My Startup Bus Experience

Before Making the Leap

In 2019, I was a college dropout and house hopped between family members. I had done enough soul diving to know that I wanted to go back to school and study Electrical Engineering, but until I actually got into an engineering program.. I was claiming it to everyone I met(manifesting). During this time, I took part time classes at the University of Cincinnati, worked in a research lab, and most prominently, networked my butt off.

After seeing a post from Major League Hacking’s Jonathan Gottfried on the FB group “Hackathon Hackers”.. I reached out to him to learn a little more about Startup Bus and later applied to the bus leaving out of Akron, Ohio. “Hackathon”.. “Intense” .. “Life changing”.. those were the words that drew me in.. something life changing that would immerse me into the tech community.

Introduction to Startup Bus

But let’s face it.. I didn’t have the funds. I had interviewed with Jay, on of the Ohio conductors, and once I was offered the “Golden Ticket” to ride that summer.. I just let the invite sit in my inbox for a while. I didn’t know that I’d be able to afford the $400 and flight back home after the competition from New Orleans. There would be other expenses that I hadn’t anticipated later on the trip. Luckily, the Ohio conductors followed up with me and I explained my hesitancy about getting on the bus due to financial reasons. They conjured up funds from an Akron entrepreneurship foundation that covered the $400 which secured my seat on the bus. After knowing that.. I decided to go for it.

I’m On The Bus.. Now What?

I was really nervous.. a feeling that conjured up during all the hackathons I’ve been to. We left out of Akron, Ohio and I showed up with a crossbody luggage bag, two small white boards, and a Pi and Arduino kit. At the time I joined, I had little coding experience. There were 15ish other people that were at the pickup location for the Akron Bus and none of us knew each other. Once we got on, the leaders/conductors gave their intro and basically we started listing our skill set and briefly introducing ourselves. Then we all had to pitch an idea right away. While pitching an idea, you would try to convince others on the bus to join your project and form a team.

OH Bus Day 1

I was pretty stubborn with the idea that I wanted to go through. It was my original idea of using sensors in laboratories that add an extra sense of safety around things like open fire/etc. I was thinking an augmented, visual alert system and vibration via haptic feedback on either a wearable device or a commonly touched space that communicated proximity to hazardous spaces. .but no one in the small group I formed on the bus could relate to my idea and wanted to do something with sensors on gym equipment.

I ended up being solo with my idea until we went up north from Ohio and merged with the NY bus. Some of the groups dynamics changed (ppl getting kicked off teams.. joining other teams, etc) and I ended up leaving my original idea and joining a one guy group from the NY bus. During the entire bus trip, the bus itinerary and trip stops were known only to the conductors. Some of the stops where in Pittsburg, Charlotte (OH-NY bus merge), Chattanooga, Atlanta, Montgomery, AL, and in New Orleans at various co-working spaces & incubators and we had to pitch what we had to the various people along the way. One of our stops was at the Vayner Media office late at night.. and all I remember was that pizza and pitching were involved. Pitching on the ride.. pitching at stops.. hotels.. to the 20 + potential end users of your product.. A whole lot of pitching.

FB Post I Made After The First 24 hours

EbaNee Bond, a vibrant and enthusiastic mentor on our bus came with the resources and really helped us craft our pitches and develop our MVPs. She had a ton of resources in layman’s terms that we all helped all the teams on our bus craft out business model, vision, customer segment, market opportunity, etc. This is one she shared that I was able to find in my drive. We had other mentors on our bus outside of the amazing conductors, Jay, Carianne, Annegail.. Twilio was also on our bus and brought Corey Weathers on as a mentor. He helped many teams with technical issues / dev stuff. Might I add.. EbaNee and Corey were two amazing resources on my bus.. and they looked like me. Our bus was regional, OH-NY, making it full of 30 riders after the merge, but during the ride, I had come to learn that there was another bus that led out of Brooklyn, NY, full of all black “buspreneurs” 🙌

The Other Buses

There’s a good amount of social media involved during this ride. Our original bus’s wifi was down, which meant that a few of the buspreneurs had to turn on their hotspots for the bus to share. Once we were online, we were online. And the bus of 15 or 30 of us actually became and felt like a room full of people going along the experience with us. We had past bus alum jumping on calls with us to craft our pitch or introduce us to VCs in their area. We made Twitter accounts for our product ideas to gain traction for our bus and to bring our family and friends on the ride with us. Twitter and other forms of social media is how we learned and connected with the other busses.

OHIO. NEW YORK. FLORIDA. WASHINGTON, DC. SILICON VALLEY.

I knew of these busses because they were the regional busses that I had seen on the website. But it wasn’t until later that I learned about Advancing Black Entrepreneurs or ABE that led out of Brooklyn. Once I found their busses Twitter handle, I saw photos from their bus and their pre-takeoff event party. They had JPMorgan Chase as one of their bus sponsors and really went to town during their kickoff party. I saw them as the fun bus. It wasn’t until we reached Montgomery, Alabama that I saw their busses sitting out not far from ours and all the riders. Both of our busses had a hotel stop there and were all out exploring the city and getting local food. I actually crossed paths with the riders at the The Legacy Museum, a museum that covers forced labor and bondage of black people throughout US history. As heavy as the topic was.. I was still able to get to meet some of the ABE riders and talk about how different and similar our bus trips were at that time.

All the busses were filled with diverse, unique riders. Some of our pitch stops were planned to overlap with other busses. I remember meeting with the Florida and DC bus at a stop and it felt like a family affair a bit. We were all strangers to each other but a little more comfortable with all the pitching that we were on the first day. Food was involved which was beautiful. Joey DeVilla, a developer on the Florida bus, brought an accordion to this stop and was playing different tunes the whole time. A whole vibe. Stressful for some of the groups who had tunnel vision and were focused on their pitch and product development. But the sense of community that we formed during the overlapping stops really made the difference in the middle of all the chaos that came with the competition.

New Orleans & All That Came With It

First and foremost.. entering the city was the most breathtaking experience during the trip. It had an indescribable feel that felt magical.

On our way to New Orleans, which is where the actual competition was.. we had a mini pitch off with some judges that narrowed down the contestants. I am pretty sure that I was knocked out of the competition within the first set of rounds. This is when I really switched gears and had a completely different experience on the trip. I was now able to connect 1:1 with the riders on my bus and tried to do what I could to push them forward in the competition. This also provided me with the opportunity to exit hustle mode and just soak up tactics and strategies from all the teams combined. With my new found free time, I recorded all the team’s pitches during one of the rounds and studied them. During this particular round, they made two randomly chosen members in each team pitch the team’s idea to the judges in 2 minutes. I studied how they opened their pitch.. their market research.. the financial models they planned to use to make money.. The judges pressed all the teams with questions after they pitched and it was interesting to hear how all the teams tackled the questions.

LitterHero, a Silicon Valley team, during the Semi Finals Pitch Event

Once semi finals ended, I remember having a little time to get settled into our hotels and enjoy the city a bit until the final competition. Luckily, I was able to crash in the hotel with two other riders on my bus because, honestly, I was not prepared to pay for another hotel out of pocket. I was a bit of a loner since I didn’t have a team, which made for great opportunities to hang out with my bus at different spots in the city and mingle with ABE riders and various startup bus alum from previous years. Some of the teams did less exploring of the city and really focused on the competition. I would say that I had the ultimate networking experience because of my choice to make the most of this free time at the end.

Meeting & Vibing with Startup Bus Mexico Conductors in a New Orleans Hotel Lobby

The last day was final pitch competition. There were speakers from the judges of the competition and even one from EbaNee Bond on the NY-OH bus about leveraging diversity in startup ecosystems. I believe that criteria for the winner of the competition was based on social media followings, judge votings, and product demonstrations, which judge votes carrying the most weight.

Sabrina Short, EbaNee Bond, and other speakers at the Final Competition

The winner of the final competition, MatchStick, came from the NY-OH bus. They often led their pitch with research stating that most engineering design teams spend about 19B a year on quality assurance tools for online products, but only 5% of design companies use visual testing systems. Their product was a visual testing system that takes in two links, one to the original website and one to the original design and compares the two. They predicted that their tool would save designers about 5–10 hours each week, which roughly translates to $50,000/ year per engineering design resource in savings for the design team. During their final pitch, their company’s free product was live and they had 10 companies with strong interests in using their product. Obviously, MatchStick was very strong product with extremely talented engineers who were well researched from the 72 hours on the bus. As of 2022, their product is still live.

MatchStick from NY-OH Wins It All. Group Photo.

Takeaways

DO IT. If you’re thinking about riding the bus, I’d say jump in. I mentioned throughout this article the fear, not being financially prepared, my laptop breaking, not to mention my motion sickness I had at the start of the trip. I didn’t have a well put together plan for how I would make this trip work for me.. and honestly, it really didn’t make sense for me to join this year. I actually was on the verge on not coming the night before the Ohio bus left.

However, the scholarship I received holding my seat for me was a push to go.. as well as the idea of the thrill and uniqueness of this experience. I did put myself in a few anxiety ridden scenarios because I wasn’t prepared for this adventure. I mean.. you don’t know where your bus will stop, but you’re expected to cover your hotel room for the overnight stops, there were about 3 overnight stops on my route, not including New Orleans. Luckily, some of the women on my bus shared hotel rooms and split the costs. You need to be able to pay for your way back home from New Orleans. When I went, after some of the food and other expenses, I didn’t have the funds for a flight back to Ohio. I ended going on another long bus trip back via Greyhound.

Two riders from my bus quit their jobs to attend this event. It’s 5 days in total and as software developers, they were looking for change in an industry where they felt comfortable making taking those sorts of risks because they knew their skillset was in high demand.

With all the unplanned events and chaos, this experience is like no other and changes how you view yourself and the limitations you put on what you believe you can accomplish. The 72 hours on this bus is supposed to mimic the first year of a startup. There’s quite simply nothing as fast paced and network infused like this experience and the community that you take with you afterwards is quite frankly, the best part.

NY-OH BUS in New Orleans

So are you joining the next bus of hackers?

It is because of these experiences that I’ve decided to come back to lead the ABE (Advancing Black Entrepreneurs) bus as a conductor in 2022. Coincidentally, I’ll be leading this bus with Hans Marshalleck from Brooklyn, another 2019 bus participant that I met during the NY-OH bus merge.

Hans and I plan on bringing the highest level of comfort and opportunity to our riders this year. As past riders, we know how chaotic this journey is and the needs of the riders are, first hand.

Check out my bus @ https://startupbus.com/abe

Applications to apply for our bus are now LIVE, so feel free to apply and spread the word. This bus will be leaving out of Cincinnati, Ohio and the competition is from July 27th-31st, ending in Austin, Texas for the final competition.

I am free to answer any and all questions via email.

Whether you’re looking to join as a partner/ sponsor/ participant.. we would love to talk with you.. as we plan on creating an epic experience this year!

Thanks for reading all of this.

*Meagan aka Meagggs*