[widebody911]

There are off-the-shelf apps for a lot of this stuff to make ramp-up time faster. You actually need 2 people, or one really good one: one person who's good at UI design, and one who's good at back-end stuff. The really good UI people wouldn't know proper data modelling if you rubbed her nose in it, and most good programmers don't have a clue as to how screens and graphics should be laid out.

The other problem I see here is not necessarily the UI or back-end, but the carbon-based processes. It's one thing to have orders pouring in over the phone or through the web/email, it's quite another to get off once's a$$ and produce the goods and ship them out. There needs to be a comprehensive business plan and procedures behind it, or you're just going to have a black hole.

There's been this mad rush for everyone to get on the web, get a storefront setup, yada yada yada. Fine. But I can't count the number of times I've filled out an online order only to get *zero* response. When I call to follow up, I get a "we don't check that very often..."