If you start your first business, you should consider nine questions

The first step is to have clear business models and real estate goals, and then you need to make quick decisions to take advantage.

What questions should I ask the landlord when I am siting the company's office space?

The person answering the question, Kevin Cronin, a Quora user, is an enterprise real estate consultant.

For any company, finding a suitable office space is both exciting and challenging. In the past few years, we have been getting some startups and small business customers to help them find the right office space. The following are some of the things that most startups need to consider carefully when they first site:

How do I start?

Start with a clear business model and real estate goals, and then you need to make quick decisions to take advantage. In addition, you need to consider a number of important factors, such as whether the company will grow according to the plan, location, traffic requirements, parking requirements, estimating space requirements, optimizing space structure, technical requirements, as well as time and budget, and so on.

To minimize interference, to improve the efficiency of your Office search, you have to be clear from the start what you really need for your office, and consider the site budget and site specifications, as well as the process and time needed to locate the site, to ensure that you can successfully find and "occupy" a site.

Second, who will be involved in the choice of office space?

Within the company, you need to designate a project leader who will contact you directly to report to you. If you don't want to make a fuss, it's best to start by incorporating it, human resources, and finance into the site selection process to form a team. And the leadership of this team should be a very experienced person in the field of corporate property and facilities deployment.

Not only that, but make sure you can find a consultant team to help you. A Realtor may be very helpful to you because he can represent a tenant, especially on behalf of a first-time company and a newly created company. First-time companies have special needs, and a good realtor can not only understand these needs well, but also help them find the real estate owners who are best suited to them. In addition, the pay of the tenant broker is usually paid by the property owner, so you can benefit from a professional real estate consultant without paying them.

In addition, you'd better find an experienced real estate lawyer, not only to ensure that you will be able to maintain a certain degree of flexibility in the leasing negotiations, but also to ensure that the relevant terms and conditions in your favor, and fair enough. When most startups first sign up for a rental contract, the landlord's attitude is always not very friendly, which can also lead to a lot of unexpected trouble, at this time a good cost-conscious lawyer will provide you with a lot of help, so that you avoid falling into some unnecessary traps.

When should I start the process of finding office space?

Most startups and small businesses underestimate the time and workflow needed to find office space. You know, if you want to find a unique office or a joint office space in just 30 days, it's not as simple as it might seem.

If you're looking for a space for rent, there are a number of factors that can affect the progress of your addressing, including but not limited to the following factors: the size of the office space you need, market conditions and availability, negotiation time with the landlord-owner, room planning, leasing documents, business license, and decorating time. In general, if you're looking for less than 10,000 square feet of office space, you need to extend the original intended deadline for a period of time, and just leave yourself 4-6 months to find the right office space. If you find more than 10,000 square feet of office space, this time is at least 6-12 months back.

Iv. What types of financial guarantees are required when renting office space?

If renters can provide some qualifications to prove that their economic conditions are guaranteed, it will make the landlord feel more comfortable, but also reduce their risk. If the tenant can provide some proof to the landlord, they will stand out among the many rent-seekers, so you need to let the landlord know your company's outstanding financial performance as much as possible. When renting, you may be asked to provide some margin, or the company's founder's personal guarantee, so before this, you need to prepare the required financial information, tax returns, bank statements, or prepaid rent (bank letter of credit). But keep in mind that when renting a house you have to be very careful when it comes to giving someone a personal guarantee, because it's likely to leak your personal assets. In addition, once your company is bankrupt, the guarantor will also assume joint personal security liability, the risk is very large.

V. What are my options?

You can evaluate your choice: a combination of rent, joint office, sublet, direct rent, and so on. The landlord will usually ask, and of course may ask you, the lease term must be 5-7 years. In the case of direct rent, some landlords may accept a three-year lease, but know that the longer you lease the term, the more you will have to choose.

If you are going to rent an office directly and have a long lease, then you can also try to opt for a rental office as an alternative, including working with other companies, joining business incubators, accepting office space sublet by other companies, and more. In fact, these options are mixed in comparison to the direct leasing of a piece of office space, but their advantages are very flexible and the lease length can be shorter for startups that are uncertain about the lease term.

In a business incubator/accelerator, or an executive office, homeowners often have to take on the risk of financial responsibility of multiple tenants sharing office space. You need to avoid collaborating with other tenants because it involves a lot of things, such as office space requirements, tenant improvement and related costs, selection criteria, lease length, and possible legal liability. So, sometimes you think that the rent will be more cost-effective, but the result is often counterproductive, but when you pay the cost, it is best to calculate their own per square meter cost how much rent, so you can have a good idea.

In addition to considering your own entrepreneurial progress and flexibility, you may also consider subletting. You can find a sublet that is below the market price, but there are also pros and cons, such as you will be subject to a lot of restrictions, no drastic renovation of the office space, and so on. Even if you are a sublet, if the lessee in the next 1-5 years of financial problems, it may cause you to bear the relevant losses.

Vi. How much office space do I need?

By experience, you can decline from 200 to 250 square feet of office space per person to 100 to 150 square feet per person. Here are a few steps that may help you determine the size of the appropriate office space:

-You can estimate the number of heads of the future company in terms of your lease. The office space you are currently renting should be able to meet two-thirds, or three-fourths, of the estimated number of future employees.

-Find more efficient office space. For example, in an office building, it is best to find some square office, rather than the corner of the place. Know that there will never be two identical office space in the floor planning and layout.

– The search for an end to and expansion of rights in adjacent venues. Extending to nearby offices will not affect your company too much. For companies, the adjacent office space is good.

How can I narrow down my search?

You need to go out and look at every possible office space, which is really a waste of time. Here are some key variables/metrics that can help you narrow your search and improve search quality and optimize your search results to a manageable range.

Duration: The longer you lease, the more you will choose. But some startups, after signing a five-year lease, found that the site was unable to meet their own needs in the first year. So the company founder should consider in many ways, and the landlord talk about a more flexible lease term.

Price: You don't have to focus on how much rent per square foot, but first make clear your office rental budget and related costs, including parking fees, utilities, cleaning, demolition, tenant improvement, insurance costs, furniture and other costs. These budget costs need to be considered within your consideration.

Layout: You need to understand that in a building there will never be two offices that are exactly the same size.

Facilities: kitchen, lounge, shared meeting room, canteen, traffic, parking rate, security, high-speed Internet, high quality bathroom, even enough power outlets, these are the things you should consider.

What about parking conditions?

Parking costs will be part of your budget. If you ask the head of the household, they usually say we have enough parking spaces. But you have to be clear about the number, when you sign the contract, you have to go to the parking lot to see how many parking spaces you can use. Parking at a distance can cause a lot of trouble to your employees and customers, and it's not cheap.

Nine, how can I determine the correct location of the office?

Make sure that your key employees are not too far away from their office location. Most employees want their office location to be convenient enough. Also, if your office has customers to visit, consider whether to draw a more private area.