StartupBus - Startup Jobs Austin

StartupBus is an annual technological startup competition, described as a Hackathon, created by Elias Bizannes in February 2010. The competition is held across a 3-day bus ride where contestants or "buspreneurs" compete to conceive the best technology startup. The competition seeks to attract young top talents to compete, to search for the most innovative startup conceived by the groups, where the winners are determined by a panel of judges. Starting from February 2011, it has gone through many iterations in various continents from 2011 to 2015, with the first in Austin, Texas and subsequently in North America, Europe and Africa.

StartupBus receives an extensive online media coverage through platforms such as BBC News, CNN and technology blogs and news sites such as The Next Web, VentureBeat, WIRED and TechCrunch. Live coverage of the competition is also broadcast through StartupBus.Tv via Livestream.

History

StartupBus started off as a joke by Elias Bizannes and Bart Jellema on 1 July 2009 to start a Hackathon on bus trip from San Francisco to Austin for the SXSW Conference. Eventually, the first bus launched on 1 February 2010, which consisted of 25 strangers on the way to Austin for the SXSW Conference. During which a total of 6 startups were conceived from the time in the bus. Soon after, starting from February 2011, StartupBus was officially an annual technological startup competition.

Concept

Prior to competition

StartupBus' start off location is determined through voting via Facebook and Twitter since 2012, after its evident success. Buspreneurs are selected based on an invite-only basis after indicating their interest through submission of an application and proposal with an interview there after, if shortlisted. Application are only open to those who specializes in the field of coding, designing and business. Pre-events are organised before the competition to bond buspreneurs with the objective to create a network of like-minded people.

Competition Format

The competition starts off with a 72-hour bus ride from the determined start-off location to its destination, voted through Facebook and Twitter. Each bus consists of 24 buspreneurs, which comes equipped with Wi-fi, charging points and tables among the seats with no other luxuries.

Through the 72-hour bus ride, buspreneurs are to form teams of 3-4 members of their choosing and work on their final product which comes in the form of viable web applications to be presented to a panel of judges for submission on the end of the competition day. Winners will get funding to kick-start their idea with prior winners of StartupBus being able to expand their creations and creating new ones.

Power on board the StartupBus is however short in supply and with Wi-fi that is unstable at times, making the competition even tougher for the buspreneurs. On-board are experienced mentors from prior StartupBus competitions, available to help the teams out. Pit stops are made where buspreneurs gather feedback on their products, learn about business environments and to rest for the night.

Sponsors

Activities on board the StartupBus competition and application fee upon acceptance are subjected to the amount of funding they receive each year. As much as possible, StartupBus tries to minimise application fees to allow college students to have the ability to participate in the competition. If sponsorship is low, busprenuers may also have to pay for their own night lodging.

Competition Overview

StartupBus 2011

From March 1 to March 4, 2011, the first official StartupBus competition was held with 160 people on-board six buses which traveled across the United States and eventually converging at its final destination in Austin. The 6 buses started off from Chicago, Cleveland, Miami, New York City and Silicon Valley The 3 day bus ride, conceived a total of 38 startups in the span of time, of which seven of the startup caught the eye of the judges.

Winner's Creation

Team TripMedi and WalkIN both were announced winners of the 2011 StartupBus Competition as the panel of judges deemed both teams as outstanding service oriented startups.

Americas 2012

StartupBus Americas 2012 was held from 1 March 2012 to 4 March 2012, with 12 buses. This year, StartupBus departed from 11 regions from San Francisco, Boston, Cincinnati, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Louisiana, Mexico, New York City, Stanford University and Washington, D.C. before converging at its final destination in Austin. After 4 days, eight teams advanced to the finals, namely Bumper Crop, Curious City, Adventeur, Gourmair, Happstr, Scoringo, Spott and Cerealize.

Winner's Creation

Winner of StartupBus Americas 2012 was presented to Cerealize with their creation of a Website which allows for the customization of a cereal set which is shipped directly to homes upon purchase.

Europe 2012

StartupBus and FounderBus' joint venture for StartupBus Europe 2012 started from 3 December to 6 December 2012 on route for LeWeb, in Paris. StartupBus Europe 2012 departed from five countries in Europe, where FounderBus would run the route from Germany, France and the United Kingdom and StartupBus would run the route from London, Spain and a wildcard location. The winning team from StartupBus Europe 2012 will then proceed onto the LeWeb Startup Competition as a finalist.

Winner's Creation

StartupBus Europe 2012 Finalist was awarded to Haystack from Germany. Haystack is a dating application turning friends into match-makers by utilizing social media.

Americas 2013

StartupBus Americas 2013 was held from 1 March 2013 to 4 March 2013 with a total of 6 buses leaving from New York City, Mexico, Chicago, Tampa and San Francisco. Their destination was to Austin, Texas for the SXSW Conference. There was also an addition of an alumni bus, inclusive of the 6 buses, which will compete against the winners.

Winner's Creation

CareerMob won StartupBus Americas 2013. CareerMob is an online platform that enables job-seeking military veterans to search for jobs.

Europe 2013

StartupBus Europe 2013 saw a total of 150 buspreneurs, where buses departed for the 3 day road trip on 27 October 2013 from 6 regions, namely Paris, Berlin, Rome, Barcelona, Amsterdam and London. Their convergent point was at Pioneer's Festival in Vienna.

Winner's Creation

StartupBus Europe 2013's winner was Aiden, a mood-tracking mobile application which detect possible depression of an individual.

Africa 2013

StartupBus Africa 2013's first bus into Africa with a total of 30 buspreneurs started their journey from 17 November to 21 November 2013. The bus started out from the Capital of Zimbabwe, Harare and its final destination was South Africa, Cape Town for the Global Entrepreneurship Week.

Winner's Creation

StartupBus Africa 2013's winner was Workforce, a mobile-powered planning application connection employees and employers to simplify workforce planning in construction sites. The platform links unskilled worker teams with potential employers through an SMS-based communication system. Runner-ups to StartupBus Africa 2013 were Funeral.ly, a funeral management application, and Bribed, an application to tackle bribery issues across Africa. A notable alum of this bus was Sterio.me, which later was accepted to the Start Up Chile accelerator and featured on BBC Africa and the Guardian.

North America 2014

StartupBus North America 2014 started off on 2 March 2014 with 7 buses departing from Mexico City, Kansas City, Tampa Bay, Nashville, New York City, Seattle and San Francisco. There were 3 judging rounds this year, where the original 30 startups are narrowed down to 16 semi-finalists selected in Rackspace's headquarters in Rackspace Castle before heading for the SXSW Conference. They are Beander, BelleLush, Bridgefy, Collecto, CropRate Wellness, MiniMap, Nutfund, On the List, Plumer, Roll, RV Envy, Sallie Will.com, Smart Host, Taste Buddy, Ticket Slip and Trustmll.io.

Winner's Creation

StartupBus North America 2014's winner was presented to Smart Host, a Website that provides market intelligence and pricing for vacation rental managers. Runner up, Bridgefy, created a messaging app that works without Internet or SMS.

Pacific 2014

StartupBus' first time in Australia since its debut 5 years ago was done in partnership with SydStart. StartupBus Pacific 2014 started from 29 August 2014 to 2 September 2014 with 25 buspreneurs. StartupBus Pacific 2014 departed from Sydney and on to Melbourne and Canberra before arriving at its destination in Sydstart's Main Day 2014 in Sydney, Australia. Products that successfully caught the attention of judges and the public were Dinner Companion which links business people who are looking for company over the meal for dinner, Spexy.me which allows people to design and print their own 3-D glasses and order them, and FailPage which converts error pages into useful computer metrics for companies.

Winner's Creation

People of the Sun, a solar startup, was announced the winner of StartupBus Pacific 2014.

Europe 2014

StartupBus Europe 2014 is the first year for the Greek and Estonian bus which starts its journey from Athens to Vienna, from 25 October 2014 to 28 October 2014. Next to the buses from these new countries, there were a total of 5 more buses from Germany, France, Italy and the United Kingdom. A total of around 170 buspreneurs were on board for the 72-hour journey to Pioneer Festival in Vienna.

6 startups were conceived through the Greek journey, they are Trisleep which is a GPS based alarm, GoTrick which is a Uber for long distance travel, HealthRate that finds and rates healthcare providers, Xplory which Gamifies cultural visits, Mezo and Zumo.

Winner's Creation

Zumo, an on-demand engagement using WebRTC, was announced the winner of StartupBus Europe 2014.

North America 2015

StartupBus North America 2015 was won by Pizzafy.

Europe 2015

StartupBus Europe 2015 changed its destination from Pioneers to Pirate Summit in Cologne. For the first time a Belgian bus participated in the competition. Winner was startup Warmhands from Germany.

North America 2016

The North American competition of 2016 changed destination as well: this time the buses rode to Boulder Startup Week. Winner was Tub from the San Francisco bus, which extensively used Uber APIs.

Europe 2016

This competition is upcoming (2-7 September 2016) and will have its demo day on 5 September 2016 at the Corda INCubator in Hasselt and its final event at Pirate Summit in Cologne.

Judges

StartupBus 2011

Judges to the competition were placed in at least one from each of the six buses. The panel of judges included entrepreneurs and prominent investors. The semi-finals judging panel included:

• Philip Fierlinger - Co-founder and head of design at Xero
• Josh Baer - CEO of other Inbox and Director of The Capital Factory
• Mike Hirshland - Founder of Dogpatch and partner at Polaris Ventures
• Ben Lerer - Founder of Thrillist and partner at Lerer ventures
• Peter Flint - Partner at Polaris Ventures

The panel of judges for the finals were

• Naval Ravikant - Co-founder of AngelList
• Dave McClure - Angel investor and Founder of 500 Hats
• Tom Ball of Austin Ventures
• Greg Veen of TypeKit
• Stephen Anderson of Baseline Ventures
• Philip Fierlinger - Co-founder and head of design at Xero.

Americas 2012

The panel of judges consisted of:

• Michael Schneider - CEO of Mobile Roadie
• Tim Park - Tech Evangelist at Microsoft
• Om Malik - Co-founder of Gigaom
• David Hornik - Partner at August Capital
• Olivier Mathiot - CEO of Priceminister.

Americas 2013

StartupBus North America 2013's Grand Finals judges are:

• Mike Caprio - 2012 StartupBus New York conductor and Co-winner of StartupBus North America 2011 (TripMedi)
• Dave McClure - Angel investor and Founder of 500 Hats
• Robert Scoble - Start up liaison from Rackspace
• Dan Walmsley - CTO at NationBuilder

North America 2014

StartupBus North America 2014's Semi-finals judges are:

• Rocio Paniagua - Co-founder of Ronin Public Relations
• Justin Isaf - Veteran Online Community Manager
• Kevin Galligan - Lead Developer and President of Touch Lab
• Rose Jeantet - Conductor of French Bus 2013 (Europe 2014)
• Greg Ross-Munro - Founder of Teburu.

StartupBus North America 2014's Finals judges are:

• Guy Kawasaki - Special advisor to Google’s Motorola unit
• Robert Scoble - Start up liaison from Rackspace
• Liz Crawford - CTO at Birchbox
• Cemre Gungor - Co-winner of StartupBus North America 2011 (TripMedi)
• Elizabeth McBride - Managing associate in Orrick’s sillicon valley office
• Alejandro Villanueva - Leader of POSiBLE
• Michael Johnstone - Mentor of Techstar Austin and the Sprint Accelerator.

North America 2016

StartupBus North America 2016's Semi-finals judges are:

• Greg Ross-Munro - CEO and founder of Sourcetoad
• Andrew Pinzler - Head of Innovation Labs at NBCUniversal
• Chris Bue - Founder of LBKDcorp
• Keit Kollo - Product Manager at Weav Music, Director of StartupBus Europe

StartupBus North America 2016's Finals judges are:

• Chris Messina - Developer Experience Lead at Uber
• Jose de Castro - CTO at Tropo

StartupBus Community

The StartupBus Community is a network of people who have previously participated in the various StartupBus competitions. The StartupBus Community consists of more than a thousand people from all around the world who interact to play, work and live together.

References

External links