Ask HN: Startups who work from home, how do you handle mailing addresses?

I was listening to http://www.startupsfortherestofus.com/ recently and they were talking about http://www.earthclassmail.com/ which sounds like a pretty cool service. I've no experience myself yet but considering putting my own home address down for my business in future.

There are some services I know that offer a virtual mailing address. Not knowing where you live I would highly suggest taking this into consideration as we have one and works perfectly well with our system.

If you plan to use the address for anything financial (bank accounts, credit cards, etc), using a PO Box or virtual office is an item in the potential fraud metric the financial institution calculates on new customers. You may still get the account, but from my experience the additional validation is a major headache.

You could get a virtual office (like Regus i.e.). If you hustle a bit it will cost you next to nothing (don't EVER pay retail with these guys!), you'll always have a space to get some work done while travelling and they can even answer your phone.

If you're not expecting any real mail why not get a PO box that forwards to an actual box in a store? You can check it from time to time if something might come through. If you do move, just ask them to change the store it gets forwarded to.

You can make your address sound more business like. i.e. if you live at

35 Southwark Street

London

E14 9PX

Change it to.

MyCompany.com

Unit 35 Southwark Street

London

E14 9PX