This week I heard of another small business owner who had left their business premises and taken the business back into their home.

In fact the growth of businesses which are being run out of the family home is growing significantly because of the connection speeds of the internet and the fact that it is so much cheaper to run from the family home.

So how can you find a legitimate business opportunity that you can run from your home?

1. This will most likely be a service style business.

   If you’re looking to manufacture engineering equipment then it is difficult to scale something like this from your garage although when you start it can be a good idea to do this from your garage.

   Service businesses are about connecting people with people and this is being done more and more over the internet.

2. It will likely require some work at other people’s premises.

   One of the common arguments for setting up in commercial premises is that you get to talk with other people in your building and this cuts out the boredom of working by yourself.

   Being a business owner can be quite lonely so having others to talk with along the way is important.

3. The business model will scale to less than 5 people.

   Once you get over five people it can be very difficult to remain in the family home.

   However there are many legitimate business opportunities which are sustainable and competitive which have 5 people or less working in them.

   In fact this is most of the small businesses in the world!

Are you working in a home business?

What are your experiences and how have you coped with this?

Let’s start today by defining a homepreneur.

They are small business owners running viable enterprises from their home.

I guess you could say they’re a subset of entrepreneurs because being based at home they often have to be very enterprising in order to compete with other businesses.

So what are they like? How would I recognise one if I saw them down the street away from their home?

According to The Small Business Success Index in America there are five defining characteristics

1. Homepreneurs tend to be male, middle-aged and white according to the 2009 Network Solutions survey.
2. 69% of homepreneurs are male, 31% are female.
3. 88% of homepreneurs identified themselves as non-minorities and 11% identified themselves as minorities.
4. 52% were over 55 years old and only 6% were less than 35.
5. 46% of homepreneurs completed college

So you can see they’re not some kind of fringe community. From the statistics they are fairly mainstream and a vital part of the economy and community

So if you’re a homepreneur drop a comment on your experiences

Is there something you could share that would benefit our community?