The 2013 edition of C2-MTL will feature amazing speakers like Richard Branson (Virgin Group), Barry Diller (IAC), Philip Starck (architect and designer), Bobbi Brown (Bobbi Brown Cosmetics), Tom Mycoskie (TOMS shoes) and many more.

The Emerging Entrepreneur contest is run by the Claudine and Stephen Bronfman Family Foundation to offer 25 Montreal-based startup entrepreneurs the opportunity to attend the conference. The value of the prize includes a ticket to the conference (3600$), special programming and access to 1,000+ high-level executives from innovative companies around the world.

Other Montreal-based startups which participated in the program last year include Beyond the Rack, Wavo, Wajam, Frank & Oak and Lufa Farms.

For more information, view the press release. See you soon at C2-MTL!

Even the most conscious travellers, i.e. those who know that buses and coaches are the most environmentally-friendly option (see stats from our partner Smart Move), often get discouraged by the lack of accurate, trustworthy information about intercity bus routes and schedules. On the flip side, finding plane tickets and car rentals is now relatively easy thanks to services such as Kayak and Expedia.

That’s why we built Busbud: by making it easier to search and book bus travel online, we like to think we make it easier to do the right thing. And we’re really proud of that.

So on this Earth Day, we would like to give a shout out to everyone working on projects, programs and products aimed at helping others do the right thing.

We still have a long way to go on that front, but we know we’re in good company.

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The photo used above is from an amazing poster campaign produced by the Munster Planning Office in 2001.

This year, the second edition of C2-MTL, will continue to fulfill its mission to be a different kind of business conference, one where participants meet to find “creative answers to commercial questions”.

Last year, the conference attracted A-list luminaries like Francis Ford Coppola (cinematographer), Michael Eisner (Disney), Ariana Huffington (Huffington Post), Patrick Pichette (Google) and Daniel Lamarre (Cirque du Soleil)

The 2013 edition picks up where the previous edition left off, offering sessions with business icons like Richard Branson (Virgin Group), Philip Starck (architect and designer), Bobbi Brown (Bobbi Brown Cosmetics), Tom Mycoskie (TOMS shoes) and many more to be announced in the coming weeks.

For the second year in a row, C2-MTL has teamed up with the Claudine and Stephen Bronfman Family Foundation to offer Montreal-based startups the opportunity to attend the conference.

Our own marketing director Alain Wong shot the video below to recap the participation of Montreal emerging entrepreneurs at the C2-MTL  2012 conference.

There are still some tickets available for C2-MTL! You can buy them here.

The first few days of the program were filled with various sessions with leaders from the New York startup scene, including mentors, entrepreneurs and angel investors. Most leaders had strong ties to Canada, which made the conversations even more interesting. International startup coach Permjot Valia (who leads the Mentor Camp event in Eastern Canada) ran interesting workshops to help participants refine their elevator pitches. CTA program leaders Miriam Leia Bekkouche and Irena Harris have been doing a great job introducing us to the NYC startup scene and offering many helpful resources along the way.

CTA@NYC intro session

Consul General John Prato also dropped by a lunch session and described the role of the Consultate as an “innovation partner” for Canadian businesses seeking to develop their business in New York.

Program participants work out of General Assembly, a co-working space in the Flatiron district in New York City. So far, GA has proven a great place to work and connect with the NYC startup ecosystem. Thanks to the GA team for making us feel at home.

Panel discussion in the General Assembly community area

SXSW Conference Floor

Busbud was present at the South by Southwest Festival held in Austin, Texas from March 8-17th, 2013. The festival offers the unique convergence of original music, independent films, and emerging technologies.

This year, on the Interactive track, keynotes Elon Musk (Tesla Motors, Space X), Tina Roth Eisenberg (Creative Mornings) and Matthew Inman (the Oatmeal) shared the stage with hundreds of feature sessions, panels and workshops. Session topics ranged from the future of creativity, education, media, gaming and politics.

Among the more popular themes were the advent of the maker movement, including 3D printing, and the potential of Google Glass. My personal favorite sessions were with angel investor Esther Dyson, statistician Nate Silver and investor Peter Thiel.

Nate Silver session “The Signal & The Noise”

I had the opportunity to attend the Harvard@SXSW meetup and catch up with all the great work that is happening at the Harvard Innovation Lab, which is helping support entrepreneurship at Harvard and in the Boston ecosystem.

I also had the chance to check out the awesome charity street hockey game featuring (non-surprisingly) lots of Canadians, including players from Hootsuite and a host of other startups.

Hoot Hockey street hockey game

Finally, it was great to see Quebec represent with its Planet Quebec at SXSW booth, featuring local startups like E-180 and Float 4 Interactive! Also nice to see Montreal-based analytics guru Alistair Croll presenting his brand new book on Lean Analytics and to run into Greg Isenberg from new “video concierge” startup 5by. Always great to see fellow Montrealers abroad!

Planet Quebec at SXSW – Interactive microtile screen by Float 4

See you again soon, SXSW!

Next stop: New York City!

Busbud is pleased to announce that it has been selected to participate in the Government of Canada’s CTA@NYC program in New York City, in collaboration with the Consulate General of Canada in New York.

The Canadian Technology Accelerator (CTA) Initiative aims to provide digital media entrepreneurs with access to unique resources and contacts to accelerate the growth of their start-up on a global scale.

As part of the program, Busbud CEO LP Maurice will be working from General Assembly, a startup community space in the heart of New York City, from March to June 2013.

Other participants include: Authintic (Toronto), Elevate (Toronto), Picatic (Saskatoon/Toronto), Shiny Ads (Toronto) and Viafoura (Toronto). Previously, the last companies from Quebec to participate in the program were e-commerce clothes retailer Frank & Oak and location-based marketing startup SweetIQ.

Busbud is very excited to participate in this program. In addition to being the most vibrant travel hub in the world, New York City is increasingly taking center-stage as a hot-bed for internet-based technology entrepreneurship.

Growtalks conference Montreal – 2/19/2013

Busbud was at the Growtalks Montreal conference today!

GROWtalks is a one day conference focused on how to create simple, actionable metrics, and use them to make better product and marketing decisions. Industry experts share actionable advice on how to improve design, product and customer development, acquisition, retention, and more.

There were great presentations from author Brant Cooper, Greg Isenberg of Fiveby.tv, Kate Rutter of Luxr, Laura Fitton of Hubspot, Scott Kveton of Urban Airship, Dan Martell of Clarity, Alistair Croll of Solve for Interesting, and iNovia’s David Nault, who also performed double duty as MC for the event. Topics covered ranged from customer acquisition, lean UX, scalable business models, growth hacking and financing.

Alistair Croll at Growtalks Montreal

Personally, my favorite presentation was Alistair Croll’s, who gave us a preview of his upcoming book Lean Analytics. Interestingly, Alistair challenged the crowd to find the one key metric that matters for their business. He also gave a few interesting examples of Airbnb and other companies that use metrics to carry out experiments in order to better understand the key drivers in their business models. The Lean Analytics book, co-authored with Ben Yoskovitz, is scheduled to hit the (virtual) bookshelves in early March 2013.

The conference definitely gave audience members plenty of ideas to go back to their startups and “measure, test and try” towards product market fit.

Thanks to the organizers, presenters and sponsors. Lots of great content and it was great to see so many familiar faces at the event!

If you missed it, you can also catch the conference in Toronto on Feb 21st. Register here.

E-180 Knowledge Market – Travel Edition

Busbud is happy to be joining forces with E-180 as an organizing partner for their upcoming Knowledge Market – Travel Edition on February 26, 2013 from 6 to 8pm at Café Matina in wonderfully chilly Montreal.

E-180 is a matchmaking website that allows you to connect and learn with like-minded people, face to face, in a cafe, bar or over lunch. Once you’ve found someone whose knowledge interests you, you can contact them via E-180’s message service and propose a place and date to meet.

Travelling soon? The Knowledge Market (Travel Edition) is a 6@8 of knowledge exchange with an international flavour where you can leave with practical advice from other participants and event partners, to plan your next getaway.

On the program, the venue will be organized in themed areas by continent, making it easy to meet participants with similar interests and special projects such as:

• International Cooperation
• Sailing
• Work and study abroad
• WOOOFing
• Couchsurfing
• Hitchhiking
• Limited budget
• Around the world

Members of the Busbud team will be there, doing our best to answer questions for travellers. Come say hi!

Register here (it’s free!): http://e180hastalavista.eventbrite.com/

Gary Arndt from Everything Everywhere

As part of our goal to make life easier for bus travelers, we keep in touch with travelers who’ve had firsthand experiences around the world. Last time, we featured Miro & Lainie from Raising Miro. Today, we’re happy to feature Gary Arndt from Everything Everywhere.

Gary Arndt sold his house in 2007 and have been traveling around the world ever since. He’s visited all 7 continents, over 116 countries and territories around the world, all 50 US states, 9/10 Canadian provinces, every Australian state and territory, over 125 US National Park Service sites and over 180 UNESCO World Heritage Sites. In 2010, Time Magazine named Everything Everywhere one of the Top 25 Blogs in the World.

1. Where are you now, and what’s your next destination?

I am writing this in a bus station in Liberia, Costa Rica. I’ll be heading to San Jose in an hour and tomorrow I hope to visit my 192nd UNESCO World Heritage Site in the Talamanca mountain range.  Next week I’ll be heading to northern Canada to the Yukon.

2. You’ve traveled over 7 continents and visited over 116 countries. How do you keep travel interesting and exciting?

There is always something more to learn. You can spend your entire life traveling and never run out of new things to learn and experience. The Earth is much larger than any human lifetime.

3. You’ve got a great travel photography ebook that everyone should dowload. I was especially touched by the Red Shirt Protester in Bangkok, and the Kids in Canoe at Rennell Island. Can you share your photography process— do you set out to capture moments, or let them come to you spontaneously?

It all depends. Both of those images have interesting stories behind them.

Red Shirt protester in Bangkok

The photo of the red shirt protester took place in Bangkok in 2010. There were huge political protests taking place in Bangkok while I was there. I went down to the main protest area several times to meet and photograph the protesters. One day they were going to hold a rally at the Prime Minister’s home which was only a block from where I was staying. I went down with my camera and was between about 10,000′s protesters and maybe 1,000 police in riot gear. It started to rain and all the other photographers took shelter. I had an umbrella with me, so I stood out in the middle of the street and took the photo of the single man standing in front of the police. It is one of my favorite images.

Kids in Canoe on Rennell Island

The photo I took on Rennell just happened. The Solomon Islands is a country which gets very few tourists. Rennell Island is off the main archipelago and gets maybe 100 tourists per year. East Rennell is a 20 mile drive from the airstrip (which is just grass) over coral. During that 20 mile trip we had 8 flat tires. At the end of the road is a large lake you then have to cross. I was told they get about 10 tourists a year in this part of the island. One day I visited one of the villages on the lake and the kids in the village had a blast following me around. When I left by boat, they hopped in a canoe to follow me, waving their arms the entire time. The photo I took was my parting shot of the kids as I left.

Great photos can happen at any time. Sometimes you can plan for it and sometimes they happen unexpectedly.

Underwater photography in the Great Barrier Reef

4. In yesterday’s blog post, you mentioned taking the bus in Costa Rica, and how confusing the bus system can be because there is no central bus depot. What do you think of Busbud’s mission, which is to gather the world’s bus travel information? Would this type of information help your readers in their travels?

Absolutely. In many countries such as Costa Rica and the Philippines, the bus system is very distributed. There are many different bus companies which run different routes from different places in each city. There isn’t necessarily a central bus station. There is also seldom any signage to tell you where to go.  The more information you have, the easier your life will be.

Bus in Queensland, Australia

5. Can you share a memorable bus travel story with us?

I took a bus in Egypt from Luxor to Suez which went up along the Red Sea. The bus was so dilapidated that spent most of it sitting on a spare tire. I’ve never counted the number of countries I’ve traveled by bus in, but it is certainly a big number. Even in some countries with an extensive train system, I often end up taking a bus because it is cheaper and just as fast.

Hammock over water in Caye Caulker, Belize

6. Finally, there are many random facts about you that people are surprised to discover, like the fact that you are a part owner of an NFL franchise, and you also have a huge collection of magazines and DVDS. For Busbud readers who hesitate to take on a long-term travel trip because they’d be leaving behind so much “stuff”, what advice would you give them?

Stuff can be replaced. The actual act of getting rid of much of your stuff is actually a rather therapeutic experience. Once you spend an extended amount of time living out of a bag, you realize just how little you need to actually get by. Most of what you need can be put into storage and it will be waiting for you when you get back.

Thanks Gary! You can get in touch with him on Twitter and Facebook.  Follow Gary Arndt’s adventures on Everything Everywhere.

Photos by Gary Arndt at Everything Everywhere

McGill University in Winter

Busbud will be present at the McGill Entrepreneurship Society career fair on February 22nd 2013 from 11ham to 3pm.

We’ll be looking to meet talented students in Computer Science, Engineering, Marketing and Finance. International focus is a plus.

We have various open positions in business development, engineering and sales/marketing. We will also offer internships for Summer 2013 and part-time/full-time positions all year.

Management Undergraduate Society Entrepreneurs(MUSE), aka McGill Entrepreneurs’ Society, is a student-run club dedicated to promote and celebrate the entrepreneurial spirit in McGill community and Montreal.

Come meet the team!

Photo credit: Tmab2003