How start a business

Hello Everybody,

My name is Arkantos, I have 2 months and half in SL and i think that was a good time to explore the SL world, but i know there's a lot more to explore.

In the last month (or maybe more), i was running a little store in some nice place, the sales are good, but not so much, some weeks are good and some i just can't cover the rent with the sales of my shop.

I think that is time to take a little break and reformulate my business plan. I know that takes time to get succesful doing business in SL and i'm almost a newbie here, but i was thinking that maybe i must get a new land where i can cover something that actually can't do in my current shop: i want a skybox for my workshop.

Is very annoying work in public sandboxs while other avis look you and start to ask you a lot of things. Until now i've worked in my shop using it as workshop too. I guess that must be an interesting show for the customer watch me how i create the products, but in the other hand, i can't let my drafts rezzed in the shop.

Well i would like to know how do you started doing business in SL. I think that there are 2 options:

1. Start with something little that give you small earnings, and with that extra money buy more land and create a bigger business, and repeat that process for years until get your own island hehehe.

2. Do a regular investment and buy a medium land (8192 sqm or more) and create some based rent system, i.e: mini malls, mini condos.


I would like to know your opinions and tips about it. For me the definition of business is do it something that cover your costs and give you some earnings (small or big, no matter). In my particular case, i would like to have some business that let me have "free" land to build my house, my office/workshop and my store. If i take as reference the RL, the logical steps will be: market research, invest developing the business (waiting at least 6 months to start to recover my investment) and of course constant improvement.

What do you think? how can i start? do i invest in lands? mini malls? condos? I know that there are a lot of variables to get succes, but at least i would like to have a reference to start.

Thanks

P.S: I'm looking land for RENT, if any good land baron has a good offer, please send me an IM.

There are 2 things that you need for a successful business:-

1. Products that some people find desirable enough to buy.

2. The products in front of people's eyes.

Whether or not the products are good enough to buy is down to the creator.

Getting the products in front of people who are looking for the types of things you sell, is the main task. You can have a small shop in a mall, or a large shop on its own land, but YOU must get people into it. If you get people in, and the products are desirable enough, they will buy.

Setting up a shop in mall, and hoping that passers-by will buy from it, often doesn't work, because the mall often doesn't do things to get people there. But setting up in a mall, and attracting people in the same way you would if you had your own land, can be successful.

The ways to get people into your shop are to advertise and use the search system. I've never looked at SLExchange, but a lot of people use that to sell their products. Using the search system is easy enough, but you do need to understand a bit about it - even when placing a Classified ad.

Hi Arkantos - I think you have to be prepared to work just as hard at developing a business in SL as you would be in RL. Create a Business Plan and set yourself achieveable objectives and work hard.

You might like to read through a previous thread:

/327/18/231429/1.html

It is rather a long one, but there is good advice , experience and opinions expressed in the postings.

Hi Arkantos. You can create a Business Plan using the viewer:

Menu > Tools > Create > Business Plan

Once you've completed all the steps go to Bug Reporting and select Report Business Plan.

What's the point of stupid posts like that?

Well I can only refer to my own situation, though my goals may differ from yours.

My intentions are not to earn money, though in the end I would be quite happy to make tier in the end. If I don't, I will keep on building anyway because I like to do so. What I did:

1. Get a nice chunk of land (about 7500 m2, rented) for my shop, and a building platform high up. Tier is pretty high if expecting to make it back from selling my products, but i see it more as hobby money

2. Build a nice main store with a few small stores along it, making the parcel as pretty as possible, so people will enjoy being there even when buying nothing.

3. Rent out the smaller stores for 0 linden. That's right, for free, but only to people who have stuff in the same theme as I do. Because there are so many shops at rent in SL, the chance to have my shops rented out is small, and too much a fuzz. By giving away the room for free, my parcel gets more attractive to people, and I don't have to worry about getting renters.

4. Put the land in search, and buy 2 classifieds.

5. Use an advertising network, which puts my product name on a bunch of boards around SL (not the addfarms LOL).

6. Use SLX and OnRez.

7. Rent a small shop at a club, and give prizes at events in that club (hello HoneyBear )

In the future I will try and set out affiliate vendors, those will give the seller 40% or 50% of my revenue when they put it in their shop.

This all considering, I am not having much sales yet, but I see it growing slowly. Very slowly I may add . But the more choice I have in my store, the more people will come back I hope. So I am pretty sure there comes a time that at least part of my tier gets paid for by my sales revenue. Will take a lot of time though, but I have much more plans for the future if it succeeds!

Greetings, Marcel

Not really answering your question but I have a comment on this bit...

Go to a sandbox and:
- rez a cube
- sit on the cube
- change X & Y size values to be 10.0
- change the Z position to be 600
- stand up

Presto chango! A private (or at least semi-private) build floor.

Well probably Slack pretends be funny, but it's just a theory.

Thanks Phil and Deira for your answers, i'm reading (i dont finish yet) the thread that Deira sent me.

There's some point that i'm agree, you must understand how SL works, thats why i always keeping exploring, playing, buying, meeting new people. I think that i passed the 1st step of the "How to start a business 101".

Now i would like to check whats next. I saw that i must expect at least one year of investment for start to receive only profits and dont spend more from my money (change my RL money in lindens) for the business.

I would like to get my own land to have a private space to practice in my creations, but actually i have a shop in a good place (renting the land), and if i get new land that means leave my current shop and start from zero again. I dont know if thats a problem, i read that i never must stop or the competence will kick me, so then i must keep my current shop, what do you think?

I'm paying 500L per week for the space (175 prims and a booth of 98 sqm, maybe that price is a joke for people who actually pay 100000L per week, but for me is a regular expense because it's only for a shop, not house, not skybox. BTW is a good price for a beginner like me? or i'm paying to much?

As most of people said in the other thread, i like to experiment, and i create stuff that i like it, and maybe people will buy it. In this moment my shop is more like a space to show my creations, and if anyone is interested in buy it is ok, if not i'll have to buy more lindens with my RL money

Well the basic question is: it's a good option to get an own land or i must keep the current shop? I know that it's very subjective, but as i said in the first post, i would like to know about your experiences.

Thanks.

For working on things out of sight, if your shop has the prims and permissions, get something that rez's you a sky platform to work on. I know my Mystitool will do this.

Excellent tips Marcel, i was thinking to do something similar (create a mini mall to support the costs of my main shop) but i didnt think in the 0 fee for rent, but yes, you are right.

BTW, how much do you pay of tier for your land? I will be able to spend a little more in a couple of months, i was thinking 20 USD per month as budget, just for fun, in my shop.

I have several shops in malls--small reasonable shops that don't cost me much at all. I do not host mixers or events to attract customers...the only thing I do is post classifieds for each location. Clever key-wording and a precise bit of intro text on the main search will successfully lure customers.

A few tips:

* make sure your text and main graphic are clean, easily understood, and are pinpoint targeted to a specific audience.

* make sure your copy is grammatically correct, without typos and misspellings--if you do not speak English, find someone that does, and make sure the ad sounds good.

* if you are not affluent at design, hire someone who is. A snappy, well-designed logo or ad is enough to attract interested consumers.

* make sure your shop/store/studio looks good. If you are a weak builder, texture artists, or interior designer...hire one. It really does make a difference.

* advertise ALL of your stores and locations. You don't have to throw down thousands of dollars on your ads...as long as they are there, the price doesn't matter as much. If you are in a smaller niche market, you don't have to worry so much about key wording in your ads...if however you are in a saturated market...you may want to throw down a few more Lindens to up the listing of your ad.

Anyway...those are a few tips. Good luck.

I think NCI has a class like that, don't they? About starting businesses or at least related topics?

* * * * *

Personally, I'd say, do what you love doing the most. It's your best shot at success.

If I told anyone what I wanted to do back in 2005, I probably would have been laughed at by any 'business experts' at the time.

No gambling angle, no sex angle, dangerously veering on PG in all respects... the stuffy, stodgy look in both architecture and personal appearance, with technology 150 years out of date...

Live your dream. Do exactly what feels right to you. What other reason is there to be here?

I don't know where you read that, but it simply isn't true. There is no answer to how long it takes for a starting business to cover its ongoing costs, such as tier or rent. It can be done is days, weeks or months. If it takes more than a couple of months, then I would wonder if it will ever cover the costs.

Renting homes out can become profitable in days, but the work is continual (not all day every day). On the other hand, it will often take a month or two for a shop to become profitable, but the work is eventually much less than renting homes outs.

Land isn't expensive, and you can always sell it again if you no longer want it. I have no experience of moving a successful shop, but I'm about to get some, as I will be moving my shop in the not too distant future. I think it can be done without too much loss, especially if both shops run together for a while. The biggest problem I see is losing people's current Picks and LMs, which matter for the All search rankings. Those things didn't matter before the new All search, but they do now. RL search engines handle moves ok, but not SL's All engine.

That's not a bad price for 175 prims. Most small shops don't need that many prims, though...I see stalls advertised all the time with 40-70 prims.

If your shop doesn't need all of your prim allowance, build a simple sky platform right above it, as the others have suggested. Use that as your workshop.

Hello people,

@ Desmond: what is NCI?

@ Lindal and the rest of ppl: Well about your comments regarding put a platform in the sky over my shop, i talked with the land owner and he said me that i can put one of 10x20 mt, fortunately he's very flexible. Now i'll have a place to do my photo sessions and experiments wohooo!.

Arkantos, your ideas (to me) sound very sensible and you have obviously read and thought about SL before you posted.

You've had some good advice from others. My comment is to tell you that I did something similar to what you're thinking about. I bought a relatively small plot of land in a nice sim where I hoped I could expand later if need be.

I started small and, to help cover tier when I bought some more land nearby, I started some residential renting, which helped to cover Tier. After a number of months, I phased out the rentals as the shop was covering Tier on its own. So it's a tactic you could use if you want to buy a larger plot to expand into later, and can afford to subsidise the business in the meantime.

Re renting vs buying - I bought (Mainland) because I have some security that way, I'm not reliant on the landlord staying in SL - although there are some, obviously, who are very reliable. The pain for you will be informing people that might have saved a LM to your shop if you move; but I guess it's better to do that now when you're small. There are LM-giver scripts that you could put in the rented place for a while to redirect people. Or just accept that you'll have lost some customers (but put your new place in your profile so they might find it anyway).

You have probably read already that SL businesses do not often provide more than 'pin money' - if you get more than minimum wage for your efforts in SL you will be doing well but many people (myself included) enjoy the creativity and the fact that others enjoy our products. So if you don't mind all the effort for a part-time job wage, then I wish you all the best.

Thanks Valentino for your comment. Well i'm not pretending to do a big business in SL, i know that i can get more money doing whatever in RL, but at least i would like to cover my expenses and maybe get some symbolic earnings.

I dont like the idea of spend RL money all months paying tiers or rents, that's why i'm looking some way to cover my expenses while i do what i like in SL: build, explore, meet people, experiment.

For example, i have a personal website with my own domain and good host and cost me nothing, why? because actually i have a big account of hosting that i split in small accounts and offer hosting to other persons, that cover my expenses and give me some little earnings. Also my personal website makes money with Adsense. So, i don't have to worry about create a commercial website just for sell. When the money issue is solved you get real freedom (hey that sound like Kiyosaki).

Well i want to apply some similar model to SL. Maybe the rules are different and costs also, but as i said, i dont like the idea of pay monthly for my costs because that can't give me freedom. I'm not asking all free, just some system where LL, the land barons and me could win. That's why i think in the mini malls or mini condos as options (i like the idea of create and manage nice communities).

Maybe someone will say me: hey, you don't need expense RL money in SL: explore and meet people is free, you have free shops for get items, public sandboxes for build and create, and you always can get a few bucks camping...well, i would like more than that, thats why my website is not hosted in some free service with a long subdomain url.

You need money in SL if you want land, upload items for your creations, create groups, put advertisement or just buy some nice item created by other avi. So my first thought was: if you want money and freedom you need your own business, thats why i dont like the idea of work for someone else in SL, enough with my RL job lol.

Sorry by the long post, just wanted to share some thoughts that i had about SL.

Good luck in your business!

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Couple things probably not relevant but to keep in mind for other aspiring business owners.

1) Don't open a casino.

2) Don't open a bank.

3) Don't open a place named "Lolita" anything.

hahaha true, but you forgot:

4) Dont open a "resell BIB" shop full of camping chairs.

This one is terrible advice. They have exactly 5 days to take the money and run. They need to do it fast!

It made me laugh.

NCI = New Citizen Incorperated, a very large group that helps newbies and have alot of classes

search ingame under places for "NCI", at Kuula is a giant class schedule behind the tp point
they are at others aswell but smaller

Thanks Alicia! i'll check it.

I also want to create my sim for newbies

...damn costs.