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Aspiring Business Owner

Atticus Undercity
Registered User
Join date: 19 Aug 2006
Posts: 7
08-20-2006 20:38
Hi, I have been wanting to start a business in my First Life for some time, but being in college makes it difficult currently. I then found out about SL a few days ago and I'm simply amazed by the opportunities provided. The thing that scares me the most is the upfront purchase of land and tier fees. I wanted to know if any business owners (no matter how big or small your company is) would like to talk to me and maybe answer some questions. I'm obviously most interested in the financial aspect of running a business in SL and I understand this is a personal subject, but I'm not asking for specific numbers, but just positve/negatives.

I'm not even totally sure what I would like to buy/sell/host yet and that is also what I would like to talk to people about. If you are interested and can take a few minutes out of your busy schedules to talk to me, I'm in the game at random times or you could e-mail me at [email]RollaPaco1080@sbcglobal.net[/email]

I appreciate any help/tips/etc that people could provide and thank you for reading my request.
Allana Dion
Registered User
Join date: 12 Jul 2005
Posts: 1,230
08-20-2006 21:21
In world jobs like hosting, dancing, etc are not real money makers. Thats just something people do for fun and for pocket change.

There are people who run successful businesses in SL, but success is relative. One person might consider 3000L$ a day on average to be great business while another would call that a bad day.

Building up a business takes time and it's a big process.
First you need a skill, more than one in fact. You need to know how to create something that people want.
Then you have to make it better than anyone else.
The initial costs in starting a business can be high with uploads and land tiers if you choose to own land, space rentals if you choose to go that route, or both.
The big thing you need to recognize is that I personally have never heard of anyone making much money right away. Generally speaking it is a process that takes months of learning, growing in your skill, and building a reputation. Just like in RL, there are no get rich quick schemes that really work. You have to be willing to put in the time and effort and cost to reach any real success.
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Isablan Neva
Mystic
Join date: 27 Nov 2004
Posts: 2,907
08-20-2006 21:45
I'll second everything Allana wrote and add to it....

It took me, from the day I rezzed my first cube and colored it blue, about a year before I was covering my tier through sales. The most important thing that I want to pass on is to make things that you like. Don't sit around figuring out WHAT to make, find the things in SL that you really enjoy. It could be scripted objects, it could be skins, it could be clothes, it could be airplanes. Find what really blows your skirt up and start learning to make the things that you like. Impress yourself first, everyone else second. Do what you enjoy and then figure out how to make money at it.
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http://slurl.com/secondlife/TheBotanicalGardens/207/30/420/
mcgeeb Gupte
Jolie Femme @}-,-'-,---
Join date: 17 Sep 2005
Posts: 1,152
08-20-2006 21:45
I started off renting out vendor stalls and SL exchange/SL Boutique. The Exchange and Boutique don't require anything except commission on each sale. It was a good way to get started with only a few items to sell. I used my first land priced at 512L to open up a store. Once I made enough things I bought some another 1024 of land and recently another 1024 of land. I spend about 20 hours or more a week making clothing and hair. I made a skin and spent about 80 hours on that (took a whole month). For each item, I usually make one design a week and the rest of that time take care of customers (or just chatting with them), keep on eye on vendor rentals, and making boxes for everything. Making boxes for everything seems to take up half of my time. I started about 8 months ago, still getting better at everything. I heard that making things that one enjoys making is a good way to go. I definitely like what I'm doing, except all of the boxes that need be made all of the time.