The founder tells us how the airbnb, which caused a shake to the hotel industry, began.

Airbnb, a residential service that allows you to rent a bed at a stranger's house, is used all over the world to shake up the existing hotel industry and is required to develop laws at municipal and national levels . How is Airbnb born and where are you going? Where LinkedIn co-founder Reed Hoffman interviewed Brian Cesky, one of the founder of Airbnb

Scaling Airbnb with Brian Chesky - Class 18 Notes of Stanford University's CS 183 C - Blitzscaling: Class Notes and Essays - Medium
https://medium.com/cs183c-blitzscaling-class-collection/scaling-airbnb-with-brian-chesky-class-18-notes-of-stanford-university-s-cs183c-3fcf75778358

The state of the interview can be confirmed from the following movie.

Blitzscaling 18: Brian Chesky on Launching Airbnb and the Challenges of Scale - YouTube


Reed Hoffmann (Hoffmann):
Can you tell me the story of Airbnb's foundation? Where did you get ideas and how did you create them?


Mr. Brian Chesky (hereinafter referred to as Chessy):
Many people say, 'The idea of ​​Airbnb is the worst thing I've worked with in the past' (laugh) Before I started AirbnbRhode Island School of Design(RISD)Since I was attending a beauty university called "IT Entrepreneurs", unlike many founders of IT systems, I never thought "Become an entrepreneur" in the process of growing up. Parents of social workers always said "to confirm that there is health insurance when getting a job", so my goal is that much, I tell my parents that I'd like to go to a beautiful college When they were convinced that I would come back.

Experience with RISD has had a great impact on my life. Until then it was said that "I will go straight on a standard road" and I sent it to the principal office for a moment, but at RISD, "You are a designer, so I can change things" It was said. To go outside and change things, that was what I wanted to do forever.

After graduating from college, I got a job, but my friendJoe · GeviaFrom, "Stop work and come to San Francisco, I was invited to persuade him to do a startup." I did not have any ideas, but I wanted to do something.

In 2007, my account only had $ 1,000, but I headed to San Francisco. And when I moved to San Francisco there was no money to pay the rent I heard that the international design conference will be held in San Francisco. When I looked at the conference website, it was said that everyone in the neighborhood was fully booked.

At this time, how about offering participants of the conference to have breakfast and staying, as "participants in the conference have no place to stay" and "they have no money"? I was born the idea. There was a problem that there was no bed, but fortunately Gebia had a rubber air bed. So I published a website "airbedandbreakfast.com" to provide "Air Bed & Breakfast".

Eventually, we lived together in a room with three participants during the conference. What I noticed usually is that a few years' worth of months are required to make a friend, but with this mechanism it means that you can put people at home on a few days. In a normal world it is rare to get to know people so quickly. However, by experiencing "staying another person at home", there are people who change life a lot, others can become familiar with someone to call for a wedding ceremony.


Based on the experience of conference, Jay 's former roommate Nathan Brecharge and three people decided to make a company from this idea. The core of the idea is that you can book someone's home like booking a hotel. At this time, no one of us thought that "air bed & breakfast" would be a big hit, and sometimes I wasted my time working on the idea of ​​another service, "find a roommate."

When I returned to my parents house at Christmas time, my parents asked me "What are you doing now?" Since I did not want to say "I am out of work", I answered "I am an entrepreneur". At that time, I realized that the difference between "unemployed" and "entrepreneur" is only a way of thinking (laugh) While asked by parents and answering, I should rework the idea of ​​"air bed & breakfast" again Feeling that, three of us again started talking about "air bed & breakfast".

And in 2008,South by Southwest(SXSW)Airbnb was released at the time of the year, but throughout the time the SXSW was done there were two Airbnb users, one of whom was me.

Hoffman:
I did not know that I was working on the service of "finding my roommate."

Chessy:
I did not think that "Air Bed & Breakfast" was a big idea. From this, I learned that "big ideas sound silly at first." Many of the ideas that solve the problem do not change our lives, but this was an idea that could change our lives.

Hoffman:
After publishing the service, how did you proceed with the improvement?

Chessy:
As a matter of fact, we are doing "public" service many times. If you do "open up" the service but nobody has noticed the existence, you should say "reveal" again.

As far as Airbnb is concerned, the first public disclosure is an international design conference, no one has noticed it in the second disclosure, and SXSW was the third public. At this time, we did not have a payment system, and the user had an air bed rather than an ordinary bed.

However, when there is a user response, I noticed that "Why must I keep the conference time main?" "Why should I be an air bed?", Regardless of the type and timing of the bed I asked them to get a reservation.

Also, I also took a different way to pay for other services. At that time, eBay and Etsy had settled through Paypal, but we wanted to pay directly from guest to host without mediation. The idea of ​​creating a unique payment system was horrible, but after all, we have created a system that evaluates hosts and makes direct payments.

In the summer of 2008, the final version of Airbnb is completed, "You can book someone's house with 3 clicks." The web site of that time had the main elements currently used also as search, evaluation and payment.

House, apartment, room, vacation rental, accommodation booking site to borrow from the local people - Airbnb (airbusiness and beef)
https://www.airbnb.jp/


After completing the website, we contacted 15 investors to gather 150 thousand dollars by saying "service is worth $ 1.5 million", but seven investors Eight people gave me a reply and gave me a reply. Four of them answered "I can not match your claim", one was "not your favorite market", and three were simply "pass".

2008,Democratic National Committee(DNC)Was held and 80,000 people gathered in Denver, I heard that there are only 27,000 rooms in the hotel, I thought that we had no choice but to use this. So I contacted a major publisher such as CNN or the New York Times, but it was returned as "Nobody wants to stay in the bed of others' house" and ignored by local newspaper companies It was done. So, when I got an individual blogger to write an article, the person who tried to research Google about DNC ​​saw the article, the local newspaper company saw the blog and watched the blog and got the eye on the local newspaper The result was that the publisher writes articles. For that reason, 80 people used Airbnb during DNC, but when the period expired, it was in the state of zero user. We have a debt, investors say no, I have published the service three times, so there was no prospect in spite of being posted in the newspaper.

At that time, although Airbnb's "air bed" is functioning, I noticed that the "breakfast" part did not work well. So I bought 1000 boxes of cereals at supermarket and packaged it with the presidential election Obama and McCain's illustration that was the topic at that time and sold it for 40 dollars a piece, it was possible to earn 30,000 dollars, I could return my debts. This is the story that we became a "serial entrepreneur".


In November 2008 we saw us who had debt again, and the surrounding people said "Y CombinatorWhy do not you go? "And gave me advice. So, I already published the net service, but the Y combinatorPaul GrahamI decided to meet. When hearing about Airbnb, he responded, "People staying in the air bed, are they strange somewhere?" But as we talked about the ceremony, "If you can let people buy the cereal, people might be able to stay in the room," Graham said and can survive We called us "cockroach startup" in the sense that there is a possibility. This was the greatest tribute I had ever received. We were cockroaches.

Hoffman:
Was there a major change in Airbnb due to Y combinator?

Chessy:
The Y combinator did a couple of things that will be of great help later.

Firstly, the Y combinator gives me an intensive guidance over a three month period, giving us the opportunity to work full-time for Airbnb. Until that time I had been doing other things, but since I came out to the Y combinator, we continued the life of working for Airbnb only from 8 o'clock in the morning until 12 o'clock in the evening for 4 months .

Also, Graham gave us advice for changing orbit. That means "It is better to be loved by 100 people than to be liked by one million people." Rather than thinking "to have one million people use it" when you want to hit the application, it is impossible for one million people to use it unless you really consider 100 people who love the application. Fortunately, we have 100 people who love Airbnb.

While staying at the Y combinator we stayed at the host house in New York residence, met with them, spent time and wrote ratings. And at this time, I asked the host that it is difficult to take pictures of the room, "If the photographer appears just by pushing the button and asking if you can take a picture of the room?", The hosts very much It liked. So, when I borrowed a camera from a friend and headed to the host 's house, everyone was shocked that the founder doubled as a photographer.

If you love someone alone, you can go to the next one to the next. This means "It is important to be loved by 100 people than being liked by one million people".

And finally, we got an investment of 600 thousand dollars from Sequoia Capital by presentation.

Hoffman:
Through the startup creation period, the company grows. In the theme of "class", I see that what I did in one class does not work well in the next class. You focus on short-term projects and work on projects on a long-term basis, as well as managers and officers concurrently.

Chessy:
When asking about Airbnb, everyone asks about the story at the time of creation. There is an idea, it is easy to execute it and talk about it like it seems like it, but in reality it will continue with the 2nd, 3rd and 4th stages even if one stage is cleared, and moreover It is more difficult than the first stage. The first stage of solving the problem, finding 100 good people who love the product, finding a good co-founder ... ... is relatively easy.

The second and subsequent stages are not much documented. I have heard stories from other CEOs, but they may be saying the wrong things or they may not work well in my case. For example, one CEO told me that he should promote every six months, but I do not believe this idea, as the rapidly growing CEO of the startup will have a totally different job in six months. Hmm. The CEO of a rapidly growing startup is a bowling player becoming a football player and then becoming a hockey player. When the stage changes, the content of the work is totally different.


If you think "knowing everything" of your work, you can not see yourself by yourself. I am not ashamed to get feedback about things I do not know.

Hoffman:
I call these types of people "infinite learners". Then we will move on to talk about competition. Along with the growth of Airbnb, how did the competition as a company and the challenge within the enterprise change?

Chessy:
The first stage of startup is "to survive". How can we have the next day without die? And the next stage is "fire fighting activity" to solve the problem. And on the third stage, others try to imitate the company or try to ruin yourself. This is exactly what Airbnb is facing, the external threats to the current Airbnb are the competitors and the government.

Immediately after Airbnb gathered $ 7 million from Greylock Partners, Airbnb's clone service "Wimdu" was created in 2011. Wimdu had hired 900 employees with $ 90 million dollars, but at that time Airbnb had only 40 employees. But in the end Airbnb was able to win the competition by building a better community from a long-term perspective.

audience:
What is the most difficult thing now?

Chessy:
There are many, but the first one is about scaling. There are many things that you can do with 500 people on the scale of 2000 people will not work. It is important to realize that it is a rapidly growing startup and it is important to fulfill its mission, but change is also necessary to preserve corporate culture. Companies like Apple, LinkedIn, Facebook have more than one product line. Although our product Airbnb is growing, there is a chance to create a new product. I know how to start up, but I do not know how existing existing companies create new products. The two are completely different.

Increasing one product to two is a big change, but it is essential for companies to continue running. I think that the product we sell 10 years from now is likely to be completely different from the product we are selling right now.