If it's an experiment, the site he links to doesn't add any details or explain why it's challenging/wacky.
Edit: Actually - the site doesn't go into detail as to the nature of the app he's trying to build, but it sounds like it might be some kind of mobile staffing/placement service, i.e. something built for iPhones. If that's the case, trying to find your co-founder by using your iPhone PRE-application could possibly be used as a wacky little test case to prove the necessity of the app you're looking to build.
First, sit in front of a large, high quality monitor attached to a web-enabled computer and if possible, a keyboard. Next, bring up a browser and use the top-right-most tip of your iPhone as a kind of "extended finger" to type on that keyboard. The address you want is "www.sandmonkey.com." Its my personal site. The content is my resume.
Web app is focussed on managing small business anytime, anywhere. This is an experiment in present technology's ability to not only do a startup, but manage it longer term from a mobile device. I want to walk the walk.
Looking for a co-founder who is equally interested in innovative mobile small business web apps.
but if you are successful doesn't that demonstrate the uselessness of your yet to be developed web app since you were able to accomplish the task without it?
I think that's Samwise's point - if you can manage your own startup (i.e. find and communicate with a co-founder) without the startup-management application you're planning to build, it looks like you're shooting yourself in the foot - unless the pre-app process is super difficult, a la infomercials that make traditional can openers look unusable.
If I understand correctly, though, you aren't doing it as a marketing ploy, you're doing it to find out for yourself just how difficult it is to manage a small company without specialized mobile applications. My guess is you'll find out that it isn't so hard, but I get what you're doing and it's kind of cool.
To be clear: I am simply looking for my co-founder via my iPhone. I have no allusions that I can actually do a startup in any capacity using only my iPhone. Not a gimmick or ploy - but rather an earnest attempt to kick the process of in the same spirit that actual web-app will operate in once realized: on-the-go.
Today I posted the original post from the gym, responded from one office, read and responded from the highway, more from another office, and now standing in line for a Mexican salad. So, I'm happy that everybody has given me food for thought and I didn't even need to open my laptop.
I currently view network cameras, access performance and employee data via various sites and applications on my iPhone. Web App simply consolidates many of those things into one easy format.