It would run more smoothly if there were fewer people in the communication chain HOWEVER do not connect your client direct to the developers. 1) clients will casually "remember" things that need to be added and go direct to the developers with their requests, which will cut into your margins 2) developers that you don't have air-tight contracts with will negotiate direct with the client and cut you out - make no mistake about it, you could have a great relationship with the client but business is business Do NOT mention the development partner name anywhere. The client is not signing an agreement with, or contracting with them - it is with YOU so the agreement needs to be with you. Unless you are planning to reverse the relationship and become an affiliate of the development company, you need to touch all the money. Why would you allow your valuable clients (assets) to be managed in any way by someone that isn't your company?

That is simple. Meet with the people on your sales team and ask them what motivates them. Then build an incentive plan around what THEY TELL YOU will motivate them. That will also show that you care about what they think.

In this business environment, a “corporate buyer” will be looking at your net income and value you based on a multiple of such. For example if the company generated $500,000 but only earned $75,000, you may be looking at a value of $200-$300,000 from a corporate buyer. It also depends on whether or not that revenue is stable and is reliant on you and your partner, in which case you might get an even lower pay out.

I'm assuming you are asking what type of employee needs to be hired to help build a website? The answer is, first you need to know what type of website you want and then you find someone who knows how to develop it. The website direction should be led by someone who is adept to marketing and sales so they can manage the content based on the need to drive action.

These all fall within the scope of human resources. There are some good organizations like SHRM that help with tips and tricks for effective and efficient management. If you have an office manager or internal HR staff they should stay up to speed through continuing education and daily research of trends. If you don't, hire a support organization that can provide that info and be your arms-length resource.

It's not unusual at all. If you do outsource, try and make sure you have a project lead that you can trust. Once revenues get up to a certain point they might want to see the project through and come on board full time OR they will have enough pride in their work to make sure a proper transition takes place. As far as security, make sure you have an airtight non-disclosure/non-compete agreement with a penalty clause that includes financial remuneration.

Do you have any internal sales professionals? You should at LEAST have an internal sales director who sets the strategy for a sales force. Then you determine if the proper path is a contracted sales force. I've known companies that have used outside sales teams however NONE that have seen the type of success that outweighs having an internal team.

First of all BE VERY CAREFUL about exiting investors while bringing new ones on. You cannot give investors money back out of proceeds raised from new investors. It's illegal (called Ponzi). This is a VERY tough scenario since you are dealing with two substantial issues - 1) building (or rebuilding) a business; and 2) retiring investors. If the business is in fact "ruined" then you need to first decide if bringing new investors into that situation is a wise decision. You could be opening yourself up to legal problems. Investors invest in projects when they can 1) make money; 2) connect with the business; 3) add value; 4) believe in management. Unfortunately, having "previous investors" (especially bad ones) is like coming into a relationship with baggage. Most savvy investors will not want to participate. Advice: try to retire the investors BEFORE talking to new investors. Rebuild the business model and wait a few months before going after new investment. Showing that type of resilience and passion for the business could play in your favor and show new investors that you are someone who can overcome adversity to achieve success. So how do you "retire" investors? Convert the investment to debt if possible. If not, offer to sell the business to one of the investors. Do not sign a non-compete and start a new business. Also, depending on your stock purchase agreement and any anti-dilution clauses you could issue new stock and dilute everyone's shares to where the old investors shares are minimal (could have legal repercussions though so be careful).

Truly understand the WHY behind what you are doing and be the example to everyone (employees, partners, customers, etc.) on how to do things right.

Business lead generation. Give the reader a taste of the content and have them fill out their info to get access to the entire report. Then you build a list that you can market to later. Hubspot does this well - http://www.hubspot.com/marketing-resources. As a rule of thumb nowadays content should be more open and free to people. Use it to be recognized as an expert in the field and generate business that way. It is increasingly difficult for someone to "steal" or plagiarize work so I'm not sure you need to be so on top of protecting content that you miss bigger opportunities.