ADU is a unique, affordable housing option that has so many advantages that a whole study is not enough to figure out all of them. In most cases, benefits are associated with improving life quality, e.g., granny flats are perfect for comfortable accommodation of elderly parents. However, accessory housing units can also generate income. You may think about the classic variant when homeowners rent out ADU apartments. This is one of the ways, but you can also create a successful ADU business.
If this idea seems difficult or even impossible to implement, then in this review, you will see the opposite because today we will talk about headway stories related to accessory housing units, reveal several useful features regarding the creation of a home-based business, and also share insiders about how a new owner can turn humble undertakings into a competitive company.
When a person has a business idea, he proceeds to the development of the strategy. Someone does it on the basis of past experience, someone asks for advice, and others watch training videos and webinars. Most guides about business strategies talk about abstract things, e.g., the construction of business vision; however, the key to success lies in the correct organization of the working area, and there are several common patterns in this matter.
To maintain motivation and a good state of mental and physical health, as well as to avoid burnout, it is necessary to create a balance between work and family life. For this reason, you can separate the workplace in ADU from the primary residence. It will also help you keep concentration, as well as create a fully customized area for your needs.
Order in the room, order in life. This simple truth applies to business development. Carefully consider with your designer during the construction process the storage spaces to make them practical, roomy, and harmonious with the overall ADU design. Moreover, if clients visit your ADU, then they should see order and aesthetics and not scattered documents or garbage all over the ADU.
All entrepreneurs will tell you that excellent communication with clients is the holy grail that you cannot neglect. Do not spare money on advanced technologies, for example, a voice assistant from a Smart Home that can plan and organize online conferences, because a call received on time can bring a huge contract.
In sum, if you decide to develop a business, then you need to understand that a carefully thought-out strategy is 50% of the overall success. You will adjust this strategy under the influence of many factors. However, the points described above are universal, whether it is the creation of an ADU coffee shop or a small outsourcing company.
The expression that everyone learns from their mistakes has been one of the tenets of parenting for many years. However, nowadays, when people strive to build a successful career and find a high-paying job, it is outdated because it is best to learn from the mistakes of others.
In this regard, we have prepared four lessons, the understanding of which will help you create a successful ADU-based business:
Overall, these lessons differ from memorizing mathematical and chemical formulas in the fact that when during their implementation, you can use all your creative potential; they are not strict and flexible, so you can always adapt each of these items to the special needs of your own business.
Many homeowners face incessant doubts about developing a business at home, in a small apartment or ADU, so we have collected the most striking successful stories from around the world to inspire you:
As you can see, ADU is not only an affordable housing unit but also a great platform for an incredible success story, and you have every chance to stand on a par with the mastodons who built empires from ADU.
Creating a business that will work like a Swiss watch is an unattainable dream, and any business community will confirm this because while working, you will face various challenges. Someone is interested in overcoming them without help, but to maintain tone, it is best to use all the ADU advantages. In particular, you can keep a balance of work and private life, we will talk about this below, create a unique and customized work office in which you will not feel like in a box and where an hour will not drag on like the whole day, or you can constantly make additions to the aesthetic component of ADU and bring technology to diversify the routine. Of course, each new problem will have a new unique solution. However, the techniques described above will help minimize their occurrence.
All top entrepreneurs at the initial stage have a huge passion for the realization of a dream, and this is good; however, in the future, it can lead to rapid burnout. Fortunately, ADU is the perfect place to create harmony and wealth between work and family. There are many ways to achieve this goal, e.g., you can organize an outdoor living area to breathe fresh air during breaks, do yoga, or play with children, or you can create a recreation room in the format of a home theater to watch movies and listen to music with your family. Furthermore, tools such as creating a daily schedule, prioritizing tasks, or any other time management techniques will be an excellent addition to achieving balance.
In this part, suffice it to say that every home-based business that we use as examples in this review has growth prospects, so always keep in mind the possibility of expanding and building additional rooms. ADU is the best platform for implementing ideas, so if you have a clear strategy, enthusiasm, and desire, then soon you will also face the need to expand ADU, and this can only mean that you are on the right track.
When a business idea captures the mind of a property owner, he begins to think through the design of an ADU office or some unique details of products. In the rush of such thoughts, aspects that relate to law often fade into the background. However, this is an extremely important point, as if you do not want to run into disputes with local authorities, your business should comply with all standards.
Here are the main ones:
All in all, it is crucial to emphasize once again that if you neglect at least one point of the law, sooner or later, you will pay a decent amount of money as a fine, and such financial shocks are extremely harmful to a young business.
The possibility of occupying an empty business area is the main dream of all entrepreneurs, and it is not necessary to be a genius to realize it because sometimes it is enough to have an ADU:
All these people began with a small business in a small ADU or garage. However, they managed to reach incredible heights, and you can also repeat this since today ADUs have become even more technologically advanced.
If you have realized that your business idea is working and you are ready to expand the audience, then here are some ways that do not require a huge investment or bank loan:
In the case of the latter method, be sure to settle the legal issue because the rules on the placement of advertising banners in different parts of California differ.
Returning to the question of business growth, at some point, you may become aware of the need for personnel, and here, you need to remember three things. Firstly, an employee should have his own comfortable workplace for high productivity. Secondly, when hiring employees within a home-based business, discuss in advance all the tasks and goals that you want to achieve to avoid misunderstandings. Finally, the general ADU atmosphere should promote good performance, so in the first days, ask your employees what they would like to see in the workplace that could inspire them to great achievements.
The trickiest moment is related to legal issues because most of the zoning requirements and permitting norms differ greatly between cities within California. For this reason, in order not to harm your finance and to avoid a ban, we do not recommend consulting with a friend or community of neighbors but to contact a professional lawyer.
Of course, the main advantage of running an ADU home-based business is the opportunity to generate income, but the most important thing is that you can show your potential to the whole world, realize yourself, as well as develop your own brand throughout the country by selling unique goods or services.
ADU is not only an affordable housing option but also a very flexible unit that lends itself to customization. Therefore, to attract an audience, you can create a unique design, organize a special cozy waiting room, as well as acquire aesthetic ways of storing things.
