Logan and I sat down with Gwen Bell the other day. She's currently a local to the RTP area, but has been involved with StartupWeekend since the first event in Boulder, CO. It sounds as though preparations are well underway.
I know I've already posted about the event, but since I am currently stretched too thin to take a pro-active role in organizing the thing, throwing out ideas and opinions here is my attempt to contribute.
I will be there for the whole weekend, and you should consider going too.
Who the heck else is going to go to something like this? I have no idea. But here's my $0.02 as to who I'd like to see:
1) Smart enthusiastic folks that are willing to kick some new ideas around for a weekend
2) People from all disciplines and walks of life (this is not just for software developers)
You don't have to be an entrepreneur launching your own business. You don't even have to want to do that as your day job. If you've got skills a business could use and want to experience building something for the price of a weekend, come on down.
Okay. I'll put the soapbox away.
Here are the first ideas that popped in to my head as ideas we could tackle. There's been no detailed thought, just some noodling. Bear in mind that I'm trying to think of things that could actually be done in a weekend...
1) Zillow for commercial real estate. How handy would it be to have Zillow-like functionality for office leases etc. Zoom in to an area and see what people are paying i.e. some kind of Google Maps mashup. I'm just not sure where we get the data from.
2) Tools for a StartupWeekend. How about a bundled set of tools to roll out a StartupWeekend (or any other kind of intensely collaborative short project). The idea would be to combine multiple open source apps into an easy to install/setup bundle.
3) CraigsBuddysList. Shopping/comparison engine for used goods. Polls ebay and craigslist to find specific used items...
Just trying to start the wheels spinning. I gather there will be a forum of some kind set up in the next few weeks -- I'll post the address when I have it.
Zillow for commercial real estate - this is a great idea, however potentially impossible to provide. The data/lease terms are often times covered by a confidentiality agreement and they are not public information like sales transactions.
The mapping tools and property is already available to commercial real estate professionals, we use it on a daily basis.
Posted by: Tom Grotewold | October 18, 2007 at 08:36 AM