SL Stock Exchange

Hey I was wondering if anybody else has seen SL's first stock exchange it only has one company listed as of right now but could this be a feasible venture. If so could it become mainstream? Check it out.
http://www.slsolutions.org

Really, really, REALLY old news.

When the trading platform is owned by the ONLY company allowed to trade on it... fishy.

I see now it's called the "Metaverse Stock Exchange." Yeah, right. It's still ONE company, and you have to prove to THEM, the ONE company, why you should be "invited" to trade on THEIR market.

Bleh.

Edit: P.S. This looks SOOOO much like an ad by an alt it ain't funny. Registered THIS month -- their FIRST post about "SL's FIRST stock exchange"?

Yep, old news. Our 6 month aniversery is coming up soon in fact. Like I said 6 months ago, we're STILL here if and when those who were uncomfortable with the concept of SL investments are prepared to embrace it. 6 years from now I suspect I'll be replying to another of your negative posts with the same information on a different timescale.



I'd love to chat with you (or anyone) about listing your virtual company.



Yes, I confess, I do want to keep the platform as safe as possible for virtual investors. I know standards can be boring and maybe not cause the market to develop at "metaverse speed", but yes I do have a few.



Nope, sorry, not my alt. I don't post on web forums as multiple people. Is it possible that someone out there could be interested in something you're not? Were you aware that we sold off almost half a million shares of Cyberland between our IPO and secondary share offer? Your lack of interest in SL investments doesn't represent a universal lack of interest.

Why so paranoid that anyone posting about the MSE is my alt? Do you often post as alts? My alts are Flash Bergman and Sparky Kennedy.. who are yours?

Could you list them? I would very much like my company listed, but I would like to see a published standard that I have to meet. I know I am not there, but I would like to try and achive them.

Heh. If your around 6 years from now, I'd go public with a real public corporation.

Rolls eyes... What possable good can something like this serve and to whom ?

Yes, the complete manual (which includes listing standards) will be published on the site fairly soon. By this I don't mean a few days and maybe not even a few weeks, but please keep an eye out. Right now I'm selecting fellow stock exchange directors (I've found two interested people so far, hoping for a few more) to run the market with me. Once that list of people is finalized, we'll finalize the manual together and get it up on the site for viewing.

As far as listing them HERE on this forum though, sorry but no. I'm not really interested in going through a big thing on the SL forum where a bunch of uninterested parties thrash and nitpick at our operating proceedures for enjoyment. For an excellent example of why this would be a waste of time, please see the first response to this thread above.

Unfortunately that kind of behavior is the standard on this forum, which in my opinion makes the forum itself rather unproductive and useless for most constructive purposes. We'd much rather run our business from our own site and communicate directly with interested parties via our own web forum.

Hmm.

There are many in-depth answers to this question already, so it is kind of pointless to rehash them all. If you're interested in learning more about what publicly held virtual companies can do for Second Life as a whole, the best avenue would be a forum search.

If I had a bit more nerve, I'd consider taking West Trade Imports public.

Why?

The infusion of cash would (theoretically) allow me to buy a number of sims immediately, with which to launch some very high end residential islands.

As it is, I'll have enough money for the first island soon enough, and... well... I'm not quite keen on answering to stockholders if I can keep the whole pie by waiting just a bit.

Mmmm, whole pie.



As it was, though... I managed to find an angel investor, and while I won't reveal all terms let's just say she did make a good financial investment.

Over the short term it looks like I'll have paid back her loan of land tier by 'more than a factor of two' is all I dare say - within 90 days. Turns out that even beats Ginko's returns, though it was a limited investment and was kind of a short-time, one-time thing.

A stock market could do the same for other folk, who didn't have my luck of finding an investor.

The only real concern (save fraud, and I won't go there) is that a stock market might become a victim of its own success someday. I could easily see 'buy/sell stock' simply become part of the Second Life interface, if it really took off.

If someone has a business plan that they think is viable in SL and requires capital investment, I suggest that they first seriously consider getting a private venture capitalist to invest, before opening their books up to the sort of public scrutiny that a proper "public" market would demand. Without the "transaction costs" of maintaining a properly disclosed public market, the private investor can channel more of the investment funds to your business and less to himself for "management costs."

A private capital investor can provide essential privacy and confidentiality regarding your business model, your capital structure, your other investors and your products and services still in development. Private venture capitalists can also provide valuable business counsel and networking, putting the entrepreneur in touch with others who are privately working on complementary projects. They also provide a valuable service of telling the over-confident or underprepared visionary: "You have an attractive vision. But it won't work as a business until you do A, B and C. Do those and come back and we'll talk further."

Most public investors at all sophisticated in investing will insist on seeing some significant investment of capital by private venture capitalists in a company before it goes public. This reassures them that there is some substance to the business and its management.

Excellent points! I've had many conversations about exactly this since launching MSE and IPOing Cyberland. I've been hoping that some sort of VC firm(s) would evolve to bridge the gap between good concepts and the point where virtual companies really -should- be considering an IPO on MSE at all. It hasn't seemed like anyone who's engaged in the theoretical conversation with me has really wanted to take the leap and start up their own VC firm though. Has such a firm(s) evolved, or are we still purely in the realm of the conceptual here?

If it has, could you please tell me where/how to find it/them? I'd really love to meet the operators. If not, should we read this post to mean that YOU could possibly be the one to bring a VC concept to SL?

I think that venture capitalism goes on all the time, but on more of a microeconomic level.

A couple areas have been 'natural' for it - malls, for instance. I've seen several cases where a mall owner would let in many small new entrepreneurs without asking for rent, to launch the mall.

Then, once things 'got going', allow the ones that could pay rent to stay, thus making the mall worth visiting. In short order, the mall is worth more than the sum of its parts, and is sold as an income generating business worth far more than the land it's on.

I know of other cases of 'synergy' - where perhaps no money trades hands, but it 'just makes sense' to have a spoon seller offer his wares in an ice cream store, so to speak. The concept is sooo 1990's, but yes there are real benefits sometimes.

And as far as taking a company 'public' in SL goes - I'm surprised that more people don't. I hear the 'bankruptcy protection' just can't be beat...

Shaun, that's what you told me six months ago when Cyberland launched and I contacted you for information on listing my own company. You said details "were coming" and that they would be "very strict." I never heard from you again, sold off my Cyberland shares and decided to just watch and wait. My initial response to youre thread, which you called "standard" for these forums, was actually based on past experiences with you, with Cyberland, and your inability to deliver the information you promised.

Hey I may be new but I'm here to stay. I'm an entrepreneur inRL and was poking around to see what I could find out. Just doing some market research.

Aaron, what's this www.simshares.com thing going to be then?

Some kind of stock exchange?

Details are still coming, and will still be very strict. Sorry, but you may have noted that it has taken longer to find MSE officers/directors than I'd initially hoped. Strange I know, given that it's basically an open invitation to apply and MSE equity is part of the deal, but that HAS been the case. I've finally found a couple of forward thinking individuals who I'll be happy calling partners and as I said, I hope to find a couple more.

Who knows, maybe it will take this long times two. Hopefully not, but if it does, that's how it will have to be. I'm more interested in doing this the right way than the fast way, and the RIGHT way is to have multiple community members from multiple segments of the community involved, period. Getting that involvement is going to take however long it takes.

Regarding your initial response to this thread, it is standard for this forum. Please pick any random thread to view and you will probably see many other examples which are similar to your fine work here. You should know this though, as often as you post.

This type of synergy is really different from what I refer to though. Suppose that you and 5 other people have an idea to <insert great idea here>, which could alter virtual life as we know it or something. But your idea requires 3 sims to start, scaling quickly to 30. What I was asking was if a VC type organization exists yet to cater to things like this.



I'm shocked that it isn't a fad yet myself. I expected to see an average of 1 new market per month hehe.

It may be that there are not that many business models requiring pooled capital.

Combining 3 sims, for example, if it were profitable requires very little real capital.

One sim requires about $1,000 down plus $2400 per year (that is US dollars to buy and maintain a private island). Times three, that is just a shade over $10,000. For a real capitalist, that is pocket change, far too small to bear the transaction costs of dealing with partners and paying management fees.

If an investment of $10,000 could earn a reliable 25% or better anual return over five years, we'd see it being made by individuals. In fact, we do see it being made by real estate developers who buy, zone, develop and resell or rent theme residential sims.

If a penniless individual has a killer idea that could be developed with $10,000 capital in SL, they may be well advised to find a capitalist who can fund her without publicity. Publicity may be good for some, but in a realm where ideas are easily copied, it may be unwise to share the idea beyond the extent absolutely necessary to get funded. For that, just knowing the right individual and being trustworthy may be enough.

I agree, that 10,000 USD is pocket change for RL business.

However, few RL investors would be looking to get into a market where the largest business couldn't even muster a quarter million dollars annually (yet).

Thus not even having enough total funds to cover typical personal salaries of a first world startup team.



If, however, you briefly consider SL as a tiny, tiny developing nation (not accurate, but just humour me for a moment) - micro investments make sense.

It's sensible risk analysis. By allowing people to make tiny moves, establish strategies that work - and then take them 'big time'.

Lastly - I think there are only two things that distinguish sharp businessmen from rich, sharp businessmen. A dash of vision, and - as they call it in certain parts of the world - 'cohones'.

You should set up in a damage zone to make it interesting...but make the possible benefit to players worth the risk. This would make it more interesting unlike investing is in real life.

In all seriousness, the only trustworthy stock exchange will be owned and run by Lindens...ESPECIALLY since you could end up making 100.00-200.00 in real money on this. Otherwise this is like a potential SL S&L!

-S. Pow

This assessment ignores the reality that most businesses are not immediately profitable. In fact, most will fail. It is good to spread risk around, if the downside of also spreading reward around is acceptable. I do agree that VC is a better and more natural first step than IPO though, even for the right type of business.

I would rather see them succeeding or failing on the small scale you've mentioned above on private capital and then go to market when they've proven their concept and are ready to scale to say 30 sims or 40 sims. Of course this requires a VC type operation to actually exist.

Let me also add that my market is a bit ahead of its time. I don't expect the full benefits of it to the enterprise to become aparent until such a time as SL is a much better platform for the development of interactive and immersive 3D content. When the Sony grid or the Blizzard grid open, I think it will finally "click" for most people exactly what this is useful for. Of course by that time it may be too late for mere residents to pool together and compete in this arena at all anyhow. I'm glad that I was able to provide a tool to make it more financally possible though.

All of that said, however, you are missing the other side of this equation entirely. On that side are the "average" residents, for whom I also developed my market. These are people who may lack the time, inclination, skill, and/or capital to operate a large scale virtual enterprise. Many of these people, however, are interested in investing in the future of Second Life through investing in these large scale enterprises and owning a stake in them. My market is intended for these residents to come together with large scale enterprise operators, if/when desired.

What is a damage zone?



You shouldn't engage in resident:resident commerce with any business that you aren't entirely comfortable with. In this instance I would encourage you NOT to use MSE, but to feel free to watch and wait if you're interested in the concept. We'll still be there if and when you're more comfortable.