How do i set up a new business?

How do i set up a new business?
I have been thinking about this for a while, and now want to open my own business.
How do i do this?

What type of business?

Well, I have bumped this thread: /327/ac/274749/1.html

I think most of your questions can be answered in there, be prepared for a long read tho

Identify a skill that you possess (scripting, making textures/clothing, building, etc) that's something you will enjoy doing on an ongoing basis, and then set about doing it. A lot.

That's the very basics of it. If you want to set up a store you need at least a few good-quality items before you open it up. Learn the techniques that your particular business demands, and use them regularly. The more you 'do' the better you get.

Most businesses require a financial injection from their owners to begin with, primarily buying or renting a plot of land or a store, or if you're short on cash at least having a place where you can place an XstreetSL or onrez box to sell on the two main shopping websites for SL.

Don't buy what's called a 'business in a box' in order to start up your business. Items in those are mostly ripped-off or old stolen content and are ten-a-penny across SL, and can always be found for free. You don't want a reputation as a seller of freebies.

If the kind of business you want to start is land speculation, be aware that the financial injection I mentioned in paragraph three up there will need to be considerable.

That said, paragraph 1 is the most important one: your business needs to be something you will ENJOY doing, on an ongoing basis. If you create items, you need to keep creating them. Customers will stop returning to a store that never puts any new items out.

Let's face it. Most of us work in RL to pay the bills. Few of us actively enjoy our jobs. In SL we get the chance to do a 'job' that we DO enjoy. But be aware of one thing: you're probably not going to be able to pay your RL bills with an SL business. Some people DO make enough to do that, but the majority of businesses in SL make enough to cover tier and other SL expenses, and if they're lucky they'll have a little bit left over for fun stuff like shopping. Other businesses just make enough to do the fun stuff, and still have to pay tier out of their own pockets.

The main thing is: pick something you'll enjoy. You don't want your SL job to become something you hate doing.

What Skell said. Unless you have something you made yourself that other people want, whatever it is, there's no point.

While you can get affiliate vendor packages for many popular content creators, essentially becoming a retail outlet for someone else for a commission, basing a business on them is an error -- they may be a handy addition to your own stuff if they go well together in some way, but not otherwise. (I sell plugins for MystiTool. If Mysti had an affiliate vendor for MystiTool itself, I'd post one before you could blink and probably get some 10% more sales of my own stuff for it, even if I didn't get anything from reselling MystiTool itself.) Commissions are typically rather low (10-30%) and will only pay for themselves if the sales volume is sufficiently high, which it won't be, unless your store has at least something of it's own to show off.

'Business in a box' is a plot devised to rid you of your initial investment in favour of mall owners, which results in gigantic commercial wastelands of stuff nobody wants to buy.

That said, experimenting with business in SL is cheap compared to First Life, requires no paperwork or registration, and is good exercise for the brain even if you ultimately fail.

if you have to rely on confused forum posts you've already failed.
if your goal is to make money, rather then to turn something you wanted to do by yourself into a busienss you've already failed.
if all the thougths you've had about this can be summed up with three lines of text you've already failed.
my advice is, seriousy, don't bother.

Oni's just a regular bundle of joy and positive vibe, isn't he?

My advice: Follow Skell's advice. Good stuff there.