Questions about buying houses/stores

Damn - coffee on the monitor again.

There was absolutely nothing sarcastic in my response. The honest truth is that to *buy* something like a house or store will take lots of camping because the camping rates are pathetic. And the question about why you were thinking of buying a store so soon was an honest question.

In addition to buying a store, you need to get some land and pay monthly tier.
The best would be explore, find market, learn skills, before looking for a building and land to set a store up.

Getting a building and land isn't the hard part at all, but it takes a huge amount of time and hard work to get known out there and to establish your name.

Camping to save for a building is possible but takes time, camping to pay for tier... nearly impossible.

This.

Welcome to SL and the forums Falkor.

Having had a successful business in SL for about a year; and by successful I mean I turned enough of a profit to support my hair buying habit; I feel I can give a little advice.

Being so new to SL I think your focus should be on simply learning your way around. SL culture is a strange animal. It will help you to understand how things work before you dive into trying to run a business. It's the same in SL as RL as stated above. You have to do some research, find a niche where you can fit and buy or rent the land, etc.

As I am not a creator I opened a used furniture store. It took me a couple of months just to make contacts with creators (good ones who were well known) who would agree to sell me their cast-offs that I could mark up. It also helped that I have a small resale business in RL, so I already had some understanding of how that works. Also my focus was not to make lindens, it was to have fun! I did, and made a wee bit on the side too.

That's not to say you need any experience like that to start a business here, but you will need to at least do some market research and then make very sure what every you are selling is in fact yours to sell. There is a huge problem in SL with content theft; which you may not be aware of as you are so new.

I was in SL a whole year before I even considered a business. My advice to you would be just relax. Have some fun, get to know some people. SL is an amazing place; lots to see and do. Immerse yourself in the culture for a while before you get into the business part. It's a lot of work...which is why my place is now a coffee shop.

My 2 cents.

*LOL* Your monitor must be a mess. D

Not exactly.....he applies that entitlement across the board....regardless of SL age....doesn't really discriminate on that.....so don't get your briefs in a wad.



I had the same question, and generally not a jackass. It's a legitimate question.

You're not going to get coddled from the majority of the forum....nor will you in starting or running a business here or anywhere. Some people took some time out of their day to write up some helpful information for you.....you might get some more information tossed your way if you send out some acknowledgments and thank you's. I've scanned up three times for this particular thread, and don't see a shred of it.

The forum is a shell provided by Linden Labs. There are no Lindens here answering questions. The only ones that are here helping are other SL users and we are not being paid and certainly do not have to answer questions on demand for some asshat that is throwing out insults at us.

Hi, Falkor, welcome to SL and the forums.

You're doing the right thing...posting questions here. But be advised, you may get sarcastic responses, along with the helpful replies. Particularly from our resident troll, Pserendipity. My advice is to ignore them. Pep will never let you have the last word, so don't waste your time trying.

The others are right. It's WAY too soon to start thinking about a business. Look around, meet people, have fun. Find out how land works by renting a small parcel. Learn how to build by making your own house for it.

Forget about camping, it's a waste of time. Bite the bullet and buy some $L with a credit card or PayPal. You don't absolutely NEED money to have fun here, but it does expand the possibilities.

Once you understand land, and how objects and textures work, is plenty of time to decide if you have the creativity and business skills to try making and selling your own content.

Such naivete! It's so sweet.

Pep (I won't disturb your innocence further)

I tried one of those covers you can hang in front of the monitor, but it makes the resolution look bad.

I also have a vinyl cover for my keyboard, but I just cannot type with it on.

So I just have to clean things a lot.

Falkor, welcome to SL, and excuse the hassle that's started here

SL isn't a game where you buy a store and it makes your money gauge increase, like in a city planning game. The only reason to have a store is to display the things you've made.

To earn L$ in-world, you have to create items, or do work, that other people want to pay you for. Remember that the other people are users just like you who have the same limited range of options for getting their L$ - so, probably, you will need to do something so good that it entices them to pay real money into SL.

Doing this is hard work. In fact, in order to be good enough, you'll probably have to do it most or all of your time in SL - and any leftover time will have to be spent on marketing, to get your products noticed. In other words, don't think of it as an approach for earning a few L$ so that you can go off and do what you really want to in SL. For most successful businesses/creators, creating IS what they really wanted to do, and what they do all the time; the money is just a bonus used to pay their land fees and/or some real life bonuses.

That said, also quite a few people who join SL find that they enjoy creating things even though they didn't think they would. So the best bet is to go to a class or sandbox, and see if you enjoy making things. If you do, then it should be natural that you'll go ahead and keep doing it.

Bear in mind that L$ are not like "gold" - the design of SL is that most people will _not_ earn L$ in-world, but will buy them with real money. L$ are how you pay for your SL, rather than having a subscription fee for everyone.

/me is wondering if the OP is even still in the thread? No comments for a while.