Need is a strong word. There are various technical solutions to solve this, but it also depends on various factors. If you can direct B2B traffic to a separate page, it opens your options significantly. Having a dedicated portal has its perks, but it seems you'd rather avoid the extra overheads. Having a separate website is certainly a possibility, but once again it seems you'd rather avoid it. The thing is, B2B is radically different from B2C. Retaining the same website will limit how flexible you are towards those clients, and if they are not demanding, it might make sense to proceed. I'm afraid that's the best I can say without further details, so I hope you found this helpful. Do reach out if you want to discuss specifics though.

I worked with various businesses to design their preferred marketing approach. My best advice would be to figure out what you're after and present that to your coach. Once you know your destination, it is easier to figure out how to get there. An easy example might be to drive traffic. A more complex one would be to partner with another business to piggy back on their distribution. Feel free to reach out if you need further help.

Option 1 is possible if you have the traffic. Also, it is harder to market and difficult to build a brand cos your website would be a middleman rather than the identity your customers engage with. As an MVP, I would definintely go with the second option. It is much simpler to test out, implement and test out. You'll be focusing your energy on customer rather that the tech itself.

I'm afraid with so little detail, it is very difficult for people to help you. The industry needs vary a lot. The project is also the crux here. Moreover, it is unclear which responsbilities will the team have, and where best to attract that talent. Please provide some more details so that you can get more value from other people here.

I believe what you're after is https://www.crunchbase.com/

There is a spectrum of options available and it is difficult to know the 'right' answer without actually testing the idea. What worked in the past is to either ask directly what they prefer and where they see the best value, iterate and adjust. It is a process in itself, and part of the puzzle you need to solve, both for the benefit of the users and company.

If you know shopify, then yes. Use whatever can get you there fastest to present something to your first users. Once you build the traction you're after, look towards setting up a better tech solution that serves user needs with a clean user experience. B2B marketplaces are inherently different, but not more complex to market. To start, you might look into buying some of that inventory yourself or doing things manually for a bit to evaluate demand.

Before going for the software, get an expert to look at the current processes in place. You might not need a complex suite to serve the needs, and will be less of a headache to devise the way forward. As others have said, and only if you do not manage to find something that suits your needs, developing something custom should be your last resort.

Get to know your users and find pain points not served by your competition. Once you figure out what to build, it becomes easier :)

The best one will come down to personal preference. There are quite a number of tools available, and your use case might lean towards a subset of those at first glance. It also depends on which platforms you'd like to interact with and what type of features you're looking for on each. If you're looking to schedule and post at certain times, it is a quite easy use case and you'll have plenty of choice. The bottom line is, tools make your life easier. You can't imagine the content calendar of bigger brands and having to do everything manually. It's just not worth the effort at that point. At a smaller scale, you can take advantage of these tools to avoid repeated tasks, speed up your workflow and focus on what really matters.