Finally - a computer that works!

Am now back fully online, after all sorts of problems with computers when I came back from holiday. Thanks, HP, for selling me a computer which takes me 3 days to recover from a hard disk crash...

And how have things been going in the meantime? Well, it seems that the site has settled down a bit, entrants are no longer accusing each other of dastardly deeds and they are rightly focusing on the competition and discussing real issues rather than complaining about the rules, CNBC and each other's entries.

We're a respectable no.5 as I write and still the most viewed video on The Good Entrepreneur. But there are still 9 days to go for shortlisting and the competition is pretty hot, there is now an incredible number of entries (now stabilised at 194). No-one I'm sure expected that many (ok Luis you predicted a last-minute rush, I know, I know).

Anyway, think we have marketed the entry pretty well - apart from friends and family, it's all over LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook.

Preparations for finishing touches to business plans in motion as we head for the 21st August deadline...

3 weeks to go till shortlisting

Then I guess we'll know if we're in or out. But whatever, we're still in a good position for getting funding I reckon. By the way, boy what a bunch of strange people we've got posting their conspiracy theories on our entry right now. According to our research they seem to share common connections (like country of origin) even though they think we don't know this. Weird.

Entries close

Wow, what an incredible number of entries came in at the last minute yesterday (entries are now closed). A staggering 137 entries, assuming there are no more waiting to be put up on the site. We expected a lot less because things were so slow at first (see below posts, we reckoned 50!) But hey, we're ready for the challenge! We are also still doing ok on the popularity board, mostly but not always somewhere in the top 3, which is great. A bunch of entries seem to have just stopped posting, especially those which have been up for a while, which is strange - I would have expected everyone to be active.

Anyway the shortlist will now be announced 21 August, so there are 3 more weeks left on the discussion boards before we can stop looking at them every day to see what's been posted.

Well, we shan't waste this extra time - to work!

Oh yes, and somebody accused me yesterday in a post on our entry of wanting to have a monopoly of the market for these goods and "If you really want to see where your idea is heading, go to North Korea or watch/read George Orwell’s 1984". Incredible but true. Actually I was delighted she seemed to think we would be so successful...