A virtual office is a startup’s best marketing tool.

Think about it, you’re a young entrepreneur. You rent a flat with three other friends. They like kebabs for breakfast, sleeping late and walking around at home in their underpants. You like working at your laptop in your pj’s with Phil and Holly providing the background entertainment.

Now this may sound like your idea of the perfect life. It may not however, be the image you want to project to potential customers.

That’s where the virtual office comes in.

A virtual office creates the illusion of an office space with a physical address.  The upside is that no-one ever has to see you in your natural environment. (Or those pj’s).

It works really well for renters who don’t want to use a temporary address as a business one and it also helps to protect your privacy.  The last thing you want is a client knocking on your door during a Suits binge-watch.

A virtual office is just that, a space that does not physically exist.

Now obviously, the address does exists somewhere, usually in a business centre or a serviced office suite and their staff will manage your account.

How that account is managed varies.  Users pay a monthly fee for the address and the model usually encompasses charged add-ons like mail and call handling, discounted meeting rooms or access to touchdown space.

There may even be a community of virtual office users who have the opportunity to be involved in events or programmes run by the serviced office.

This can be a great help to businesses in the early stages.  Running your own business is lonely and having an opportunity to meet like-minded people at different stages of the process can help to keep you on the right track.  Learn from their mistakes, successes and goals.

So the virtual office is designed to create a professional face to the outside world, while still in those pj’s. Win, win.