Wwbna?

Who Will Be the Next Anshe?

Like her or not, Anshe Chung is a SL institution. She built up a hundred thousand dollar buisness from a basic account (her exact words).

So when you feel the urge to whine about the unfairness of SL or that there is nothing to do... just remember Anshe and put your nose to the grindstone.

Afterall, who knows? You could be the next Anshe Chung!

What's so difficult about starting a real SL business is that you pretty much have to be unemployed to have the time to commit to it.

Hmmm...thats a good point. Where did Anshe find the time to build her empire? She was working IRL, I think - as a teacher?

It took money to make money. Anshe had capital to invest to build her empire. She had a little more than 'a basic account', she also had five digits of disposable mad money.

I'll be.

(Actually I'm kidding, everyone knows Shaun Altman will be )

part time, she told me at the SLCC

and there's summer break

Are you sure this is true? I know for fact I've read a post of hers that said she built her wealth up from a $9.99 basic account.

Ok, so what did AC do to generate working capital when she started?

She sold items, i believe. Also she told that when it became possible to use your own animations, that there where very little availible and started to sell those aswell.
But i have no idea how succesfull she was in doing those things.

There can be only one.

-Ghoti

For shame! Are you actually suggesting that in order to become a success in Second Life, you have to be... errr, unsuccessful in real life? And thus some of our biggest SL slackers may in fact be some of our better RL players?

I'm shocked! How dare you hint at the truth!

tip jar

When I first read the title of this thread, I thought Linden Lab had changed the name of another one of Wuvme Kuruna's accounts.

Yes, Anshe has always been at the forefront of innovation. She has an uncanny ability to sniff out ideas that will become major revenue streams.

Here are some major trends she's beaten, and thus, captured above normal market returns:

(1) Animations
(2) Mainland Buying and Selling Land
(3) Sellling L$ for USD $
(4) Online Marketplace (she owns 40% of slexchange)
(5) Land Rentals
and most recently (and perhaps most successful) land deeding and tier payment directly to AnsheCorp.

I'm always very fascinated to see what venture AC will dive into next. She's quite the [virtual] tycoon.

All of these were done before her, she just bought up most of them.

She's more like a large company compared to a smaller more innovative company, the smaller company comes up with a great idea and this idea sells very well, the larger company wants this idea and so they do one of two things or sometimes both, they either buy out the company and absorb them or they copy the smaller companies idea and beat them at their own game with better funds.


1.) Animations: was a 1.4 update and people were popping out animations before her, she started dropping piles of (rather expensive now that I think about them) default poses that I rarely use, but were novel since back then there weren't many animations around compared to now.

2.) Mainland Selling and buying of land: Was around for a while obviously, she was the first to do it enmass with a few others at her side, because of that land prices went up 3x what they were before and it's been hard for newer players to get a home since then until LL made their land for the landless program.

3.) Selling L$: Invented by GoM and IGE more or less though it's been done in EQ and other games like that for years beforehand, I didn't even know she had an L$ business.

4.)Online Marketplace: She owns 40%? I thought SLexchange turned her down constantly, well anyways, she didn't invent it and still doesn't own most of it, but it's amazing how far throwing money at someone can get you.

5.) Land Rentals: Started with the advent of basic accounts in 1.2 when certain players came in without the ability to own land, thus this idea was thought up, Anshe started her stuff later I believe (May 04 ish) and due to her extensive ownership of land, it could be said she dominates the land rental market, but really what's that saying?

The point of that was saying that ultimately she hasn't innovated anything in SL besides the oncoming of extensive and unquenchable greed. Really it's not hard to do what Anshe did, as long as you have the money to throw at the game, and enough of a corporate soul to care more about money than people, then you could buy up an empire of sims pretty easily.

Hopifully SL will only have to deal with one Anshe Chung, thank you.

I can say, in a post, and I will right here, that I built up my business using a couple of magic beans and fairy dust. That doesn't make it any more true.

Selling items? Her first land purchases back in the day (Before you were here, Jamie) were well over US$10,000 in 'investment'.

She did not make US $10,000 selling 'items' or 'animations'. NOBODY did back then. When she began, the L$ -> US$ exchanges were barely doing this kind of volume.

You're talking about making 2.5 MILLION Linden in the time from when she signed on to the time when she made her first land purchases. Which amounts to about a million linden a month (which by the way was more than GOM or IGE even held at that point) selling 'items and animations'.

This simply did not happen. If so, nearly EVERYONE around at the time would have had to have purchased something (an item or animation) from Anshe.

I don't know WHY she's saying that she used no RL capital, there's nothing SHAMEFUL in using RL capital, but to say that she built her empire in a vacuum using no external money?

The tier charges, even initially, simply would not allow that. If so, she would have had to have had the most successful business in SL *BEFORE* she got into land trading. Beating out all of the other content producers single handedly.

You can rewrite history if you want, Jamie, but in March of last year, when she began, that simply was not the environment in SL.

I don't know why suddenly its *bad* to make a 1000% or more return on an invenstment; and I dont know why now Anshe is trying to say she didn't make any sort of capital investment.

This is not an insult or demeaning. It is simply saying that nobody can pull a rabbit out of their hat without actually going out and buying a rabbit in the first place.

Which is what Bill Gates did back in the eighties and early nineties. And stifled innovation in favor of uniformity. Best post in the thread.

Escorting?

Many "successful" "women" in SL started off as working girls.

Actually, she did escort and teach SL Sex Education classes. She is indeed very industrious and hard working.

Like her or not, she is an amazing woman.

Yes.. And she sold things too.. In fact she used to rent at my old old old Mall in Cowell.. hehehe.. I've got a picture

Anshe is a fascinating figure, now doubt about it. Love her or despise her, she has a singular drive for success that is admirable. My personal feelings for her aside, I do think she has built an incredible empire for herself. Her ability to use whatever means necessary to achieve the end she seeks has served her well. It is true there is nothing innovative about what she has done - she just has a great ability to parlay her success in one area into dominating another, which is certainly a fast route to success. The end is important, not the means, right?

Heh heh ok that was funny

actually i specifically remember one 'version' of anshe's start was that she was coming off some success in another online game, and was using the selling of assets there to fund her initial *MASSIVE* land purchases from LL here.

Alot of the 'content' things happened afterwards, especially via buying out other people. The initial 'anshe' was a land baron and one who used some pretty nasty tactics back in the day.

whether that, or any of the other 'versions' of anshe's start are actually true, are rather debatable... Generally anshe uses which ever one is the most convenient one at the time/place its being explained. I also know there was significant RL investment on the part of the guy i'm assuming is her husband. That came abit later though after anshe had started up with the first few sim purchases, etc.

Odds are she built it up.

You can't buy your way into the business, that's not how it works.