Those of you who visit this Blog often enough would have noticed my MIA for the last 2 weeks. I was busy at work and also took time off to attend a 3 days “Business Plan & Investor Presentation Workshop” organised by Expara and funded by Media Development Authority (MDA), Singapore.

It’s an interesting workshop. Douglas Abrams (MD of Parallax Capital Management) spent 2 days sharing pointers & tips in business plan writing, we also did some trial presentations. It was followed by a 5-day break to tidy up the actual presentation and finally half a day lecture on financial forecasts, Discounted CashFlow, valuation, dilution effect…etc. The last half a day was live presentation to 4 reallife VCs.

When we were not presenting, we get to role play as VCs shooting off tough questions to the start-ups or start-ups wannabe.

It’s fun playing the VC role. I was glad when Dan Rua, Managing Partner of Florida’s Venture Fund and author of Florida Venture Blog wanted to sponsor a post on VC roleplaying.

So, instead of sleeping with a VC at night, I shall be the VC for the day.

Some interesting ideas and actual business plans were shared during the workshop and over lunch. A few surrounded the recently over-hyped Second Life (SL), from events management portal, real estate portal, social networking site targeted at SL to SL news aggregator & credit card issuing bank (I refuse to name ideas related to the 2 biggest money spinner both in SL & Reallife - RL).


Personally, I like the SL Blog News aggregator business model. Yes, I’m aware of the few close competitors out there, but there are no real leader and serious player in the field. The main problem SL players faced in the huge world of SL is finding regions that they are interested in and seeking communities, events that attracts them. Due to campers (people paid to hangout in a place) issue, the “Popular” areas are always related to the 2 biggest money spinner thus turning away players who are not looking for those activities in SL.

Where is the money? Last month, 164 SL players spent more than US$5,000 in SL. Maybe a few rich kids, but how many people will actually spent over US$5,000 in a game within a month? The fact is, many of these spenders are Fortune 500 companies (Coke, Apple) and other innovative businesses hoping to grab a pie of SL eyeballs. If they do not understand SL cultures and the differences between RL & SL, most of their investment will turn into monuments, beautiful buildings with few visitors. The Blog News aggregator business model will serve the need of both the players and the business investors of SL.

The weak part of this business plan is the low barriers of entry. Success is based purely on execution. The internationalisation of SL also mean that the business must cater to the needs of Japanese, Koreans & French speaking residents who are growing in large number.

The credit card issuing bank is a cool idea, infact the development is already in progress and the company incoporated. First Meta Bank is in process of launching a credit card in Second Life to take advantage of the virtual capitalist economy there. The attractiveness of the business model can be easily seen based on the daily transaction of Linden dollars L$ (~ L$ 1.5 millions daily). Internationalisation posts a smaller issue. There are already people doing currencies speculation via L$ and a bank simply makes it easier.

To extend the First Meta Bank idea, if SL continue to grow and become an acceptable micro-payment currency for the web (outside SL), running a virtual bank is a neat idea, since it’s almost impossible to operate this business in RL.

Guess what, a virtual bank can avoid paying taxes to any govt no matter how much profit it makes. There are many ways to take out the profit to RL. Think about it. *wink*

Now, should I invest in a virtual bank or should I start one?

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