This interview was conducted over email with the Founders of Artyii.com, Shannon & Cai Lin, over the past weeks.

The Artyii idea, where did it come from?

It started off in the classrooms of the Singapore Management University where we were previously students at. We share a passion of arts, business and technology, hence marrying the 2 together was really a natural progression. As Asians, we decided to focus on Asian art, creating a sales platform for asian based artists to put up their artworks and paintings for sale for free. We market their artwork as affordable original wall paintings to first time home buyers and corporates. I mean, why get a print at the same price when you can get a gallery grade painting?

How do you get started with Artyii.com?

Once we got the necessary funding from various parties, both of us left our jobs to pursue this passion and as they say, the rest is history.

What are the necessary stuff to prepare when starting a web 2.0 site?

It requires a lot of planning to start a good web 2.0 site. From the site architecture, user-interface, to the placement of action buttons, to optimizing the site for SEO and planning for future modules. Its actually a lot of effort but its rewarding when you see real users interacting with what you’ve built for them.

What are the difficulties you’ve encountered when you are starting the company?

For everyone who’s started a company before, you’d know that everyday is a challenge. You wear different hats everyday – from top level strategising, to managing operations, to being a lawyer, accountant, webmaster and HR manager all at the same time. That being said, the experience you get is truly amazing.

What are the basic cost of starting and running a web 2.0 site? What do you advise a student who has no money to start a web 2.0 site?

Well, it depends on what the objectives of your site will be. Will it be an innovative platform, social site or a simple shopping cart type site? It can range from SGD500 – 15,000.

Consider your hosting cost or ask around if you can host with a friend who already has a server. Use open source frameworks such as Joomla to build your site if you don’t require complicated and customised functions. Chances are, what you’re doing has already been done before and all it takes is finding the template for it.

Keep your costs low, you’ll definitely start spending more once you learn more. Hence, it would do well to work with someone experienced when building your site

How does Artyii differentiate from its competitors?

To our knowledge, its the only sales, information and community driven art sales site in english speaking asia. Artists are able to request an invitation for free and Artyii helps faciliate the sale all the way – logistics, framing, payment, liaising. We have art professionals that provide comments to these emerging artists’ work as well. So, if you’re looking to buy art online, Artyii is the only place in the world where you can get quality, original Asian art at great prices direct from the artist.

What are the directions of Artyii.com and where you want to go from here?

We are continuing our efforts to reach out to artists as well as to buyers in the states and U.K. We are also looking for corporate buyers here in asia that are looking for bulk orders of original art for their hotels and F&B outlets.

What is the most important element to make a web 2.0 site successful?

Everything plays a complementary role – User Interface, SEO, Efficiency, Branding, Content and the value proposition of your core product/service.

To know this takes a good team – hence I would say the people behind the site are still the greatest asset.

I’ve been trying to understand this concept of “Finding Out What Your Friends Are Doing”. It is the formula that Facebook.com becomes one of the biggest internet companies in the world.

But why do we want to find out in the first place? Social status? Nosy?

Once we understand the intention behind our every action, we are able to utilize these factors in developing positive impact for our business and our daily life.

If we meet an old schoolmate, we would usually talk about what we are doing at the current moment, and talk about many different things in life. When we talk to a friend who has different values, we may talk lesser. But when we talk with someone who has the same hobbies, values or mindset, we’ll like to find out more.

Sometimes we like to show off how good we are, sometimes we just want to help them out to feel good about ourselves.

But either way, Facebook allows us to constantly in touch with our friends – old, new, and even strangers.

And because we are able to constantly see what they are doing, and we can comment on them, it gives us an opportunity to become more sociable.

I’ve recently been onto this crazy amazing journey into the world of social networking and the experience has been wonderful. At first, I thought social media networks like Twitter, facebook, and many more, are just some fads and it’s very difficult to make money there. But I was so wrong..

And here’s why..

In fact, the real reason why social media networking are so powerful because

1) People get to know the real you… I was testing with some niches lately, and I found out that if I show who I am, put up my pictures,  write a very sincere manner, the conversion rates increase dramatically. And after writing a true story about myself, it got more people to read and stick onto the page for longer periods of time.

2) They like to know your stories… I’ve also found out that your customers like your stories. The real story behind who you are, what you think, and how do you become the way you are right now (success or failures). I’m not sure about you, but I loved to read books of personal experience like “The Icon” which talks about Steve Jobs, “Sam Walton” (not sure if I remembered the title wrongly) which talks about Sam and how he built Walmart, “Ready, Fire, Aim” – a business book but used a very personal way to write, “Crush It” talks about the wine guy who takes wine online into a million dollar empire.. and many more.

Rather than telling you the boring and general idea of how to set up a business, these books talk about personal story. If you read it, I think you will feel connected with these people and feel that they are not so distance from you.

3) They like to know what you are doing… They want to know what you do on a daily basis.  Twitter is the best proof for this..

4) People need to connect with one another… I’m the only child and I can tell you that to connect with one another keeps a person happy. Watch the movie “cast away” and you will know how is it like to be stuck in an island with no one to connect with. Social media platforms provide you a place to communicate with one another and even connect in a deeper level. Hence using a real person would be much more effective than using a fake one.

Moral of the story – connect using the real you is the key to a successful media campaign.