Totally Free Land For New Business

Really I just wanted to post this somewhere that it would get some conversation going but you can pretend I have a question if you like. What do you think of this idea?

I've decided to offer totally free 1024sqm mainland parcels with 234 prims to people starting new businesses. What's the catch? Here's the catch! Your rent will be paid in one unique copy/mod/transfer build per week. In other words if you make shoes you can pay me in shoes. If you make cars you can pay me in cars.

Obviously I'm going to resell your stuff probably as copy/mod or transfer only or something and maybe some of it will accidentally leak out as copy/mod/transfer freebies but that's the price for TOTALLY FREE RENT!

To see the parcels we have available just search in All for "NinjaLand 1024" without quotes. When you find a parcel you like make sure it's owned by Supreme Flock of Land Ninjas because sometimes the search is slow to update. As you can see I own about 100 of these things and I've never visited most of them so if you have a special request, like you want one by a road or something then I pretty much won't be able to help but you should be able to find something good.

Contact Elanthius Flagstaff to take part in this amazing, revolutionary offer.

Thank you but i prefer to pay rent

Imogen

OMG sweat shops !!

Hey, it's creative!!! Might even catch on.........it's not any worse than struggling for rent (tier).

What if your build is very bad or not sellable?

A randomly resized box is likely to be unique.

You're going to be using your judgement to determine whether someone has given you something worth the rent, right?

so wait.... i can open a shop there for free, but you get full perms on the stuff i sell that YOU can now sell in the next booth?

try again.

What if the renter wants to open an escort service?

you win, again! BRAVO!

Not all the stuff, just one thing per week of your choosing. You would totally keep ownership of everything you make and do on the parcel same as any normal rental.

It's not a bad idea for a startup.

Right, I'll play it by ear of course but there will have to be some sort of assessment to see whether the object is worth the rent or not. If you think about it I only need to be able to make about L$200 off the thing EVER in order to more or less break even. So the standards don't need to be too high.

He gets ONE copy a week. You get all the rest........seems fair to me.

"Here's the catch! Your rent will be paid in one unique copy/mod/transfer build per week."

But he probably does get the "pick of the litter". I still say it's creative.....actually quite well thought out. If you are good, you won't have much trouble competing with your landlord. After all, he only has one to to your however many you create. For someone who's having issues with meeting rent, it sounds like a deal to me.

And that's coming from someone who makes it her purpose in life to NOT to make a dime in this game. LOL

Yeah Brenda wins again.

One free 15 mins session? Will that work? LOL

basically then, i would not be able to sell my own product because you would be underselling that same product elsewhere.

i'll do it, but i won't promise the item i give you to sell will be of quality. in fact, it is certain that it will consist of nothing more than a warped prim shape with a LL texture on it... one which i will also sell in my store, so as to adhere to the rules of the agreement.

if he has mod/copy/transfer rights, he can sell as many as he wants to rez.... not limited to just one.

But it's still only one item. Sure if you only have a few different items it may be an issue, but it's worth the risk in some cases. It's a different idea at least.

Okay.......but you are good. You'll make better ones. You know the technique.

It's still a reasonable idea. If you cannot compete with one, single item in your offerings you most likely cannot compete at anything for sale in SL. Though you will not have the luxury of slacking off......you will need to produce weekly.

I won't diss the idea...it's better than a lot I've heard in SL.

i'm not dissing it, i'm trying to wrap my mind around it. as the landowner giving away rent spots, it's a great deal. i'm not certain it's a great deal for the vendor.

if anyone tries this, i'd like to know if it boosts your sales overall.

yup, sweatshop!!

What if one lacks the time to make one thing per week? o_O Mini-flaw?

"freeze, eject, ban"

Well, my expectation is that people will come to me who already have 3 or 4 things they made that they want to try selling. Then after 3 or 4 weeks with me they're likely to move on to a larger parcel or just paying regular rent or maybe buy some land. So it's not like you'd be grinding to churn out prim hair for the rest of your life against your will.

But you know, it's always tough for the landlord and the renter when it happens but if you can't pay rent...

Interesting and controversial. Honestly I see it as... trouble, for Elanthius though.



Let's say you get 65 eager applicants.

So now you've got a 195/mo expense on the books for... 65 new items a week.

Let's say it takes a mere five minutes to offer each for sale. That might include SLExchange listing, or placing in a vendor, maybe taking a piccy, writing a description - all after rezzing the thing and seeing what it is about.

5 x 65 = 325 minutes or about 5 to 6 hours of work a week. We are talking 25 hours of work a month, all on you. At say 23 USD/hr which is near the US national average income - the time alone each month is worth nearly 600 dollars.

So there's 800 bucks a month worth of tier and time effort invested. For just one region's worth of people doing this. Bleah.

And of course, as everybody knows: it sure doesn't take just five minutes to market something. More like half an hour if you are quick and slick at it.

* * * * *

Alright, so there are some obvious shortcuts. Don't even bother with the noob junk; grab the top 10%.

Well, that will run you smack into the problem a friend of mine ran into, trying to do something similar in a co-op environment. The new talent suddenly makes enough to cover not just 1024m or whatever, but can pay for their own whole region inside of 2 or 3 months. And leaves the moment they are worth anything.

I think the situation would devolve down into a large pool of 'meh' builders - those that aren't good enough to break away - pretty fast.

Elanthius, if you try it make sure to have a great exit strategy.

Way too many naysayers in the forums.......I say go for it. I think it will work well for you. Just make sure you get the word out to the folks looking for places to sell their wares. I was not kidding when I said the idea is better than a lot I've read on similar services.

Good luck.

In addition to the product, I would also ask for a no-modify notecard from the renter stating they are giving you full resell permissions on the product. Could help prevent a DCMA filing further down the road.