Sleepbus is a startup that's "disrupting long distance transport" — it's a bus.
Reminiscent of the Google Bus and other luxury tour-buses that have been converted for commuter use, the Sleep Bus is outfitted with Pullman-style berths and work areas, and offers free wifi as well as coffee and tea. Its promise is that you can go to bed at one end, wake up at the other, and travel in comfort with no missed work time.
Tickets are $100-200 ($48 during the trial phase), which is pricier than the $38 Greyhound, but much cheaper than a hotel at either end — so if you have a morning meeting, you can sleep the night away, arrive rested, and come out ahead.
The founder, Tom Currier (a former Thiel fellow) is betting on the bus being used by commuters on increasingly long and complex commute-routes. It shuttles between depots in Soma and the Santa Monica Pier.
You may be pardoned if you think SleepBus sounds like a classic Silicon Valley repackaging of a basic service under the guise of innovation. However cynically you look at it, interest is there — and more of it than Currier anticipated. Roughly one in 25 who see Facebook ads for Sleepbus are clicking through, and one ad received as many as 203,000 views, according to Currier. Customers are excited about the idea and they get it, he says. "I mean, SleepBus is pretty simple, right?"
In mid-March, within days of posting an initial ad to test interest, Currier said he received calls from potential customers asking if they could rent out entire buses, and some calls from folks just saying they thought the service was a good idea. One videographer asked about purchasing tickets for extra beds to send his equipment from one end of the state to the other, according to Currier. He realized he was onto something and hopped on the phone to contract a charter bus.
How This Startup Is Disrupting Long-Distance Transportation Right Now
[Tess Townsend/Inc]
(via Super Punch)
