No one has ever created a "startup" over the weekend.
A startup is a company, attempting to figure out a scalable business model, by creating a product, marketing it, generating revenue, earning profit, etc.
Something created over a weekend, or 6 hours, may be a cool app, or a neat product idea, but is certainly not a startup.
I'm afraid we can't say too much. We've applied for the Launch Conference, and have agreed not to talk about what the company does. You'll just have to wait until Feb 23rd (if we get in) to find out!
We're still underground, for the time being. We'll be expanding the alpha test soon to new cities, so we wanted to make sure there are interested users for each new city.
While I agree that salary is a huge expense, rent is usually a small fraction of the salaries being paid.
In my experience, teams who work from home for an extended period of time can start to lose focus and productivity. This means it takes longer to build your product, and you end up paying a lot more in salary.
By having an office (usually only a few hundred, to a few thousand dollars a month in expense), you are able to save a lot in salary (tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars a month), because your team will be more focused and productive.
Hipster is hiring two developers (mobile and ruby) to work full time in our SOMA office: jobs.useHipster.com
(Click the link - its a pretty funny page)