It seems that our customers liked my approach because it wasn’t long before I couldn’t handle the work on my own. The next big step came when I hired our first employee and my eventual partner.  This changed things. Now I wasn’t just responsible for myself and my family, but for others too.

As we added employees not only could we accomplish more, but because we had more skills in our realm of expertise, we could now take on different types of projects. We have continued to grow every year and now have five employees.

When I first started Fanzoo I set out to hire only extremely talented developers that could work completely independent from their home office. This has worked well and everyone has been extremely productive. What I have found, however, is that it does not scale. It is next to impossible to mentor people remotely. Email, Skype, chat rooms, and IM all help when working together remotely, but the barrier is just enough to prevent full collaboration.

I’m excited to announce the next big step for us. Fanzoo Technology will be opening our first office in May of 2012. Those that know me can imagine that my ideas for office space are just a little bit different than most software consulting companies. This process started with a search for the perfect office location. We found it in Ann Arbor, Michigan. We have secured space in the Phoenix West building just a few blocks away from Main Street in downtown Ann Arbor. I could not be happier with the location, and the space. We don’t need cubes where we are headed and needed to find a space that worked. Our space has tall ceilings, is wide open, and has lots of light. I’ll share more of my ideas once we are done, but consider these the “before” pictures.

I became interested in WP7 when it launched while at Mix and have been working with it ever since. I have started several projects but never finished. It’s easy to start, it’s hard to finish.

I decided it was time to finish something and Microsoft gave me the perfect excuse – 30 to Launch. I signed up for the contenst at the begining of the month and I’m happy to report that I am now testing the app.

The application concept is simple. Give WP7 users access to the published wait time data for border crossings across the U.S.A.  Windows Phone is the perfect platform to create an easy to use application that gets information to the user fast.

Check out the application website here: http://www.usbordercheck.com/

I will be submitting to the marketplace soon!

We have to know a thing or two about technology and software. The tricky part is that what we need to know is always changing. Learning is critical to the success of our business. Based on that understanding, we are now making research and learning time a key part of every employee’s week. We started this last month and I am already impressed with the results.

Each month we have a sharing session where each person takes twenty minutes or so to share what they’ve learned. Last month we learned about the following topics:

• Setting up a private NuGet repository for internal packages.
• Parallel programming with the Task Parallel Library.
• Software project management systems that implement a Kanban board.
• Setting up and skinning a WordPress blog.

The last topic has resulted in this blog. The idea here is that Fanzoo has a place to share what we are learning. Hopefully others will find this information useful. Even better, we hope that some will have great comments to contribute so we can learn from each other.

Thanks for reading and check back soon.