So. Until about a year and a half ago, I was working my ass off with a hosting company I owned. Most of my clients were Indians. It was profitable, but I closed the company down and got into internet marketing after transfering my clients to another company. Since then, I have been sitting at home, round the clock, never going out. My computer is my world. I have had a few getaways, alone and with family. But I really think that I should have an office and a few people to work for me. I really like to outsource my work, and I don't want any of my work that makes me money to be done by anyone at my office. I would prefer people who are far away from em to do that. But still, I guess having people around me would be good. I am thinking about hiring a few people and renting a few computers and plugging them to the internet and make them do some other work, that would pay their salaries, for the computers and the power and internet they use. I am not really looking for a big profit from them. What would you recommend that I can do to make them pay for themselves? PTC maybe? I don't want to do a big research on anything. It should be like a plug and play work, and the money that is returned should pay the bills. Thanks in advance for the help. I hope the replies in this thread would be helpful for people who sit at home all around too.

I think getting an office is a good choice for internet marketers. I got one and I actually like it. Some people don't though.

As to paying employees... Good luck finding employees that aren't going to work for a weekly/bi-weekly check.

Just get them to do typical freelancing stuff? Article writing... submission... link building... linkwheel creation... etc

Or even hire some coders/designers and just have them make websites for clients... these are really easy to come by with some classified ads / newspaper ads ... and in their spare time get them to create minisites for adsense for you... a couple months in you'll have like 200 sites each making $2-3 a day or so... that can pay for their salaries and expenses alone

I'm in almost the exact same position with you mate!

Even though what I do involves a lot of travelling (which is probably the only reason I haven't gone entirely crazy yet), I use my living room as my office and I spend pretty much 99% of my time I'm in my hometown in this very living room, staring at my computer screen.

I think that renting an office space would be a great idea for both of us. Not only would it make us go out more, it would actually help with some discipline as well, allowing easier separation between work and else. (not sure about you but this is an issue I have).

As for employees, before hiring them, make sure that you'll have enough time to effectively manage them. Managing 3 employees can be a full time job so it's crucial to establish a detailed plan first ...

LoL I just said to my longtime girlfriend "I want to get an office... Only like $800 per month in the middle of Downtown Chicago, and its right on the river"

She replied.... "Why do you need an office? You set one up here basically"

I sighed and forgot about it.....

Then like 10 minutes later when I was hard at work, she asked me "Wanna goto the store?" I looked for the camera like we were on "The Office" and went back to work

Originally Posted by bryanon

I'm in almost the exact same position with you mate!

Even though what I do involves a lot of travelling (which is probably the only reason I haven't gone entirely crazy yet), I use my living room as my office and I spend pretty much 99% of my time I'm in my hometown in this very living room, staring at my computer screen.

I think that renting an office space would be a great idea for both of us. Not only would it make us go out more, it would actually help with some discipline as well, allowing easier separation between work and else. (not sure about you but this is an issue I have).

As for employees, before hiring them, make sure that you'll have enough time to effectively manage them. Managing 3 employees can be a full time job so it's crucial to establish a detailed plan first ...

thats why i am looking for a plug and play work, something like PTC or something, for which no big skills are required, and that would make the interview process easy. getting a bunch of designers and stuff will make me look for orders, and if I dont get an order, i'll have to pay these fuckers out of pocket. They need to do their work automatically. I'll just place a camera which will make them think "The Big Brother is Watching You" and work effectively.

Your story sounds similar to me - I also shut down an office about a year and a half ago as well - and I do miss having other people around while I'm working...
and I also have the home office problem of becoming essentially a hermit

I have a huge, really nice home office though, and kids, so it just didn't make sense for me to move out... What I have done is hired 2 part timers (students) one comes in the morning, and one in the afternoon.
The morning guy is a programmer and the afternoon guy is a writer, I basically have them doing odd jobs... anything that I really don't want to do. They have no idea what the big picture is (and I doubt they care, I pay them well for students and they're happy), but having at least one other person "in the office" keeps me consistent, and keeps me from feeling so isolated... and at least I can chat about the news to someone