I have been really enjoying listening to the Bootstrapped podcast from Ian Landsman and Andrey Butov. Listening to other business owners just talk about their businesses and how they do things is fascinating. At Perch we use Ian’s HelpSpot product as our support system so it’s especially interesting to hear more about the story of that product.

我真的很喜欢听Ian Landsman和Andrey Butov的Bootstrapped播客。 聆听其他企业主只是谈论他们的业务，以及他们如何做事着迷。 在Perch，我们使用Ian的HelpSpot产品作为我们的支持系统，因此，了解更多有关该产品的故事特别有趣。

One of the things discussed in Episode 2 touched on how business owners sometimes do things to validate our being “in business”. As sellers of digital stuff, we forget how lucky we are with our minimal start up costs and lack of expensive stock to hold. Instead we long for the validation that holding a physical product in our hands, or having premises, staff and the trappings of doing business gives us.

第2集中讨论的一件事涉及企业所有者有时如何做事来验证我们在“企业中”的地位。 作为数字产品的卖家，我们忘记了我们以最低的启动成本和缺乏昂贵的库存而感到多么幸运。 取而代之的是，我们渴望证实手里拿着实物产品，或者拥有办公场所，员工和做生意的陷阱能给我们带来好处。

Years ago, when edgeofmyseat.com was still a fairly new business I spent some of my limited, hard earned cash on having a set of folders designed and printed. I had seen another agency distribute marketing materials in a folder and thought that having such a thing would make me a proper business. I was so pleased with them but I barely sent out any. They sat in boxes for years, even once we changed the company branding, until I could think about throwing out something that had cost me so much!

几年前，当edgeofmyseat.com还是一个新兴企业时，我花了我有限的，辛苦赚来的钱，用于设计和打印一套文件夹。 我曾见过另一家代理商在一个文件夹中分发市场营销资料，并认为拥有这样的东西将使我成为一家合适的公司 。 我对他们感到非常满意，但我几乎没有发出任何通知。 他们坐了好多年，甚至在我们改变公司品牌之后，他们就一直呆在盒子里，直到我考虑扔掉让我付出如此高昂代价的东西！

Towards the end of last year the lease on our lovely office was coming up for renewal. When we had moved there Perch was a very small part of our business. We were mostly a client service business, to scale we thought we would soon need employees, we had meetings and sometimes ran training. I had started the business from home but this was the third office the company had leased, and by far the nicest and largest space. When people asked if we worked from home I was always very quick to explain that we had an office – to make sure they knew we were a proper business.

去年年底，我们漂亮的办公室的租约即将续签。 当我们搬到那里时，Perch只是我们业务的一小部分。 我们主要是一家客户服务公司，从规模上看，我们认为我们很快将需要员工，开会和进行培训。 我是从家开始创业的，但这是公司租用的第三个办公室，这是迄今为止最好，最大的空间。 当人们问我们是否在家工作时，我总是很Swift地解释说我们有办公室-确保他们知道我们做得很好 。

Yet as Perch became our business, working from the office started to make little sense. We deal with customers at all times of day and night. We have no-one with any expectation that we will be in the office a any particular time. With no reason to have an office, as married company Directors we were essentially paying for two places for us to sit and work. So we made the decision to pack up the office and come back to work from home. This became official in a legal sense as of March, although in reality we have been working from home since Christmas.

但是，随着Perch成为我们的业务，从办公室开始工作变得毫无意义。 我们全天候与客户打交道。 我们没有人期望在任何特定时间到办公室。 由于没有理由设立办公室，作为已婚公司的董事，我们基本上是在为两个地方的办公和工作花钱。 因此，我们决定收拾办公室，然后从家里回来工作。 从3月开始，从法律上讲这已成为官方，尽管实际上我们自圣诞节以来就一直在家工作。

The strange thing is, divested of all the trappings of running a business, I feel more secure as a business owner than ever before. When someone asks if we work from home I am very happy to tell them, “yes, we do, we’re so lucky”.

奇怪的是，摆脱了经营一家公司的所有陷阱，作为企业主，我感到比以往任何时候都更加安全。 当有人问我们是否在家工作时，我很高兴告诉他们：“是的，我们确实很幸运”。