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Airbnb

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Airbnb
Airbnb logo
Type of businessPrivate
Founded2007
Headquarters
San Francisco
,
USA
Key peopleBrian Chesky (CEO, Co-Founder)
Joe Gebbia (Chief Product Officer, Co-Founder)
Nathan Blecharczyk (CTO, Co-founder)
Industrysocial networking service
Revenue$132 million (2012)[1]
URLairbnb.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. The site was founded in October 2007 by Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia. In July 2012, the company had over 200,000 listings in 26,000 cities and 192 countries. Listings include private rooms, entire apartments, castles, boats, manors, tree houses, tipis, igloos, private islands and other properties.[2]

History

In 2007, Chesky and Gebbia moved to San Francisco. The Industrial Design Society of America was holding its yearly design conference at that time, and hotels were sold out.[3][4] The two, who were unable to pay their rent, offered part of their loft as accommodations.[5]

The company was incubated by the Y Combinator in January 2009.[6] The initial name of the website was Airbedandbreakfast.com, but it was shortened to Airbnb.com in March 2009. At this time the site's offerings expanded from just shared spaces to apartments, whole houses and other properties.[6] In June 2010, the founders' loft was still being used as an office. To make room for employees and to study the Airbnb product, Chesky gave up his bedroom and lived through the Airbnb service until the company moved into its first office space.[7]

The company continued to experience rapid growth through the year and in November 2010 raised $7.2 million in Series A funding from Greylock Partners and Sequoia Capital, and announced that out of 700,000 nights booked, 80% had occurred in the past six months.[8] By February 24, 2011, one million had been booked through Airbnb and revenue from the month prior had increased by 65 percent increase.[9] On May 25, 2011, actor and partner at A-Grade Investments, Ashton Kutcher, announced a significant investment in the company and his role as a strategic brand adviser for the company.[10] The company expanded internationally by purchasing Accoleo, a German clone of the site.[11][12] In July 2011, the company raised an additional $112 million at a $1 billion valuation.[13]

The company 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.[14][15] Gebbia has said that, "Airbnb is like a really fun school where you get paid."[15]

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 (600 m2) modern vacation mansion in Squaw Valley, California.[16] In late June 2011, an incident with a booked apartment being burgled and heavily vandalized by the renter[17] led AirBnB to offering $50,000 guarantee for landlords, a 24-hour customer-service hotline, and an in-house team devoted to investigating suspicious activity.[18]. Airbnb is taking a charge of 6% to 12% of the rental price from the traveller plus an additional fee of 3% from the landlord.

Controversy

Airbnb has also been criticized for spamming Craigslist users in addition to safety concerns.[19] In June 2011 a user identified as "EJ" reported that her home was robbed and vandalized.[20][21] In August 2011 Airbnb issued an "unconditional" apology for failing to treat users properly after a house was ransacked.[22] However the problems persist - in August 2012 a Scandiavian Apartment was turned into a brothel by the Airbnb-tenants [23] Airbnb co-founder Nathan Blecharczyk was formerly listed as a known spammer.[24]

Reception

Airbnb has been described as a "disruptive" innovation for the Hotel Industry.[25] It has been praised by Paul Graham (co-founder of Y-Combinator, Airbnb's incubator),[26] The Wall Street Journal,[27] and the The Daily Telegraph.[28] Airbnb has been favorably compared with Craigslist, HomeAway, Flipkey, World Escape and Groupon, other sites that provide spur-of-the-moment rentals.[29] Airbnb was awarded the "breakout app" at the 2011 South by Southwest conference.[30] Along with Quora and Dropbox, Airbnb has been named among the next generation of multibillion dollar start-ups by the The New York Times.[31] Following Airbnb, other services such as Getaround, Vayable, Guidehop, myTaskAngel and Taskrabbit launched with a similar model.[32] 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.[16]

See also

References

  1. ^ http://thenextweb.com/insider/2012/03/22/after-one-year-airbnb-rival-wimdu-is-big-how-big-132-million-a-year-big/
  2. ^ Upbin, Bruce (Jun. 29 2011). "Airbnb Could Have More Rooms Than Hilton By 2012". Forbes. Retrieved 28 July 2011. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  3. ^ Choe, Jeannie (10 Oct 2007). "AirBed & Breakfast for Connecting '07". Core77. Retrieved 28 July 2011.
  4. ^ (Botsman, Rachel, and Roo Rogers. What's Mine Is Yours: the Rise of Collaborative Consumption. New York: Harper Business, 2010. Print.)
  5. ^ Lagorio, Christine (Jul 19, 2010). "Brian Chesky, Joe Gebbia, and Nathan Blecharczyk, Founders of AirBnB". Inc. Retrieved 28 July 2011.
  6. ^ a b Rao, Leena. "Y Combinator's Airbed And Breakfast Casts A Wider Net For Housing Rentals As AirBnB". TechCrunch. Retrieved 28 July 2011.
  7. ^ Wauters, Robin. "Airbnb Founder Eats His Own Dogfood, Goes 'Homeless' For Months". TechCrunch. Retrieved 28 July 2011.
  8. ^ Wortham, Jenna (Nov 10, 2010). "Airbnb Raises Cash to Expand Budget-Travel Service". New York Times. Retrieved 28 July 2011.
  9. ^ Lee, Ellen (February 27, 2011). "A million nights booked on Airbnb". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved 28 July 2011.
  10. ^ Wortham, Jenna (May 25, 2011). "An Actor Who Knows Start-Ups". New York Times. Retrieved 28 July 2011.
  11. ^ Bradshaw, Tim (May 31, 2011). "Airbnb moves 'aggressively' into Europe". Financial Times. Retrieved 28 July 2011.
  12. ^ Gobry, Pascal-Emmanuel (Jul. 7, 2011). "Airbnb Buys A European Startup To Fend Off The Horde Of Clones". Business Insider. Retrieved 28 July 2011. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  13. ^ Fowler, Geoffrey A. (26 July 2011). "Airbnb Is Latest Start-Up to Secure Billion Valuation". The Wall Street Journal.
  14. ^ Gobry, Pascal-Emmanuel. "Moustache Monday Is Airbnb's Weapon Of Choice In The War For Talent". Business Insider. {{cite web}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help); Missing or empty |url= (help)
  15. ^ a b Fowley, Geoffrey (6 July 2011). "The Perk Bubble Is Growing as Tech Booms Again". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 28 July 2011.
  16. ^ a b Caulfield, Brian (November 18, 2010). "Airbnb: The Ebay for the Entire House". Forbes. Retrieved 28 July 2011.
  17. ^ Arrington, Michael. "The Moment Of Truth For Airbnb As User's Home Is Utterly Trashed". TechCrunch. Archived from the original on 29 July 2011. Retrieved 28 July 2011. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  18. ^ Chesky, Brian. "Our Commitment to Trust & Safety".
  19. ^ Gobry, Pascal-Emmanuel. "Airbnb Admits It Farmed Craigslist, Blames Outside Salespeople". Business Insider. {{cite web}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help); Missing or empty |url= (help)
  20. ^ Eddy, Max. Airbnb Host Robbed, Apartment Ransacked. Geek System. July 30, 2011.
  21. ^ http://prospect.org/cs/articles?article=the_commons
  22. ^ http://mashable.com/2011/08/01/airbnb-ransackgate/
  23. ^ http://gizmodo.com/5934731/prostitutes-turn-airbnb-apartment-into-brothel
  24. ^ http://gawker.com/5853754
  25. ^ Zelman, Josh. "Fred Wilson On Disruption: "You Can't Stop What People Ultimately Want To Have Happen"". TechCrunch. Retrieved 28 July 2011.
  26. ^ Graham, Paul. "Subject: Airbnb". Archived from the original on 15 July 2011. Retrieved 28 July 2011. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  27. ^ Geron, Tomio (14 February 2011). "Airbnb Goes Through "Pivots" Aplenty Before Finding Its Space". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 28 July 2011.
  28. ^ Richmond, Shane (Mar 22, 2011). "Airbnb - the website that wants to help you rent your spare room". The Telegraph. London. Retrieved 28 July 2011.
  29. ^ yahoo.com[dead link]
  30. ^ "Airbnb was the breakout app at SxSW 2011". Archived from the original on 20 June 2011. Retrieved 28 July 2011. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  31. ^ Rusli, Evelyn (7 July 2011). "The New Start-Ups at Sun Valley". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 8 July 2011. Retrieved 28 July 2011. {{cite news}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  32. ^ washingtonpost.com[dead link]
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