RIGHT
NOW
Main event one · October 2026 · Northeast Florida

The Next
Challenge

A real small business problem, revealed live. Sixty minutes. Two builders.
The owner decides who won.

Applications open

See if you qualify.

One seat per event. You are not applying to me, you are applying to the format, and the bar is not what you can build. It is whether you will be judged the way this format judges.

  • You have shipped something a non-technical person still uses six months later.Not a demo. Not a launch. A thing that survived contact with somebody who did not want it.
  • You can name the last thing you built that failed, and why.If you cannot, you have not shipped enough to be interesting on a stage.
  • You will build without a pre-made template.The problem is revealed live. Nobody sees it before the bell, including me.
  • You will hand over what you build, free, to the business that submitted it.Win or lose. This is the rule most people fail.
  • You are willing to lose on camera.The whole thing is recorded and published either way. That is the price of the seat, and it is the only one.
Apply for the seat No fee. Bring any stack. Reviewed in the order they arrive.
THE FORMAT·60 MINUTES·LIVE + STREAMED
Holding the seat
ADAM
LABARE
Ponte Vedra, FL
  • 30 yrs teaching people to use things
  • Built the production line at Website Pros: ten people to a hundred and twenty, and into what became Web.com
  • Style ugly, fast, works Monday
VS
Challenger
TO BE
NAMED
Applications open
  • Any consultant, builder or vibecoder
  • No fee, no format tricks
  • Announced when the seat is filled
Apply

How it is judged, and why that is the point

  1. A real problem, revealed live. Submitted by an actual small business in the room. Neither builder sees it beforehand.
  2. Sixty minutes on the clock. Screens up, thinking out loud, no edits.
  3. The judges are not technologists. The owner whose problem it is, plus two operators who have to live with the result.
  4. One scoring criterion: can they run it on Monday without us. Not elegance, not stack, not cleverness. Whether the person who owns the problem can still use it after both builders leave.
  5. Everything built is handed over, free, to the business that submitted it.

That fourth rule is the reason this exists. Every demo in this industry is judged by people who could have built it themselves. This one is judged by the person who has to live with it, which is the only audience that has ever mattered.

TAKE THE SEAT

Apply for the challenger corner. One per event, reviewed in order.

Apply
PUT UP YOUR PROBLEM

Submit the thing that keeps landing back on your desk. If yours is chosen, two builders solve it in an hour and you keep both solutions.

Submit a problem
JUST WATCH

Date and venue drop to the list first. Northeast Florida gets seats before the stream does.

Get on the list