New Buisness Name

Hey all,

Just have a few questions about starting a buisness in SL. I enjoy creating, but I am wondering if when I find my real niche, I should get some kind of trademark on what I want my buisness name to be, in the off chance it gets big. The problem I am having, is technically it is for fun, but I have so much time to give to it, that I could in theory give it the work to become a big buisness. If I do something like that, would be better to trademark something from the beginning, or worry at a later date about it when and if it becomes a big deal. With the small buisness I already started, I have already had people trying to tell me that because I didn't start off with a trademark or anything, that it is futile to continue it.

Any ideas/suggestions would be greatly appreciated at this time. While I will always continue to create, am wondering if I should just take what I already have down, and start redevolping things.

I don't think it hurts to treat your SL business like a RL business. For a few rare, talented and hard-working people, it can become just that.

There was a thread some time back from someone whose business name had been copied, and she was worried that *their* Classified was picking up people that were looking for *her* business. The message I took from that thread was that your business name should incorporate your Avatar name, which gives you better grounds for complaint.

Re the Trademark thing; if it's free (I suspect not) then go ahead. But if it's not, and you can do it at a later date, I'd suggest leaving it until your business profits can cover the cost. There are enough start-up costs for a business (even in SL) - buying land, investing your time in making stock and building (or buying) your building(s), setting up your Classifieds, etc etc - that IMO any needless expense at this stage might stretch you too thin (unless you're an SL millionaire already .

In RL I believe two of the most common reasons for small businesses failing are a) Cash flow issues or b) Expanding too much too soon. I think these probably hold true for SL as well.

Your question is a little unclear so I'm going to address it from a couple of different angles.

A trademark is nothing more than a word, phrase, or name that you sell products or services under. You don't need to do anything to "get" a trademark than to select a name for your business, and/or a brand name for your products, and start offering them for sale.

If you are talking about seeking a trademark registration with a government agency outside of LL (such as the United States Patent and Trademark Office), it's hard for me to imagine that this is worth the expense for all except that very small minority of creators in SL who make enough money to support themselves in RL. A government registration gives you some advantages in enforcing your trademark against infringement - in the US, for example, it gives you standing to sue for infringement in federal court - but unless you foresee doing this immediately, there's really no reason to seek a registration at this time.

If you are asking simply for help in choosing a trademark - not for advice about whether you should seek a government registration for that trademark - well, whether something is a good trademark depends upon a whole host of issues including what you are selling, what you think is special about your product, who your intended market is, and on and on. You'll need to tell people something about your plans in order to get advice on that.

Finally, as was mentioned above, there are probably advantages in SL to using your avatar name or a portion of your avatar name in your trademark. This may be more advantageous in SL than it would be in a corresponding RL setting where your name is not guaranteed to be unique and where there are restrictions upon the registration of real-name trademarks.

So I think you should think about what your goals are, what kind of company image you want to project, and whether you anticipate having to protect your business name outside of SL.

I would suggest a catchy business name - something that's easy to remember when people are looking for the LM in their inventories to pass to other people. E.g. Awesome Designs is easy to remember. I don't buy females clothes, or even male clothes, but even I remember that one.

Imo, there's no reason not to change the name of a small business, and good reason to change it.

As for it turning it into a big business, I'll repeat what I said in another thread not long ago (some people didn't agree) - anyone with an average brain can create a successful business in SL, if they have the will to do it.