One thing we’ve definitely learned is to keep moving forward, and in that vein, we’re super excited to announce the first monthly Menuism Food Fight! You might have heard about it on the Menuism Blog, but a good thing bears repeating: Eat PANCAKES and win prizes! In honor of National Pancake Week (Feb 18-24), we’re looking for the BEST pancake in Seattle, Chicago, New York and San Francisco, and you can win by just eating pancakes and reviewing them on Menuism. You can win even if you’re not a pancake fan – just refer a winner and you’ll win as well. So get out there and spread the word, or check the press release or contest page for more details!

Publicity in all forms is great, and we’re really excited to be getting Food Fight coverage from the awesome guys at Tech Cocktail and WindyBits. However, you know you’ve really made it when your name shows up on a banana, courtesy of the fine folks at BananaName:

This is proof positive that Menuism’s Food Fight is something to go “bananas” over… sorry, couldn’t resist.

- John & Justin

• Judging – The criteria is 50% originality, 25% business implementation, 25% business results. So, yes, you need to be a fully operating company (see next bullet).
• Eligibility – Your business must be licensed in one of the 50 states; average revunue must be at least $250,000 and not more than $10,000,000.
• Contest Period – The contest opened on May 1st and goes until Sept 15, 2006. Winners will be awarded on Nov 9.
• How to Enter – Write a 500 word essay and submit it using the online contest form.
• Other Fine Print – By submitting your application, you grant UPS permission to use the company name, trademark and comments for advertising and publicity (of course, this should be in your favor, but who knows).

Doesn’t look like we’ll be entering. We’re not quite at the $250k revenue mark Maybe next year…Good luck to all the contestants!

-JC

Since we had a virtual team I guess it would show alot of people (maybe Hollywood Squares style) sitting either in their cube or at home with a phone headset on while talking on the phone and looking at slides on their screen. The people talking or presenting would probably be pacing around the room or looking up at the ceiling (since you dont have to make eye contact in a virtual world) and the listeners would probably be trying to multitask (like making lunch, checking email, IMing, etc.) since they’ve been on the phone all day long and haven’t had a chance to do anything else. Then there would probably be all kinds of things going on in the house in the background (kids crying, dogs barking) as the people scramble to hit mute (many times not quick enough). There’s not as much in person interaction awkwardnes as “The Office”, but there’s a different kind of awkwardness when you have to work with someone you’ve never met before.

Ahh memories. Would it make a good show? It’s funny to me when I reflect about it now as an outsider…Maybe I’ll write the pilot if this venture doesn’t pan out

-JC

• Define objectives and tasks SMART – specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and tangible.
• Track them with online tools such as Basecamp. Basecamp is quite lightweight, easy to use, and free to try for single projects.
• Have constant and open communications through:
• Unlimited mobile-to-mobile minutes: we’re on Sprint
• All-in-one printers that can scan/fax to share documents: I have an HP, John has a Brother. Doing this over the unlimited minutes landline from Vonage and emailing PDFs.
• Instant messaging of course: GoogleTalk, MSN, etc.
• Web-based group chat: Campfire looks really interesting, but we haven’t set it up yet.
• PC-to-PC calling: Skype. Sometimes this is easier when you’re at the computer and just want to do a quick call with no headset.
• If you’re doing code development, you’ll definitely need a version control system. We’re using Subversion on our site hosted by Site5. In addition to code, once you have it setup, you could also use it for other business documents.
• Share bookmarks online: del.icio.us is a social bookmarking site that makes it really easy to share and find bookmarks online.

Any other tips you want to share? Let us know.

- JC

Well, I’ll make this short since tomorrow’s the first day of work. Yup, Saturday. When you’re starting a company and not making any money, every day burns through your reserves. I think this is where those desire, commitment, and energy traits come in handy…

- JC

• Check the pearly whites: I’m not planning on having dental insurance during this venture so I better make sure I’ve got no cavities. I went to a local dentist, Printers Row Dental Care, a few blocks north of my condo and was very pleased to find that everything looks good. I guess the Sonicare toothbrush is working . A few cool things too: (1) they don’t have any computers in the office – they got rid of them to have a totally personal approach, even including a thank you letter a few days later; (2) Dr. Page used this cool wireless hi-res camera wand to look at my teeth and had it display on a tv for me to see – very cool.
• Stock up on contacts: My new eye doctor, Solo Eye Care, a few blocks south of my condo recommended I move off the rigid gas permeables to the latest soft toric contacts because they also correct for astigmatism while not having the comfort issues (if you know me, you know I complain alot about dirt getting into my contacts). I don’t anticipate having a vision plan either, so I got my fill of these.
• Sign up for health insurance: I never really appreciated the HP health plan until I started shopping for my own health insurance on eHealthInurance. Feeling pretty healthy and confident that I’ll be avoiding dangerous activities during this venture (knock on wood), I signed up for one of the cheapest plans they had for Chicago. It’s a Celtic PPO that offered a few visits to the primary and specialists for $30 copay all for just $43/month – that’s pretty cheap.
• Routine physical: With my benefits downshifting I wanted to make sure that I had a thorough checkup so I found a doctor at Northwestern Memorial Hospital a few El stops away. Cool thing about this hospital is that they’ve gone almost totally paperless. After filling out the patient form, they enter in all the data, scan it, then shred it. Each office has a thin client computer hooked up to a server farm that centrally houses all the medical data – very cool. The nurse said they bought the solution from Cerner and that they have an IT department that takes care of everything, but she also mentions that everytime IT does an upgrade, there are glitches and the systems get real slow – oh well, it’s a good start though.
• Execute some HP stock options: Well, they were above water, HP’s at a decent price (hit at $32), and I’m going to need the cash I’ll hold on to some shares for a while though so I hope everyone at HP keeps chugging!

I think I’m just about ready to fly solo now…

- JC

Before I started at HP, I read many good things about the company, ranging from its reputation as one of the best companies to work for to its history of innovation. HP always seemed to be a case study for something good. And when I first started, one of my first assignments was to read a copy of The HP Way, a book by Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard. All of this resulted in an extremely optimistic outlook on my new career.

I won’t go into the details, but needless to say, HP is no longer on the list of best companies to work for and there have been lots of change. But through it all, I found no matter how much the company changes and how much the CEOs try to change the culture, the HP employees will always be the same good people that made up the HP of old. While HP my not make the best companies list to work for anymore, I firmly believe that the employees are some of the best people in the industry. While other companies seem to focus singularly on having the smartest or most qualified individual, I feel like HP strives to have the best person – people that are good in heart, highly adaptive, great to work with, and of course inventive.

Instead of rambling on and on, I’ll start wrapping up by saying that it was tough to leave HP not because of the job, but because of the good people. If Two-Bit Operation is able to enjoy any kind of growth and success, I hope we can build a culture of people like Hewlett and Packard did because then I know we would be able to build quality and innovative products like the HP of old.

Utimately my decision came down to wanting to be able to take action on something I was passion about. The thrill of being able to build and own something was enough to overcome any anxiety about quitting. The thrill of following Bill and Dave in their footsteps and building a great company out of an idea in a garage…or condo. I’m sure this will all change when 3 months down the line I have a tooth ache and no dental insurance though