Experience in buying inworld business

Hey folks...what time is it?
( sorry quoting 80s dance track lyrics ...see if you can guess them? )

anyhoo onto more serious questions.

Ok..Ive been approached or rather ive responded to an advert for the sale of an in world business ( and items ) Now I must stress I have yet to master the skill of creating squat in PS7 and i am at the earlt stages of tutorials..I know my way around it but still learning alpha channels etc..so anyway i add this as the store/items are made in photoshop and I cannot rely on the sellers older items to keep me a SL living without me introducing new stuff.

So the sale was agreed...all his/her items templates, textures, bundles in the store at the moment all out on display, I have seen the sales info of lindens sold to 3rd party linden buyers and over 5K have been sold since July 2004.

And I have seen the account history info also showing regular sales but it doesnt say what item so I guess ill have to trust the person that the items sold are indeed the same as teh ones I am thinking of buying.

I have been offered full rights to the in world textures, bundles and primmed stuff..and the original templates for PS7 so I can play about with them...learn from them etc.

Anyway. asking price was 1300USD . They arent playing SL anymore...started a RL business and wont have the time to devote to it. The store was on teh bottom of the list regards to that particular product type but i was told when they released new tproducts the traffic went sky high. ( of course... I wont be for a while so I had to look at it worse case scenario ) they have some items they havent released into the store yet but wouldnt let me have them???? Said I could buy them ontop of the agreed sale amount after Id seen them I could buy them individualy for 10USD each

I offered 1000USD for the lot in the store with full rights and all the original PS templates too.

Was refused originaly...then agreed soon after.

I dont have much money and I dont have any brilliant skills either yet...working on them but as you know its a massive time commitment to learn PS ...and the items in question altho nice I feel are starting to be outdated and replaced with more upto date versions.

I wish I could go into it more but I dont want to offend the person in question...this is their talent and no doubt her pride & joy.

anyway...question is this.

Has ANY-ONE got any experience is this kinda thing?

I dont understand why they cant just get on with their RL and just rely on the sales of their stock as it is?
I own a texture store and know they will continue to sell regardless of me being there...I even asked them this question but got no reply.

I am a very skeptical person by my very nature.

I am feeling until and assuming I can create something that resembles the products they have made..I will be relying on the sales of their old stock...but at the same time...i would give ANYTHING to get my hands on some PS templates for hair so I can see how ppl make them..what tools they use...i know alpha channels are important...God im so frustrated...I just want a little piece of pride

So my desire is to learn from their work..modify it...copy it...play with it..market it better...( they only had it out in 1 store I would have them in vendors all over SL ) and hopefuly pick up where they left off in time but 1000 USD is such a lot of money.

So the question is both moral and technical.

Should I concentrate on building my own success? If so is ther any-one kind enough to donate some old and unwanted PS templates on hair for me to play around with? Just so I can see what colors...brushes...how many layers...etc?

Or is this infact common place? Do lots of people sell/buy in world business for this kinda money? Ive heard of land being sold..

The person in question may be just dumping her old stock and then creating a new account and starting a new store with her upto date stuff for all I know?

What would you do guys? In my shoes? I work from home part time...2 hours a day telesales as I suffer M.E and I dont have much ££££ but I could stretch to this...is it wrong to buy others skills & talents? even if its to learn from etc?

All I would want is to ensure I got my money back and to make the business grow but after looking at the latest hair styles out I feel the stuff I would be buying is sorta being replaced now..primmed curly hair etc...I am no fashion dictator in SL...not up with the 'ins & outs' but having just seen Lost Therians latest hair style I kinda cringed and thought ' what am i doing??? I cannot compete with that!'



Im confused...i was turned down and i put it to bed...then they wrote this morning saying ' ok ill take the 1K USD for the rights to everything in the store' and now I am not so sure I want it.

Question is.. is this normal practice..is the price reasonable...am I being insane? lol

Thanks in advance for reading my ramblings

LillyBeth

Depends if you can use them.

Personally, I'd be very carefull and /do the math/. US$1000 is a lot of cash to shell out for an inworld business, make sure you can make it back within 3 months, make sure you have time to allocate sufficiently to promotion and getting new products/stock.

Something you may want to consider is going into a partnership with someone who is experienced with content creation in the area your going into, and get them to update stock while you handle administrative/promotional aspects.

-Adam

1K USD is a lot of money.
Roughly L$250,000.

In order to make that back in, say 6 months, you will have to sell for a net profit of L$1350 per day, 7 days a week. You will also have other expenses, like mall rentals, marketing, land fees for your own stores and so on.

Also, if you feel that the stock your are buying is getting outdated, it may be hard to sell it in the quantities you need to be profitable.

I would be very careful if I were you. Make sure that you will be able to get the money back in a relatively short amount of time. Take into consideration the current development of the market. Customers wants the latest fads, not yesterday's fashion. You've been here for over a year. You should have some grasp of where the market is heading, what is popular, and what is not.

Also, how can you be sure that this creator isnt selling the stock to others than you? Imagine finding yourself selling the exact same items as 5 others do.

Another way to look at it, as you mention, is as a learning experience, but if you work on it a little, I'm sure you can get your hands on some PS hair templates at a fraction of the cost. Creators are often willing to share their secrets. If you can convince them that you will not be duplicating their items, but use it to learn from, I think you will be able to get your hands on some, maybe even for free. It's a matter of friendship and trust. I've found that in general, creators doesn't mind competition, as long as it develops the market further. We learn from each other, and improve on each others ideas to create better and better products all the time. The constant hunt for the 'perfect' product is what creating in SL is all about, if you ask me. Copycats hardly ever makes it, but if you can improve an exisiting products, you have struck gold (until someone improves on you again ).

Yeah your right...this person was getting greedy and the comment about multiple sales...OMG i nvr thought of that!!!! Any-one could sell copies of the same item to several ppl then open a new acct and start over new biz new product range blah blah.

I dont know this person and it would be wrong to assume the worst but its too much money to be naive. Fact is ppl do scam & rip other ppl off and its so easy to do in a virtual world were ppl live at the other end of the RL world! I wouldnt have a leg to stand on.

No...i will do things my way..no pride in selling other ppl's talent anyway. Thats just a means to an end. I want to say ' I did this! '

I envy those of you who had photoshop exp or do it profesionaly..it must be fab to create in world stuff and see ppl wearing it and to actualy make RL money for your skills! wow..dont ever take that for granted...seriously...its a gift and one Ive personaly wanted for a long time...There etc..

Yes I am a year old but only actualy started playing SL daily about 6 mths ago. Was stuck in There.com for a long time ( miss buggies & the tracks as SL's physics engine sucks )

Thanks for the advise guys...I was in 2 minds but I am going to decline. Its not the 1st time they have tried to sell their items individualy and in bundles to others under the title ' start up your own business' so to be still able to offer me the whole stock now..sounds odd as Id of though at least 'some' of those items would of been sold to other players from earier 'sales' so I strongly suspect I would be buying stuff already sold in bits to other ppl.

Hate not to trust ppl but in this case its too much money not to.



Thanks again!

I wouldn't touch it.

For clothes, get Chip Midnight's free advanced templates from the forums here.
If hair is essential to you, spend a few Lindens (not US$) on buying hair you like, and examine it really closely. You should be able to see how it is made. I've nver done it, but I'd try using the magic wand tool on some photos of real hair against a colored background to put transparency between the strands. If that doesn't work, try wiping multi-dot brushes across a transparent plate, then cut out bits and put them on spiral prims. Once the penny begins to drop, it'll all seem simple and you'll kick yourself again and again for the money you wasted.

Youll need to save with alpha in tga format. Early versions of PS7 (at least on the Mac) were broken and could not handle targas with alpha. If you got this version youll never succeed. You don't need to upgrade, if you search the web you'll find they issued a replacement targa plugin that fixed the problem. I did that and it started working.

You mention evidence of 5k turnover since July 2004. I do hope thats US$ otherwise you're dead in the water at that buying price. Think of 250L$ as 1US$.

My advice is, don't. Do it alone. If you really can't get alpha to work, IM me. There is a knack, at least on the Mac, but I cant put it into a simple sentence. Its not quite what you expect. If you find your own way of creating a hair texture, it'll look more distinctive anyway.

But feel free to ignore me. There are others here MUCH more knowledgeable than I am on this.

Don't touch it.

You won't be able to update the range.

And $1,300 US! That's £650+.

I fully agree, don't do it.!!

If you must make an investment, then it should be time in developing the skills you need to build a similarly successful business.

Remember also, that you won't be buying that person's "next idea", so unless you can make a similarly successful business from your own vision and creativity, it would be money that is almost certain to down the drain.

My 2c

/esc

Personaly ithink you'd make a much better ingame investment by paying employees to develop things you can sell rather that buying a business without employees. (taking into account the type of business you're talking about is all about creative development in the long run)

$1000 USD is a lot. When I started my first RL Business I started it with $300 USD and I made 70K USD the first year, net.

I agree that you should think twice. You listed a lot of negatives and risks, and remember that you need to build all of those risks into the price.

Before buying a business, you should do a worse-case and middle-case analysis of sales and expenses over the next 12 months. Normally I would say a longer time frame, but 12 months in an unpredictable and changing environment like SL is a LONG time. That said, getting your money back in 3 months net-of-expenses may be a little aggressive -- the seller would be foolish to sell for that low (but if you can do it, and feel confident in the returns, then go for it)

Have you examined the market for that particular product category carefully, who the leaders are, what the competitive environment looks like, and how people typically market in that category?

If you do build your model, be realistic about sales and marketing expenses - they may continue to go up as it becomes harder to reach people in an increasingly noisy commercial environment.

People typically pay a premium for profitable growth, they will pay a reasonable multiple for stable revenue (sales/turnover) streams, and they will discount heavily declining revenue streams.

Unless you are totally committed to being an SL entrepreneur, and just need some products to get you going, I would conserve your capital and spend it either on an opportunity with less risk, or use it over a longer period of time getting yourself set up step by step.

If you really want a good template to work from, you might be able to buy a "work for hire" template (i.e. you buy the rights) of a particular product type from a good designer for less money.

I would say the main players in the hair market are L'il One, and Lost Therian. See how what you are buying compares to them.

An old saying that comes to mind... "Don't ever gamble what you cannot afford to lose".

Sophisticated "risk-analysis" apart, what really concerns me was the up-front declaration "I don't have much money". i.e. This is a person with no capital to lose on a business risk, and who may later suffer in real life for being swayed by clever "business talk".

The only counter for that would be an absolute and total conviction that the risk was worth taking... but in that case, this thread would never have been started.

/esc

Jesus H!

Ppl make a REAL HUGE living from the game|?????????????????????????


Thats NOT fair BOO HOO!!!

God what I would GIVE to be able to make a living and enjoy doing it!

Of course it can never be seen as a long term career can it. But WOW 70K?

thats blown me away.

I am a very successful sales and marketing manager in RL I was emplyed as BP Fuels national sales manager but M.E struck and I have only just got back into working from home...just a bit of telephone sales but it pays well..but I find it dull

Anyway...Ive been banging on about me learning Photoshop and oh..before I forget...if there is anyone out there who wants a REALLY good & continiuous source of photoshop training without having to scan the net for tutorials that dont cover the A-B of the program...I found something called ASAP ( thats good marketing! the name ) stands for As Simple As Photoshop.

You can download it and it walks you through the whole program without going too deep or showing you how to do the same thing in 20 different ways. It has both written with photos AND a video option on the same page so I read the instructions...do it..then watch the small Video clip to make sure I did it right.

I have tried so many various online training and tutorials but they could never cover the whole photoshop works and some talked like you should already know how to do ABC to get to XYZ.

This is all sub catagoriszed from the interface & working area tools etc and goes onto layers, channels etc..Im just on layers now and WOW i LOVE that program!!!...I love it to bits! but it does seem a little over bearing at times with its sheer power and options.

Anyway...its called ASAP. You can download it for $19.99 or get the CD too.

But theres a free trial were you learn the first 11 lessons on the tools and options...as soon as I learnt them in an hour I just went ahead and downloaded it! ( I've been doing the odd tutorials for a year and they all vary in detail plus I would come away with the finished product but have NO idea how to do it again..ASAP gives you the materials to work with and you can go back and do the same lesson over & over again...each lesson lasts from 2 minutes to 15 so it doesnt leave you exhausted and confused! lol bite sized lessons are the key I think )

Heres the link ( and NO im not an afiliate I make nothing from this )
http://www.topshareware.com/As-Simple-As-Photoshop-download-5760.htm


Thanks for all your advise. I upset the person in question by posting this in the forums and I have to let it go now I still would love to buy their unwanted templates and hair just so I can learn from them but I found some hair textures in my inventory what SL give you when you join, and from what I can see they just look like wooly lumps of material or maybe a few brush strokes *transparent* Still...doesnt mean I can just go in there & do it!

I love Lost Therians hair...its wild.

I am making enough lindens so not to buy any from my texture store...I have good biz sense just lack the creative talent..so thats my next move!

Many Thanks again for all your advise.

Pretty sure he's refering to a business outside of SL.

However, anshe claims to have made 100K USD net in SecondLife trading land.

Whether this is true or not remains to be seen.

Didnt see the RL bit lol