When you're thinking of starting a business that you can run out of your home, we suggest you first consider the nature of the business you want to open. Some types of businesses lend themselves to being run out of a home and others do not. An important issue to consider is whether your home business will disturb your neighbors or have an effect on the character of your neighborhood.

The following are more things to consider when thinking about what type of businesses lend themselves to being run out of the home:

• Does the business require a lot of customer or client visits to your home; for example, tax return preparation or music lessons? Are there ways around this problem — for instance, could you visit the client's location instead?
• Does the business require a lot of space for such purposes as inventory storage, order processing, or performing services — for example, auto repair?
• Does the business produce undesirable side effects — for example, noise, air pollution, foul odors, excessive or toxic waste?

If this is the case, zoning rules could be used to put you out of business.

Some businesses are particularly well-suited for being run from the home:

• businesses customarily run in an office setting, such as desktop publishing, secretarial, bookkeeping and accounting, graphic design, and computer programming
• service businesses, such as house cleaning, construction, or home repair work (concrete, carpentry, plumbing, etc.), particularly where you do the major part of the work at the customer's location
• daycare businesses

Don't be easily disillusioned — with some adjustments, almost any business can be successfully run out of the home. We suggest you take into account your personal situation. Suppose you're thinking about giving music lessons in your home. Does your home have an entrance that is less noticeable to neighbors (a back or side entrance, a door behind a fence) that students can use? Are you teaching people to play the flute rather than the drums so that the noise is kept to a minimum? Are most of your students younger so that perhaps they won't have cars to park all over your neighborhood? In that case, giving music lessons in your home may be feasible.

An important part of choosing whether to work at home is matching up what you want to do at home with what you can do at home. If you want to work at home, a good approach is to match up your skills and interests with a business need. Then ask yourself if that business need can be met through work done from a home workplace. After all, running your own business from home should be satisfying as well as profitable!