One bad hire can destroy all your hard team building work and demotivate everybody. And yet often it seems like managers are just supposed to instinctively know what to do. Not anymore. Today we’re going to give you some techniques to prepare you for the hiring minefield.

First off:

Be aware the interview isn’t everything

People generally think they’re very good at reading each other. This isn’t actually true. For example, on average we’re only a little better than chance at knowing when we’re being lied to. What’s more, whether you think you’re good at detecting lying makes no difference to how good you actually are.

All it means is that we’ll be more convinced that we’re being told the truth as somebody is yanking our chain.

Heck, we even frequently lie to ourselves! There are plenty of biases and unconscious effects that are influencing us when we meet other people that we’re completely unaware of. These make it so that we don’t approach a situation as if we’re a judge, like we think we do, but more like we’re a lawyer arguing one side of the case (and ignoring the other).

Because of this, we’ll often very quickly decide if we like or don’t like somebody and then try to find evidence to support our ideas. Obviously, that’s not a great hiring approach. So make certain that you’re not making your decision based on interviewing alone.

One good way to counter this is to:

Don’t just have one interviewer

Now whether you interview two separate times, have two separate interviewers in the same interview or even simply tape it so that you or somebody else can look at the interview again at a later point, make certain that you’ve got somebody else who has their own opinion (and is not afraid to voice it).

What’s more, make certain that before you discuss the value of the person, you first write down what both of you think of each participant, as otherwise you might find that through the simple act of one person stating what they believe, the other person shifts their opinion. That is something that is far less likely to happen if all parties have written something down to anchor themselves.

How nice they are is only one dimension

Have you heard of the Halo effect? It’s really psychology 101, but its effects are truly profound. What it means is that we don’t measure people based on many different dimensions, but we have really only one slider (some researchers argue it’s two, competence and trustworthiness) and we let everything we find out about that person influence it, such as how well they are dressed and if they remind us of somebody in our past.

One aspect that matters a great deal is how nice they are, and of course, it’s very important for team cohesion if somebody is likable. The thing is, due to the halo effect clumping everything together this attribute is massively overvalued. That means likable people, regardless of their skillset, can charge a premium while people that are not as fun to hang around with are at a serious disadvantage.

And that while for many jobs how likable you are is completely irrelevant. For example, The Economist recently investigated how autistic people, who are often better at some tasks than the non-autistic, especially focused repetitive ones, struggle to find employment because they can’t pass the interview as they struggle to make eye-contact and often take things too literally. As a result, they end up sitting at home with their life unfilled, even while they could be productive members of society (and of your company).

So don’t overvalue niceness. It will cost you.

Projects

One way to sidestep this is to give people projects to do. Here each interviewee is given the chance to come up with solutions to a project that you’ve put together beforehand that fits the job requirements you’ve got. Then you’ve got an object method to compare all of the different candidates that come in on an objective basis.

All you’ve got to make certain of is that the task contains most or all of the elements that matter to the job and then seeing how they perform on the different ones. This is a far more honest assessment of what they’re actually capable of than the interview (which is a bit like selecting your surgeon based on their piano playing skills).

Having trouble coming up with a task? Go back into your own company’s history and pick a project from there. That way you’ll already have a benchmark, namely the solution you came up with.

If you do this remember that you now know the outcome of that project and that will color your judgement of what is the right strategy. That isn’t a fair yardstick to use, however. After all, none of us can see the future. Instead, try to put the results out of your head to make the task as fair and as realistic as possible.

Due diligence

Due diligence is far easier today, with the world as connected as it is, which makes it far easier to dig up dirt on a person. So get in touch with their boss, their landlord and even their university professors if you can.

And check their social media! After all, if they’ve said stupid or revealing things on there, then chances are they probably will again in the future and that might just be your company that they’re then talking about.

In fact, consider recruiting with social media as this will save you money and also make certain you know where their social media profiles are (something that can occasionally be hard when they’ve got a common name).

Be Objective

And finally, the best way to combine what you’ve got is in an objective manner. Weigh each aspect of the process in a basic formula, such as the interview weighs 30% (15% per interviewer) the project weighs 30%, due diligence another 25% and their CV and previous experience 15%. Then hire whoever comes out best in this formula.

Now this might sound very limiting and unsatisfying, but as the Nobel Prize for Economics winner Daniel Kahneman demonstrates in his book ‘Thinking fast and slow’ these algorithms on average do much better than we do because they’re lucid and not filled with subconscious processes that we’re unaware of. This means they often give us far better answers, though they do so at the cost of the satisfaction of going with our gut feeling. The question then becomes, which is more important to you, getting the right person or having a good feeling about who you’re hiring?

Founders Kerstin Karu, Mark Chen, John Chen and Michael Wang met up through a hackathon event in San Francisco last fall. It’s hard to believe that less than a year after that meeting, these four diverse entrepreneurs would be launching Blast Buzz: yet, here they are with their app launched and their business hitting the ground running.

I met up with two of the Blast Buzz co-founders, Kerstin and Mark, to talk more about what led to the app, how it works and what other entrepreneurs could learn from their experience launching.

“It’s about matching everyone,” co-founder and CEO Kerstin explained, “We want to connect everyday people and companies to create street marketing through Facebook and Twitter.”

That matching happens when everyday people download the app, create their profile and then search for marketing opportunities. Those paid marketing opportunities come when companies log on to the Blast Buzz app and create the kinds of marketing messages they need, including any tags, branding and photos to include, then release the endorsement into the Blast Buzz dashboard where the everyday users can find, suggest (pending approval by the issuing company) and release their endorsement through social media from their own social account. It’s like a tweet from a celebrity, only now you’re the celebrity giving the endorsement.

It’s a cool concept, but what’s even cooler is how fast it all came together.

“We all met in November of 2013,” Kerstin says. I have to ask her again if I heard that date correctly, since that’s only seven months ago! She and co-founder Mark Chen, Blast’s Chief Technology Officer, both laugh.

“Yes,” Kerstin repeats, “we were working on a different idea but then when we met, we realized the idea for Blast Buzz was the right one .”

It’s amazing what the right team and the right idea can accomplish.

Which would be part of Kerstin’s advice to other entrepreneurs. “Fail and fail again until you succeed,” she says. “Let your ideas change and evolve until they become the right one.”

Mark explains his advice would be to work with the right people, like his co-founders. Given his long engineering experience and his ten-year history at Cisco, he and the other engineer co-founders John and Michael found a great compliment to their professional skills when they met Kerstin.

“She’s got a lot of drive,” Mark cheerfully chimes in. He goes on to tell a story about the first time they pitched to their investor of Blast Buzz, Tim Draper. “Tim was holding this event for his current investors and Kerstin walks up to him and says she would like us to attend, too. Tim asks her why she and the team should be allowed to attend when they aren’t his investees. She quickly replies, ‘Well we could be!’ It was great.”

Sometimes it takes that little extra push to get where you need to be as an entrepreneur and in this case, it worked out for the Blast Buzz team. Tim was impressed with their initiative and told them they could attend. The only problem? The event was the following day! To pitch their idea they were going to need to get ready literally overnight. Kinkos couldn’t make overnight flyers for their booth, but that didn’t stop the team. The co-founding engineer team was able to make a working demo overnight and Kerstin was able to create flyers in photo editing software and took them to Costco to be printed with their one-hour film development service. Together they were able to present and pitch at Tim’s event, ultimately landing Tim himself as an investor.

“Sometimes you just have to be a little bit of a crazy optimist,” Kerstin laughs as John tells their story, “You just have to be creative and confident.”

Be creative, confident and a crazy optimist: that’s good advice for any entrepreneur.

Naina Singla, Entrepreneur, Fashion Stylist, On-Air Style Expert And Editor of STYLE’N.com

Becoming an entrepreneur wasn’t part of the original plan for Naina Singla, yet like so many great journeys, an unexpected twist in life led her to become an entrepreneur, fashion stylist and the editor of NainaSingla.com.

I was able to sit down recently and talk with Naina about the transition into entrepreneurship and her business, STYLE’N and her successes since making the transition to Fashion Stylist two years ago.

I wanted to know how Naina got started as an entrepreneur and like many, it turns out her entrepreneurial beginnings stemmed from a very successful corporate career.

Naina spent over twelve years in the medical field, earning a Doctorate of Pharmacy and achieving the status and salary of an executive in the biotechnology industry in Boston. While she loved her job she knew that it was also making big demands on her time. When she became a mother six years ago she was starting to feel that struggle of balancing time constraints between her career and her family. So when her husband’s job moved the family to Washington D.C., she decided to seize the opportunity and make the transition of a lifetime — leaping into entrepreneurialism.

Knowing she had a knack for aesthetics and constantly hearing from colleagues and friends she had an eye for style, Naina had already started a fashion and lifestyle blog years before the leap. However that platform allowed for an organic transition as her trusted blog transformed into a business, STYLE’N, that already had established, loyal fans.

While the fan base was in place, Naina said a huge part of actually making the leap into this new business was doing really great research and educating herself about her new market. She cautions other would-be entrepreneurs to do the same saying, “you have to know your niche.” You can’t jump into business without understand the market that you’re entering into: what’s working, what you could do better and what demands are within that market. She also explains the value of prioritizing for success, “you need to be organized and set good boundaries. Be selective in what you choose to do and focus your time on. Always ask yourself, is this best for your brand?”

Naina also wanted to make sure that as part of growing her successful business, she focused on what makes a successful life, not just a successful career. She explains that getting the right team in place can free up a tremendous amount of time so you can work on your business and not just be working at your business. That means the help you need to get your business going and growing and the mentorship you need to thrive.

“Outsourcing is a huge help for achieving a balanced work and personal life,” she says, “it’s also important to seek the help you need from the right mentors and coaches.”

Seeking out the right support team would be part of her advice to others wanting to be successful in entrepreneurial life. Through family and professional networks, that support will get you through. Naina also advocates valuing challenges and growth.

“It’s about progression, not perfection,” she says, “seek out the opportunities that make you uncomfortable. That’s where the growth is.”

There are a variety of freelance platforms available in the marketplace that can help connect entrepreneurs and small business owners with vetted and reviewed freelance talent. But newcomer MyCrowd saw ways that the freelance marketplace could be doing things better – and the response they’re getting supports that they’re onto something.

I sat down with Matthew Cordasco, CEO and co-founder of MyCrowd to talk more about what MyCrowd is, how it’s different and what it was like going through the start-up process.

Matthew Cordasco, co-founder and CEO of MyCrowd

Matthew explained that he and co-founder Kirk Franzen, “started MyCrowd to create efficiencies for start-ups. We wanted to be a point solution for both talented freelancers and small businesses when they needed it.”

Part of the solution MyCrowd has created is their integration approach into the average entrepreneur’s workflow experience. Like most innovations, this came through personal frustration. Matthew founded Overstat, which was sold to Tealeaf, which was later acquired by IBM. So he was no stranger to the start-up work environment and the need as a small business for freelance talent. He and co-founder Kirk met through work together at Tealeaf and being entrepreneurs themselves, they were often frustrated with the freelance hiring process.

“When I was working on my past start-ups, I found there was something inherently clunky about having to go to a website, log-in and search for the talent I needed. For instance if I was in my Gmail account and got an email about logo design revision, I would have to open a new browser, log into the freelance site, find my designer and summarize the changes or needs. That took up time and took me out of my workflow.”

So when he and Kirk designed MyCrowd, an important feature to them was to make a browser extension that would allow MyCrowd to nest in the browser toolbar, and be accessed as a dropdown over any website or application entrepreneurs were working in already. No need to leave the page you’re on, just click the drop-down browser extension, send off the task or make the note, and go back to your work. It’s a feature that helps save time and frustration.

Matthew understands the challenges and rewards of outsourcing “as-needed” projects to great freelance talent and the process of being an entrepreneur altogether.

His own words of advice to other entrepreneur’s looking to start their own innovative company would be, “to keep a laser focus. There are lots of ideas but you’re going to need the drive and focus to stick with one and see it through all the way for success.”

And when it comes to seeing it through, that’s Matthew’s other piece of wisdom for entrepreneurs, “stick with it. It takes more time and is going to be harder than you plan. But it’s also going to be worth it. Tenacity will get you everywhere!”

Allison Huynh is a co-founder and CEO of MyDream — a 3D online social game where children and adults alike can control their environment and alter the game’s landscape to create their own imaginative world. Think of MyDream like Minecraft meets Kahn Academy: it has an educational aim toward K-12 without any of the prevalent violence found in other games. Users can explore MyDream and even shape it through its open platform nature, using their own real-life skills to explore and create their own personal worlds.

Allison’s background with shaping her own world is not exclusive to her gaming imagination. As a child, Allison survived the Vietnam war and PRPC Refugee Camp at the defunct Baatan Nuclear Power Plant in the Philippines. Through her own intelligence and dedication, she received a scholarship to Stanford University to study Engineering and Math in the United States. She took the opportunity and parlayed it into award-wining projects in robotic operating systems, the point cloud based library and was owner and designer of the Willow Garage think tank (specializing in 3D visualization and artificial intelligence).

I asked Allison some questions to understand more about her background and how MyDream transformed from idea to a Kickstarter campaign that exceeded its $100,000 goal with two weeks still remaining to fundraise.

Allison Huynh, Co-founder and CEO of MyDream

What gave you the idea to create MyDream and how did you transform that idea into the game?   

My focus was to create a new style of game with education as paramount, yet it needed to be appealing to all ages. I reviewed the industry landscape and competitor analysis and then brought it top engineers to build MyDream. The focus for our game was to remove the heavy violence that’s associated with 3D games. This was an issue for me, especially as a mother and the impact that violent games cause kids as they grow up. With the prototype complete, we launched our Kickstarter campaign and reached the $100k goal in a few days proving a good 3D game does not require murder simulators as a selling point.

What has been your biggest challenge in getting started and how have you overcome it?  

Our biggest challenge was to find excellent engineers who would be intrigued by a game that has over one million lines of code, editable graphics and tackling the complexity of our vision.  I spent over two years learning the culture of game developers and networking with hundreds of investors. This also required me to step back from the helm and let our team excel without micromanaging them. The process was an uphill struggle, especially since gaming is notorious as a male dominated industry.

Did your experience in the tech world help you?   

In some ways, yes. I do have engineering experience, receiving a scholarship to Stanford University (Engineering & Math) and have been part of creating some of the most revolutionary innovation in 3D visualization and artificial intelligence (AI) at Willow Garage. My expertise also lies in incubating and designing multiple start-ups, some acquired by Fortune 50’s. Nevertheless, creating such a unique game as MyDream as a first time entrepreneur required me to step back and bring in more talented people so I could focus on the overall business.

Building 3D worlds inside MyDream.

How did you get started on your Kickstarter campaign for MyDream? What are the key factors you feel have driven it to exceed its funding amount?  

With potential investors interested in MyDream, we decided to promote our launch pad on Kickstarter to dually generate backers and media hype. This premeditated objective also generated the right demographic of early adopters who will become active within the game as we develop it. One of the key factors is that the game is original so this naturally generated viral interest from backers to spread the word to their own network of gaming friends. Publicity has been incredible which proves that either gender can create a great gaming start up, which also has added to the success of our Kickstarter goal.

What advice would you give other entrepreneurs who want to start their own business? 

Perseverance, vision and the drive to push your start up is paramount. It’s important to network, gain feedback from experts and prove your worth by bringing in great teammates who add kudos to your objective. For every ‘no’ you receive, this should never deter you. It’s a proven fact that many investors have declined and later regretted this as they were looking at where the business was now, and not where it can be in the future. As a female entrepreneur in a male dominated industry, your focus should be always on the business and not gender barriers so you keep momentum and don’t get blind sighted.

One of the very expensive aspects of today’s college education are the pricey textbooks. Most of the books students need aren’t widely available and that book monopoly means high prices and high demand for college bookstores. David Miller, CEO of SlugBooks.com encountered this very scenario as a student at UC Santa Cruz and decided to take action. Started in 2008, SlugBooks.com has grown to give college students access to more affordable textbook options to buy and rent from anywhere in the country.

I caught up with David to ask him about SlugBooks.com, how it works and how he turned his college frustration into a passion project that now helps students all across the country.

David Miller, CEO SlugBooks.com

What gave you the idea to create SlugBooks and how did you transform that idea into a business?

As a sophomore in college, I became a member of the textbook Co-op in Santa Cruz. My experience at the Co-op definitely provided inspiration and motivation to try helping students in a new, more sustainable way several years later, when the SlugBooks.com comparison site launched. For the first two years that the SlugBooks website was running, the business felt more like a hobby cause. The Co-op’s sole mission was always to save college students as much money as their business model could afford, and it turned out that an aggregator/affiliate model was even more effective at fulfilling this simple goal.

What has been your biggest challenge in getting started and how have you overcome it?

Marketing. College students are far and away the most over-marketed demographic. Everywhere they look is an advertisement, and they end up becoming immune to most of it. Because we were always bootstrapped, the biggest challenge was always iterating quickly through different innovative marketing tactics. We simply didn’t have the budget to compete with dollar for dollar with well-funded companies in the textbook space. We solved the marketing problem in the early days by building hyper-organized street teams enabled us to reach our initial scale at many campuses on a limited budget; we optimized our teams by focusing on hiring students with theater experience, as well as students who had a strong pull to help others – and streamlined much of the hiring/training/scheduling with a custom online HR system. The fact that we started an internet-only service with 100% off-line marketing provided for some fun irony.

Did you already have experience in the app or tech world before you set up the website and affiliate program, or was this totally new?

I was totally new to the tech world, though my own experience as a student shopping for textbooks was all that was really necessary to ideate through the initial product. While I didn’t have much experience coding, I did know to use Microsoft Paint, which is where the first site design was mocked up. I also used Google to find our first developer. It sounds stupid and simple, but if you know how to use Google, you have all of the knowledge you need to start a business.

What’s next for you? Will you stay with SlugBooks or are you looking into other ideas for startup?

SlugBooks is currently solving a major problem for college students in an extremely efficient way. Virtually all students who use the site will find that at least one of their books for the upcoming semester is significantly cheaper through online sources. While we’re satisfied with the growth to date, there is still plenty of work to be done. As long as high textbook prices are gouging students, we’ll be looking to help. There are still far too many students in the world who pay inflated textbook prices, or skip purchasing them altogether.

What advice would you give other entrepreneurs who want to start their own business?

Don’t think of “starting a business” as starting a business. Solve a problem that you are passionate about fixing instead. Maybe one day your problem solving will be a business. As long as you’re solving that problem for more and more people every day, the other pieces will fall into place. Obviously revenue and user metrics are necessary as time goes by, but when you’re starting, keep it simple. It’s okay if it’s just a hobby when you start. If you run your business as a hobby for the first months (or years!), and you’re still enjoying it, great! Keep going.

Carter Kostler is the founder of 1 Teen Entrepreneur and the inventor of the Define Bottle, voted one of Entrepreneur Magazine’s Most Brilliant Companies in 2013. His Define Bottle is already selling out in popular retail stores like Whole Foods, and online through his website, but this fifteen year old is probably most proud of the opportunities that Define Bottle presents to others.

Seeing the lack of alternatives to soda and sports drinks represented at his school, Carter started to do some research. After reading the serious statistics behind childhood obesity, Carter knew there had to be a better way to get people healthy, yet flavorful options to drink that didn’t include all the sugar. Taking a nod from his mom’s own homemade fruit infused water pitchers, he decided to design a water bottle that would allow for fruit infusion, in a portable and easy way. What he came up with was the Define Bottle.

Not only does it help provide healthy alternatives to soda and energy drinks for the masses, but Carter also provides a portion of all proceeds to The Alliance For A Healthier Generation, of which he’s also a Youth Advisory Board Member. In addition to that,  Carter was also a national finalist in Michelle Obama’s Partnership for a healthier America’s End Childhood Obesity Innovation Challenge.

And on Thursday night, he’ll be appearing in front of the panel of judges on ABC’s hit show, Shark Tank. How does one guy achieve all this at the young age of fifteen? I caught up with Carter to ask him.

What gave you the idea to create them and how did you transform that idea into a business?

I wanted to come up with a healthy, natural way for people to hydrate when on the go. The first thing I did was create a few sketches of my idea and presented it to my parents. Fortunately, they thought it was a great idea and supported going forward with the idea. We went through a lot of work such as finding an industrial designer to bring my idea to life and having to work with a patent attorney to make sure my idea was not already patented. I felt like it really became a business when we had product and I was up late fulfilling orders. It was great seeing the orders come in and knowing that there were customers out there that wanted to order a product that I invented.

What has been your biggest challenge in getting started with Define Bottle? How have you overcome it?

Manufacturing has certainly been our biggest challenge. When we received our first shipment, the bottles were defective and I was really disappointed. We worked with our industrial designer to find a new manufacturer and now the bottles are perfect. There are a lot of highs and lows when you own your own business. It is a constant roller coaster and you really never know what the next day will bring. I would say that is one of the best and worst parts of being an entrepreneur – you never know what is around the corner. Another challenge has been learning to balance a business and still be a kid. I have had to make a lot of sacrifices in order to make Define Bottle successful but fortunately my friends and family are really supportive. My friends often help me fill orders and get the job done.

You recently filmed an episode on ABC’s Shark Tank that airs next week on March 14th- what was that like? Were you nervous?

Unfortunately, I can’t say too much about Shark Tank until it airs but yes, I was certainly nervous and am excited to see the episode on March 14th!

What are your plans for the future; will you keep designing and inventing?

Yes! I have new versions ready to come out and will continue to work on my mission of trying to get people off of soda. This past year has been exciting and it may be hard to top. I met President Clinton (he received our first 600 bottles for the attendees of his Health Matters Conference), met the First Lady at the Partnership for a Healthier America conference where I spoke in front of 800 people, filmed for Shark Tank, made Entrepreneur’s top 100 most brilliant companies of the year, and sold thousands of bottles. Being an entrepreneur is exciting – once you start it is hard to stop.

What is Jifiti?

Jifiti is an in-store gifting platform that allows shoppers to spot something they love, share it with the world, and have their friends and family purchase it for them or chip in for it directly on Jifiti.com.

Once that gift is purchased, the shopper gets a notification on his/her phone, shows it in the store, and walks out with the gift.
If we were in an elevator right now, I’d say, “Jifiti allows you to walk into your favorite store with a wish and walk out with a gift.”
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How did you come up with the concept?

My co-founder and I had similar experiences around our wedding time. We were exposed to the traditional wedding registries of the world and realized that so much more can be done in the gifting space. With the traditional gift registry as an inspiration, we set out to offer a more instant and fun social gifting platform for the everyday shopper.

Our goal is to address the offline/online challenge––the big battle between the Amazons of the world and the brick and mortar stores. Jifiti was designed to create that synergy by encouraging the in-store shopping experience that inspires and sparks one’s imagination while offering the online convenience for buying the shopper’s gifts.

Whether it’s a jacket we just tried on at the Gap or a new game at GameStop––someone at home is not going to be happy that we spent our money on something new. So we wanted to build a tool to transform that ‘craving’ into a gift. Get the things you love, but have others gift it to you.

Today is a big day for Jifiti. Jifiti is now showcased in the Boston malls. How does that make you feel?

Exhilarating. Very emotional to be frank. It’s something that we have been working on for some time now, and seeing it alive and kicking is an incredible feeling. I think we get that added bonus by the fact that we’re not just a startup that hits ‘send’ from our garage and tries to get online traction. We’re all about the in-store shopping experience.
Seeing the physical outcome of your work––such as a 50-foot wall promoting your app in a popular mall during the holiday season––brings a sense of fulfillment and meaning to what you’ve been working on.

Do you consider yourself a Young Entrepreneur?

Absolutely. Simply because this is my first swing in the space. My age aside, (33, happily married with three kids, thanks for asking), I’m still new to all of this. I learned, along with my other co-founders, the hard way––building a team, developing cutting edge technology, working with investors and creating partnerships with leading retailers.

How do you build a winning team?

It all goes back to believing in the product. I realize that what we are doing is quite ambitious and it takes a bunch of super ambitious people to get the job done. Believe it or not, one of our lead coders has a masters in cognitive psychology. She never studied computers, yet she is one of the best coders alive today (my personal opinion). When your team loves what they’re doing, then you’re unstoppable. All I can say is that we were blessed with an awesome blend of over achievers who apparently don’t believe in sleep; and when you find people who prefer working over eating and sleeping, you have yourself a winning team.

You now have raised money, partnered up with some heavy hitters, and had your app debut in some of the most walked through malls in America. How does that make you feel?

Tired looking back and incredibly energized looking forward. We still have a lot to do and a lot more in the pipeline. We’re just getting started.

What did you do before Jifiti?

I was a marketing and a brand development consultant for multinational corporations and organizations based out of Israel.

What has the feedback from retailers been like so far?

The feedback has been phenomenal. That’s because we work with the retailers and not against them. We take the concept of showrooming and turn it on its head. Usually shoppers are encouraged to visit a store, view and experience the items that they like in person, and leave without purchasing. Only in this case, the user creates a nearly frictionless path for others to make the purchase within the store’s ecosystem.

Who is your target market designed for?

Well, our research shows that 100% of the shoppers celebrate a birthday at least once a year (we’re willing to sell the full report to anyone interested). So if you’re reading this, it’s designed for you.

That said we really see it as a great tool for the younger crowds who are snapping, sharing, tweeting, and liking anyway. This time, we just give their friends an opportunity to chip in for their favorite things––$5 if you’re a roomie or $100 if you’re grandma.

Let’s not forget the honorable guys who take one for the team and get dragged along to all the Macy’s and Bed Bath and Beyonds with their fiancé so they can agree on china and towels. Jifiti is a great opportunity for guys to break away and chip in for a new game console or a set of golf clubs.

How did you meet your other partners, who are they?

I went to school with Yaacov, our CEO (he hates the day we drew straws and he got that title), and we’re both neighbors of Meir, our CTO. Yaacov comes from the retail space and founded a company in Israel that specializes in sourcing, importing, and marketing of specialized optical wear for retailers. He also founded a school and built online platforms to support their unique approach. Meir is the founder of Israel’s largest database service company and is a Microsoft MVP. We simply got him infected with the startup bug––building a product from scratch, eating cold food, and sleeping on the office floor.

Recently you raised a significant amount of seed money. How did you know where to go?

We didn’t. We were one of the SeedCamp winners in the Israel Contest. We literally had an idea on a napkin back then, but a good idea. So we got some attention thereafter and raised some pre-seed angel money that was used for the development of a prototype and some marketing to retailers. After a couple meetings with VCs, we came to realize that in the retail space, strategic partners are the way to go. Retailers are a different breed, and when working with them, you need the backing and support from players in the industry. They immediately realized the value and potential in Jifiti and we were happy to partner with them and bring this thing to life.

Were you nervous when they first said they will invest?

Investments split into two stages:

1. The moment you all agree on terms––after which you are ecstatic and focus on building the most amazing product.
2. The moment the money is in the bank––after which you realize you’re using other people’s money and you can’t sleep for a week. Today, we travel as if every penny is our last.

Did you ask them to invest a specific amount?

One of our early investors was an incredible partner and worked with us, almost on a daily basis, building our operating model and understanding what we need. We are the first to admit that we have a lot of leg work ahead of us, and planned accordingly. One of the best and most comforting lines I ever heard was from an investor of ours who said, “You have to make sure you have enough to make mistakes, because you are going to make mistakes.” Those are the kind of investors you want on your team.

How do you know if you are successful with the launch?

The launch is more about learning how people are using the app and platform. There are multiple ways people can use them and we’re prepared to accommodate all of these. Success for us now is to see people using it and learn how we can improve before our nationwide rollout starting in early 2013.

What will you do if things fail? Is there a plan b?

Well, the right answer here is to say, ‘We don’t think about failure’ or ‘not a chance’. If it’s ever time to move on, the first thing I’ll do is get some sleep. Yaacov, my partner, always says that we have created such an incredible team (we have about 10 additional team members besides ourselves) that we will simply think of the next idea and get everyone working on it the next morning.

Any further advice for (did you want to use Young here?) Entrepreneurs?

If you have the opportunity, choose the investors who like what you’re doing. The first thing you should always ask is, ‘What do you love about what we’re doing?’ If you don’t agree with their answer, thank them for the coffee and move on. An investor or partner who loves what you’re doing and looks forward to your progress is the right partner.

And, of course, the team. We’ve built the most incredible team here at Jifiti. They simply do magic. I can’t count the number of times we were told that our issues were not solvable and in every instance so far, our team figured out a solution and presented it to those naysayers. Our team goal is to live up to the expectations and prove everyone else wrong. So far, we’ve done an exceptional job at both.

Don’t avoid professional conflict and arguments within the team. If you’re all grownup and have the same goals, you will only benefit from those disagreements.

We have to ask: Facebook recently launched Facebook Gifts. What do you do about that?

True, we’re approximately one billion users behind Facebook. But what I like to say is that if Facebook is the mammoth of the web today, Simon malls is the Facebook of the real world. And that is the world we want to conquer. We are all about the true in-store shopping experience. Bring that to the plate and you have once again transformed the way people go about their lives.

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[/threecol_one] [threecol_two_last] Our aim is to let our customers continue to have fun shopping in their favorite stores while tapping into the power of their social graph to receive the gifts they want. We’re all about bridging online catalogues with offline brick and mortar shops––giving shoppers the best of both worlds.

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