StartupBus NYC-> Austin circa 2011 (Photo: Betabeat)

"I would say that it takes a very specific type of person to want to go on a three day bus trip on a cramped, smelly bus to try to launch a startup," Jonathan Gottfried, a developer evangelist from Twilio told Betabeat last week. Mr. Gottfried was talking about the StartupBus, the pipe dream of an idea that started with a bus trip from San Francisco to SXSW in 2010, migrated to the New York City in 2011, and is now in Europe as well.

The bus trips--going to tech conferences like SXSW and now Le Web--consist of a competition where teams are formed, products built, and winners picked, all while hurtling along the highway.

"The goal is to have a prototype product that you can launch at SXSW," Mr. Gottfried explained. And, over the course of the trip, "build a team from nothing and business from nothing," he added, "The logistics of the StartupBus are very ad hoc, which is sort of the charm." Alumni from that rolling boot camp can currently be found at promising, well-funded startups like Branch, Instacart, and Pushd.  HipType, an ebooks analytics company formed on the Silicon Valley bus in 2012, even got backing from Y Combinator.

You can meet some of those community members Saturday, December 15th at the second StartupBus:Accelerate event hosted at the Alley NYC in Midtown. Veteran StartupBus rider Mr. Gottfried, whose company is one of the sponsors, emphasized that the BarCamp-like "unconference" will be organized according to the same ad hoc spirit. Thus rather than quietly listening to panels, designated facilitators help attendees discuss topics they're interested in. At the last event, there were workshops on how hacker culture could be good for business and teaching yourself to code. This year, UX design is also on the agenda.

"We essentially have sort of a brain trust where we discuss strategies we’ve developed over the years," which can be useful to new entrants to the startup scene, said Mr. Gottfried. "They get to sit and have deep off-the-cuff conversations about real problems and solutions that people have encountered."

And although you don't have to have participated in the StartupBus in order to attend, if you want to compete this year, the event is a good primer. "Accelerate is an awareness exercise as much as it is a community mind meld," added Mr. Gotfried.

Like the volunteer-driven StartupBus, Mr. Gottfried is hoping that Accelerate events in New York will be build a template that can be copied in other cities. "We're not necessarily going to fly out and run those," he acknowledged.

Tickets are $50 for general admission, $20 for students, but lucky Betabeat readers can click here for a 20 percent off discount. 

Last year, the StartupBus drove a pack of entrepreneurs from San Francisco to Austin for South By Southwest, producing six companies. In March, a few days before this year's event, about 150 entrepreneurs will attempt the same thing.

Buses from New York, San Francisco, Cleveland and other cities will drive in however circuitous a route necessary to make it to SXSW in 48 hours. The passengers are tasked with building a viable startup web business by the time they reach Austin, where they'll present to potential investors.

The StartupBuses actually look pretty comfortable in photos, and there will of course be Wi-Fi. But to run a mobile hackathon from six cities takes money, which is why the StartupBus launched a fundraising campaign on Kickstarter this morning.

The goal is $10,000, which will reduce the financial burden on participants and pay for some additional "creature comforts" to make the road trip more comfortable. It's been 2 percent funded so far, with 20 days to go. If the campaign is massively oversubscribed, it could mean more buses.

We've heard plenty of stories about startups that developed overnight—New York's GroupMe was built in a day and a half at a hackathon—but this is green-eggs-and-ham territory: But could you, would you on a bus? "We're looking for the best do-ers, thinkers and designers who want to hack a real startup together over a few sleepless days in a confined space moving at 60 mph," says the project's website.

Justin Isaf, the New York coordinator for the StartupBus, said the applicants are extremely high-caliber. He's already filled the spots designated for designers (the bus will also include engineers and business development types).

We'll be reporting more on the buspreneurs in the next few days.

ajeffries [at] observer.com | @adrjeffries