Some years ago that’s exactly where we were, and we quickly discovered that making the decision was actually the easy part.

Finding the right work from home opportunity was in reality far more of a challenge.

This became immediately obvious when we typed ‘work from home’ into Google and found ourselves faced with literally hundreds of offers and opportunities to consider.

So as a next step we decided to narrow down our options and make a list of things that were important to us. In no particular order these ended up being:

• Something we could feel excited about
• Flexible working hours
• Expansion possibilities
• Minimum upfront investment
• Full training and support provided
• Examples of other peoples success
• Established company

Something we could feel excited about

 We weren’t interested in ‘manual labour’ activities, for example building things from home on a ‘per item’ basis, and actually discovered that these so called opportunities aren’t always what they appear to be. So we learned to be cautious about these. Distributing and collecting catalogues wasn’t for us either

We wanted to do something more interesting, something that could put us around people and not just collection and deliveries.

Flexible working hours

We both had full time jobs so needed to find a work from home opportunity that could fit in with the hours that we had available, which in the beginning were restricted to just evenings and weekends.

 Expansion possibilities

 We agreed with each other that if we liked what we did and it started to grow, we wanted to be able to build our home based business up further, and not be restricted to working within a certain radius of where we lived. This was because this would allow us to consider one of us being able to move to a more full time basis if this were possible. In reality, at that time neither of us were particularly in love with our full time jobs.

Minimum upfront investment

We quickly ruled out being able to start a franchise type of business because of the upfront investment required. Even though we attended a couple of Franchise Shows in London to gain all of the information of the different franchises available, we had to rule this out as an option for us because we didn’t have the money needed to invest at the beginning.

Full training and support provided

We were definitely going to need a set –by-step training program on what to do and preferable have choices on attending local events as well as internet based support. There was just no way that we were going to be able to start a new home business (which neither of us had ever done before) without some solid guidance. A bunch of paper booklets and a ‘good luck’ letter just weren’t going to be enough for us!

Examples of other peoples’ success

 Whilst we were motivated to make a success of our new venture and have the extra money to enjoy, we didn’t consider ourselves trial blazers ready to set the world alight with a brand new invention.  So we wanted to read about and perhaps even meet some other people who were just like and see how they had made a success for themselves and perhaps understand more about what would be needed from our side to make it work.

Established company

 With the speed of companies appearing and disappearing again we needed to feel confident that if we worked hard and got something going, we were going to be paid and not find ourselves chasing money for all of our efforts.

It’s interesting now when we write this and look back as just how hard it was to find an opportunity that ticked all of these boxes.

Our part time opportunity grew to become a full time income and we hope that highlighting some of our work from home requirements might help you in your quest.  We wish you the very best of luck with your search.