8:52 AM PST Mon, Feb 25, 2013 LAUNCH Hackathon Grand Prize now at $75,000!
Launch Hackathon
I promised you the best hackathon ever a few months back. Only 5 days until the LAUNCH & AngelHack teams deliver on that promise.
Amazing food, massage therapists and HUGE prizes.
I’m thrilled to announce that the Hackathon Grand Prize is now at an unbelievable $75k!
Dharmesh Shah from Hubspot/OnStartups and I kicked this thing off by each putting up $25k as an investment prize (or $10k cash). Now, the worldwide leader in web security, Barracuda Networks [ http://barracudanetworks.com ] has matched our commitment with an additional $25k investment or $10k cash prize! We officially have the largest Hackathon prize ever!
Who wants to make it $100k? ;-) Email: partners@launch.co.
There’s still time to apply and register for the Hackathon, but we’re filling up fast. Registration closes on Thursday, Feb 28 at 11:59pm PST or when we hit 450 participants. Apply here: http://launchhackathon.com/register.
This is only the start. We have awesome partners offering prizes as well. See the full list below.
Reminder: The LAUNCH Hackathon with AngelHack begins this Saturday, March 2nd at 12pm at the San Francisco Design Center Concourse (635 8th St). Coding ends on Monday, March 4th at 1:00pm. Hackathon finals begins at 6:00pm on Monday (3/4), with the top 12 finalists presenting to the public beginning at 8:00pm. For more info: http://launchhackathon.com.
** All Hackathon Partners & Prizes **
For the most up to date prize info: http://launchhackathon.com/prizes
Grand Prize
- $25k investment or $10k cash from Jason Calacanis
- $25k investment or $10k cash from Dharmesh Shah
- $25k investment or $10k cash from Barracuda Networks
- $10k in credits for the Google Cloud Platform
- Lifetime free hosting from MediaTemple [ up to 2gb (dv), (gs), or (ve) ]
- $2.5k in Amazon AWS Credit
- One year’s worth of Dyn Email and/or DNS Services (dependent on actual needs)
- Guaranteed spot on stage at 2014 LAUNCH Festival
Amazon AWS
- Grand Prize winner receives $2.5k in Amazon AWS Credit
- Next 4 runners-up receive $1k in Amazon AWS Credit
Barracuda Networks
- Top 5 Hackathon finalists will receive a package of free security products (free web filtering, firewalls, etc).
FilePicker
Project must use FilePicker to be eligible to win:
- iPad Mini
Firebase
Project must utilize Firebase to be eligible to win:
- iPad
MediaTemple
- Grand prize winner receives lifetime free hosting - up to 2gb (dv), (gs), or (ve)
- Next 4 runners up receive 1 year free hosting - up to 2gb (dv), (gs), or (ve)
- All participants receive 1GB (dv), (ve), or (gs) for 1 month
Microsoft
Best use of Windows 8:
- 1st Place - $3k
- 2nd Place - $2k
- 3rd Place - $1k
NewAer
Project must utilize the NewAer Proximity Platform to be eligible to win:
- $2k in Apple gift cards. ($500 each for a team of 4)
Plantronics
Project must utilize the Plantronics Spokes SDK to be eligible to win:
- $1k
- Opportunity to demo at the Plantronics Demo Pit table for the LAUNCH Festival
- Voyager Legend UC headsets for all winning team members.
Samsung Developers
Project must utilize the S Pen SDK or AllShare Framework to be eligible to win:
- Samsung Galaxy Notes or up to $1k (4 team members maximum, 1 device or $250 per team member)
SAP
- TBD
Tokbox
Project must utilize Tokbox to be eligible to win:
- Three Ostrich pillows
- $300 giftcard to Amazon
Yammer
Project must utilize Yammer Platform to be eligible to win:
- 4 Jamboxes
2:22 PM PST Sun, Feb 24, 2013 The Coming 'Experetail' Boom
[ Nespresso Boutique in San Francisco - photo via Yelp ]
Retail is fracked.
It's so obvious to those of us with Amazon Prime accounts, Zappos on our iPhones and Fab.com bookmarked.
Marc Andreessen said all retail will be gone, and that's not as earth-shattering a prediction as it seems.
If you can save time or money you're probably going to do it -- if you can do both? Game over.
I haven't had to pick up coffee, razors, deodorant, shoes or shirts in a couple of years.
The only time we go shopping any more is for perishables or an 'emergency run' as we call it. I'm guessing if you're on this list, you're like us.
However, I took my daughter to the Disney Store last month, and we had a blast looking at everything. Her favorites were the mirrors from Snow White and the video jukebox. She didn't want to buy anything, even after I gave her multiple choices of her favorite characters. I bought a Peter Pan playset out of guilt for the mouse company. Sympathy buy since we were there for an hour playing with stuff.
She had enough of an experience that she didn't need to purchase anything.
I find myself doing that as well at shoe stores, the Apple store or Saks. In fact, I looked for a new wallet at Saks, and they were so overpriced ($100?!), that I pulled up the top wallets on Amazon while in the store and ranked them by popularity. They were all $10-$25. I bought three of the top 10 for < $50. I have two backup wallets now in my valet. I'm done for the next 10 years -- at least.
Everything will come crashing down and Amazon will win it all -- it's certain -- what then?
In other words, working backwards from Sequoia's 'Why now?', what founder with what product would answer 'because retail is dead and everyone orders online!'
The answer?
5:14 PM PST Tue, Feb 19, 2013 The 2nd Annual LAUNCH Education & Kids Conference Set for June 26 & 27!
We're excited to announce the 2nd annual LAUNCH Education & Kids conference, June 26 & 27, 2013 at Microsoft's campus in Mountain View. In addition, this year we’ve partnered with Pearson for a bigger and better 2nd year of the conference!
We want to make sure we get as many awesome teachers and administrators involved as possible this year, so if you'd like to attend or know someone who should, please leave your email here.
Check http://launchedu.co/ for updates.
Last year, we showcased 30 edtech startups targeting everyone from preschoolers to adult learners, parents to school administrators, plus we had inspiring talks from Marshall Tuck of the Partnership for Los Angeles Schools and Atari founder & BrainRush founder Nolan Bushnell. Watch these keynotes on 'This Week in Startups.'
Highlights from the 2012 event:
http://blog.launch.co/blog/live-blogging-launch-education-kids-day-one.html
http://blog.launch.co/blog/live-blogging-launch-education-kids-day-two.html
Support LAUNCH Education & Kids by sponsoring lunch ($15k), dinner ($20k), breakfast ($10k) or coffee ($7.5k)... all come with an exhibition table. Or just an exhibition table ($3k). Email partners@launch.co for more info.