Startupbus 2022 arrives in Austin on July 30-31st 2022 hosted by Capital Factory downtown to pitch and launch this years startups.
8 years ago I was a Buspreneur trying to build and launch a startup on Startupbus SF 2014. A 4-day cross country bus trip destined for Austin, TX.
Following this adventurous trip, all the 2014 Buspreneurs returned home back to their normal life. However, I decided to stay in Austin, TX..
8 years later, i’m still here and the rest is history.
This year Startupbus returned to Austin exactly 8 years later and I was super excited to reconnect with my alumni network, other mentors, successful entrepreneurs and learn about the teams behind this years pitch competition.
Here are this years teams:
Group A - Spare Change, Recrtly, Stayges, Music at the Patio and Chila.
Group B - Health Me, Spira, PSeD, Amazingly and Voyage.
Group C - Even Living, 21 Days, StickySubs and GreenUp
Congratulations to the winners :
1st Place : Recrtly
2nd Place : Stayges
3rd Place : 21 Days
This year the team asked me if I would participate as a Judge and since this was a box I hadn’t checked. I decided to accept the role.
In all honesty this is my least favorite role to play. As much as I enjoy the Q&A between teams and judges. It’s easy play devils advocate and poke holes in a teams early stage idea, which is what most judges do. However, I prefer to play the role of Mentor and provide advice with a follow up questions, which is exactly what I did.
In practice, the judging criteria was very thorough allocating as follows:
60% Technical, 30% Research and 10% Pitch.
The winning teams were selected based on this criteria, however next year I would like to modify this to add Team Grit as the evaluation criteria for teams ability to gel and continue working together post event. Without a solid team, all the other metrics do not move the needle forward.
My personal favorite idea was Even Living. Solving the problem of roommates living together on equal terms through contractual agreements. There is so much more scope for this solution to address human communication barriers and save relationships money, time and stress.
Taking a moment to give a shout out to some of the important people who supported me on this journey:
Susan Arete : Recruited me as a Regional Marketing Evangelist at Elance prior to acquisition.
Katherine Martin : 2017 Conductor, recruited me as a mentor.
Marcello Schermer & Prateek Gupta my Co-Conductors for 2014 bus.
Bethany Halbreit : Co-Founding our team Trade-Off launched on the bus.
Madelena, Dana, Brian for recruiting me as a judge for 2022.
If you are interested in partnering or sponsoring this or any other events next year. Please email me tinyhackerhouse@gmail.com
If you are interested in tackling homelessness, affordable housing, gentrification, economic development, access to healthy food, alternate transportation, resilient communities or related pressing issues, please check out my campaign www.tinyhackerhouse.com and contact me if you would like to support. Cheers!🤠
