Airbnb: How 3 guys turned a rented room into a $90B company?
Behind the scenes of building Airbnb empire ⬇️
Quick rundown 📕
Long before Airbnb persuaded strangers to sleep in one another's homes and became a $90 billion company, it was just an idea to make extra bucks and enable the founders to pay their due rent.
Early days ☀️
In 2008, Brian & Joe, two roommates from San Francisco struggled with paying their rent. They thought they could make some cash by renting out a room for a night!
The MVP 💣
They took 3 air mattress and setup a page called AirBed&Breakfast. They got 3 customers ($80/night each) when there was a conference in SF and the hotels were sold out.
Growth hack 📈
They also "hacked" craigslist. They coded a bot that looked for room renting in itself and sent emails
The collapse 💥
Even after getting initial customers, Airbnb failed to grow and the expenses became a burden.
The survival 🥣
During 2008 US election, they decided to sell Cereals with Obama's picture as a side hustle to make money and survive. It worked and they made $30K within a week.
Meanwhile, the founders clicked 100s of pictures of apartments across US and uploaded on Airbnb, visiting and empathising with each and every household.
True hustlers?
The Utopia 🧫
Today, Airbnb is present in 191+ countries, with 150M+ users, 4M+ hosts, and 6M+ active listings.
Of course, they stopped selling cereals! 🥣
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