This past November, Busbud turned five. It felt like a good moment to stop and look back at the distance covered so far.
We started as three co-founders and a handful of people crammed into one room of an apartment, excited about the idea but genuinely unsure where it would lead. Five years later, Busbud is a market leader in online bus travel, helping millions of travelers a month find and book the right ticket across more than 60 countries — and it still feels like we're only getting started.
What we're thankful for
Our users come first. Every bit of feedback — good and hard to hear — has pushed us to get better, one trip at a time, and none of this exists without the people who trusted us with their bookings.
Our team made that possible day to day: a genuinely diverse group of people, from all over the world, who showed up with energy and actually lived the values we'd written down rather than just posting them on a wall. Thanks, too, to the families and partners who put up with the hours that took.
Our bus operator partners bet on the vision early, back when there was little reason to. Our investors backed a team with a lot of energy and not much direct experience in the bus industry, and pushed us with useful advice along the way. Montreal's startup community was there for all of it.
What we're excited about next
The plan for the next five years isn't a pivot so much as more of the same, done better: keep improving the product — especially for mobile, where a lot of our growth is heading — and keep pushing toward the same mission we started with, putting clear, accurate bus information (schedules, prices, amenities, reviews, stop details) in one place instead of scattered across a dozen sites.
We're also watching the wider travel industry start to take the intercity bus market seriously — as a genuinely good budget-friendly, lower-emission alternative to flying or driving alone — and we want to be part of pushing more travelers toward it.
None of that happens without a good place to do it from, so we're just as focused on building a team people are proud to be part of. If that sounds like your kind of project, we're hiring.