LAS VEGAS -- A young team of entrepreneurs beat out 11 other fledgling companies at a start-up technology contest with tool that could make password a technological relic.
The cofounders of Launch Key came up with the idea to eliminate the need for passwords while in a public restroom, co-founder Geoff Sanders said.
"We had this light bulb idea," he said. "This whole idea (is) that passwords are an outdated, antiquated system that we can really get rid of completely. And that's when we realized we kind of had a revolutionary idea and went off with it."
Co-founder Yo Sub Kwon said he, Sanders and Devin Egan came up with the idea during Startup Weekend Las Vegas. Startup Weekend is a global initiative and competition to promote innovative technology ideas.
"You would just type in a user name and you would get a notice on your phone asking to authenticate you," Kwon said of their idea. "You just press the launch button. You don't have to type anything in, and then you're logged into the website."
Launch Key won the competition and have the opportunity to compete for $500,000 worth of investments from the Vegas Tech Fund, a seed stage investment fund.
"You can really change the world with a laptop," said Zach Ware, a partner of the Vegas Tech Fund. "Companies can form overnight -- as what happened in Startup Weekend -- and really amazing things can come of that. Many companies have formed at Startup Weekend and gone on to be very successful."
Ware said the ideas are worth the investment and said that Vegas needs to grow its tech industry to better diversify it's economy.
The co-founders of Launch Key said they're working to get their app approved by Apple.
Geoff Sanders, co-founder of Launch Key
