Trapped on a bus with other geeks building a startup

2011 tech bubble: spend all your VC on a bus that goes back and forth across the country

This is a really fascinating example of a cultural phenomenon that seems to be brewing. It seems like the same kind of smart and imaginative young people who in 1965 would have been starting rock bands are now trying to create startups. Maybe in a few years from now the time will be right for Codestock Nation.

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The StartupBus is a powerful filter for people.

Participants are under pressure to communicate and work with a limited toolset and random strangers; most importantly they can't back out and leave. On top of that they must deal with mundane things like overflowing bathrooms, snoring people and all kinds of other muff.

The people that are comfortable with all of the above constraints are almost always interesting, intelligent, successful (in many different ways) and exactly the kind of people that I'd like to work with. The other people don't even bother applying.

Last year all participants got along great and the real value (e.g. this year's bigger, better event) was created only after the bus.

I did a facebook auth and retweet, a couple of minutes later I had two new private followers and a personalized email with "Hey Daniel, I vouched for you to apply for the StartupBus this year. Go here to find out more and definitely apply so my vouching for you isn't wasted."

I know it's all automated but the feeling of being kind of important still stays.

Who's with me?

I guess it could also be the basis for a reality t.v. show. Either way, I hope they record at least some of it for some ancillary income - who knows maybe webisodes of this could be popular.

Snark aside, I used to work with a guy who lived on a boat in SF (for him it was cheaper than renting), and once a week or so, a bunch of us would actually work from the boat.