Martin, yes the principles set forth in the book are universal - think of it like a "physics course for entrepreneurship." It will definitely be relevant regardless of the culture.

Sean

well said Aaron. I wonder if we could orchestrate a stunt in which the open source companies of the world all banded together and pitched in to buy a WSJ full-page ad to convey this sentiment to enterprise decision makers? As much as higher-ups like schmoozing i have to imagine profits and op efficiency trump tee times...

sean

Brad, have you read Seth Godin's "The Dip?" It's a super fast read - you could probably inhale that one in about 30min. Similar message though- we have this deeply embedded notion that failure is this horrific thing that we should do everything to prevent. The premise of The Dip is to diffuse that psychology and know when to retreat so you can allocate your limited resources to the other worthy pursuits that you can actually win. i met Seth while he was in Phx last yr and posted some thoughts on his talk and book here-> http://www.scrollinondubs.com/2007/05/24/seth-god...

sean

the other advantage of the Nike+ appliance over a GPS-based approach is that it will track your treadmill runs if you run in a gym. Not sure what other data you need to track but the website mentioned above tracks the basics and allows you to compete virtually and compare your runs with friends online.

Brad, how about one more:

Deployment Glue: an OS-agnostic runtime that allows software of any composition (Ruby, Java, PHP, .NET, Python, C++) to deploy immediately and portably across any environment whether hosted locally or remotely? A living container delivers updates to the application stack and developers stop worrying about installation and maintenance concerns and are instead free to concentrate on the features that make the app uniquely valuable. Customers appreciate an identical deployment experience across every app regardless of the developer's choice of technology toolset.

sean

they must have all the lawyers that were laid off when SCO went under... this is as silly as Amazon patenting the "one-click buy" process. we seriously need to rethink US patents in the realm of software from the ground up. pretty ironic that it's over a "progress" bar...

Ross,

over the holiday break we added a page like the one you suggested that explains things a little better. If you get a sec scan it and see if that would have helped your expectation before downloading:

http://www.jumpbox.com/what-we-do

To your 1st point- I do do understand the psychological objection to server sprawl but if you think about it, these are self-contained, self-updating stacks running on your local network so you're not truly having to manage 3 new computers and all the mess they normally entail. From the perspective of a sys-admin i get the hesitance to adding new moving parts to a network, but the value of convenience and time savings should eclipse this provided people need to get those apps deployed locally with as little fuss as possible.

sean

yea - the black socks and boxers in the headlights of complete strangers as their garage opened. top notch.

sean

so I got the okay from my buddy Josh to post his version of Feelrz- it's essentially a similar concept only implemented for the iPhone (and any other phone that grab a wifi connection). Very simply the idea is this- visiting the web page from your device, it knows what IP you're coming from and presents you the profiles of people coming from the same subnet and therefore in your immediate area. People get a "hotornot-like" interface to decide whether they want to meet the other person and a double-match results in contact info mutually exchanged and the ability to txt or call each other. Free service would be capped at x number of connects and unlimited service would be a low monthly subscription. There would be a significant opportunity to spread it in existing friend circles via FB or Opensocial widgets.

What are the constraints on the types of ideas that can be submitted- are they all confined to being strictly web apps? I have only read half this thread so far- some interesting stuff. I wanted to propose 3 of my own:

AdSqueeze - > http://www.cambrianhouse.com/idea/idea-promoter/i...

a unique way to make TV advertising interactive via DVR and bring it to small companies that couldn't otherwise afford TV ads. This one made it to their tourney of champions so there is at least minor validation of the concept.

RenderJuice -> http://www.cambrianhouse.com/idea/idea-promoter/i...

the idea of running a virtualized, self-service render farm using EC2 and offering more competitive pricing than traditional physical server farms given the fact you wouldn't have fixed costs and depreciating assets. This one placed second in their Purple Cow tourney FWIW.

Feelrz -> http://www.cambrianhouse.com/idea/idea-promoter/i...

the concept of mobile proximity alerts via cell phone. Did some preliminary research on this and it would be a bitch using the LBS features of each phone carrier. My buddy Josh has a similar idea only with a different spin on how to implement it. I'm pinging him now to see if he's cool with me proposing it here. It's a superior approach and would do really well if there were a widget promoting account creation across FB and OpenSocial.

looking forward to meeting everyone. I agree w/ Shanti that it's not so much about finishing an app over the weekend but more about the process of collaborating, thinking through possibilities and meeting folks.

sean