Successful businesses

I was wondering if someone could tell me what the more successful business are and where they are located. Being new I am pretty much clueless. I am just doing some research comparing the average run of the mill SL business/store with those that are obviously raking it in. Plus, I would like to visit the more popular shops and do some shopping

edit: In all categories, it don't matter what they are.

Please define "successful" and we might be able to help you.

Are we talking total sales? if so, what value in monthly sales makes it a success?

Or do you mean net profits, once all costs are deducted? Again, the same.

Or units sold?

Or success because they have the coolest stuff in SL, but are giving it away for free?

Help us to help you...

I consider my business successful because I enjoy doing it, I meet people from around the world, and I made enough my first week in business to pay this month's tier. To me, that is all the success I need to be happy with my SL.

In his defense, I'd say you are just being difficult. We can easily throw him a few bones of companies that are popular and profitable. Landon, people on SL forums like to tease the word 'successful' until it makes them happy...ignore their games. (sorry guys, it's true).

* Abranimation
* Second Skin Labs
* Textures R Us (TRU)
* YEP Sculptie Furniture
* Maximum Minimum
* Creeve Town and Steam Forge

Those are few places to start with.

You can also check out my studios: although I do not make a 'killing' because my products are very niche, I still make USD profit every month after I 'pay the bills.' I think my company is a great example of professional design and layout. You will also get a chance to see a level of detail you don't often see it other builds (which I think is important).

My company is Glowbox Designs--below are two SLURLS (links from Web to SL location):

Glowbox Designs in Fucosa: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Fucosa/239.583/157.584
Glowbox Designs on Silicon Island: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Silicon%20Island/228.527/105.862

Money can be made other ways as well, especially by talented content creators. Not only do we make money on our product, but a few of us *really* rake in the money by doing freelance building--getting subcontracted out to do builds, usually for real life companies, scores the most dough possible (IMO). In these cases, we are often paid real world wages, bypassing SL altogether through Paypal.

Have fun! If you have any questions, IM me in-world any time.

TIP: if you plan on creating a business, make sure your product and storefront are quality. If you don't know how to 3d model or texture, and plan to build it all yourself, I suggest you start practicing...bigtime! If you want to jump right in with high quality, bypass the learning curve by hiring talented builders and designers to make your company and product for you. But remember, in the end, *you* are the one running the business and making it all happen...and that takes a lot of discipline and effort.

Check out things like Abranimations (animations) or ... what's the name of Chip Midnight's skin company? Heh you can ask him, he frequents the forums.

Or Stroker's "Xcite" line of naughty-bits, also there are some land barons that do pretty well with private estates *grin* and also Lilybeth's Textures R Us...

Clothing is a great business too, especially men's where there isn't a lot of intense competition, and also sculptie design does pretty well.

Bottom line, to do well here expect to work your tail off and keep doing it.

Arriving in SL to make money is sort of like arriving in a foreign country with the intent to make it big.

It's 100% possible. But unless you have mad sk1llz you are more likely than not gonna end up broke on the beach. It's the skill that sets the frontrunners apart. That, and great timing (i.e. being here before you).

Forgive me for being so candid, but it's a lot harder to break into biz nowadays. It can be done! But no money for nothing and no chicks for free. Well, no money for nothing at least...

I think it's a good question, and at the same time one that's hard to answer. Top of the line businesses in Second Life seem to offer something that at least is *perceived* as being unique, that something is something people want, and they top that off with professionalism--to wit, their shops are easy to find and not unpleasing to the eye, their products WORK, and in the event that they don't they will answer IMs/notecards.

Personally speaking, I think I'm at the lower end of "successful" in SL--I've never paid rent out of pocket after the first week, and a little over a year later I pay for my groceries (though hardly my mortgage) with SL income. I just like to fiddle, and about six months ago, I decided to take an honest look at my creative strengths/weaknesses and concentrate on the things that people seemed to like the most (for me, it was sculpts and more specifically horses). Perhaps non-coincidentally, they were the items I enjoyed making the most.

It's been said before, but there are many, much easier ways of making money than in SL. You have to enjoy it, or you'll just be causing yourself aggravation. But if you enjoy creation and running a business, it's a pleasant way of spending a few hours a days--and the income helps justify that time

I would also look at the classifieds on the main website. Any business that can pay $380,000 Lindens for a week's worth of advertising, can't be doing very bad.

Ok, here's my picks:

Alyssa Bijoux Jewelry...she makes the best!
RFyre for amazing gothic clothes
DK's
DE Designs
Rebel Hope Designs
BareRose HQ
Lavish Style
Here Comes Trouble, HCT, for eyes
Dejavu Designs
Woodshed, Lok's Low Prim Furniture and AE Industries for furniture
Bobbysocks for great leather clothes
D2TK
Nyte'N'Day
Gurl 6
Panache
Celestial Studios for skins
Nymphetamine, Paeoti Pomeray's excellent clothing!
LIL SLurgis, see HD Pomeray for the best motorcycles in SL!
Frangipiani Designs
Blaze
Hearts Desire
Nocturnal Threads

Personally I think it is harder to tell in SL because you never really know what RL back up, ie: wonga is available.You can have an island with fantastic stuff being financed totally from a very large pot in RL.Lets face it this game is a flash in the pan in terms of longevity itself.There must be loads of good break even places here and even ones that do better but I would be amazed if there were any million pound outfits here earned only from this game.Most real life businesses are closed within 3 years ,it would be easy to finance a big place here for ever and not make a penny just for fun.There are plenty of ego places here that operate for fun, people like to pose and why not?I have owned and run a highly successful non computer type outlet in RL for over 20 years but only been here for 18 months.It takes time and effort.That said you can be up and running here for peanuts so go for it but don't judge a book by it's cover.Blot climbs down from his pulpit and adjusts his halo

Don't forget Texture Arts, and Nokia aren't those your companies?
oh and Daring Designs...the best 2006 prims wings evar!

Well, since SL business don`t announce their incomes this is pretty impossible question to answer. We don`t have facts.

All people here can do is speculate and give their idea of a "successful" business, which looks like lists based on their personal shopping preferences.

You can not judge "success" by the amount of SIMs someone owns, or how much, or little, they paid for a classified. I know of one business in particular who pays for a sim out of their pocket, and another one who recently bought a very expensive classified ad to be on the front page, again, out of their own pocket.

There are not a lot of businesses "raking it in." I personally would say anyone making $4K usd and up is "raking it in". There is an economy statistics page somewhere, I don`t have the link handy.

QFT

If success is based on profits, then my place is one (in my sig).

I don't see any sigs. Maybe it is in an option under User CP? I will check the control panel in a few minutes.

Thanks for a lot of the replies. I was asking the question because I haven't been in SL a month as of yet and didn't know how to go about finding out, or even if there was a way, which businesses were the most successful in terms of profit as well as the more highly recommended resident sites. The highest form of success in my opinion is having a large customer base that swears by your products because of the treatment they receive, layout of the store or any number of other reasons. I don't necessarily consider being successful just enjoying running it if that was the case I would be perfectly happy running in the red. Being a RL Business owner I love very much what I do but I didn't consider myself a success until I was able to grow and provide myself and family with sufficient income to pay the bills and enjoy life without financial worry.

I guess another way to ask the question is which stores in any and all categories do you recommend and why? I have visited some pretty shabby places in SL since I have been here and found out the hard way that traffic doesn't equate to success in anyway here! I want to visit the finer places that are proven and been around a long while, another good indicator of being successful. As well as shopping at them I also want to compare and contrast the highly recommended, successful businesses against the not so successful. I just want to see what sort of layout that residents of SL prefer and what to avoid. I want to see how it is done right so that if I do decide to run a business in SL I will at least have that knowledge but that won't be for some time as I am spending my time teaching in SL right now.

Definitely.


I rarely shop in SL but if I ever feel like being a consumer I always stop by Gritty Kitty.


This is a common misconception many people have. And as you found it, it certaintly is not true...for various reasons.

Oddly enough nobody mentioned Xcite, they're quite successful by most measures of success.

What about Bits & Bobs, Craig Altman's stuff?

*Every* club has his dances. I've not gone to any club that doesn't have either a Slow, or Tango, or Ballroom... And every other person has his more umm, intimate poses.

Sexy Jesse's.... the other dances every club has.... Salsa's.... etc.

Sine Wave.... Every other person seems to have Sine Wave dances, and now, Sine Wave poles

Barefoot Designs for casual menswear, office furniture, ceiling fans and just a nice place to wander around in. There are areas you can just sit and relax at too.

True North Designs is a store complex with furniture,animations, light fixtures, some men's jewelry, women's clothing and jewelry, gift items. There is a great beach to to take a break on or go up to the nature park and sit by the waterfall.

Sine Wave has wonderful dance animations. Take your time to try out all the dances, it can take a while.

Amour Amusement has some great park rides, I love the bumper cars and the mini-race track.

Red Rock Mesa on Turtle Island has a wonderful selection of Native American artwork and goods there. They also host concerts by in-world muscians of every genre. You can paddle a canoe through the stream in the sim too.

Ramos Designs is another really good furniture store that has expanded to sell houses too. There are other shops there too and are fun to check out.

sfdesigns has great men's clothing and you can see actual outfits on the models that are usually there in the store. Like the womens side, there is a good size selection of shoes.

You might want to take the 'SL Consumer Skills' class. I did when I first came, it was informative and helpful.

The Ginsberg Art Gallery has a wide range of artwork there. This is a large setup with two connected buildings. I still have my eye on at least 4 or 5 pictures,lol.

Just remember to use the zoom in with your camera feature. You'll quickly learn to notice shoddy workmanship versus high quality and attention to detail. I try different keywords in Search and you just never know what great place you'll find.

Yes, signatures are turned off by default. You have to enable them in your CP.

Sorry about that. My store is Prim Savers (low prim furniture) and it provides an rl livelihood, so it's financially successful.

It depends a great deal on what you mean by successful.

If you mean success in terms of profit, then probably the most successful businesses are Linden Labs themselves, followed by the MDCs, like Rivers Run Red and Electric Sheep. They don't typically have stores in world because they make their big profits by selling to other RL businesses.

Beyond that, the land traders are often quite financially successful. Anshe Chung is the most well-known but she's an MDC now as well as a land trader.

Individual content businesses of course can be very financially successful too (like Phil's), but many of those are driven more by the business owner's own enjoyment of the business, and some simply have the goal of "tier and shopping" (ie, making enough money to have content freedom in Second Life without investing real money) rather than cashing out a final profit. (This is especially the case because cashing out your profits makes you a business for RL tax purposes, and thus requires you to fill in business-type returns and lots of other unpleasant things.)

What is an MDC?

Metaverse Development Company. A company that sells SL representation services (building, consultancy, etc) to other RL businesses.

Breaks out the SL version of the Devil's Dictionary:


MDC n, acronym,

1. 'something vaguely corporate and important-sounding'

2. A small group of regular SL users that have figured out how to sell their sandbox playtime for huge gobs of corporate cash.

Usually their creations are fleeting phenomenae, as corporations have yet to figure out that people won't flock in great number to what is essentially a virtual, abandoned, 30,000 USD billboard ad.




Usage: "Scammer McFly was banned for griefing four times, then formed an MDC to grief entire corporations using their own marketing staff."

Michael, I wasn't meaning to come across as difficult by my follow-up questions. I was merely trying to make the point that there are many forms of success, and, before we can answer the question asked, we needed to know what the OP meant (i.e. what the exact question was).

By the definitions given, I would also suggest that the Hosoi Ichiba (where I work) is a business success. Costs (including salaries) are more than covered, the owner makes an income out of it (though not enough to give up her day job), and our customer base pay lots of compliments and keep coming back whenever we have new products out. During the so-called "downturn" in SL we have managed to keep our sales high and continue to grow them.

For us, the most important definition is that the employees are all having fun, and our customers and other visitors really seem to enjoy our products in the sense that they improve the quality of people's SL world. Everything else is gravy.