FoodJiva.com

I have an annoucement to make, though it probably won't come as a huge surprise to those of you who read my blog. Yes, there is a reason why I've mentioned FoodJiva here a few times in the last couple of weeks, and that reason is I've taken on the position of Vice President of Sales & Marketing for this start-up venture. And I am really excited about it!

FoodJiva.com is a simple solution to ordering food. You go to http://www.foodjiva.com/, type in your address (home, office, wherever), and it brings up all the restaurants that deliver to that location. The menus are interactive; click on a dish and a description, and sometimes even a photo, comes up. You can even personalize the experience through "JivaMenu," a program that allows you to set preferences (for example, I love Japanese food, so my JivaMenu will organize the listings to show my faves first). You then place your order using a credit card (secure transcation, of course); you can even designate a tip so no cash is necessary. Next, you get a confirmation email, along with another email with the estimated delivery time. Most of our restaurants do not charge a delivery fee, and those that do are in the $2-$4 range. And our minimum order amount is as low as $10.00.

Before you can say, "JIVA!" 100 times, your food is delivered to your doorstep. OK, maybe I exaggerate, but it's pretty fast. Nothing to sign, just take your food and eat. Yesterday, after a long FoodJiva meeting, we logged onto the website, not knowing what we felt like eating (that's the back of my head; Gene, our CTO is next to me). We eventually decided on pizza from Pitfire Pizza, placed the order online through FoodJiva.com and got our food within 20 minutes. That's my pizza margherita below (the little red drops are Sriracha, something I MUST have on pizza). Gene opted for the Pitfire Sausage pie. Ted and Cindy (co-CEOs) got the folded Garlic Chicken pizza, but we forgot to take photos of it - we were too hungry!

Oh, the coolest thing about FoodJiva is that we donate 5% of our net proceeds to food banks, like Westside Food Bank. It kinda makes you feel like you're feeding your stomach AND your soul.

Right now, we cover the west side and beach cities, but will be expanding very soon to cover all of Southern California and, in the future, beyond! I'll keep you all posted. In the meantime, check it out, and if you live in our coverage areas, try it out and let me know what you think. It's great for office lunches or those nights where you just don't want to cook!

More soon. Now back to our regularly-scheduled programming!