Shahar Nechmad

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• Should founders blog?

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    Yes. Always. Constantly.

• If I'm currently based on Latin America but would like to relocate to the US with an already successful startup, what's the smartest way of going about it?

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    It’s actually not that hard as it sound: Buy a flight ticket. Get to San Francisco. Look at craigslist for some cheap room with roommates, and just start working. Every day there are different meetups and parties you can go to, meet new experienced people and learn more about how to push your startup forward. The connections you will build there will be very valuable for your company.

• I believe I have the right idea and I have mapped out the possbilities and steps, but I am not hooked into the startup community. How do I get more involved?

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    If you are in a city where there is a vibrant startup community, you should force yourself to go each day to a different meetup, party, etc. Most cities have many of them all the time. If not (or in addition), you should create a list of top bloggers in the area of your business, and start participating on a daily basis – comment, share, discuss – become part of their and their readers life.

• How should I start to organized my business ambitions?

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    Find an idea you are passionate about and just start working on it. The biggest hurdle everyone is facing is just ti start. The moment you passed this, you already passed 95% of the people out there.

• I am 17 and run an eBay Store, that has been very successful. I am now about to start a proper online store, and want to incorporate lots of other features as well. Should I outlay some of my savings and pay someone to design it properly now, or just go on an ecommerce hosting plan and add in the other features later? I want to grow this as fast as I can, and then move onto something else.

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    Building your own e-commerce solution is not just about developing it. Most of the cost will come from maintaining it, enhancing it with new features, etc. There are many solutions out there which gives you a “white label”, out of the box solution. I would recommend checking them out, and see if one of them is good enough for you to start with.

• I have knowledge on web development. I want to use my knowledge to create software for the web comparable to what you can get for desktop machines. My plan is to start with website design and work from there. What is the proper way to get started with this?

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    Not sure I understood the question, but if you ask about technologies who can help build “desktop like” web apps, you should check out HTML5 as the basis for the client side development.

• As a website development company, what is the best way to approach cold calling businesses? Who should we ask to speak to within the organization? and what angle should we approach from?

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    You want to reach the person that if he buys into your product, his job/life will get better. For whom in the organization your product can really move the needle? When you make your sales pitch, don’t just talk about what you do. Talk about how is job will be done better/faster/easier by using your product. What you want is to have is an insider – a champion that will push your name and product inside the organization.

• What's the best way to get large companies to invest in online advertising on my website?

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    Media buyers in big companies want to get the best results in minimum risk. For example, models such as CPC and CPA reduce their risk and push it more to you (although in the end everyone simply calculate the ecpm in order to measure campaign success). As you can show them a more targeted and engaged crowed, the easier your sale will be. If you don’t have a big name, try to build a package that includes premium real estate with run of netwrok inventory. Give some discounted prices to start the relationship with and prove the effectiveness of your inventory.

• Where can you find quality development on a start up budget?

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    Personally I believe in having a strong core team for your startup. In order to get rock star developers you should offer packages that include a combination of equity and money. If you can’t pay much, try reach out to developers who already worked for a few years in companies like Google and Twitter. Most likely that they made enough money that they can work for free for a few months (and get equity) if they believe in your project. That said, you can also try and experiment with outsourcing. There are many sites you can use such as elance, odesk and many others.

• what should be ones priority when looking for a start up partner

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    Someone you can fully trust. Someone that complete your own skills. Someone that you can spend time with more than with your wife/girlfriend/etc.