Another year, another amazing experience on the StartupBus.  I knew this year was going to be different, one part because I was on the planning organization.  However, with the StartupBus expanding to six cities (Cleveland, Chicago, Miami, New York, Palo Alto and San Francisco) with 160 buspreneur's as a national competition where each city competes for the title of the next Silicon Valley, definately made it different.  Little did I know that these differences would make this years event a media storm.

This year was so succesfull major media outlets such as Wired, BusinessInsider, New York Times, Huffington Post and more heralded the StartupBus as 

the greatest thing to happen to SxSW in the last few years.  

and it has left me absolutely speechless.  Still forty-eight hours later I still haven't digested this.  It definately made those months of working through the night leading upto the event worth it.  Wow.  

On the heels of this succes we don't know exactly where we are going to take the StartupBus next however, we have some big ideas and with this year's event have set the bar really high.  

Lastly, if you read at least on article about the StartupBus, read this article by Wired found here.  It captures all that is the StartupBus.

I've recently announced the visionary entrepreneurs, builders, designers and product managers that are aboard this years Cleveland StartupBus.  Now come meet them and cheer them on before they embark on an amazing journey.  The event is being held at the newly opened XYZ Tavern in Gordon Square.  It's an amazing venue.  The specific details are

XYZ Tavern (Gordon Square off of Detroit Ave)

March 8th from 6:00 PM - 9:00 PM

You can attend by simply showing up or registering on Faceook, Meetup or, Plancast.  Just search for Cleveland 2011 StartupBus Launch party.

For those note familiar with the StartupBus allow me to provide a brief overview

In 2010 a bus left San Francisco en-route to Austin attempting to answer the question, can a team of top entrepreneurial talent from around the world board a bus, self organize, conceive, build, and launch a business while traveling to SxSWi (South by Southwest Interactive).  Then, upon arrival in Austin, pitch their business to top angel investors, venture capitalists and incubators to receive funding.

The short answer is yes.  Products were conceived and launched, funding was received and, two participants walked off the bus and took their ideas and bus experience into YCombinator.  Since Austin last year one raised 1.5 million dollars for their business and the other was just acquired by Zynga. 

Building on success from our first year the StartupBus has returned as a national competition where emerging entrepreneurial cities compete against one another by placing their top twenty-five builders, designer and visionaries on a bus to conceive, self-organize, build and launch a new products or services by the time they reach Austin.  Once in Austin a panel of top investors, founders, builders and visionaries will pick the winning team and declare a winning city the next Silicon Valley.

Through this annual competition StartupBus is building an ever-growing alumni network of this nations top talent from entrepreneurial cities from across the country.

This year Cleveland has a team competing in the national competition and I'm pleased to announce the completion of the selection process.  It was a tough job sifting through the almost two hundred amazing applicatns and picking only twenty-five.  That being said, I am pleaesd to announce this years team

Cole Worley Business Development
Tim Kearney Business Development
Jeff Kinsey Business Development
Ed Buchholz Designer
Doug McKay Designer
Gabe Bridger Designer
Scott Meier Designer
Steven Farrell Designer
John Burgess Designer
Faith Chiang Designer
Michael Miklavcic Developer
Anthony Coble Developer
Jonathan Penn Developer
Joe Cannatti  Developer
Andrew Kavanaugh Developer
Jonathan Knapp  Developer
James West Developer
Kevin Solorio Developer
Greg Svitak  Developer
Christopher Laco Developer
Mike Wisnewski Developer
David Justice Developer
Mark Brenneman Developer

In standard StartupBus tradition the bus will take an amazing incubator, accelearotor and, venture capitalist infused route to Austin.  At each stop the buspreneurs will pitch their idea and product in its current state and obtain critical (and it's usually very critcal) feedback.  Additionally, the buspreneurs will get valuable individual feedback and coaching from these organizations top mentors.  This year the Cleveland bus will stop at

• AlphaLabs in Pittsburgh, PA
• SproutBox in Bloomington, IN
• Tech Church in Dallas, TX
• Capital Factory in Austin, TX

That's an amazing line up that should make any entrepreneur salivate. 

While traveling we will be tweeting, blogging, live broadcasting, uploading videos and more (not sure what's left, but we will find it and do it).  Additionally, the StartupBus will be launching a nationwide interactive game Tuesday morning as the buses depart from their host cities.  Stay tuned on www.startupbus.com and the Twitter hashtag #startupbus for more details on how to partiipate.

Lastly, check out the bus they will be riding down to Austin.