Tag Archives: Montreal

Busbud Selected as Emerging Company for C2-MTL by Bronfman Foundation

7 May

Busbud is pleased to announce that it has been selected to participate in the Emerging Entrepreneur program at the C2-MTL conference to be held May 21-23 in our hometown of Montreal, Quebec.

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!

C2-MTL

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C2-MTL 2013 Preview

10 Apr

The Busbud team is really looking forward to this year’s C2-MTL event to be held May 21-23 in our hometown of Montreal, Quebec.

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.

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First Weeks at CTA@NYC

23 Mar

As we announced a few weeks ago, Busbud was recently selected for the CTA@NYC accelerator program in New York City in collaboration with the Consulate General of Canada in New York. Here is a quick update on how things are going so far!

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

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

Panel discussion in the General Assembly community area

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Busbud at SXSW 2013 in Austin Recap

15 Mar
SXSW

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"

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

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

Planet Quebec at SXSW – Interactive microtile screen by Float 4

See you again soon, SXSW!

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Growtalks Montreal Recap

20 Feb
Growtalks conference Montreal - 2/19/2013

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.

Allistair Croll at Growtalks Montreal

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.

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Busbud Joins E-180 Knowledge Market – Travel Edition

19 Feb
E-180 Knowledge Market - Travel Edition

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/

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Busbud Launches iPhone App

31 Jan

Busbud iPhone app

Today, we are very pleased to announce the launch of our new iPhone app aimed at giving travellers easy access to intercity bus travel information on the go.

Available for free for iPhone and iPad users, Busbud is your ideal bus travel companion, gathering together intercity bus schedules for 4000+ cities in 60+ countries.

At Busbud, we are uniquely focused on the problem of intercity bus travel, especially making the process of finding a bus schedule and buying a ticket as easy as possible.

With the launch of our mobile app, travellers can now:

  • Instantly access bus schedules on the go.
  • Sort by the best price, shortest duration and departure time.
  • View schedules in 10 languages and see prices in 15 currencies.
  • Auto-detect their current city and easily view top destination suggestions for that city.

Search

Search

Results

Results

In the example above, if a traveller searches for buses from Montreal to Toronto around noon, the Busbud app will display the next departure (13:00) closest to the current time for each company. This gives travellers a helpful at-a-glance comparison of multiple options, allowing them to find the right bus for their trip faster.

Get it from the iTunes app store here.

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Busbud Joins as Ticketing Partner for Orleans Express’ “Student Fridays & Sundays” Promotion

6 Dec

Busbud announces today that it will be participating as a ticketing partner in the limited time only Student Fridays & Sundays promotion by Quebec bus operator Orléans Express.

The special promotion allows weekend travel by students (with a valid full-time student ID) on the Montreal-Quebec route for only 22$ one-way, taxes included! This discounted pricing is available until December 21st, 2012. Special departures are available Fridays and Sundays from Montreal and Quebec. The pick-up points are the Gare d’Autocars de Montréal and the Université de Laval à Québec for added convenience for students.

We are thrilled to collaborate with Orleans Express on this promotion, which should facilitate travel for students in Quebec during this holiday period. Busbud aims to make it easier to discover and book travel around the world, and we’re also happy to work with bus companies who are looking for new and innovative ways to reach bus travelers.

“Students are an important part of our business and we are happy to offer this special promotion to meet their travel needs”, said Marc-André Varin, VP of Business Development, Marketing and Communications at Keolis Canada, the parent company of Orleans Express.

Denis Andlauer, President and CEO of Keolis Canada, added: “Bus travel offers a safe, comfortable and cost-effective alternative to carpooling on Quebec’s winter roads in December. Safety is a top priority, which we address by selecting and rigorously training professional drivers, as well as by maintaining our modern fleet of buses”.

Founded in 1990, Orléans Express is the main intercity carrier for bus passengers in Quebec, transporting more than 1.7 million passengers every year. Group Orléans Express is a subsidiary of the Keolis group, a leader in public passenger transportation in France and a major player internationally with a presence in 12 countries in Europe, as well as Canada.

For more information and to buy tickets, students should visit Busbud at the Student Fridays & Sundays promotion page.

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