Second Life Businesses  

There are almost unlimited ways to start a business in Second Life. Below are the four of the most popular.

Real Estate.

This is where the real money is made in Second Life. People in Second Life are looking for somewhere for the avaitar to sleep when they go to bed! Seriously though Second Life gives people the chance to own or rent property that they could never afford in real life. As in Real life there two options

Rent property.

This involves buying land and putting property on it (if you’re good at building you can do this yourself, pay someone to build it for you or what most do is buy off the shelf properties). Obviously you have to make sure that you charge your tenants more than Linden labs charges you for the land fee (this is the monthly fee Linden charges landowners based on size of land). This can be quite profitable and the cost of land in Second Life is going up as demand is outstripping supply so if you want to get out after a period of time you should be able to sell the land at a profit.

Sell Land.

You can buy land and sell it with or without property. Quite often people will buy the land and sell it at around cost. They will make money by charging extra on the month tier fee (as Linden still see this as your ownership so will charge you – you in turn will have a contact with the buyer who says that you they will pay monthly land fees say plus 10%. They can sell the land at anytime to who ever as long as the new buyer picks of the contract) If you have enough money one of the best ways to do this is to buy an island at a cost of US$1,675 (plus there will be US$295 land fees) and split the island into lots of smaller plots selling for a total of US$1,675 but charging a overall monthly land fees of US$500. People will buy these plots as they can only afford to buy small plots. If you make the island beautiful as well its bound to attract people who want to set up home in Second Life. Don’t worry if you can’t afford a whole island find a nice piece of land at a cheaper price and do the same thing.

Set up a Shop and sell things.

Two main ways you can sell. If you have a talent for creating things in Second Life like clothes (especially womens), skins (what gives the avatars they’re look), furniture, buildings etc. you can sell these to people in your own second life shop. Once you’ve set it up you don’t even have to be there to make the money.

The other way is to buy other peoples stuff at wholesale prices set up a shop market it and sell at a profit. There are lots of people out there who offer this service especially for clothes.

Own and run a Casino.

Pretty much the same as in real life people love to gamble. You can buy land build a casino and make money from people playing games such as poker, blackjack and roulette. There are also thousands of different types of slot machines that will happily take your visitors money.

It may be worth seeing which way the US gambling laws go first before proceeding (or at least doing some research on them)

Own and run a Club.

As in real life people in Second Life love going to clubs to dance to the favourite music and chase members of the opposite sex. If you have a successful club you can make money from advertising, affiliate schemes, donation jars, gambling and all sorts of spin offs.

The best way to find out more about these businesses in Second Life is to find people who already own them and ask them (nicely!) eventually you’ll find someone kind enough to share their experiences.