All aboard!
We’re inching closer to the 2012 edition of the South by Southwest Interactive conference and for a lot of us, it’ll be a journey of a lifetime. We already have our flight set-up, a place to stay, and our registration handled so we’re good, right? Well…if you want to make your trip down to Austin a bit more adventurous and productive, then you might want to scrap that flight plan and instead try your hand at applying for a spot on the StartupBus. This 72-hour adventure from all parts around North America and culminates at a amazing launch party in San Antonio at the Rackspace Hosting headquarters where the teams will be presenting their product.
The StartupBus concept originated from Australia and kicked off last year just in time for the SXSW 2010 conference. Participants boarded these high-tech greyhound buses from San Francisco en route to Austin, Texas where they helped answer the question “what could people produce under unique (and extreme) time and resource constraints?” This isn’t your normal hack-a-thon where people sit around and create something over the course of a weekend. No, this StartupBus is a moving vehicle traveling 60 miles per hour on its way to one of the biggest tech events of the year. In its inaugural trip, 25 people developed six functional prototype web services and demonstrated them in front of a panel of high-profile investors in Austin. The winning team wound up being funded to help turn their prototype into a genuine startup and form a community. Since that historic first trip, the StartupBus has grown–in the 2011 adventure, 156 so-called “buspreneurs” took on the challenge to SXSW and put together 38 products. For last year’s Le Web conference, StartupBus headed to Europe and took 20 buspreneurs on a trip through the country building five amazing products.
The adventure is only getting started. This year’s journey is heading back to SXSW but will have competing teams coming from several new locations, including Florida, Cincinnati, Louisiana, Mexico, Las Vegas, Washington, DC, and Boston. Traditional tech hubs like New York, Los Angeles, and Silicon Valley will also be represented. Buses will depart from their respective locations on March 6 on this three-day journey down towards Austin. Applications are now closed but those who did submit an application should be notified in the middle of February. Once on the bus, teams will pitch their ideas for a startup, create it, and then produce a prototype to share with investors and others at a party in San Antonio on Thursday, March 8 at the home of Rackspace hosting. This will all wrap up at the grand finale on March 11 at 3pm in the Startup Village at SXSW. But don’t be mistaken that once the bus pulls into the Austin Convention Center, the fun stops there. Oh no…it’s actually going to continue. According to the StartupBus, “upon landing in Austin, the StartupBus teams hit the ground running- launching and promoting their products, pitching to VCs, connecting with other Buspreneurs and of course, enjoying all the parties Austin has to offer.” So once you build your product, you better get out there and share it with the world–who knows…you might become the next big thing to launch at SXSW without even knowing it!
Here’s a great trailer video about StartupBus from what happened on their last voyage through Europe:
