When you’ve been working from home and your company starts to get ahead, you might consider heading out into the world. But how do you know for sure if your business is ready for such a big more? If you spot these tell-tale signs, it might be time to take the leap.

Working from Home Is Holding Your Business Back

Opening a company from home is a great way to give your new (but fragile) venture a decent head start in life. You enjoy minimal overheads, and you can ignore normal work hours. Once things get going, however, and your business is trucking along in a promising way, the lack of space—not to mention the lack of professionalism—that working from home brings could be a drag on your success. If you’re starting to feel slightly cramped in your home office, or you’re hosting important meetings in the coffee shop in the village, you could be losing out on crucial expansion opportunities. Seen in this light, your home office is costing you money, rather than saving you money.

Your Business Is Sustainable

Signing a lease on your first real office is a daunting prospect for a small business. Of course, you’ll still want to keep costs down, but workspace available for let at the lower end of the price scale could require you to sign a lease for up to ten years. And if an office refurbishment is on the cards, you want to be sure that your business is going to be around for long enough to make it worth it. But how can you be sure your company is still going to be thriving five a decade from now? Before you make the move from your home office, it’s important to understand how sustainable your business is at this stage. Moving into an office is expensive, and if demand for your product or service doesn’t continue at this rate, the financial setback could be a severe blow to your business. If you don’t feel that you can take this risk right now, a virtual office could offer many of the benefits of a professional office, without the financial risk. Check out yourvirtualofficelondon.co.uk to see if this transitional solution could work for you.

Working from Home Is Distracting You

When you started working from home, you would have enjoyed the convenience of slotting in work around the demands of the rest of your life. But once work begins to take off, the joys of home life (including pets and kids!) can become unhelpful distractions when you need to bury your head in work. On the flip side, launching a business can be a truly insane time of your life. All those sleepless nights and round-the-clock days may have been necessary to get your business off the ground at first, but they will take their toll. When your company is more set up, shifting your business HQ from the garage to somewhere further from home can be a great way to re-establish that all-important work-life balance. If work and life are starting to blend too much for your liking, now might be the right time to get your own office.

Whether you’re a one-person startup or you have hired everyone on your street, that home office can begin to be a little constricting. If you’re unsure whether to take the plunge and get a real office, these factors will help you make an informed choice.