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Revision as of 01:02, 18 July 2011
Airbnb logo | |
Type of business | Private |
---|---|
Founded | 2008 |
Headquarters | , USA |
Key people | Brian Chesky (Founder, CEO) |
Industry | social networking service |
URL | airbnb.com |
Airbnb is an online service that matches people seeking vacation rentals and other short-term accommodations with those with rooms to rent, generally private parties that are not professional hoteliers.
History
Creation
Airbnb was started in August 2008 by Brian Chesky, who was inspired by observing how hard it was to find an apartment in San Francisco.[1] The company was incubated at the Y Combinator. In its first year the company began internationalizing and opened several new offices in Europe.[2]
In 2008 two friends from the Rhode Island School of Design, Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia travelled to San Francisco in order to attend a design conference. However there were no hotel rooms for rent, so they got the idea of renting air mattresses to conference visitors and making enough cash from that to pay their rents.[3]
Growth
Airbnb had their initial launch at the South by Southwest conference, however only two people booked rooms at this launch.[4]
Airbnb soon ran out of funds and in order to generate more seed capital for their startup, the founders of Airbnb started selling cereals named Obama O's and Cap'n McCains.[5]
Touted as a "disruptive" innovation for the Hotel Industry,[6] Airbnb was awarded the "breakout app" at the 2011 South by Southwest conference.[7]
Following Airbnb, other services such as Getaround, Vayable and Taskrabbit launched with a similar model.[8]
In July 2011, Airbnb acquired Hamburg based startup Accoleo.[9]
Forbes has estimated that by 2012 Airbnb could have more rooms on offer than Hilton Hotels. Brian Chesky has said that Airbnb has rooms in every country of the world except North Korea.[10]
Company Culture
Airbnb is well known for its freewheeling company culture, which has been praised by Business Insider and Wall Street Journal. For instance Airbnb employees wear hoodies to press conferences and business meetings.[11][12]
Airbnb observes Moustache Mondays and every employee wears a fake moustache on those days. Airbnb also provides its employees yoga sessions before every lunch.[13]
Joe Gebbia, the founder of Airbnb has said that "Airbnb is like a really fun school where you get paid".[14]
Financials
Airbnb received seed funding from Y Combinator in 2009.[15]
Paul Graham who was very impressed with Airbnb's founders said:[16]
- "It just seemed a very good sign to me that these guys were actually on the ground in NYC hunting down (and understanding) their users. On top of several previous good signs."
Major investors in Airbnb include Andreessen Horowitz and Digital Sky Technologies . Airbnb has grown by 800% in 2010 alone and has already booked 1.6 million night stays. Airbnb's valuation has been estimated at 1 billion dollars.[17][18][19] Ashton Kutcher also invested in Airbnb.[20]
Business Model
The listings on Airbnb vary from $10 a night for a futon in Brooklyn to $5,000 a night for a 6,500-square-foot modern vacation manse in Squaw Valley, California.[21]
Airbnb takes a commission of 10% on every rental and the average cost of each rental is 82 dollars.[22]
Airbnb's revenues have been estimated to be between 20 to 30 million dollars per year.[23]
Reception
Airbnb has been praised by Paul Graham,[24] Wall Street Journal,[25] and UK's Daily Telegraph.[26]
Airbnb has been favorably compared with Craigslist and Groupon, other sites that provide spur-of-the-moment rentals.[27]
Airbnb along with Quora and Dropbox has been named among the next generation of multibillion dollar start-ups by the New York Times.[28]
Criticism
Airbnb was criticised for spamming Craigslist users.[29]
New York's state legislature passed a law in July 2010 making it illegal to rent out Class A residential space for less than 30 days. However, the bill's sponsor, State Senator Liz Krueger said Airbnb and its competitors are not the law's target.[30]
See also
References
- ^ posterous.com
- ^ ft.com
- ^ gigaom.com
- ^ startupsopensourced.com
- ^ businessinsider.com
- ^ techcrunch.com
- ^ techcrunch.com
- ^ washingtonpost.com
- ^ businessinsider.com
- ^ forbes.com
- ^ businessinsider.com
- ^ wsj.com
- ^ wsj.com
- ^ wsj.com
- ^ techcrunch.com
- ^ paulgraham.com
- ^ venturebeat.com
- ^ gawker.com
- ^ techcrunch.com
- ^ washingtonpost.com
- ^ forbes.com
- ^ quora.com
- ^ quora.com
- ^ paulgraham.com
- ^ wsj.com
- ^ telegraph.co.uk
- ^ yahoo.com
- ^ nytimes.com
- ^ businessinsider.com
- ^ forbes.com
External links
- airbnb.com - official website