Have you ever started your own Minecraft server?

Regardless of whether you have or haven’t, you may not have noticed the considerably useful impacts of making one, or the full details in the process of building a server from the ground up. It’s from Minecraft that something much larger has emerged.

Since 2009, when Minecraft was first made available to the public, people from all backgrounds across the globe have been attracted by the concept of owning or running a Minecraft server. More specifically, a successful Minecraft server. How is that done?

Well, you need to develop it — check. You need to build it — check. You need to advertise it — check.

So what’s missing?

A successful server takes something more. It takes raw innovation. As Steve Jobs once said: “Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.”

It’s not so much about replicating what all other server owners have done, and it’s definitely not about checking off items from a list towards apparent success. It’s about creating your own agenda with your own goal in mind.

But the problem is, not every single individual can start a company or a business, or might not be prepared or qualified enough to do so — that’s where Minecraft has stepped into place. It offers that exciting opportunity to anyone.

Minecraft servers offer the opportunity to turn innovation, ideas, and passions from amateurs into functioning experiences that can be generated with existing tools. When someone types in a server’s IP address, as soon as they click ‘join,’ they actually enter somebody’s image of innovation — when fully considered, it is far more powerful and impactful than just entering a hub.

Building a server pushes individuals to work with people they may not want to work with, teaches them how the world can be a dangerous place, and ultimately requires them to use their pre-existing knowledge as well as think outside of the box to achieve success.

Slowly but surely the creator of a server learns how to deal with money, with staff, and with the public.

These are the sought-after skills larger companies consistently value in employees, and can translate into future work outside of the Minecraft universe, leading to collaboration and jobs in more professional workspaces.

It might not strike you at first that this is unique in any way to Minecraft servers and related businesses, but in regards to many successful individuals in the Minecraft economy, the skills they took and applied from creating their first Minecraft servers have led them to constructing prodigiously complex and affluent companies.

A few years after Minecraft’s release, various enthusiastic money-driven players wondered if there was any way to expedite the results of their investments in the game. The large number of server owners who also worked to find such a solution created the first-ever Minecraft marketplaces (ranging from simple group chats to sophisticated forums) for digital goods and services such as in-game building, the back-end development of Minecraft plugins, and products (such as art).

Now, there are several such markets in existence. The core reason for their creation has always been the same: to provide a hub for server owners and like-minded entrepreneurs to connect and find individuals who offer goods and services they require.

Companies were formed that used these markets to sell services in larger bundles and thereby bypass freelancers. The Minecraft industry is now worth nearly a million dollars, and newer Minecraft servers are consistently hiring professional managers and buying thousands worth of digital goods to have their chance at becoming the next big hit.

All of this emerged from the single, thoroughly discussed block-driven game of 2009. The rapidly growing player base of Minecraft generated a business space for budding entrepreneurs. Within the next few years, that business space had attracted thousands of new and interested traders, paving the way for perpetually increasing numbers of server owners.

These Minecraft entrepreneurs — normally ranging from the ages of 11 to 18 — build both a priceless experience and a better understanding of how businesses work. These skills aren’t ones taught in grade school. They can only be taught through hands-on work.

It has been speculated that Microsoft has “paid over $7,000,000 to content creators” since it acquired Mojang. In fact, the reason this blog (created by those who have business experiences they’d like to share) exists today is an indirect result of markets emerging from Minecraft, and is one of thousands of examples we could list.

Minecraft is slowly transforming into a different platform for content creators and players alike. What was once an innovative game is now training younger individuals of different backgrounds to be innovative, to step outside their boundaries, and to eventually use those experiences to venture into a real-world business.

Who would have thought a video game could do so much?