Jackson Miller

I am at Nashville Startup Weekend waiting for these this thing to get started. So far turnout looks good and lots of people are ready to pitch.

I am thinking that I will use this posts for updates throughout. If I can remember to bring my USB cable then I will likely post some pictures as well.

1. Hot or Not for elevator pitches
   Basically just what the title says except that for some reason it is to be a Facebook app.
2. UserVoice on steroids
   A turnkey customer support solution that can be embedded in your web application. Contextual based on where in the application the user is.
3. Bar State
   College bar portal. Bar owners can attract traveling students by posting drink specials.
4. LaughSoFunny.com
   A digg-like system for funny videos. America’s Funniest Home Videos 2.0.
5. Recycling Program for Warehouse
   Roomba-like recycling system for warehouses.
6. Playdate
   FIRST iPHONE APP!!! App for moms to allow them to schedule play dates. Location based.
7. My Caffe Laffara
   Website for a business that has a new way of brewing coffee.
8. Spin / Worst that could happen
   Spin is like a web based political spin room. Worst that could happen I didn’t catch.
9. Music recommendation / Search
   Music rating application based on searching the content. Big idea. He knows how to do it, but it would take two years. I love this guy!
10. Homeless Blogging Advocacy Council
    Develop a network that advises and assists homeless bloggers (best practices, hosting the blog, sponsorships, etc). Award based systems for the homeless bloggers’ participation.
11. ASSASSINS!!!!!
    Location based game for killing your friends in the real world (without really killing them).
12. Chow Now
    Wait list software for restaurants. Web-bsed component for the restaurant to manage the wait list, mobile application for diners to see how long the wait is.
13. Smart Shopping App
    Take a picture of a UPC to build shopping lists and find the best prices.
14. Gmail Delayed Send
    App to delay sending an email through email. (No, I am not on the golf course, I am working). Ad based popup handles scheduling.
15. Microwind
    Tiny wind generators. Wind turbines on the dividers in the interstate.
16. Education Revolution
    Making education free for anyone who would like to attend. Turning education into ad-based tuition. “Theaters of the mind”
17. Driver Trailer Share
    Web based application to increase the utilization of trailers.
18. Customer Connection
    Database of customers and preferences that is displayed to customer facing personnel to increate the performance.
19. Ring tone
    Caller-facing rings that can be determined on who the caller is.
20. Edu to Edu
    Allow students to sell items and services to each other.
21. Atlanta Gang
    iPhone app - drunk dial blocker. Block contacts when drunk.
22. Voting app
    Voting service with and API to allow other applications to tie into it.
23. iShare
    Social network for loaning items to friends (and hopefully get them back)
24. Too Doooooo
    Facebook application that is a Calendar. Facebook app for list of things to do. Concerts, community, sports, movies. Each event has a profile page. Uses geo-targeting to draw attention to events. Shows what events your friends are attending.
25. Charge It
    Base stations to charge your car.
26. Streamline RFP
    System for automatically giving submissions to an RFP a base score to weed out many of the unqualified.
27. Remote Portrait
    Distributed family pictures.
28. Text Zoom
    Text zooming for mobile text.
29. Gmail Train
    Add CC and BCC with keystrokes and templates to Gmail.

I missed a few, including an impromptu pitch from myself. I pitched an embedded transactional email system to aid with customer support.

After all of those pitches we voted a few times to pull it down to the following 9 semi-finalists (finalists in bold):

1. Playdate
2. Music Recommendation / Search
3. ASSASSINS!!!
4. Chow Now!!
5. Smart Shopping App
6. Gmail Delayed Send / Choo Choo!
7. Ishare
8. Ideally
9. Barsourcing

Update: We are done with day 1 at Nashville Startup Weekend. I am going to work on ASSASSINS!!! I picked that project for four reasons:

1. Over 95% of the people in the room initially voted for the idea. This shows me that there is a demand and interest.
2. It is an iPhone App which will be fun to develop.
3. The server side stuff can be developed for and hosted on Google’s AppEngine for $0.
4. It is possible to pull it off in a weekend (in some ways this is naive and represents my ego wanting to pull off something almost impossible, but there is a core product that can be simple enough to complete).

I do see a missed opportunity and I think it is an indication that we are not thinking correctly yet. There was only one project based on saving people money, Smart Shopping. My personal assessment is that Smart Shopping is too big for Startup Weekend. We need to be thinking about startups that can thrive in a prolonged recession. These are strange times.

The thing is, Startup Weekend for me is about creating a startup for sport. I don’t want another long term project. ASSASSINS!!! has an advantage in that there can be zero overhead (at least to prove the assumptions), which makes it about as viable as one could hope for.

I am looking forward to seeing how all of the projects come together over the course of the weekend. So far I think Nashville’s first Startup Weekend is a resounding success. If we maintain an 80% retention rate through the weekend it will be a huge success in my mind.

My thanks goes out to Jason Moore, Nicholas Holland, and all of the organizers who made this happen.