was not a pleasant experience at a start as I used to depend on my colleagues heavily whenever there was technical problem. I missed them very much for lunch or social gathering and even the juicy news from the water-cooler. Nevertheless, I managed to set up my home office and business sole handedly and never looked back at my choice.

Ever since I started working at home, I finally realized the true joy of it.

… I started to have more personal time.

… I feel more relax and peaceful as no more bosses screaming down my neck.

… I can eat, walk and breathe more slowly now.
    (My body love the slow pace. I used to have gastric problem whenever I was
stressed but it gives me lesser problem now.)

… I have more time for my family members especially, my mum.
   (She used to complain her children treat the home as a hotel).

So if you dislike the daily traveling nightmares, increased transport fares, overcrowded buses, trains and even the rain. Think of the possibility of working at home. Be it your own business or working remotely from your office, technology has made this possible now.

You’ll soon discover the joy of working from home and love it more than I do.

If you have positive experience working at home, please share at the comment box below. I would like to hear how you are doing at home as a home entrepreneur.

If you are, like me, sharing your home office with your bedroom, you may encounter similar problem like where to draw the line between rest and work? Your working space is only a few steps or just a crawl from your bed; it could cause considerable disruption to your spouse or your sleep. For some, your bed could be too tempting not to be missed while you are working and this may affect your work productivity. 

Another problem of sharing the bedroom with our home office is lack of space. With limited space I can’t afford bulky furniture in my bedroom, in fact, I literally do not have any decent storage for my files. I would also very much like a L-shape desk for my working space as one desk for my big monitor and another for doing paper work but this could be too overcrowding. 

In addition, my business partners and customers sometimes would pop over my home office for a quick chat as it was hard to find a quiet place for business discussion outside. However, I could see that they felt rather uncomfortable doing it in my home office cum bedroom as they felt they were intruding my privacy.

I thought this could be a problem I must bear with it for sometimes before I could afford a proper office. However, after watching this amazing video from Resource Furniture, it truly opened up my mind on how we can optimize limited space with creative space-saving furniture. You can click on the video below and start watching now.

They cleverly played with the design of furniture and called them “space savers”. Their furniture are designed for more than one use, for example turning a coffee table into a dining table or converting a sofa into a bed. I especially like the part where they can hide the bed either by flipping over and become a work space or turn it over to become a cabinet. As we know,the bed occupies the most space in the bedroom, once it is being hidden away; it creates so much extra space for working now.

I am excited by the idea as it could be one best way of solving my problems of sharing my bedroom with home office. Just imagine, every morning once I got out of bed, I could quickly transform my bedroom into home office instantly. A home office truly exists all by itself without any bed or other related bedroom accessories in sight. This will not only help to reduce the awkwardness of having business partners or customers when they are visiting me but also increase my business image. Moreover, I could hide away my work space at night while I sleep, giving me more peace when my computer is out of sight.

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I hope the video above will give you some ideas and inspiration of how to create or improve your home office. Having dual-purpose furniture will certainly help to increase your space and productivity but the cost of such space-saving furniture may not come cheap. Nevertheless, it definitely gives us a better idea of how we can optimize our limited space.

I wish you best of luck in creating or improving your home office. If you have other creative ideas of how to solve the problems of sharing your bedroom with your home office, please share it at the comment below.

Do Want to Own a Prestige Office at a Prime Location?

Now, here is the chance! You stand to win a 760 sq ft shop space at a great business location with SGD20,000 renovation fund and it is pre-paid for first 6 months.

What’s more you will get free Executive Education Programme from famous world business school – INSEAD and a special entrepreneurial coaching from Standard Chartered Bank. See Ad below.

All you have to do is to submit your great Business Idea in a 60-sec video with 50 words or less summary to UltimateStartupSpace.com.sg before 12 February 2010. The result for the top ten ideas will be announced in 18 February 2010 and the ultimate winner will be selected on 11 March 2010. For more information, please visit http://www.ultimatestartupspace.com.sg/ for details. 

I believe this is a dream to every business owners and entrepreneurs. It sounds too good to be true and glad that these organizations are doing their part to help startup businesses. The contest came just in time when the National University of Singapore (NUS) Entrepreneurship Centre study released last month showed that 18 per cent of tertiary students polled wanted to become entrepreneurs after graduation. According to the AsiaOne report, the director of the NUS centre, Professor Wong Poh Kam said that the increased awareness of entrepreneurship due to initiatives by the Government and schools was a major factor propelling youths towards wanting to run their own businesses and he also added the following comment.

“’The younger generation will have different ideas from the previous generation. In the past, people wanted only a job after graduation, but now perhaps they think differently.’”

It’s exciting to learn that Singapore has become a nation of budding student entrepreneurs and we can be expected to see more innovating and enterprising new businesses in the near future. So if you are one of those aspiring entrepreneurs, grab the chance now and put on your thinking cap.  Unfortunately, this is open to Singaporean and Permanent Residents only so if you are from overseas and have a great business idea, I guess you should try getting a Singapore partner first if this is ever allowed.

This is a post that reminds us that most business empires today start from a humble beginning. In this time of bad economic, a great story like this will give us hopes and inspire us to achieve our dreams regardless where we start. Below is a list of 20 business empires who have started their businesses either from a apartment, bedroom, dorm room or garage but have outgrown their businesses from a humble place into an empire.

Alibaba.com

Founder:  Jack Ma
Where it was started: In his apartment at Hangzhou, China

Jack Ma (Ma Yun) founded Alibaba.com in 1999; China-based business to business marketplace site that now serves 40 million users.

Having failed his college entrance exam twice yet becoming an English teacher in the same university and having learned the internet by himself, Ma was the first man to put China in the worldwide web. With no money, no technology and little knowledge of the internet, Ma gathered 18 people in his apartment and talked for two hours of his vision which raised him $60,000 as initial capital that started today’s biggest business to business online trading company.

His success in his local shores has paved way for another venture, Taobao.com, a top consumer-auction website that is so successful that made E-Bay China to close down.

Apple Computers

Founder:  Steve Jobs 
Where it was started: His bedroom then moved to their garage in California.

Steve Jobs together with his buddy Steven Wozniak, who are both high school drop-outs, created Apple computer on April 1, 1976. The buddies agreed to form a company to market the new computer, which eventually took off in 1977 with the Apple II.

Going up in the industry is not easy for Apple. Competition is tough. To be on top of the industry, Apple developed major edge over their competitors. The main edge Apple gain is the Graphical User Interface (GUI) capability of their machines. Mac is the 1^st personal computer to use the user-friendly interface with features like the trash can, windows, drag-and-drop file moveability, and plug-in-and-play compatibility. Today, it’s not just the user-friendly interface that separates Mac from other products. The speed, productivity, and security of Mac PC are by far the best in the industry.

Auntie Anne’s

Founder:  Anne Beiler 
Where it was started:  Homemade pretzel sold on a Snack stand in a market Downingtown, Pennsylvania

On a farm in rural Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, in an Amish society best known for their simple living, plain dress and resistance to the adoption of many modern conveniences was where Anne Beiler was raised. Her family lived without the conveniences of a television, a radio, a car and electricity. It’s when her family converted to Mennonite, a conservative church that permits electricity and vehicle usage, when she was a toddler that they had the luxury of watching television or listening to the radio.

Anne’s family was poor but, having asthma, Anne could not do much hard labor outside but that didn’t stop her from helping her family survive and so she learned how to bake. She started selling homemade pies and baked goods at a food stand at age 12, learning the basics of marketing and commerce. As is typical with Amish/Mennonite children, Anne left school after eighth grade and only returned to academia to receive her GED, along with two honorary doctorates, when she was 50.

She bought a vendor stand and sold pretzels, among other goods, in a farmer’s market in Downingtown in 1988. Her Pennsylvania-Dutch style pretzels took some time to perfect but soon became a hit. This was where Auntie Anne’s Soft Pretzels began. She poured energy into her business, often working 17 hours a day, and applying everything she learned through experiences like customer service, which she learned while waitressing as a teen. By the following year, she opened nine stores, seven farmers’ market, market stands and two franchises.

As the progressive years pass, the concept of a mall-based shop seemed the most productive, as shoppers can smell the aroma of baking pretzels, watch bakers rolling the dough and try free samples. Auntie Anne’s pretzels are easy to eat, healthy and on the go with shopping bags in hand. They targeted mall shoppers and later expanded to train and airport terminals.

Dell, Inc.

Founder:  Michael Dell 
Where it was started: His dorm room at University of Texas (The picture below shows him revisiting the place where he started his company in 1984 together with the new occupants.)

As a freshman at the University of Texas in Austin, Michael Dell showed his heart to be a businessman. He started his business by selling personal computers in his small room in the school’s dormitory. Dell knows that buying computer parts in wholesale is a lot cheaper than buying an assembled personal computer. He would then assembled the parts that he bought into clones of IBM computers, and sold them by mail order to customers at a price lower than that of the computer stores. His business approach was very effective and soon he was earning $80,000 a month. The success pushed him to drop-out from school and pursue his business ideals.

Dell’s direct marketing strategies, print ads and superior brand quality allows them to win huge market share. Dell’s computers became the top brand name in the direct-mail market and now one of the most recognize brand in the computer industry.

Hewlett-Packard Development Company LP

Founder: William (Bill) Hewlett and David (Dave) Packard
Where it was started: Garage in nearby Palo Alto

In 1939, Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard founded HP. They started their business on a small Palo Alto garage. What started small is now one of the most powerful brands. HP’s first product was an audio oscillator—an electronic test instrument used by sound engineers. Walt Disney was the first customer of HP to try their audio oscillator. The audio oscillator was used in the movie Fantasia to develop and test innovative sound system.

To preserve the history of HP, the “HP Garage” on 367 Addison Avenue, Palo Alto was restored to its condition much as they were in 1939. Completion of the project was celebrated with a ribbon-cutting on December 6, 2005.

IKEA

Founder:  Ingvar Kamprad 
Where it was started: Around the neighborhood of Älmhult, Småland, Sweden riding a bicycle.
 

Who would have thought that a young boy selling matches around the rural neighborhood of Älmhult, Småland, Sweden while riding his bicycle will grow up to be a billionaire. Ingvar Kamprad is raised in poverty on a farm near the small village of Agunnaryd. At his very young age, the business mind is already there. He observed that buying items in wholesale is cheaper that buying items in retail. He then used this idea to re-sell items individually at a low price but still with a profit. A match expands to flower seeds, greeting cards, Christmas tree decorations, and later pencils and ball-point pens.

At the age of 17, Ingvar uses the money from his father to establish his own business. Ingvar named his business from his initials (I.K.) plus the first letters of Elmtaryd (E) and Agunnaryd (A), the farm and village where he grew up, thus the business name IKEA.

What started from Matches now is a wide range of well-designed, functional home furnishing products still with very affordable prices.

JimmyBeansWool.com

Founder:  Laura Zander 
Where it was started: Her home in Reno, Nevada

The million dollar knitting business of Laura Zander all started as a way to climb up after being laid-off in her former job as an engineer. Artistic and talented Laura amazed the market with her fashionable designs and superior quality of her products. The small shop in Reno, Nevada soon got into the spotlight with the Hollywood Celebrities.

Growing competition is never a treat to Laura’s Jimmy Beans Wool. Laura sees this as a business opportunity and a way to further improve her business. In August 2002 Jimmy Bean Wool officially launch their website jimmybeanswool.com. This was the door to further expose her business and get more attention from the larger market. Customers are no longer limited to buy in her shop in Reno they can now buy her products online as well.

Nine Dragons Paper

Founder:  Zhang Yin 
Where it was started: In her and her husband apartment in Los Angeles before they went back to China

The woman who made millions from waste paper came from a soldier’s family in Heilongjiang, China. She was a former accountant Hong Kong who lost her job when the company went bankrupt. This downfall gave Zhang the power to start making money from waste paper. Hard labor is just a daily routine for Zhang. From a mere 30,000 Yuan (about $4.000) she was able to build the Nine Dragon business empire. In 1990, Zhang and her husband Lai Ming-chung moved to Pomona, California to start a paper collection company in their apartment (later became the Ameican Ching Nam, Inc.). They would buy waste paper from garbage dumps, and send it back to China to be made into packaging for China’s growing consumer-goods market. Zhang then started the Nine Dragons Paper at Pearl River Delta which later expanded into production of cardboard.

Panasonic

Founder:  Konosuke Matsushita 
Where it was started:  Two story house in the Japanese village of Wasa with only three staff.

The Panasonic brand was created from the elements “pan” meaning “all” combined with “sonic” meaning “sound”, because it was first used for audio equipment.

The company that was to become Panasonic was started on March 7, 1918, when Konosuke Matsushita moved from his tiny dwelling to a larger two-story house, and set up Matsushita House wares Devices Manufacturing Works. The staff consisted of three people: the 23-year-old Matsushita, 22-year-old Mumeno and her brother Toshio Lue, then just 15.

Converting their three-room ground floor into a workshop after installing two hand-operated presses for molding insulation, Matsushita was convinced that there was a huge, untapped market for convenient, high quality household electrical fixtures. He stayed up late refining his designs, ultimately choosing to manufacture new products. Their products became a hit because it proved of higher quality than other products on the market and were 30% to 50% cheaper. The company employed 20 people by 1918 year-end.

Products were initially sold through a single wholesale outlet but this agreement broke down when sales fell due to heavy price cutting by other manufacturers. Nevertheless, as Matsushita began dealing directly with other wholesalers, sales grew and the company found itself on firm footing.

Panasonic started off with a desire to create things of value. As hard work and dedication result in one innovative product after another, the fledgling company takes its first steps towards becoming the electronics giant of today.

ZARA

Founder:  Amancio Ortega
Where it was started:  His own living room in Coruña, Spain.

Amancio Ortega, a railway worker’s son, started as a gofer in a shirt store and started making dressing gowns and lingerie in their living room with then-wife Rosalia Mera, also now a millionaire.

They named their company Inditex, and their clothesline Zara and their business became one of the world’s most successful apparel manufacturers. Today, Inditex has more than 4000 stores in 71 countries, sales skyrocketed to $12.3B.

Inditex exported its cheap chic Zara stores to four new markets last year: South Korea, Ukraine, Montenegro and Honduras.

They also have personal investments in gas, tourism, banks and real estates. They own properties in Madrid, Paris, London, Lisbon plus a luxurious hotel and apartment complex in Miami, a horse-jumping circuit.

Amancio’s daughter, Marta, is being groomed to be his successor at Inditex.

When you decide to work full time from home, setting up a dream home office is definitely one of the most exciting tasks for many home entrepreneurs. You would want a unique home office that meets your business special needs, style of works, personal tastes and physical limitation. Having a vision of how your home office is going to look like is a good start but what type of dream home office do you have in mind?

• An eco-friendly and green home office that use minimum amount of energy.
• A minimalist and clutter-free home office which facilitates productivity and work flow.
• A cozy home office with fancy office fixings.
• A well-equipped ergonomics home office that reduces body aches and pains.
• Sleek high-tech home office with latest technology gadgets and wireless connection.

Here is a link that shows some unique and beautiful home offices design, you may like to take a look and hope you can get some inspiration from it. Since this is a place you are going to spend the most time with and you may need to entertain your customers when they drop by, the home office should not only look aesthetically pleasing but most importantly – efficient and functional.

Being an Asian Chinese, we are frequently advised to set up the home office according to Feng Shui principles so as to improve the energy flow within our home office. The ultimate goal is to achieve balance and harmony with our surrounding and eventually bring more wealth and prosperity to our home business. While the Feng Shui principles has its purpose in space planning but it is not possible to follow strictly as we are often restricted by many other factors like structure and physical limitation. However, there is one principle I find it very useful “less is more”, do not clutter your home office with unnecessary furniture and accessories. Leave more room for energy and space.

There are already many websites that talk about how to set up your home office effectively so I won’t repeat here. But I hope to add in some points which you may want to consider.

1. Virtual Address

It is better to get a virtual address rather than putting your home physical address for safety and privacy reasons. A virtual address will also help to elevate your business image as some customers are hesitant to deal with businesses with home addresses.

2. Inform Your Family and Neighbors about Your Home Business

   Let all your family members know you are running a full-time business at home and seek their permission, support and understanding first. This will reduce misunderstanding especially if you are sharing room or facilities with your other family members. In addition, tell them firmly, you do not want to be interrupted while you are working otherwise you will end up running family errands or being rob in for other household matters. You need to inform you neighbors too so that they have an idea of what you are doing and they can help to keep an eyes on your customers and safety.

3. Set Rules

   Set some rules for your home business, for example what are your operating hours and when is your break time. Let your customers know your business days so that they know when to contact you as many people somehow have misconception that home business owners are available 24×7.         

4. Get a Room

If you can get a separate room for your home office, that would be ideal. However, if you do not have such luxury, at least get a shared room with a door so that you could shut it to keep away the battle, interruption and distraction from your family members. You will appreciate this when you are talking to your clients, you do not want the other party to hear your kids crying and shouting in the background.

5. Additional Mobile Office

If you are running out a lot, setting up an additional mobile office facilitates work flow and expedite work process. With technology like mobile phone and wireless laptop connection, you can literally work anywhere and anytime. However, some of you may face the problem of synching files between a PC and laptop when you need to work on both platforms. It is recommended that either you get a docking station or synchronization software to help you. A docking station is a device where all the standard peripherals like monitor, mouse, keyboards, scanner, printer, fax machine and speakers are already hooked up. What you need to do is just plug in your laptop and it can function like a desktop system.

6. Green Home Office

Now you can do a bit for the earth by setting up a green home office. If you are buying electrical appliances and computer, choose those which are energy saving or consume less energy. Reduce paper by emailing your customers electronic invoice and encourage your suppliers to do the same too. Also try eFax or fax via email, this is a common practice now so you can save from getting a physical fax machine. Backup your contract and other important documents into digital format other than printing them out because sooner or later you are going to run into storage problem if you print them out physically.

If your home office is also your bedroom, add in some green like small plants to absorb the bad emissions from computer and other electrical peripherals which are bad for health. The Feng Shui principle suggests covering up the monitor and computer at night to reduce negative energy and remember to brings the plants out at night to reduce carbon dioxide emission.

7. Position of Your Desk

One of the Feng Shui principles suggest do not face your back at the door or window as it is bad for you. I totally agree as facing your back at the door will startle you if someone walks in suddenly. Facing your back at the window will get screen glare from the window and affect your eyesight. However, if you are placing your desk facing the window, be careful too because you will be receiving a lot of UV rays, protect your face with some sun block lotion.

8. No Extra Phone line, Use Skype

If you have problem getting an extra phone line, then try Skype. It is a software that allows you to make telephone call via the Internet and much more cheaper compare to fixed phone line. It’s a great tool for home business as it gives you the impression that you are “locally” located. For example if you are located in Singapore and you have US customers, they will be less inclined to call you at a Singapore phone number than a locally or US number. If you are worry about the time difference issues, Skype offers free voicemail to handle that.

9. Install Security System

   If you are working alone at home and you have customers visiting you frequently at your home office, it is recommended that you install a security system for safety reasons. This is highly recommended for woman business owners as there is no fool-proof method to check all the customers who are visiting you. Install a home security camera and alert your family member to check on you when there is visitor dropping by. Alternatively, you may seek help from your neighbors as your family members may not reach you in time when needs arises.

Setting up a dream home office takes considerable effort and planning, most importantly, the home office must be the one you enjoy and feel comfortable. If I’ve missed out anything, please feel free to comment and suggest.