As this is a project that started and stopped and has now started once again, I have been asked more then once, “When are you going to be finished?” The easy answer for all software projects is “never” but in this case I’ve always been driven by a strong desire to build and launch a working system, rather than a “minimally viable product” that does just enough to get people to sign up.

When my future customers ask, I’ve always described the situation as similar to cooking a dish for a customer. …

Since we’re late anyway, we have time to add more features, right? — more than one Marketing person

Every single time I do anything in the world of mobile vending, whether it’s attending a Food Truck event, going to a farmers’ market, attending a First Friday event here in Las Vegas, or event interacting with various people in social media, I come away with another idea. A classic engineering problem with product development, we love to have functionality. …

I’ve heard this more than once when in product meetings with the Marketing folks, “If we’re slipping the schedule, we have time to add more features, right?” When Engineering and Marketing are two different groups, that’s funny or the beginning of a small war, and more often than one might think the Marketing people get more traction than they should have. Here at FoodTruckYP, we have yours truly in both Marketing and Engineering.

In my Instagram travels I’ve come across so many different kinds of mobile food vendors. No, mobile vendors. Food and drink of course, but more clothing and…

Well we’re coming up on an alpha launch, wherein we’ll see who is excited about my take on a mobile vendor tools platform (heretofore called a “food truck web app” but it isn’t really that anymore). Having been a member of a Credit Union or two since age 7, I’m taking the approach that this project will be in business for its membership, and to be honest I’m hoping we can get some members to agree with that with the minimal monthly subscription we’re aiming for.

A couple of trends I’m seeing now that weren’t so popular back in 2011…

For as long as I’ve been working on this project there is always that one question that sounds like fingernails on a chalk board: “When is it going to be finished?”

My pat answer is always, “Well, if you cook food you don’t want to give it to someone until it’s finished cooking, right? You don’t give people under-cooked food, I don’t want to launch this project under-cooked either!” But that is a bit of a dodge. While the best chef anywhere is completely unable to re-cook the food after it’s eaten, software is always subject to being tossed back…

Humans do two things that make us unique from all other animals; we use
tools and we tell stories. And when you make something, you’re doing
both at once.
— Adam Savage

People who take the plunge and operate a mobile food business, whether it’s a food truck, a cart, a tent, a stand, a bike… it is no easy undertaking, to be sure. Some do it to pay the bills, some do it for their own reasons, but many do it because they have a menu that they would like to share with others, and they can do so…

Back in 2011 I started a mobile application project for bartenders. I called it RegularDB, a mobile-friendly website designed to connect bartenders and anyone in the Service Industry to their regular customers. The name never really caught on (I was very clearly inspired by IMDB), but the idea was sound. Before Facebook Pages came along, this would be a way to connect with customers (and vice versa) without sharing personal details, photos of kids, etc.

The most attractive part of this concept was, I was not going to charge bartenders anything for this. The idea was, if anyone in the…