Product Description

Spare Room Start Up is a friendly and stylish, full colour guide which focuses on the specific issues that affect home business start-ups, from the 'kitchen table business plan' to the web server in the attic, organised by three key themes: business, lifestyle and technology. It is an essential book for anyone who wants to start a business at home and manage a work/life balance. The home has become the most popular location for business start-ups in the UK. Over 60% of businesses are now started from a home base; more than 1,400 every week. Yet there is no authoritative and approachable guide to starting a home business. Spare Room Start Up presents readers with simple solutions, demonstrates the ease and low cost with which a home business can be started, and dispels the myths about working from home, so that more people can enjoy the rewards of running a successful home business and lead a happier life. Advice and suggestions are interspersed with quick tips, illustrations and case studies to uncover the lighter side of working from home.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #26616 in Books
• Published on: 2008-05-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 206 pages

From the Back Cover
'Spare Room Start Up' is a friendly and stylish, full colour guide which focuses on the specific issues that affect home business start-ups, from the 'kitchen table business plan' to the web server in the attic, organised by three key themes: business, lifestyle and technology. It is an essential book for anyone who wants to start a business at home and manage a work/life balance.

The home has become the most popular location for business start-ups in the UK. Over 60% of businesses are now started from a home base; more than 1,400 every week. Yet there is no authoritative and approachable guide to starting a home business.

'Spare Room Start Up' presents readers with simple solutions, demonstrates the ease and low cost with which a home business can be started, and dispels the myths about working from home, so that more people can enjoy the rewards of running a successful home business and lead a happier life.

Advice and suggestions are interspersed with quick tips, illustrations and case studies to uncover the lighter side of working from home.

About the Author
Following a career with an international accountancy firm, Emma started her first business at the age of 27 and successfully sold it just 15 months after launch.

The home business website was launched in 2006, and has attracted a regular readership of more than 250,000 people and national press headlines. Emma has written for Enterprise Nation since its launch and also for the Financial Times, City AM and customer magazines, including for Orange, Microsoft, BT and Viking Direct. In July 2007, Enterprise Nation launched the 'Home Business Award', which is the UK's only award dedicated to home businesses, and have just launched The Home Business Report with BT, the UK's first region by region look at home business. Emma is regularly called upon by the Government to speak on the subject of home business and she advises Regional Development Agencies on how to encourage and support homeworking.

Customer Reviews

Spare room brilliance
Emma Jones is the undisputed queen of homeworking. Her website Enterprise Nation has become the hub around which thousands of home-based businesses have congregated over the last few years. In her book Emma looks closely at the key components of starting and running a business from home, but it's the personal feel to the book that I wasn't prepared for.

Call me an old hack, but I've read and reviewed hundreds of start-your-own-business books over the years, but few if any, convey the drive and enthusiasm that is contained within the page of Spare Room Start Up. If you're thinking of taking the plunge and starting a business from your home, but are having problems taking that last final step towards making your enterprise a reality, this book will not only arm you with the practical knowledge you need, but more importantly, will show you that you're not alone.

The design of the book was also a surprise. Many small business books tend to be textual affairs that do contain masses of information in some cases, but leave you cold after you've turned the last page. Emma's book by comparison left me with the feeling that the decision I took to start my own home business was the right one. Photography is used throughout the book of Emma's own home and the colleagues that she has gathered over the last few years. These reinforce the homeworking drive that has clearly worked for her, and could work for you as well.

The book itself divides into three main sections that cover business, lifestyle and technology. Within each section case studies and a plethora of web links are presented with bold graphics that makes the content easy to digest. This isn't a business book to sit and study, but one that will remain a friend as you build your new home business. Keep the book handy when you need information, but more importantly when you need a boost on the days when things aren't going according to plan.

Business books come and go, but the ones that go on to become bestsellers and remain leading texts in their field are those that provide timely information, but more importantly, inspire their readers. Spare Room Start Up has a pedigree that is hard to fault. This is clearly because the author is living the life that she is writing about.

If you just got home after spending another day in office cubicle hell, and are dreading the commute tomorrow, start reading Emma's book now. After even a few pages you'll realise that that niggling dream of starting and running a business from home that won't go away shouldn't be ignored. If you thought you didn't have the skills to run a home-based business, or the confidence to take the very first steps, Spare Room Start Up will be your trusted companion on the adventure ahead.

A Refreshing Change to the norm!!!
Just finished reading Spare Room Start Up and really enjoyed it. Having read a number of business start up books before setting up my own business I have to say what a breath of fresh air! The layout and pictures make it a really different type of book. I have really enjoyed it and find myself keeping it on my desk to flick through during the course of the day. The pictures and style is inspiring.

Well done!!

everything you need to know
I bought this book yesterday and read it in one night. I have been on a few business link start up courses and this covered absolutely everything I had been told and more. E.Jones backs up everything she says with website details and examples of other home business owners which is encouraging as they also so why they did it and the positive difference it has made to their lives.Easy to read and informally written, I also found that every question I had was answered. The author mentions a follow up , that Im sure will be just as good.