I Created a Startup Aboard a Bus from SF to Austin: Pairwise Launches at SxSW

Me and Brandon have been working tirelessly since Tuesday aboard a bus with spotty wifi to create Pairwise. It's an app that lets you broadcast and receive a short message in a very small area (say, conference center). We solve the problem of not knowing who to connect with at a conference, party or gathering, or not having the right introduction to make that connection. Users can use Pairwise to meet customers, fill hiring needs, connect with others in the same space, etc. Eventually, the goal is to turn downtime into business networking opportunity, maybe say, at airport waiting areas. We still have lots to iterate on the product (like switch to LinkedIn instead of Facebook), but have been learning lots from talking to people here. It's be really great to meet and get feedback from readers of HN here at SxSW, you can connect with me through @euwyn. Any tweets to help spread the word to enable us to learn more about our proudct would be huge: "@pairwisemobi launches location-based networking for new business connections, created in 72 hrs aboard the startupbus: http://pairwise.mobi Phew, it's been a crazy week, any words of encourage are certainly appreciated.

This is a great idea for an app -- I've occasionally found myself in this exact situation -- and an impressive turnaround from idea to functional. Congrats!

That said, the fact that you label it a "startup" instead of an "app" is a pet peeve of mine. You created an app on the bus, not a startup business (though perhaps one will develop around the app).

It's a cool idea. I think pigeonholing it as a business networking tool might detract from a lot of other potential use cases. Some comments on the execution:

1) I don't understand why it uses FB Connect but still forced me to enter a name, e-mail and password.

2) I understand that this iteration is closely tied to SxSW, but it shouldn't have automatically populated the Austin and SxSW tags for me because I'm nowhere near there.

3) It would be cool to see the global public stream, or the stream for any particular tag.

Good luck!

Hey Andrew, thanks for the feedback. Although the site is formatted for the mobile screen, it actually works just fine in a browser. Your location can be sent through FF, among other browsers, and our site will work just as it does on the mobile version. We ARE thinking about the best way to allow people who don't have location enabled devices to use the site and we'll have some solutions rolling out shortly.

i like the idea that it can be used to meet people at conferences - that solves a problem i've had in the past.

personally, i would like the ability to use openid, or just a simple password, and also to be able to use, say, a laptop (eg via a maps or lat/lon interface). but i guess i may be a technical luddite.

Very compelling use case. Got to meet the guys down here at #sxsw. Very cool p33ps.

really cool idea. we tried on the flight from Fort Lauderdale to Austin to build a simple app, but the battery of my laptop didn't make it through the all flight so we'll finish it and launch it today :)