Pros & Cons of Going SL Fulltime

I am once again contemplating going fulltime into SL development. I have a thriving SL business that has consistently produced around $2,000 a month for over a year. I know that if I go at it fulltime I can easily double or triple that this coming year. But it is a risky venture and I’d like to hear from others. Here is my pros/cons list:

Pros:
SL has unlimited potential right now.
I would be doing what I love to do.
SL membership is at an all time high and increasing so the market for products in increasing.
I have mastered SL and don’t have to fight the learning curve.
It is work at home.
It is a pioneering position allowing for me to break new ground.
It is dual hemisphere work - creative/logical.
LL has had a lot of positive press lately and seems serious about marketing.
My business is unique with fewer competitors than most (not clothing/jewelry/club/land).

Cons:
LL/SL can go belly up at any time with zero warning.
I have no way of knowing what LL’s financial position currently is.
At anytime a new competitor can come out and leapfrog SL’s technology.
The security of my IP within SL is definitely questionable.
LL’s customer service history leaves a lot to be desired and any problems I have may never be addressed.
LL has a habit of producing very disruptive updates that require retooling and repackaging of products.
The shifting rules of SL (taxes, public land, dwell, telehubs, etc...) makes business unpredictable.
I have no convenient reliable means of backing up products.
Griefers and scammers are on the upswing. I hate dealing with them.
Knockoff artists have historically duped most of my best items and taken credit for the original idea. I have no recourse against these people.
Anything I make in SL has zero transferability into other systems.
The blatant copyright infringements that go on daily in SL must catch up to LL one day. How will that impact LL and therefore my SL business?
The sex culture within SL really gives me the heebeegeebees.
I have seen a lot of old timers fall by the wayside due to one or more of these cons.
Owning a sole proprietorship in SL means I have to do product support, updates and promotional events.
Being self employed means I need to earn about 30% more to cover equivalent benefits and insurance.
How can I cash out more than $2,000 a month? If this works out I will need to convert 5x that much.
Am I comfortable with the stability of the Linden vs US dollar? A severe drop could cost me thousands.
I would be taking a 50% pay cut for the first year and there is no way of knowing if I will ever make it back to my current salary or possibly surpass it.
SL is not good future resume fodder.
The SL architecture scalability worries me. It seems as if the system is already groaning.
How confident am I in LL? Are they truthful with their statistics? How much is hype and how much is real?

I see my cons list is longer than my pros list. That is a bad sign. On the upside my significant other’s income easily covers both of us as well as insurance. We aren't supporting children but do need to consider retirement (early 40s). I don’t know. I have been riding this fence for a long time now. I’d like to hear from others that have already made the transition.

I can't help you make up your mind, but regarding "how much can I cash out", there is a page where you can apply to increase your monthly limit, I believe they are called business and currency trader tiers. (Edit - it's here)

If I had a solid business concept that could make me serious money, I would be considering doing just what you are thinking - but the flakiness of the 'platform' (which the game is built upon) and many of the issues you raise are part of my reasoning not to.

Lewis

Pretty much the same can happen with any other company, so it's not much better elsewhere


Also not very different from any other business. Say, how many different MP3 players are there, all based on the same principle and very similar interfaces? There are even ones that immitate the iPod, I think.

IMO, if this is what you want to do, and you think you can get a reasonable profit, then do it. Life is too short to spend most of it doing something you don't like.

Of course, make sure to save some extra cash in case something goes wrong. But you should do that anyway, any company, even huge ones, can suddenly fire you or go bankrupt.



Why not? I think having a viable business in SL demostrates you have determination, business, marketing and people skills, technical expertise, and are capable of learning new things. Seems a great way to prove your competence in general.

Thanks, just signed up for a tier increase.

I do not do this full time at the moment, I have when in between jobs though. It also allowed me to take time after leaving my last job to not have to rush and find a company I knew was the right fit for me.

I will say this, just having a full time presense in SL seemed to help me make more money. I was there to answer all questions ASAP, handle customer service ASAP and most importantly, I had more time to make more creations.

I only work because my RL income potential far out weighs my SL potential.

Downside.

I went through SL burnout. It's a frustrating thing when you get creative blocks that last weeks. SL became less fun for me and it became a job.

Now I know others that do it full time and never feel this way. So I am speaking for myself only.

Personally i am waiting for the time being, until such time as i feel that what i am going to put into SL i can comfortably afford to lose. This game is a gamble atm imho and ur list raises many of my points and concerns at present and although LL has been around awhile, its still to much in Flux for me to contemplate risking a larger sum on the game.

Ive scaled down my RL work lately for personal reasons and am leaving thier employ in Jan 07 at the end of this years contract and i am concentrating now in preperation for future challenges here, but at present am unprepared to lose any large sums of cash in SL, so for now im gonna ride the fence and continue to lay the foundations for the future, but then u may be a bigger gambler than me and can afford to lose ur investment, but thats not to say u will of course

You say in your list of pros, "I would be doing what I love to do." and thats the most important item in the list imho, you should always make work fun and follow your downstream focus as deep-rooted motivation or lack of it determines your success in life!

So if u can gamble it GO FO IT if not carry on doing what u are doing and the rest will follow behind, trust me it works as long as u exercise Discipline Thourght and Control in all areas

Good Luck in whatever u decide to do here

Peace

I'm excited when I hear folks interested in making the leap. If I may, I'll comment so that perhaps something I say may aid your thought process on the matter.


Okay, right away, if you're already making $2000 / month, you have a successful business. Most real world businesses fail, and it seems you're already beating those odds.


These sound familiar


Nothing that has over $20 million invested simply goes poof. Second Life makes press nearly ever day now. Even if a competitor comes along with another, better metaverse, the time it will take them to catch up and solve some of the problems that Linden Lab has had to heuristically tackle will allow you to learn and switch over to a new system.

That being said, you don't have to consider yourself a SL developer. Consider yourself a Metaverse developer. If you see opportunities to do stuff in There or Activeworlds, by all means do it! Right now, a lot of us use SL primarily simply because it is the best metaverse out there.



Do you attend town halls? Do you read the Linden blogs?

I recommend doing some research into Linden Lab. There's a lot out there.



Code doesn't just appear "at any time". Consider the complexity of SL's system:
- streaming data
- massive multiplayer
- the most per-user-intense server farm, anywhere. (Philip, at last year's SLCC, quoted that if they had Google's server farm it'd only support 1.7 million SL users.)
- building tools
- physics
- scripting
- streaming music and video
- uploading textures, animations, and sounds
- avatars and animations
- chat communications
- the economy
- permissions systems
- compatibility with multiple platforms and video cards
- land ownership and sales
- inventory
- search features

Now add to that certain ideas that are not directly code-related that Linden Lab has tackled:
- An economy stable within 30% of target exchange rate for 2 1/2 years.
- A community of half a million people
- People with years of expertise in the technology who can churn out cool stuff
- Player-player dispute resolutions systems
- extensive feedback as to the needs of users.

A competitor may pop up any time, for sure. In fact, there are some. Google Earth may decide to let people create new landscapes and add avatars.

But.

It will still take at least a year or two for any community to approach the complexity of a system that Linden Lab has, and in that time Linden Lab will have the chance to take more action.



The security of your pictures online is questionable. Period. So is 3-D data. No Metaverse, ever, will ever be able to protect these 100%.

What Linden Lab does do is aid in the legal recourse for going about in stopping IP violations.


You obviously have never been on any other MMO. Linden Lab's customer service, while it has problems, is leaps and bounds beyond other systems. You think you can get Microsoft to give you personal attention to the most trivial of your problems? No. But Linden Lab employees routinely are doing this, and with the help of talented and dedicated volunteer staff.

When I first entered SL, I had come from Everquest for almost 3 years. It took hours to have a service request answered in-world in Everquest, and the outcome was almost always unsatisfactory. There was no formal way to make suggestions to improve the game. There was no talking to staff directly. Period.

Linden Lab is the closest I've seen to the receptiveness of an open source community without the code actually being open source.



Curse those updates! We should go back to 1.1!

Seriously, any complex metaverse is going to have an elephant load of updates. Any contemporary MMOG, who lacks many, many of the elements of an MMOVW, still have regular weekly patches. It's stellar that Linden Lab has recently committed to a bi-weekly schedule.



Are you kidding? The examples you've given are either ancient (taxes and public land) or were talked out to death with the community for months, even years!

No one knows "the rules" of the Metaverse. We're making them up. Any system that tries to be a metaverse is going to have these pains.



Very important con, agreed 100%. Linden Lab has said they want to do this, it's a matter of time, etc. We can only try and press them to hire more staff and get things done sooner.


Welcome to the Internet.


Take pictures, file an abuse report, send the person a cease and desist letter, and download the DMCA report claim and file it. Document, document, document.


Not so true. You can use a GLinterncept program like OGLE to rip out the geometry and textures and then put them into Maya / 3DSMax, which is pretty much exportable to everything else. The problem isn't getting stuff out of SL, it's getting stuff in.


Again, if you wish to act as a business, you will have to deal with what businesses do on a regular basis. Be prepared to fight for your IP and get aggressive. It's not a unique problem to Second Life.


Again, welcome to the Internet. Sexual urges are a common and natural thing experienced by all human beings. People express it freely in SL, and I've been told (by a Linden Labber, no less) that pornography is actually responsible for a great deal of the advancements of tricks on the world wide web.

Still, you're right that an unwanted presence in your storefronts can be disruptive to business and unprofessional.

I think, though, it would be nice to have a landowner be able to toggle avatars off, for this reason, and lag. Linden Lab I've heard is actually looking into doing it for the latter purpose - so we can cram more than 80 people into a sim for an event. Look for this as a good fix for your stores.


Hire a part-time staff. There are a lot of SLrs willing to earn L$ to do stuff part time. I was just speaking to a colleague yesterday who said sales have doubled in her SL store since taking in a staff member to help run the store.


Minus gas for commuting, a reduction in car insurance, and the money you probably normally spend on feeding the soda machines and going out to lunch at work. Buy sandwich stuffs and prepare food for yourself more and you'll save a lot of money.


I recommend adding value to your products with scripted elements, or branch into new fields. (Which also reduces the risk of your particular industry in SL.)


It's very good to be aware of this risk.


You think the website designers who started in 1993 feel that way?


Those are excellent questions.

Some of the statistics are hype, but I like to look at the big four as accurate indicators of the health of SL:
1. Amount of land owned. This indicates sunk investment of users into the platform.
2. Average simultaneous online. This indicates average usage.
3. L$ sold for US$. Not L$ traded - that's essentially meaningless. But people paying for L$ is e-commerce, plain and simple.
4. Users logged in in the last 30 days. Let's face it, most Internet users don't surf all day, they use it in periodic bursts. Some people log on, check their email, read the news, and that's it. Some people only go online to shop. If we look at the behaviors of how people use the regular Internet, it will show us what to look for in usage statistics of SL.


Not really. You haven't weighted anything. If you really want to measure this, associate a number 1-5 for each, and then sum up the numbers.

But honestly, I think people need to follow their passions or they will be miserable in life. Even if people fail at their passions, they wind up being happier people. And happiness trumps money or success.

Oh, man. If you're in this position, to me, there's no question that you have the perfect opportunity! Many people have a family and can't do the jump because of that.

I definitely, hearing this, feel that you're in the prime position and I would say go for it!


And the rest of your life what? Sit in a rocking chair? 40s? Wow.

Seriously, if you do something you love, you will want to do it the rest of your life, even if it means on a limited basis or a different level.

As for money for a nest-egg, that's just going back to how well you think you'd do full-time in SL.


Some other suggestions for you:

1. Above all else, you need to close your eyes and visualize yourself doing it. Picture yourself working from home, or whatever your longer-term goal with working with SL is. Imagine the benefits, and seriously visualize them in your head. This is absolutely a secret to anyone's success, SL or not.

2. Research business owning with your state's rules. You'll feel much more comfortable knowing the procedure you'll be doing. This means registering a business name, possibly getting a tax ID, etc.

3. Look into the tax benefits of owning your business. Two words, my friend: "Tax shelter".

4. Aimee Weber did a great article for New World Notes:
http://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2006/05/going_pro_in_sl.html

Best of luck with your decision, and I hope, personally, that you do decide to make the jump.

Hope you don't mind, I posted my reply with your in-line quotes to my blog. It was just too good to pass up for what I talk about.
http://secondtense.blogspot.com/2006/08/making-jump-to-working-sl-full-time.html

Hiro,

Thank you! Great information from someone who knows. I'm going to go jump on the riding mower and do some 'projecting' (with my eyes open).

Excellent to hear! My mailbox and IM is open anytime if you have questions or just want to chat about what the experience is like. I think you'll find a lot of SL developers are open as well.

I'm always an advocate of working for yourself rather than for someone else, provided you have the will power to do what's necessary. Not everyone does.

I'll throw my 2 cents in on the things you've said. Hopefully it will help you make a decision.


All excellent selling points. In my mind, the only one that really matters is the second one, "I would be doing what I love to do". The others are important, of course, but they're extremely minor by comparison. If you've found something you love that you can make a living at, there's no greater thing in the world. If you love it, go for it!

As for your cons, I'll take those one at a time. Some of them seem quite important to consider, and some just seem like the same kinds of obstacles ALL businesses have to deal with in RL and in SL.


The same is true for any other business. This is an inherent risk whehter you're working for someone else, or running your own business. You're always dependant on someone else in some way, and if they make a mistake, it can cost you.

There's no such thing as job security, ever. Just ask anyone who worked for Enron. I'm sure all those people thought they were totally secure, working for one of the biggest and supposedly most successful companies in the world. Then it all crumbled out from underneath them overnight through no fault of their own, due entirely to the actions of a few bad apples who happened to be at the top of the tree.

There's no such thing as a stable company or a stable job. So, this point really isn't relevant in my opinion since it applies to anything you'll do, not just your SL business.


This is pretty much the same as the last point.

For what it's worth, I'm in a bit of a similar (but opposite) position right now. I work for myself, but in about 4 hours I have an interview with a graphic arts company that wants to recruit me. They're a privately owned small comapny so I have no idea what their financial status is any more than we can know what Linden Lab's is. I'll see what they have to say to me, and if it seems like a good opportunity, I'll consider it. That's all I can base my decision on, really. If I decide to do it, and then they run out of money, I can always find something else to do. (My biggest problem in this has nothing to do with anything so real. Wat I'm worried about is getting past the hipocrictal feelings I get from actually considering working for someone else, since I've been such a long time advocate of self-emloyment.)

So the question here is does your SL business seem like a good opportunity to you? If the answer is yes, which it sounds like it is, then that's all you have to go on. Focus on the things you can control, and don't worry about the things you can't.

If it makes you feel any better, every viable business that operates in SL adds to LL's financial strength. Success breeds success. Content creators are the ones who give consumers a reason to come to (and stay in) SL. The more of us there are, the better. Compelling content means more entertained residents, which means more business for all of us, including LL, first and foremost. The best way to insure LL's success is to be successful in SL yourself.


If that happens, open a duplicate of your business in that competitor's world. No reason not to.

Anyway, this again is something that all businesses have to deal with. Industries change, competitors emerge all the time. Whether you're in business for yourself or working for someone else, you're always impacted by this in some way. It's just how the world works.


Not sure what your definition of "security" is here, but protecting an IP in SL is the same as protecting it anywhere else. The mistake most people make is they expect LL to jump in and settle IP disputes, which are ultimately are legal cases, well beyond the scope of LL's function as a service provider. It's for courts to settle these things, not private companies.

Run your business like a business, and the answers to these kinds of concerns are fairly self evident.


Obviously, I can't speak to anyone else's experience, but I'm always suprised when people say that. I've found over the past few years hat LL has been nothing but communicative and responsive whenever I've had the need to contact them.

I think the biggest mistake people make is they expect that when they're upset about something that bitching about it here on the forums is the right thing to do. Perhaps these people gain some small temporary satisfaction when they're able to entice others to comiserate with them, but in my experience, publicly bombasting a company (composed of real people) never accomplishes anything real. The way to see that your concerns are addressed is simply to pick up the phone and explain your problem in a friendly, inteligent, positive manner. I've never had problems getting a response from LL when I've done this.


That is a constant problem, yes. However, since an SL business has no overhead, no production costs, etc., this one 'cost of doing business' is relatively minor in my opinion. RL businesses are plagued with much more severe disruptions all the time.


Again, this is true for all businesses. That's why RL industries spend incredible fortunes lobbying politicians, so that when things change, as they inevitably do, they hopefully won't negatively impact concerned industries too much.


That's an issue. No good answer there, I'm afraid. It's a risk.


RL businesses have to deal with thieves, vandals, hackers, etc. The question is is this negative enough to offest the positive of "I love what I do". If the actions of deviants are enough to make you not love it anymore, then you probably shouldn't do it. However, if your love for your business is solid enougn not to let other people shake its foundation out from under you, nothing they do should matter.

Will it always be an annoyance? Unquestionably. Is that annoyance enough of a reason to stay out of business? Only you can answer that.


Same is true in RL. I can buy a 'Rolex' on any street corner in New York for 50 bucks. The real Rolex company still enjoys tremendous success though.

You have all the same options to protect yourself in SL that you have in RL. It's just that most people in SL never persue it properly. They just expect LL to settle it, which again, is not LL's job. If you want to be in business at all (SL or RL), you need to handle legal matters through proper legal channels.


The transfer conduit is you. You may not be able to just magically export your SL stuff to another world at the touch of a button, but there's no reason you can't recreate the same items there (provided of course the other world in question has the proper functionality, which is not really a concern of SL itself).


As a service provider, LL is protected against the actions of its users by the DMCA. As long as they can show a pattern of good faith compliance with copyright laws, and they can demonstrate that they're not actively supporting infringement, they're fine.

I wouldn't worry about this. LL's DMCA compliance policy and history is very straight forward. It's not like they're Napster or Limewire or any of those other companies that have existed at one time or another with the sole purpose of circumventing copyright. That's not what SL's about, and it's pretty easy to show that.


Uh, so stay away from that particular culture?


People leave, people stay. That's true anywhere. Those people aren't you. Whatever they have or haven't done should be of no consequence to you.

In the RL business I ran for 12 years before I finally got out of it to persue my artistic endeavors as a career, I was a sales rep (and eventually a district manager) for a housewares manufacturing comapany. As is the case in the sales industry, most people who entered the business left it fairly quickly. Those of us who had staying power succeeded and made a lot of money. Others who let little bumps in the road disuade them from reaching their goals disappeared. Every time someone quit, the only thing that went through my mind was "Oh well, too bad they didn't have the will to stick it out. More customers for me then. Okay, back to work."

Don't worry about other people's success or lack thereof . Concentrate on your own.


That's a negative? If you really love your business, I woud have expected this to be on the pros list. However, if you don't like dealing with the public, hire someone who does.


Common misconception (assuming you're in the US). Every dollar you earn as a business owner is worth so much more than the same dollar as an employee. Owning a business entitles you to all kinds of tax benefits that employees can't even dream of.

So, you have to pay for your own insurance; so what? As an employee, you're still paying for it, even if you don't see it. First, if the company weren't paying for it, they could pay you the cost of it directly, so it absolutely is coming out of YOUR paycheck, no matter what spin they put on the packaging description. Second, the amount you have to pay in taxes as an employee compared with the amount as a business owner more than makes up the difference of paying for your own benefits.

Plus, there are lots of ways to get in on group rates and other discounts. Many states offer insurance supplements for small business owners. Your local chamber of commerce no doubt has an insurance plan. There are endless possibilities for savings. It just takes a little research.

I'd recommend you pick up a book or two on running a small business to learn about the tax benefits you're entitled to at the very least. Give the local chamber of commerce a call, and see what they recommend for learning material. You'll be amazed at what your dollar is actually worth compared to what you're used to as an employee.


Sounds like a good problem to have. I'd say Lewis's answer is the best way to go, but you can also sell L$ directly to third party businesses that are in the market. I sell to Anshe a lot. Not always the best rate, but it's in the ballpark, and it's fast and convenient.


That sounds more like negative thinking disguised as caution than actual projection. Have you done any real marketing analysis to determine how much you can expect to make?

In any case, again, opening a business is always a risk, but working for someone else is risky too. In whatever job you're in now, you're trusting that your boss is making the right decisions every day to make sure you still have a place to work tomorrow. When you work for yourself, you only have to trust one person, you.


Why not?

I've got 2 companies offering me work right now due in no small part to what I've done in SL. One company is in SL, and the other is in RL (the one I mentioned above).


I can't speak to that too inteligently, I'm afraid. All I can do is take the Lindens' word for it that they're scaling the right way.


Well, I'd imagine you can be more confident in LL's truthfulness than you could be in that of, say, Enron, Adelphia, Worldcom, the US government, etc. Just an educated guess though, since I'm not privy to LL's books.


Yeah, the length of the cons list does appear to carry more weight, but the real question, again, is how strong is your love for your SL business? If it's a source of enjoyment for you, and you have a solid plan to make it financially worthwhile, go for it. Most people can only dream of working for themselves. I don't know what your business is, but if it's already making you $2000 a month on a part time basis, it sounds like a winner. If you believe you have the discipline to run it like a real business, then by all means, do it.

Don't fall victim of someone who talks big. I would seek advice from people actually doing it. Not someone who made a couple swords.

Hiro just attended the SLCC so has a feel good high about SL. All your cons are Very legitimate and should not be looked upon lightly. I laughed as I looked around the convention and saw everyone talking as if SL is now magically repaired and well off.

At any time, LL can product an update that borks your existing scripts.

Keep this in mind.

Chosen,

Great additional comments!




www.oobsoft.com
www.infinitevisionmedia.com

If you think all I do is swords, you haven't done your homework.

I met a lot of great people at the convention. Why are you afraid to say who you really are by hiding behind this alt? Is this something you couldn't say to my face at the convention? Seriously, if you have something to say to me, say it like a normal human being to my face, not an alt. I'm sure you have some intelligent things to say and that you can respond to counter-arguments, so why not?

Anytime they feel like pulling the plug, all the real money you invested goes down the tube too.

LL aren't likely to "feel like pulling the plug" though.

One thing did confuse me about this post - when I logged in I decided to see what OSourcerer was doing for his business but found it's an apparantly dead account - created in Jan 2005 with no feedback, profile picture, or picks. Do people have to hide the fact that they are successful now? *scratches head*

After many years in SL I have learned the hard way to separate forum life from SL life. It is just a business decision.

This may be a too personal question but being who I am this is MY question.....do you have a family, children etc that would also be taking a risk?

Not that I am saying the presence of children should prevent you from doing what you love, even at some risk. But that would be a huge factor for me and my husband when deciding something like this.

No kids now or in the future - personal decision made long ago. Just the two of us.

I have to say that would make the decision just that much easier for me then.

Still many many things to think about..........................man if only *daydreams* imagines a life without bickering, whining, dirt everywhere, huge expenses, loss of freedom.....oh yeah the freedom...........

*shakes self* I'm sorry, what was I saying?

You could look at your life as multiple revenue streams. Of course, as you put more time into one, you have less time for the others.

I'm not sure making SL your *only* revenue stream is a great idea, unless you have others on "standby", so to speak. If there are others sort of on hold that you could switch to if you needed, then why not?

Being the conservative person I am this is what I would do - Yes its extra work but - I would keep the full time job and use the cash intake from SL for mostly if not all savings. do that and keep the full time job and you can retire from both sooner rather then latter

Dan Doyle

This is kind of my thinking, again I just speak for how I personally feel.

My thought process is, I could work and then still have a desire to spend many hours at night in SL. I create when I want, and I won't lie, it is a GREAT paying part time job for me.

Or I can use SL a a full time job and kill my creativity by being forced to DEMAND it of myself.

Kudos to those that don't get the burnt out feeling.

I would strongly recommend against this.

To quote Philip Rosedale from hey keynote at SLCC 2005, "I would love to spend more time in world but my job gets in the way."

Productivity when you go full time doesn't just double or triple, it increases by a factor of 10. No more working for 4 hours then having to sleep. No more feeling burned out at the end of a day and not logging on SL. And I can't imagine how anyone would do basically two full time jobs and have time for a significant other.

Last year I co-founded SLCC, and was one of five primary organizers. For a month, I literally put in every waking moment away from work into the SLCC, the in-world build, getting sponsors, dealing with all sorts of stuff. I barely saw my girlfriend, and the final week I had to wind up taking the whole week off to ensure everything was ready. After a month it was physically draining - it's simply an unsustainable rate.

I'd like to recommend you come up with a business plan before you make the jump. I forgot to mention that before, but it was a critical part of how I did it. Examine market shares of your products, how you want to grow, liabilities, etc. It will bolster your confidence and allow you to examine new ways you can make money.

Hiro I disagree with this point. I run a succesful SL business and work a full time job. I do not get as burnt out as when I worked full time in SL.

What it does for me is keep SL fun. I don't HAVE to create, I can decide to log on, take care of customr service issues and then go socialize if I want.

When I was relying on SL for income. I felt as if I HAD to create and stay on top of the competition. I forced creations and I believe it showed. I create much more, and better stuff when it's by will and not by need. I found myself wasting the day away doing other RL activities during the day and just spending my normal 4-6 hours a night in SL.

After evaluating the situation I figured I may as well work during the day and still spend that same time in SL. Now I am doing 2 things I love to do.

Now with that said through out the day I still do some minor SL tasks, such as respond to IMs, help customers and some marketing stuff. I am lucky I have a job that allows such freedoms. This entitles me to go home, log on tonight and not have to answer a days worth of IM's/request.

Not to mention I found it very frustrating watching the L$ value go up and down. I always had fears the car was falling off the roller-coaster.

Edit- Also I want to add that most the succesful business's I know and well known creators have a full time job as well. Again, this is because it's led by passion and not need.