Anyone here work from home?

[acehistr8]

I am 4 months away from completing my MBA in Finance which will at that point be in addition to 7 years of work experience in the systems/big firm consulting world.

After this, I would ideally like to withdraw from this environment for a while and start a career/business from home. I am just looking to get an idea of what people do that would maybe jog my mind a little bit. Who among us has a home business, or works exclusively from home? I like having handicapping as a part time pursuit and would really like to find something substantial that I could do from home.

Thanks for all thoughts/ideas.

 

[dawgball]

I, and two others, own a web-based appications company. We all work from our homes meeting once every other week. Our servers are housed at one of our client's facilities because they have multiple T3s running into their site.

I'll go ahead and tell you that you do have some freedoms that most people do not, but it is in no way on peaches doing it on your own.

Good luck, and I will be more than happy to answer any questions that you have.

 

[ryson]

I work from home unless I am putting out fires @ a customer site. I agree with dawg, it has it's +'s & -'s like anything else. I work for a company HQ'd in Santa Clara. The only beef I have is when it comes to HR issues or meetings, they tend to forget about the timezones. I write software so I really miss being able to grab somebody and have them take a look when I am having a problem, OTOH it has made me a better programmer by a tenfold. We have alot of people in the field and there are ways to have meetings etc via a central server, share desktops etc. Put it this way, if I ever go back to a company owned office it could be a bit rough One great thing is that you don't have to deal with all of the BS politics that most offices have.

 

[acehistr8]

I am mainly looking to escape the very politics you talk about ryson as well as follow in my dads footsteps, which is really what motivates me the most.

15 or so years ago my dad was a succesful real estate agent in small town New England during the real estate boom. He decided to hang it up and start his own shop teaching training seminars and doing consulting for companies around the country. He started with a dingy little office in our basement. Well he still works for himself 15 years later, but he has clients around the world and still loves what he does. Hes still my idol in that respect, not many people would give it all up while times are good to start something as risky as working for yourself. I know the bad times will be there but it makes the better times all the easier to enjoy.

Still uncertain as to where I will turn. My background is in database design and systems consulting. With 7 years experience and an MBA under my belt, I'm hoping a good idea wont be too far down the road.

Thanks for the replies.