AirBnB 2013
CASE: E470
DATE: 04/12/13
AIRBNB
The combination of an Aerobed and the Internet has now made everybody into an innkeeper.
--Eric Schonfeld, TechCrunch
Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia were nothing if not creative. Two years after graduating from the
Rhode Island School of Design in 2005, the friends moved to San Francisco where they shared a three-bedroom apartment in the trendy South of Market neighborhood. When a major design conference came to town in the fall of 2007, the aspiring entrepreneurs recognized an opportunity to earn a little extra rent money. Hotel rooms were filling quickly, rates were steep, and they had room in their own apartment to host guests. Reasoning that a soft place to land and a roof overhead was all they themselves needed for a good night’s sleep, the pair built a rudimentary website using blog software advertising an air bed and a hot breakfast for $80 per night (see Exhibit 1). Assuming they would attract recent college graduates on a tight budget, the friends were surprised at the response. Gebbia recalled, “We had a 38-year old female who worked at Razorfish. And then an industrial designer from Salt Lake City who was even older.
They slept on air mattresses on our kitchen floor.”1 Add in a design researcher from India and
Gebbia explained, “They broke every assumption we ever made about who would stay on an air bed at a stranger’s house.”2 This realization, together with a fun and memorable experience getting to know their guests, spurred the friends to think that their initial scheme to earn some extra cash might have the makings of a real business.
As the pair began to dig into the logistics of developing their idea, they looped in Nathan
Blecharczyk, a previous roommate of Joe’s and a software whiz. Nate, the lead developer at a small San Francisco startup at the time, agreed to work on the technical backend of the “Airbed
1
Danielle Sacks, “The Sharing Economy,” Fast Company, April 18, 2011,
DATE: 04/12/13
AIRBNB
The combination of an Aerobed and the Internet has now made everybody into an innkeeper.
--Eric Schonfeld, TechCrunch
Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia were nothing if not creative. Two years after graduating from the
Rhode Island School of Design in 2005, the friends moved to San Francisco where they shared a three-bedroom apartment in the trendy South of Market neighborhood. When a major design conference came to town in the fall of 2007, the aspiring entrepreneurs recognized an opportunity to earn a little extra rent money. Hotel rooms were filling quickly, rates were steep, and they had room in their own apartment to host guests. Reasoning that a soft place to land and a roof overhead was all they themselves needed for a good night’s sleep, the pair built a rudimentary website using blog software advertising an air bed and a hot breakfast for $80 per night (see Exhibit 1). Assuming they would attract recent college graduates on a tight budget, the friends were surprised at the response. Gebbia recalled, “We had a 38-year old female who worked at Razorfish. And then an industrial designer from Salt Lake City who was even older.
They slept on air mattresses on our kitchen floor.”1 Add in a design researcher from India and
Gebbia explained, “They broke every assumption we ever made about who would stay on an air bed at a stranger’s house.”2 This realization, together with a fun and memorable experience getting to know their guests, spurred the friends to think that their initial scheme to earn some extra cash might have the makings of a real business.
As the pair began to dig into the logistics of developing their idea, they looped in Nathan
Blecharczyk, a previous roommate of Joe’s and a software whiz. Nate, the lead developer at a small San Francisco startup at the time, agreed to work on the technical backend of the “Airbed
1
Danielle Sacks, “The Sharing Economy,” Fast Company, April 18, 2011,