No money to pay the rent? Airbnb entrepreneurial success!

In San Francisco, engineers and literary youths mixed together to form an interesting blend of culture. Computer Geek Nathan and two literary youth designers Brian and Joe became roommates, so they had a house rental community Airbnb. I've always felt that real entrepreneurs are the ones who find opportunities in a crisis. The economic crisis that has lasted for several years has facilitated the development of a "shared economy" (sharing Economy), and "sharing" is what the Internet excels at. Platforms such as the Airbnb,github,kickstarter,lending Club, through the Internet, help people in crisis to better share and distribute resources, and the future of these companies is limitless. Geek fan Airbnb is a world-hot travel and housing leasing community that allows users to publish, search for rental information and complete online bookings via a Web or mobile app. After a C round of financing last September, the five-year-old company valued 2.5 billion dollars. Nathan Blecharczyk is the CTO and co-founder of Airbnb (in the middle of the figure below). I met him at the World Economic Forum in Davos a few weeks ago, and this tall, lanky young man looks very humble among the world's top 500 entrepreneurs and national dignitaries. We met at the front desk of the Hilton Hotel, and I recognized him from the crowd, because only the geek from Silicon Valley would wear an upscale suit so awkward. Nathan said he came to China a few years ago to teach English, but I can't recognize the city name he was in, and our final conclusion is that it should be a small southern city. Nathan Blecharczyk is the CTO and co-founder of Airbnb (in the middle of the figure below). Mixed culture San Francisco Nathan graduated from Harvard University Computer department, is Facebook founder Zuckerberg's brother Men Shi, Zuckerberg on the big one, Nathan Senior. Nathan might not have known the primary brother, who had only been at Harvard for more than a year and had gone to the Silicon Valley venture. But after graduating, Nathan chose the same path as Zuckerberg, crossing the continent to the west coast of Silicon Valley. Soon Nathan got a job at a software company and moved to an apartment in San Francisco, near the Silicon Valley. Here he met his two roommates, Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia, who were all designers and graduated from the famous Rhode Island School of Design (Rhode Island parochial). Now one of them is Airbnb's chief executive and chief product officer. San Francisco is the Holy Land of American literary and artistic youth, the birthplace of hippie culture, attracts many artistic temperamentYouth come here to pursue their dreams. At the same time, the proximity of San Francisco and the South's Silicon Valley has attracted many Silicon Valley engineers to live in (in recent years more and more tech start-ups have opted to build the company in San Francisco rather than Silicon Valley, such as Twitter, which recently prepared an IPO). In this city, engineers and literary and artistic youths mingle together to form an interesting mixed culture. Computer Geek Nathan and two literary youth designers Brian and Joe became roommates, and interesting things happened. People who have been in San Francisco know that the city's rent is surprisingly expensive, if you can rent a separate one bedroom, then you are definitely rich. Nathan and his roommate, who had just graduated from college, were clearly not rich, and often worried about rent. Interestingly, Airbnb's original idea was to solve the rent problem. In San Francisco, engineers and literary youths mixed together to form an interesting blend of culture. How did Airbnb get here? Nathan describes the process of creating AIRBNB with two small partners: when I decided to move out of the house in October 2007, my roommate Joe and Brian were embarrassed because they had resigned at that time and decided to start a full-time business (in fact, another They don't have the money to pay the extra room rent. At that time, there was a design convention in San Francisco and the hotels in the vicinity were all booked up. So they rented the room out to three designers, made 1000 dollars, and one of them became good friends. A few months later, when we got together again, we said, why not a house rental site? So soon, such a website is online. The earliest name of the website is called airbedandbreakfast.com, which means to provide inflatable bed and breakfast place. later renamed to Airbnb.com. When the company was first established, several founders continued their initial ideas, dedicated to some of the city's campaigns to hold large conferences, but then they found that there was a demand for short rents in almost every place, some of the settlers who had just moved in, and some were travelers. So Airbnb began to focus on developing these people. The founder of the YC incubator, Paul Graham, once Airbnb's first investor, recalls the start-up days of the company: Airbnb, the founder of the New York House knocking on the door to lobby, solicit users, lack of advice. They are always a group of people carrying bags into the YC gate, maybe from where to fly back to attend our Tuesday dinner meeting. Soon the site's users began to grow exponentially. I was in America, and I learned about this site from a friend who was a tourist. In the summer of 2010, I had a road trip across the United States with two friends, several times during the AiRbnb found a place to live, not only living in a better room than a dirty motel, but also getting a lot of extra help from homeowners. When I mentioned it, Nathan was pretty sure that I was one of their earliest users. The earliest name of the website is called airbedandbreakfast.com, which means to provide inflatable bed and breakfast place. later renamed to Airbnb.com. Micro entrepreneur Nathan shared with me his microentrepreneur (micro entrepreneur): I think the greatest function of the Internet is to provide many platforms to arm ordinary people. When people get these tools they can do something interesting. On these platforms everyone is an entrepreneur who can rely on the platform to realize their dreams or make money. AIRBNB's business model is simple: the head of the household puts his or her vacancy information on the site, and Airbnb will take 10% of the turnover from each transaction as a service charge. If you look at the average of 100 dollars per transaction, AIRBNB's annual income is likely to exceed 100 million dollars. Nathan Frank, most of the users on the Airbnb are Low-and middle-income people, most of whom are below the middle income group, many of whom have lost their jobs in the midst of the economic crisis, they have no money to pay the rent, or they want to rent out their spare rooms to get some extra income, So we appear in front of them and use our platform to achieve these possibilities for them. This is the power of Internet sharing. Notably, Airbnb was online in August 2008. After three young cock-nerds put the site online one months later, a financial storm almost buried the entire Wall Street and the American economy, but Airbnb miraculously survived and grew exponentially over the past 5 years. Nathan told me how they got ahead and grew in the crisis: The financial crisis did have an impact on us. At first we almost didn't get the money because most of the investors were terrified by the storm. Even after we got the money, our valuations were grossly undervalued. In that difficult environment we learned early on the importance of cash flow and profit patterns. These are important for attracting investment. In the countries of southern Europe that are in bankruptcy, our users are the fastest-growing, which contrasts well with the economic situation in northern Europe. There is no economic crisis, our website can also develop very well, but it is certainly not the size of the present. The economic crisis did help us. Investors in the eye but even in the depths of the crisis, Silicon Valley is still not lack of discerning and courageous investors. AIRBNB's earliest funding came from the 20,000 of dollars offered by Silicon Valley's most famous incubator, Y Combinator, and the 600,000 dollars that Sequoia Capital provided in a few months. And after a few rounds of financing almostIncluding all the famous VC in Silicon Valley, it is worth mentioning that actor Kutcher Beecher (Ashton Kutcher) is also one of the early investors (he is now in the film "Jobs" in the Chowa actor). This man is very good, he has an astonishing influence on Twitter, known as the King of "twitter, the status of China's" micro-bo Queen "Chen Yao. In addition, he has a passion for pioneering companies in the field of technology, in addition to investing in Airbnb, but also skype,path,foursquare,flipboard early investors. I've seen him once in L.A., and next time I'm going to have to 818 the interesting actor and his investment philosophy. After the early financing difficulties, and the business model gradually gained recognition from investors, Airbnb in the following years to achieve an astonishing growth. February 2011, the AIRBNB has achieved 1 million times the booking, June 2012 This number reached 10 million times, most of which are overseas listings. Starting from last year, Airbnb developed the overseas market with exerting force. At the end of this year, AIRBNB has opened 12 offices around the world. It is worth mentioning that actor Kutcher Beecher (Ashton Kutcher) is also one of the early investors (he is the Chowa player in the film "Jobs", which is now in play). Airbnb & China at the end of the conversation, Nathan said he was very bullish on the Chinese market: in the overseas travel market, the Chinese have overtaken the US as the world's largest consumer group and have grown by 40% in the past year, which is insane. What is more important is that China has a growing middle class. I think our products are suitable for Europeans and also suitable for Chinese people. If Chinese travelers want to take a look abroad, experience different cultures and make different friends, Airbnb is the best for you. Nathan can't wait to advertise his website.