December 4, 2008 by Sarah Nerd
Posted in
It is with great sadness that I must announce that SNE no longer has the ability to maintain a successful business in Second Life. With the help of the WSE and investors, two years ago this upcoming May I invested in mainland, estates, and product lines. Over the last few years several factors have gotten in the way including mainland crashes, Linden Lab pricing changes, wse down time, and so on. I have worked hard and tried to keep SNE afloat but I can not overcome the latest factors including a slowed economy, all time low rentals, and the latest OS 67% price increase. All SNE assets will be liquidated and any lindens received will be divided among shareholders according to percentage owned. All trading will be ceased at this time, and I will get a more detailed statement out in the next few days.
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[...] That is the only promise, read guarantee from Linden Lab. You and every one else agree to the Terms of Service when you signed-up. The problem is you and Sarah Nerd and all the in-world banks and stock exchanges and everyone else are all taking it too seriously. [...]
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[...] That is the only promise, read guarantee from Linden Lab. You and every one else agree to the Terms of Service when you signed-up. The problem is you and Sarah Nerd and all the in-world banks and stock exchanges and everyone else are all taking it too seriously. [...]
Re: SNE Anouncment.
IN reviewing the financial information, I have to agree that Sarah walked away with her bank account a little larger then when she began, at the expense of shareholders, but hey I guess if you are going to shut down, why not walk away with investors money...
Thanx Sarah and I hope you enjoy spending my investment...
Re: SNE Anouncment.
If you haven't been contacted by me inworld yet you will be soon as I am going through the list working with people as I am able. What is your name?
Re: SNE Anouncment.
OH man, you must be kidding me...8.000.000L$ and you just had 6 Estates. Sarah, I highly doubt that you lost 5.000.000L$ in making mistakes, didnt you? You Doomed a lot of people, clever move :), Maybe give us a very detailed sheet with the expneses and where the money went?
I see it like this:
6*350.000=2100000L$ ( 350K per estate and you know that i am being generous on the price)
500.000L$ ( Market Crash-I do beleive that you lost money but not more then that, after all your not that dumb)
5.400.000 L$ Went in your personal account.
You must have made profit, god knows what happened to that... after all, once you raised your funds, you didnt start making a loss all over...
Re: SNE Anouncment.
Your numbers are very off considering I had a lot more then 6 estate sims over the last few years. I won't even get into the mainland holdings, product lines, advertising and all of that because I was pretty clear with shareholders on what I spent where over the last few years. But hey you know what they say about assuming.
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[...] Nerd announced that SNE would be shutting up shop. Frustration over the openspace issue seemed to have finally [...]
Re: SNE Anouncment.
Sarah! You are such an SL icon, this is indeed a sad day. The contributions you have made... the battles you have fought to make the grid a better place for everyone will not be forgotten. I am sad to hear about your estate business, but glad your staying on for now and I wish all the best as you embark on the next chapter of this journey.
Re: SNE Anouncment.
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[...] I moved on to explore other things. In the case of in world businesses, I'm really very sorry that Sarah Nerd took such a hit. Sarah's a friend of mine, true, but more than that she's an honest businesswoman with a flare for [...]
Re: SNE Anouncment.
If SNE made mistakes, it made a lot of good decisions, too. Sad to say, but I think this is another of those good decisions.
Sarah, I hope this will lead to new and exciting Second Life experiences for you, after the dust settles. Your presence is more valuable to the grid than all those damned OpenSpaces ever were, so I hope you'll find a way to thrive here that's perfect for you now.
(Seeing your preceding post, whatever you do, don't go over to the "dark side" and get sucked in to WoW long-term! Under ordinary circumstances I'd be confident that someone with your stamina wouldn't fall prey to such pure escapism, but in these times that sort of thing may hold an unhealthy attraction.)
With this behind you, the grid is wide open with possibilities for you again. Many of us are eager to see what you'll choose.
Linden Labs, Second Life, Collapsing Economy Statements
Hi Sarah.
Congratulations for holding on so long, it has been a leap of faith trusting in SecondLife, by Linden Labs to turn things around. You and I started about the same time in SL, though my partner and I are coming up to retirement and put a lot of our initial start up cost on credit card. Between us (Rivers Islands and NEF Holdings) we had a fair number of islands with over 600 residents, in seemingly no time at all. We saw you and others (Barts for example) doing well and that rallied us. Our business models may have been a little different, but in essence, we all invested in the expensive start up costs to recover that cost over time from the tiers the other players paid to us because they could not afford to buy a whole sim, or a whole void, or a whole parcel on the auctions.
I have already pulled out, my partner is all but pulled out and I doubt we will have an active presence in SL in the New Year. It is sad to see you go under, it re enforces our view that SL has been cheating on us, undercutting our ability to maintain our investments in them, destroying faith in a stable working platform, denying us the basic ability to forecast costs and gauge returns factors. If we cannot work out if we will lose money over time, we will not invest, that would be foolish; we do not give money away for the fun of it.
I fear the statistics for registrations, land use, dollar transactions et al, as exalted by Second Life ‘bean-counters’ like Zee Linden adhere too, are make believe. They are unreal in the extreme. The only person being fooled is the fool himself.
Sorry to see you go Sarah, you have been a formidable representation is Second Life, and your absence is a damning representation to all others confirming Linden Labs Second Life is no longer a place for those seriously interested in creating Virtual Worlds for Profit. The model, has been broken.
Condolences
River Ely
Other blogs by this author can be found at http://rivers-rock.blogspot.com/
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[...] of SL when I saw Prokofy Neva’s “Sara Nerd liquidates”, and followed it here and here. Being always a renter, I have had only payed a casual interest to what happened to land [...]
Re: SNE Anouncment.
Sarah, no one has worked harder or has put more of their heart into making great places to live in SL than you. It's bittersweet because you are leaving this chapter behind. But I'm happy personally because I want LL to get as many messages as possible that they can't keep screwing people over. And I'm happy for you since this freedom means you can turn your talents to something more lucrative with a bigger payout for all your hard work. I wish you the best in whatever your next venture is. Hopefully it will be with a company other than LL that treats its essential people better. All the best always to you and your beautiful family. Raymond
Re: SNE Anouncment.
to rephrase one thing: I'm not happy personally that your estates are closing. It really sucks. But on a separate note, I'm glad that soon LL will have to wake up and change the way they do business. Ray
Re: SNE Anouncment.
I'm sorry to hear this Sarah. This is my first comment here, but I just wanted to say that I really appreciated your Freebie place when I was new in 2006... I'm glad that you are keeping it. It has been a great resource for many people.
I wish you the best of luck with your future endeavors.
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[...] 5 12 2008 As announced today on Your 2ndPlace , Sarah Nerd is closing up SNE due to many factors including the present economic climate and the recent announcement by [...]
Re: SNE Anouncment.
I'm sorry to see you forced to give up, Sarah. I'm also angry with LL for causing this and so many more similar heartbreaks. Glad you're not quitting SL completely and also glad you plan to keep Freebie Paradise running. That's a great resource.
==Lewis
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[...] Perhaps more seriously, yesterday one of the bigger land barons, Sarah Nerd, announced that she was pulling out of Second Life. [...]
Re: SNE Anouncment.
I dont feel sorry for you Sarah, But i do feel sorry for people who trusted in you and most probibily saw that coming.
We all know that the investors are badly screwed in this. The assets will probibly sold for penuts and god knows what you will do inside..
I would really like to see a complete account of all the expenditure made with the money raised from the IPO. I presume that you raised 8ML$ (please correct me if i am wrong) which is a huge amount of money. You claimed that you will be investing this money in real estate. By looking at your activities, its clearly noticible that you Have NOT invested the millions you raised from the IPO. So the question stands... Where did the money go?
You screwed us all, you just want to get rid of the shareholders and stock exchange. Staying at WSE was good as it was always closed and you didnt have to pay anything to us... Now that you realized that it was time to move to another exchange or take action, you decided to file bankruptcy in order to avoid your responsabilities...
Re: SNE Anouncment.
Most of the IPO money was lost when the market crashed you idiot.
Re: SNE Anouncment.
This really isn't the time or place for anonymous sour grapes.
Re: SNE Anouncment.
I'm sorry to hear this Sarah, I remember you from the old Angry Ant days and was always glad to read of your successes. I wish you the best in whatever you do from this moment foward. This had to be one of the hardest decisions to make.
Noirran
Re: SNE Anouncment.
I was pretty clear thoughout the whole process what I had purchased, when I lost money via mainland crashes, and when I started taking sims off the grid to cover slow rentals and just to no longer pay tier anymore. I didn't attempt to screw anyone, I didn't take anything and run. I spent two years investing in mainly land, and those investments slowly failed. I did fail, and I am very sorry for that. I can honestly say that I gave it my all and that I held on as long as possible. I know now that waiting for things to get better was a mistake because all it did was deplete resources, but I can not go back now. If you want to be angry at me for failing thats fine and understandable. If you have a suggestion for how I can better handle this I'm all ears for ideas.
Re: SNE Anouncment.
Wow, Sarah. I'm so sorry this happened. I am blown away, and it is a real loss to SL that this is happening.
Re: SNE Anouncment.
I'm sorry it came to this, Sarah.
Re: SNE Anouncment.
Sarah Im very sorry to hear this, you have no doubt lost an enormous amount of money, WSE going under has undoubtedly finished you off, Im only sorry it was an Aussie that did it....You won't be the first or the last, to suffer in this environment, investing in Land is now officially a bad idea I guess...if it wasn't a long time ago.
I hope you will go on to bigger and better things your passion for many things should hold you in good stead for your next venture your young and smart I haven't heard a bad word about you girl, and in the real estate buisness thats almost impossible in RL and SL. May you find your place and your fortune where ever your passion leads you best wishes Paisley
Re: SNE Anouncment.
So sorry to hear this news. We never met, I bought land from you only once - but still I appreciate your sizeable contribution to SL.
Re: SNE Anouncment.
Uh oh does this mean I'm losing my store at Nerdy Sanchez?
Re: SNE Anouncment.
What will happen to your freebie place? Would be nice to save that.
Re: SNE Anouncment.
I'd like to keep that. I had it long before the WSE and it's always been non-profit. I've been running it in one form or another since fairly early in my SL.
Re: SNE Anouncment.
Good Luck Sarah
Although I've never left a comment before, I've often visited your blog and have always thought you were a valuable member of the SL community. Thank you for sharing your time in-world with the greater SL population.
Re: SNE Anouncment.
Thank You I really appreciate that.
Re: SNE Anouncment.
Sorry to hear SNE go. You and the work you do, obviously, will live on.
Just curious, you've been blogging recently about your overall dissatisfaction with the way SL is headed... when you made the final decision, was there an icing on the cake moment? or more sort of just gradually built up to this only option?
Re: SNE Anouncment.
It's been a long time coming and it's an absolute final option. Things have slowly deteriorated over time, and I have done anything and everything possible to keep it going. I had converted a lot of land into open spaces trying to keep up with what the market wanted, and now with the new price increase an already slow rental period is officially dead. With every hardship that came along in SL I thought, well if I can overcome this one then it will be ok. Problem is they have been coming so fast that before I can pull myself above water for one thing, something else gets thrown in.
Nerd in my Heart
Does this mean you are out of the land business, if so this is a sad day in SL. I have always look up to you, even though I am a foot taller then you. I know when I first entered into SL the name Sarah Nerd popped up more then Anshe Chung.
I remember the first time I had some kind of interaction with you, It was around March 06 when I was selling land in the sim of Blair/45/119/143 if I rememebr correctly I was going to sell some land in that sim for 4,096L$ and I must of missed the 6 so it was set for 409L$. After loging out that land must of sold. And my L$ only went up 409L$. I was confused and went to the sim and noticed that my land was in your name. So IM'd you and asked how you got it, you TPed in and told me you have bought for around 400L$. In my head I was like damn I messed up. And without me asking you offered it back to me for the same price you paid.
So its a sad day to see the one of the honest land dealers in SL go, someone that gave 1000% better customber service the LL could ever give. There will always b a little Nerd in my Heart.
Re: Nerd in my Heart
Yep, that's a typical Sarah story. She never kept mistakes and always tried her best to do the right thing.
Re: Our friend, Sarah Nerd
Allow me to express the sadness of seeing SNE go away. We wish you the best Sarah, and thank you for your help sitting on some land at Balthasar until we got our finances and gameplan straight. Jez and I appreciated and will continue to value your profound efforts in SL, not least of all the Freebies, but your honesty and fairness in buisness dealings as well. Had it not been for you, we might have missed two very important parcels of land.
It's unfortunate, but I suspect many others are still "just hanging on" or bleeding a bit from the poor policies set forth by LL, some will follow your lead, some will undoubtedly go down with the ship. It's sad, but please don't be a stranger, people such as you are a valuable treasure to many.
Ahab
Sorry to hear about SNE
Sarah,
Your one of the best person to have fallen to LL's lack of sensitivity to the land market.
I wish you the very best Sarah. We all know the dedication you have placed in SL. There are many of us here who have not talked to you much personally but who have the upmost respect for your work in SL.
Best of luck in your future endeavours.
Modesta Heying.
Re: Sorry to hear about SNE
Well Said, Modesta
Sarah has been the barometer for SL land business as long as I've been here, and this move signals the definitive end of land as business to me.
A brilliant business person, honest, hard working and accessible, Sarah has always been an asset to SL. I selfishly hope that this is not the end for Sarah Nerd in SL. Regardless, I wish her nothing but the best.
Re: Our friend, Sarah Nerd
Best of luck in your new ventures.