I love watching Kevin Pollak's show grow into a web powerhouse! 

Q: To qualify for LAUNCH 1.0, does the product need to be finished or near completion to apply?

A: Our goal is to have companies open their sites, at least for beta clients, at the event.

We expect that folks applying for LAUNCH 1.0 — especially those applying in December and January — will have only partially functional sites, so we accept screen shots/mockups and even wireframes for sections of the site that are not yet complete.

In your application, simply state: "Here are the pieces of the site that are complete, and here are the pieces that will be ready for
the LAUNCH conference."

Cleaning out some old boxes and found this old shot from the late 90s.

The 1.0 competition is for companies which have not yet launched, and
the 2.0 competition is for companies which have already launched but
which are either launching a significant new version or a completely
new product.

In order to qualify for the LAUNCH 1.0:
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1. There must be no press or blogger coverage of your company. This
means no story in Mashable, ReadWriteWeb or TechCrunch. If your
product is covered already, then it is launched already and you are
disqualified from being in the LAUNCH 1.0 competition
2. You must not have demoed your product at another event. So, if you
launched your product at a major public event, it can not be part of
the 1.0 competition.
3. Your website, blog and twitter accounts must not explain, or have
screen shots showing, what your product does.

In other words, to be part of the 1.0 competition you must show the
world your product FOR THE FIRST TIME on stage.

Note: You maybe have a small closed beta of your product running, but
it must be closed and the members of your beta must not be blogging
about it. You are responsible from keeping your product private and
closed. You may not pre-brief the press on your product launch, as we
all know certain press outlets will break your embargo and ruin the
massive excitement around your on-stage launch!

In order to qualify for the LAUNCH 2.0:
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a) Your must be releasing an amazing new version or feature to your product or
b) You must be doing a significant new product or pivot

An example of releasing an amazing new feature (a), would be when
Twitter launched their redesign ( http://twitter.com/newtwitter ) or
when Facebook launched Groups ( http://jc.is/9LLJCJ ). An example of a
feature that would not be significant enough would be Twitter
launching something minor like their @earlybird deal account (

A good test for (a) is asking yourself “are our users going to notice
the changes, and consider them significant?”
http://jc.is/9GC7Ze ).

An example of a company launching a new product that would qualify
include when David Sacks of Geni launched spinout Yammer at
TechCrunch50–and won! Another example, would be when Phil Kaplan of
AdBrite lauched Spottt (http://jc.is/dADZtx).

A good test of (b) is asking yourself “does this product have a new
domain name, a new logo and/or a new business model?”