SL Business Success Stories

hehe. "Bubbled" in the UK means that you exposed Marcel (not in the physical sense )

When I was down the pit we didn't have school...

To the OP:

- what kind of business is it?
Scripting/Selling things I have scripted, custom script work.
I also sell a picture voting contest system that is very popular.

- how long have you been doing it?
6 months approx

- do you have helpers? if so how many?
None

- do you feel it is possible to make a living entirely in SL with this business?
Yes definitely

Does it make a profit? Yes a substantial one.

Edscapes I was on indeed, Deck does not ring a bell here. I estimated the time I have my shop by looking at my rezz day, and I know I did not start right away. Believe it or not, I sold Biabs in the beginning, what did I know
After some inventory checks, my first Sampireun Design sign is from 21 November 2007, so indeed I am getting close to a year!

18 months ago was when SL went through a mass influx of new accounts due to all the media hype and positive advertising of SL combined with the free basic account. At that time there were thousands of new residents who didn’t know their arse from their elbow and business peaked for allot of people who were supplying goods to these noobs. In the last 18 months the majority of those 'bandwagon jumpers' quit, the small percentage that stayed learned SL and now create their own things rather than buying, or alternatively they create their own things to sell.

The massive influx of new residents stemmed mid 2007 and things settled down.

Allot of people I know were falsely encouraged to grow and expand their business in 2007, they saw good sales in all industries, invested money in land, and invested time in building up their bussinesses. Even simple basic products were selling well because there were so many new people who did not have a clue.

Now were are approaching the end of 2008.

All of those rubbish, mediocre and even good business's and products are failing now. In my experience those people with great and fantastic products are still excelling and going from strength to strength. Compared to 18 months ago competition is now massive and the quality of products has improved across the board. Those people who were taking advantage of all the new residents 18 months ago should have spent the last year raising their game, creating new and innovative products that are beyond the ability of the average user to create. Improving upon their skills so they are beyond that of the average content creator. That is the key to long term survival in SL.

And, unfortunately, ruins all of SL's promises and makes the economy inherently unstable.

I joined up in the boom era Oct 06 because my eldest son, now 23, told me about it.I could barely use a computer so the learning curve was steep.I have an addictive personality plus RL staff,so I was giving it 10 to 12 hrs a day.That Christmas I unwrapped "Photoshop for dummies" and I have been hooked ever since.
My business,18 months old,just relocated after 2 previous locations is bar furniture,textures and fun stuff.
For the last 16 months I have been in profit,got next years annual accounted for,so things are OK.
Don't think I could make a RL living though,my living standard is high and I am still a novice at this game.

I started selling a few odds and ends in 2005 with the hope of eventually covering tier on the original SL Botanical Gardens (which used to be in Federal.) By the end of 2005 I was making around 9k L a month (woohoo!) I got the idea for a skybox business in January 2006 when SL got point to point teleporting (we used to have to teleport to telehubs and then fly to our destinations.) Being able to teleport directly was going to have some serious privacy implications because you no longer would have those couple of seconds of seeing a green dot flying in your direction before someone was on your doorstep. As we were debating PtP here on the forums one day I started to type a post about how skyboxes were about to become a necessity of life and sales would go through the roof. As I was typing, I realized I was giving away a great business opportunity, deleted my post and opened Sky Dreams 3 weeks later.

By the end of 2006 I was making enough to cover tier on a sim and had saved up enough to afford the upfront purchase of the sim, so I jumped in. In December 2006 I opened the new store on The Botanical Gardens sim. Business grew all through 2007 and has only posted moderate gains in 2008 as I've not brought a whole lot of new product out. I have 4 new skyboxes almost ready to roll out, though, and after that I'm buckling down to learn Poser and move more into animations since I'm out of prims.

I have to say that I like that story - I really do. Especially the bit where you changed your mind about posting. Great stuff!

Plus it's interesting to finally know what Telehubs were for.

It's a strange thing, but I never really had any intention of starting a SL business. I just made things that I wanted, then opened a shop behind my house in Caledon, hoping to make tier. Mirabile dictu, I sold a few pennyfarthings, even a few sets of Victorian Activewear (I mean, really, I never thought anyone would be interested in late 19th century athletic attire!).

None of those became HUGE sellers, but I admit the notion of people buying my toys appealed to my vanity. Seeing someone fly by in an ornithopter I built was like hearing them say "Good job! This is fun!".

So, I just kept making things almost randomly--clothing, steampunk aircraft, bicycles, shoes, whatever took my fancy. Some sold, some didn't. It was all fun, but I never made that much. I still remember IMing a friend excitedly and telling him "I just made my first 10,000 Linden!". To me, it meant I could buy OTHER people's fun things.

Then, one day, about a year ago, I decided I wanted a Victorian riding horse. There were some fantastic horses already on the market, but I had a particular sort of look in mind. And like my other products, I put the horse out for sale, fairly inexpensively (it was a simple horse).

People in Second Life like horses, I found. They really, really like horses. Fortunately, I like fuzzy animals in general, so I was happy to make more. Then I learnt to sculpt.

Sculpted horses sold even better, probably due to the unsurprising fact that they looked better. I tore the scripts apart and spent a month or so fixing sillyness, studied animal motion photographs (God bless Muybridge), changed the gaits, and put the new horses on the market. Sales picked up.

I bought a new computer with the money, as well as Photoshop and Zbrush. I spent a few months learning the new programs (well, STARTING to learn. The more I learn, the less I know, really). I applied my new capabilities to new horses, and started to branch into other cute animals (fishes, antelopes, badgers, chickens, what have you).

SL now pays for my groceries, as well as the occasional "mad money" (such as the RL carbon fibre bicycle I bought. Whoooosh!)

Could it become a full time income? I don't know. Probably not from just SL, but in a way, my RL is changing due to SL. This fall, I went back to college to study Media Arts Technology and Graphic Design. I want to be able to do this sort of thing full time--perhaps not in our mad virtual world, but I'm happy to create anywhere. I've already gotten a few RL commissions (low pay, but I'm starting out), so who knows what the future may bring?

Another excellent story, and it's marvellous to hear how SL businesses are paying for significant RL things. I hope we'll hear some more such stories here. I'm enjoying them.

My two sites pretty much break even after land fees and buying new items. Any money that is left over after tier is paid goes toward paying myself back for the land I had to buy.

Are my sites successful? I would say that financially they are not terribly successful. In terms of visitor response and overall personal satisfaction I would say they are a success. They've been going strong for two years through good times and bad and I've never once considered selling or closing down.

My businesses are successful to me because they make me happy and give me an enjoyable playing experience.

I create stuff mainly texture related and art.
Some people say its good but few pay me.
Sometimes I gotten few custom jobs here and there,
but most of them I have gotten made me feel stressed out often was
paid probably less then I would I got few years back camping.
I don't really have energy for business end of SL, I just
want to create stuff that I enjoy creating.
I have several ideas like a interactive house but I don't have skills nor
the friends who would assist me on project like that.
I tried to do few things and it failed or I got discouraged.
I am debating now on just giving up.
There is too many other people doing CGI related things there isn't
much demand for what I do.
I didn't respond because I am not successful, I enjoy what I do most of time but it
often makes me sometimes sad that I can barely give away my products and see
others who spend probably less effort on creating products who do whole lot
better then I am but they are good with business end.
I don't have energy to do both.
Yet I have had friends who helped me with by giving really nice older version of Photoshop that would cost me more then I have, helped with numerous times with tier, land and few patient one's that have spent numerous times listening, being supportive and helping me figure out things
that I am grateful for this is truly priceless.
Yet I am sad that after all these years I have little else to
show for it and I still struggle with numerous content things because I have just
to ill to fully rezz how to do it in this laggy brain of mine.
Even my clothes don't seem to do that well even though that I make better quality then few places that are well known that I have shopped at who often sell designs that I have purchased felt disgusted with that I personally would consider sloppy and not good enough if I had made them to sell.
Oh well if that is what others want, I have no control over that.
Yet maybe what I have to show for is my designs are improving and real friends instead of Linden dollars and notoriety.

As the proud owner of several of Virrginia Tombola's sculpted ridable horses, I'm very glad to know she's doing well with it! Well done, M'Lady!

we also started sl on the recommendation of a friend who watched a program about how the japanese were joining sl in droves...

we started off thinking we could rent out mall space to these droves... had a club... which paid for the land .. but the shops stayed empty for the most part..

while waiting for the shops to fill, i started making stuff.. and found i enjoyed it a lot... spent frustrated month or so learning sculpties.. loved making textures.. and we learned how to animate because we were getting sick and tired of what was out there...

slowly the shop got bigger as i made more stuff..it creeped outwards... we filled the sim.. got rid of the club even... as it was just a time gobbler...
the shop now pays for 2 ppls membership... 1 normal SIM and 2 voids.. and we take money out each month.. not yet enough to live on but enough for quite a bit of mad money (paid for 2 new computers, too) (although we reckon if we moved out of japan.. we could possibly survive) and enough left over to start some nesteggs

we now have enough animations that very soon we are opening an animation shop on one of the voids

theres just the 2 of us.. partners in RL as well as SL... ^^ which helps a lot.

Its possible to make money in SL, its a lot of hard work.. sometimes frustrating... but for me.. the enjoyment i get out of creating .. thats the biggie... creating things.. terraforming.. ooo i love that..

we have the advantage of being multilingual and do benifit quite a bit from the japanese and spanish market..

what has also changed in our lives .. we dont go clubbing anymore.. we dont go out on weekends and blow several tens of thousands of yen on parties and karaoke.. hence the clothes shopping, makeup, gasoline and parking fine expenses have also gone down ... hehe. its not just what you make in SL but what you save in RL because if it that counts as well.

our friends and exfriends do think we are strange.. but then again we dont really see them enough to worry about that.

I certainly didn't start out with the intention of running a business in SL. I spent my first couple of months in SL, back in early-mid 2007, exploring, poking around and finding out what sorts of things SL had to offer. I loved wearing non-human avatars but hadn't really seen any quad kitty avatars that I liked much. So I taught myself basic building skills and started trying to create the cat avatar I wanted to wear. It took a good few months to get that first quad kitty looking halfway decent, and even before it was finished I had total strangers coming up to me asking me if it was for sale, or where they could get one. This convinced me that it might be saleable if ever I got it completed to my satisfaction. And at around this time, a friend said to me that if ever I wanted to set up a store she had some land that I was welcome to use.

So I set up the first incarnation of my store, Metamorphoses, on a platform up in the air over my friend's land. As well as my first kitty avatar, I put a few other items I'd made while working out how to build stuff in SL - a couple of avatars and accessories. I had the vague idea that maybe it'd be nice to aim to make enough sales to cover my in-world spending money, so that I wouldn't have to buy L$ to go shopping thereafter. To my amazement, the cat avatars sold well from the very first day. In the first month of business I made enough profit to buy my own plot of land to put the store on, plus a year's premium membership. Over the next few months my sales went up and up. The profits from the first few months went toward more land, as I expanded my holdings and built the Tethys Station Marine Park around the store. While I did so, I worked on my building and scripting skills, adding a bunch of other avatars and gadgets to my lineup, and working on a new improved cat avatar that would be a *lot* more sophisticated than the original cat. I released the Ultra Cat in March 08, and my sales pretty much doubled straight away.

Since that time, I've been consistently cashing out around US$300 - 400 per month. There are minor variations, but it seems fairly steady at that rate. I suspect that if I put a lot more time into the business I could probably increase that to something approaching a liveable income, but right now I can't, as I'm a grad student and I have to spend *some* time on my study. *laugh* Also, I don't ever want it to get to the point where it's not fun, where I'm working on it out of a sense of obligation rather than for the pleasure of creating stuff. I have a good balance now - I don't have a big income in RL so the money I get from my business is a delightful bonus, which I've spent on anything from comics to glass beads to cool electronic gadgets. I'm currently saving up my store profits for a dishwasher, something I've wanted for ages. And as well as having this lovely extra spending money, I also have the joy of doing something I love to earn it. That's about perfect, for me; and I'd hate to screw it up by trying to push it too hard.

By my standards, my business is a huge success. I surpassed my original aim (make enough to cover SL expenses and give me some in-world pocket money) in the first month, and it's done far better than I ever imagined it would. And it's still fun! I can still goof off and not work on stuff for a week or two and not feel guilty; but when I do create some new thing and put it in the store, hordes of enthusiastic customers drown me in compliments. It's the best of all possible business worlds, for me. It'd be great if I were able to earn a full time income from it, but not at the cost of stripping the joy out of it for me. I'll keep it just the way it is, I think.

Good thread! thanks for relating your experiences..

I have been hesistant to ever tell people how things are going with the various businesses I have tried and a couple i still run because it always seems to jinx it lol but here goes anyway..

Firstly yes is possible to make a RL level income.. I think you should be prepared to adopt a bit of a starving artist mentality if you are considering going it full time, but it is 100% there. The interesting thing is that while by US standards you may make more working at Mcdonalds, on a global scale could be considered a decent income. The difference is that you may actually enjoy making stuff for SL more than flipping burgers.

To push the income into a higher bracket I think requires considerable investment, collaboration and time that may be more than a single person is capable of. There is a gamble involved of course and getting lucky is part of it for some people. The real question should be: Are you more likely to make a million in SL or as a professional poker player?

Anyway on to my little saga..

I was born up the upswing of the bubble I guess.. saw alot of growth and flood of new players like other postings have said. I bounced around buying and selling land for a while but almost right off the bat I started making sculpties... I had used Blender years ago and was very happy when I found I could use it to make stuff.

I started making landscaping items.. rocks.. trees and some animals selling ok, at the time i was extatic the fact that I was almost covering tier Then got into some custom work making a variety of things with varying levels of success from slingo machine bases (gambling was legal back then) to ladies boots. I did a couple open space sims with sculpties (very low prim back then). The custom work was lucritive in SL terms, but I found that over all stress, time commitment, and enjoyment levels were not worth it.

That was the end of chapter one, chapter 2 is all about the mermaids----<

One of the custom jobs I did evolved into one of my more succesfull products, the wonderful mermaid tails that Aden asked make for her. I put alot of work into the product itself and the marketing, trying to develop a bit of a story around the release of the outfits at Sirens. It worked out well for a long, but ultimately I was not able to keep up with the Mer-market which is pretty dynamic with some very good designers now and so moved on to other things, leaving the development of this line to some friends in Nantucket.

Ok the next big thing (for me anyway) was teaching people how to make sculpties, which was very popular and drove traffic through the roof, but in the end was not as profitable as I had hoped as a time/value proposition.. besides I got really jealous when folks who I were teaching were making such cool sculpties lol! Also I was not making anything new myself, so I moved all the education stuff out-world to my blog, And have focused on making new stuff.

The next chapter if you are still following this is all about my current business 'Sculpties Galore' All through teaching sculpties and before that even I would get alot of requests for sculpties .. do you have this or that? This is what led me to start selling all my unused sculpties for people to use and have fun building and selling thier own stuff with. This has turned out great.

So in a nutshell that is my SL story, over all I think it was a success but I am always trying to move it along even more.

For folks starting a business I would offer a few tips, most importantly like others have said, and i will rephrase, in SL long term succes depends on creativity and your sense of enjoyment about the work itself. SL is a very visual medium, and people are looking to have fun and be in beautiful environments, so any products that are great looking or very fun will stand a good chance of success. Marketing and promotion of a product or line is very hard work if it's to be done properly, and if the product is not a great one it makes it all that much harder. The last bit of advice is patience.. patience to make your stuff as perfect as it can be, and patience with the market to not tear something down before it has had a chance for success. Something that I have only recently learned within myself is the patience to plan and see it through.

My experience in SL has been varied, centered around sculpties but I have had forays into several themes or communities. In past I have thought about trying to focus on one thing but now I realize I will never be able to so I try to be flexible and make good business decisions while moving forwards without forsakeing some of the good ideas that I have had in past.

-why

And that really is priceless and true success imo.