Ready to move your startup out of the garage and into real office space? Here are 4 tips on negotiating your startup office lease:

1.  Don’t lease too much, or too little, space.

Image courtesy of Peter Oresved / freedigitalphotos.net

For a startup, one of the most challenging aspects of leasing is to determine the right amount of space. Lease too much space, and you will incur substantial, unnecessary costs at a time when your resources are limited. Lease too little space, and you may not be able to grow as quickly as you would like.

To address this issue, try to lease a small amount of space but also try to include a right to expand in your lease. This right can take the form of an option to expand, a right of first offer or a right of first refusal, and it can relate to specific space (for example, the adjacent space) or to any space in the same building that becomes available during the term of your lease.

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