Hadas Post's, 27, boyfriend seems restless, yet the young entrepreneur from Herzliya shows no intention of stopping. She intends to use the 100 thousand Dollars she won this month as the fourth entrepreneur (and first woman) in the Easy Start Competition, to turn the 2dress.co.il fashion portal into a future empire in the clothing industry.

"It all started about a year ago when I was talking to my friends about wanting to buy some clothes but not knowing where" says Post. Her friends tossed out names of stores and designers, which Post, as someone born and raised in Haifa, didn't know. "I listened to their suggestions", she recalls "and asked myself how come when a person wants to find a restaurant, he can simply log onto a website that includes practically all the restaurants in Israel and someone interested in comparing prices of various electronic products can log onto Zap – but there is no fashion related website where I can enter the item I'm looking for and be directed to stores that sell it?"

Her friends thought it was an excellent idea and Post decided to accept the challenge. "At first I conducted some thorough research on the internet to check if there is a similar website in Israel or anywhere else in the world", she says. "I found out that there is no site in Israel and that the area isn't very developed in the rest of the world either. At that moment I began to formulate my target: one portal that perfectly concentrates everything associated with fashion in Israel". The website was launched two months ago, and already includes a list of more than 200 fashion stores for women, men and children. Post wants all the stores in the country to appear on the website. Therefore, she plans to recruit two sales representatives as soon as possible and two more later on. According to plans, by the end of 2008, approx. 1,000 stores from all across Israel will appear on the website, displaying not only their address and telephone number, but the store's contents using photographs, catalogs, virtual tours and comparative indexes.

 
Listening to objectors

Contrary to entrepreneurs who believe that they and they alone know what to do with the idea they came up with, Post is much more modest. "I love listening to experts" she says "the more opinions I hear the more the product becomes formulated. Sometimes it's more important to hear those who disagree with you than hearing those who think like you. Those who disagree are precisely the ones who can help you solve your weak spot".

Post is very thorough. She decided to turn to one of the people who contributed to the success of the restaurants website www.rest.co.il, their former Operations Manager. She hired his services in exchange for consultation hours and together they began to consolidate a business plan.  At the same time, people from MATI (Business Development Center) Ra'anana also joined in. "Writing a business plan was an important step, particularly since during the process, you understand what you want and how the concept can be realized. It helps you focus" she says.

Once the business plan was ready, she turned to friends who work for venture capital funds and asked them to evaluate it. "It was important to hear about any problems in the plan – both so I could fix them and also to prepare me for investors' questions", Post explains "since at the time I was studying for my Masters degree in Business Administration at the Interdisciplinary Center, I recruited one of my teachers and set with him for hours, discussing each concept to make sure that my business model was correct and applicable". The many hours of consultation cost her NIS 20-30 thousand out of the NIS 150 thousand she had saved for the project. "Although the consultation cost money, I believe this stage is essential" she concludes.

 
Model on a paper napkin

After formulating the plan, she looked for an investor and reached a large company that is indirectly involved in the fashion industry. "I didn't have a product" she recalls "when we met, I drew them a model on a paper napkin and they were very excited. They intended to invest hundreds of thousands of Shekels and create an advertising and marketing platform. There were many deliberations and their offer appealed to me, but they presented conditions that I was unwilling to accept. For example, the marketing manager was supposed to be someone who has no knowledge in marketing. My gut feeling was negative and my attorneys only reinforced that feeling by refusing to approve the agreement. I knew this meant remaining on my own. That wasn't simple, but it was better to walk away than to share my project with people, whose abilities I wasn’t sure I could trust". 

In order to avoid reaching the stage of "paper napkin" again, Post decided to erect the website on her own and meet with potential investors once she has a working product. It was less than two months after launching the website, until Post, working completely on her own, began to attract hundreds of clothing stores. Stores are still not paying for the right to be included on the website, but starting next month, they will begin to pay a few dozen of Dollars per month.