What type of business would be successful?

[Penny Rau]

I have land that I built a club on, and it has been 3 weeks and still no employees or customers.  I posted a classified ad for employees, and I posted another ad for the club itself.  I even posted some events just to get noticed, and nobody showed up.  I remember back in 2007, I built a club and had people showing up the day I started building, and within a week, it was packed.  Why isn't my club working this time and what kind of business would be more successful?

 

I do understand that there are so many clubs to choose from that mine is being drowned in the search engine, but it was no different in 2007.  What are people interested in now? What do the people want?

[Charolotte Caxton]

From what I have read, 2006 2007 was like SL heyday, it was really popular or something, so there were probably more people.

I spend most of my time exploring shopping sims, so I would say people want stuff. Well made, fun, avatar enhancing stuff.

[Kaylan Draken]

I have a club too and visit lot of live events and noticed all clubs has less visitors.
Dont know the reason, maybe less ppl in SL or at other time online then me (Europe)  or because its holiday season and people prefer to stay outside more. One of my friends has a shop that sells animations and she told business still goes well, so if you good at makeing animations you can try that.

[Darren Scorpio]

The club scene is over saturated, there are literally thousands of clubs in SL and concurrency has gone down (55K last time I checked), so basically there are a lot of clubs and less people to go to them. Try something different, be innovative.

[Rolig Loon]

I don't follow the action in clubs much, but as far as I have ever been able to tell, most clubs are losing propositions.  Until you get a large, steady following, don't expect to be making money.  Unless you get really lucky and rent on a sim with a lot of traffic, I suspect that you have to work hard to build that following.  Work your Friends list, hire experienced employees who have deep Friends lists -- especially a couple of DJs with groupies, and sink some money into contests.

On the broader question of what kinds of business are more successful, I think it's generally businesses run by people who create their own products and are in world, focused on the business, almost full time.  I know a few people who can make a decent RL income from their SL work, but not many.  You can probably earn more money for the same amount of effort with a RL business.  My own measure of success is having a consistent positive cash flow --- earning more than I spend.  So long as my SL business isn't a drain on my RL bank account, I'm happy.  If you can live with that standard, you don't have to spend a lot of your in-world hours working.

[Poenald Palen]

I heard land makes money.

You can also see best sellers on the marketplace.secondlife.com site, the official marketplace of SL. But, keep in mind that the results are price weighted (well, tey used to be otherwise 0L$ items would rule) and that there are many who do not shop at the marketplace at all, but many do use it at the very least to see items and a bunch buy there.

I can't help with specific catagories other than whatever is hip, new and trending seems to make it up...ok,not all things but some. Also, problem solving items appear there. Examples are obvious. Kissing animation and object that lets avatars kiss each other. That is popular seems to always be around the top hundred or so best sellers. Plus, avatar accessories becuase everyone has one! Uh, the people who started the big foot modelled into the shoe craze made a million dollars in sales! They work in a team and are serious about it. They charge a lot and where the original (I think) feet in the shoe people so they solved a problem, provided something avatar based and it was something peolple buy over and over and collect! Plus, they are visable and selectable, so others may see someone wearing them and then click on them and edit them to see the creators name, press profile and find the store! They basically half way advertise themselves lol. People must have asked about the feet and so on, so new tech may also be a good idea.

But, yeah....I heard land is where you make the money. Not sure about what exactly, though I imagine there is books about this.

[Rolig Loon]

Hah. With mainland selling at L$1 per sq m, it's almost impossible to make much of a living (if any) in real estate. There's loads of abandoned land around at that price, so you're competing with Linden Lab if you try to get any more than that. If you put a lot of effort into keeping rental areas fully occupied, you might be able to make a decent living that way. The turnover in rental property is high on most sims, though, so it's hard to get full occupancy. There too, you're competing in a market where there's a lot of vacant rental property, so you can't make rental rates very high.

[chloe782]

Well I tried loads of things of businesses to try and be dictation I have finally found a business that is successful and I devote all my time into it ever heard of kittycats?they are a very successful bussines loads of my friends own kittycat bussineses and they are all successful.