Airbnb: An entrepreneurial ideal that never gives up

The global travel news holiday rental website Airbnb currently offers listings from 30,000 cities in 192 countries around the world, but until then it has struggled to raise $20,000 trillion in financing. Now its valuations have reached $2.5 billion trillion.

Pictured above is Airbnb's three founder, Nathan Blecharczyk (left), Brian Chesky (pictured), and Joe Gebbia (pictured right), which provides housing leasing services to travelers from 30,000 cities around the world in 192 countries.

In many ways, Airbnb is a typical Silicon Valley startup case: It has a creative product that is geared towards a huge market and, as one investor later said, has three founders who "Never Give up". In 2008, Airbnb's three founders, Brian Chesky, Joe Gebbia, and Nathan Blecharczyk contacted about 20 investors hoping to persuade them to invest in the site ("Air Sofitel and Breakfast"). 10 of them responded to the three founders ' emails, with three investors touching and drinking coffee. But in the end, no one invests Airbnb. After all, two of the three founders were designers (Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia), who were not programmers or MBA degrees. Although the three founders of Airbnb did not seem to fully conform to the image of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, they persisted. Since they have not raised money for their start-ups, they have spent all their money on rent and their savings run out quickly. However, they used a professional background in the design field to produce a cereal breakfast box that could be used as a collection and to sell it online. One of Obama's (Obama) cereal breakfast boxes with "a Breakfast for the change (representing the changed breakfast, echoing the slogan of Obama's first campaign: Change)" was welcomed by the vast number of consumers. Airbnb's three founders raised 30,000 of billions of dollars, which kept Airbnb for several months and allowed them to continue to promote Airbnb concepts to investors. When they dined with the founder of the online video website Justin.tv in November 2008, the latter persuaded them to join the entrepreneurial accelerator y Combinator created by the Silicon Valley legend Paul Graham.

Graham finally agreed to let Airbnb's founder join Y Combinator, recalling that he thought the online search and booking service for lodging and breakfast was a "bad" idea, but he appreciated the Airbnb founders ' relentless pursuit of their ambition to create a business, They can make every effort to do so. ' They never give up, ' says Graham. ”

After joining Y Combinator, the founder of Airbnb raised 20,000 of dollars, and they have been reiterating the concept of the site. They changed the original name (Air Sofitel and breakfast) to Airbnb and adopted a more trendy and fluent design.

Airbnb gradually became popular. The company won 600,000 of dollars in seed investment in 2009, and a year later it gained 7.2 million dollars in investment, and its founder was selected as the "Under 30" (The best 30 young entrepreneur under the age of 30) in Business Information Media Inc. The company achieved an important milestone in February 2012: Its bookings reached 5 million nights, a figure that continues to grow. Although Airbnb did not disclose revenue data, a rough calculation of the company's revenue this year will likely reach 9 digits.

The data is calculated as follows: For each room booked, the Airbnb charge a 6%-12% commission. 2011, the site's booking volume of about 4 million nights. Assuming an average price of 100 dollars and a commission rate of 10%, the company's net income in 2011 was at least 40 million dollars. Its performance figures for 2012 were brighter: 2012 1-June, the company's booking volume reached 5 million nights. Assuming that the volume of its bookings in the second half of the level and the first half of the data is flat, it will be at least 10 million bookings this year to reach the night. Assuming the average price is $100 and the commission rate is 10%, the company's net income will reach $100 million in 2012.

Airbnb has invested in the hands of a series of prominent investors, including VC Andreessen Horowitz (also the investor of Skype, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter), Sequoia Capital and Amazon founder Jeff. Bezos, whose total financing amounted to $120 million trillion, valued at $1.3 billion trillion. Last month, the report said Peter Thiel, the co-founder of PayPal, considered offering $150 million in private investment to Airbnb, which would be valued at $2.5 billion if the investment was counted. In addition, Airbnb focuses on the global market, which provides accommodation covering 30,000 of the world's 192 countries, and is adding new revenue streams. Airbnb commissioned a survey by other agencies to point out that between June 2011 and May 2012, the total cost of using its website in San Francisco was $56 million.

But whether it is Silicon Valley's entrepreneurial circle or anyone else, they are less likely to talk about the cultural impact of the company's tourism concept on most travellers. The concept is that Airbnb may be gradually redefining people's attitudes towards adventure and exploration. The reason is simple: let the stranger live in your home or into a stranger's home, and stay for one weeks or so, these scenes are likely to become the title of a horror film.

But for most users, that is not the case. In fact, the opposite is the case.

Airbnb has become an important platform to provide adventurous travel experience, and in the present or future, many people's thoughts about the concept of vacation may no longer be "let's travel to X city," but "the homeowner's eco-villa in Hua Hin, Thailand, looks good, or we can go there." "To this end, the company created an exclusive wish list (Cytopathic list)," The user can collect some peculiar houses. Airbnb offers a variety of accommodation options, including a Spanish boathouse, a Greek cave or Frank Lloyd Wright (famous American architect) at Wisconsin State's home and so on.

Airbnb's CEO and co-founder Brian Chesky said recently: "When we first started the Airbnb, we never thought we would be able to offer a variety of accommodation, such as a tree house or an entire private island." The wish list allows our community to discover some of the most interesting destinations on Earth. ”

So in many ways, Airbnb is prompting the birth of a new traveler: The anti-tourist (anti-tourist). People who initially use the Airbnb site know that traveling in a new city is not just about visiting the usual city cultural sights, but about meeting new friends and understanding the lives of locals and, if possible, finding a unique place to stay for one night. (Wing compilation)