At the head of the bus is Elias Bizannes, the organizer of The Startup Bus. Photo by dekrazee1 via Flickr.
Catching up on Twitter a couple months ago I was reminded just how the small the world can be sometimes. In this instance, I learned that Elias Bizannes, an Australian that I had met at South by Southwest Interactive 2009, had just gained attention for one of his side projects:
EliasBiz: My @startupbus idea got featured on @TechCrunch 🙂 http://is.gd/8bwpl 4:39 PM Feb 11th
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And within a day, I saw Timothy Kephart of Omaha-based Graffitti Tracker, put his company’s support behind it:
timothykephart: RT @TheStartupBus: Another confirmed sponsor – thank you @graffititracker! 8:48 PM Feb 12th
To jump ahead one month, Startup Bus arrived in Austin on the opening day of SXSW with 25 passengers and six newly-created tech startups. After pitches to a panel of judges made up of angel investors and advisors, two teams came out on top:
- DormDorm is the Hotels.com for college dorm rooms. It allows universities to offer their off-term rooms in the summer and holidays as accommodation for reservation.
- DateBrowsr is a resource that takes over one million online dating profiles from many sites and ranks them through user grading.
Did I mention these startups were conceived, built and launched over two days? Think Startup Weekend but at 75 mph with spotty internet connection.
Working in The Startup Bus. Photo by dekrazee1 via Flickr.
In addition to receiving press and attendee attention at SXSW, the winners of the event also earned future personal coaching from Silicon Valley angel Naval Ravikant. According to a press release, he’ll be helping them progress their startups to “investment grade,” which will qualify them for introduction to the “Super Angel” investors of Silicon Valley.
While at SXSW, I took the opportunity to hear more from Elias about his background as well as the origins and future of The Startup Bus.
In August 2009, he moved to Silicon Valley from Sydney, Australia to work for Vast.com. The idea of The Startup Bus, however, goes back to his final days in Australia when he was speaking at his farewell Silicon Beach drinks, an email newsletter and group of tech entrepreneurs in Australia that he helped organize.
“As I was leaving […] I was saying how we really need to bring more Aussies over to South by Southwest because last year when we met and we were having such a great time I realized how many intelligent, passionate, connected people there were,” Elias told me an in interview.
He said to connect the Aussie scene with Americans was a no-brainer. His first thought: “Why don’t we organize a road trip from San Fran to Austin?” And thanks to “a bit of alcohol at this stage,” he recollected with a laugh, “Why don’t we try to launch some businesses by the time we get off the bus?” At the time, the idea returned a few friendly laughs from the crowd, but it’s proven to be nothing less than a big success.
The bus, pictured left. Photo by dekrazee1 via Flickr.
“It’s kind of phenomenal to see that not only have these high quality startups been produced, but these strangers have collaborated and have developed actual friendships that are gonna outlast any business,” Elias said. “And it’s kind of cool to see that.”
See details, the route, the film clips, blogs and more at TheStartupBus.com.
