This is great stuff.
You can't blame any VC for being cautious at that early a stage though, and although the idea of hotels using airbnb to list their vacancies hasn't happened yet, as far as I can tell, it may not even matter. I have just started trying them to rent my apt in NYC, lets see how it goes. Personally as a "landlord" I feel like I do a great job accomodating my tenant, but on a site like craigslist, which is where I'd been posting my listings, this never gets reflected as there are no opinions/ratings, etc. As a result, I can't "stand out" from other landlords. It's not hard to get tenants in NYC, but I can imagine in some other parts of the country or world this may be a bigger issue.
This is where I hope airbnb comes in handy.
Subject: Airbnb
31–40 of 146 posts
Re: Subject: Airbnb
#32Interesting that completely missing from this conversation is:
-- Their website design -- Their code (Rails? Jquery?) -- Their hosting / scalability / "cloud" strategy -- Source control methods, dev environment, tools -- APIs, "ecosystem", social media, "viral rate" etc. -- And more...
Basically, all the things that most of us here spend most of our time discussing.
Instead: 1) Idea / Team 2) Execute 3) Talk to people with money 4) Go to #2
Re: Subject: Airbnb
#33Great examples of VCs never saying no directly and of a strange insider be-terse-and-get-out-of-my-way writing style.
Is it terse or is it just concise?
So many 'business' people think that long waffling sentences seem clever and impressive. Nothing is further from the truth.
Re: Subject: Airbnb
#34Interesting that completely missing from this conversation is: -- Their website design -- Their code (Rails? Jquery?) -- Their hosting / scalability / "cloud" strategy -- Source control methods, dev environment, tools -- APIs, "ecosystem", social media, "viral rate" etc. -- And more... Basically, all the things that most of us here spend most of our time discussing. Instead: 1) Idea / Team 2) Execute 3) Talk to peopl…
This is a great point....market potential seems to be top of mind more than anything else.....which reminds me of how Sequoia invests....clearly they got the larger vision (and presumably had more data points as they invested later)
Re: Subject: Airbnb
#35Wow. I did not get the pun in AirBnB until I saw it spellers out widhelm he lowercase b in airbed. The capital B is either a branding miss or an intentional branding effort to look more upscale than Airbed.
Based on previous discussions, I think it's done intentionally to reflect a pivot (away from airbeds).
Re: Subject: Airbnb
#36Fascinating conversation. Thanks for giving insight into how these deals work...
>ABNB reminds me of Etsy in that it facilitates real commerce in a marketplace model directly between two people.
Interestingly enough, I still tend to side with Fred's assessment of AirBnB's future. All my experiences with it as a user have been too unreliable to expect that it can scale to truly massive usability. Selling your old guitar online is a lot different than renting a room to someone. Renting a room has so much more of a personal aspect to it.
There are so many more subtleties to actually having a stranger come and stay in your house than there are to sending a stranger a book, guitar, etc via USPS.
Regardless, I still think there's a massive market out there for this type of thing, I just don't see it swallowing up the whole Hotel industry.
Re: Subject: Airbnb
#37Interesting that completely missing from this conversation is: -- Their website design -- Their code (Rails? Jquery?) -- Their hosting / scalability / "cloud" strategy -- Source control methods, dev environment, tools -- APIs, "ecosystem", social media, "viral rate" etc. -- And more... Basically, all the things that most of us here spend most of our time discussing. Instead: 1) Idea / Team 2) Execute 3) Talk to peopl…
not sure whether this is in 1) but the fact that they actually talked to their customers in NYC etc. is a huge point as well.
Re: Subject: Airbnb
#38Great examples of VCs never saying no directly and of a strange insider be-terse-and-get-out-of-my-way writing style.
Is it terse or is it just concise? So many 'business' people think that long waffling sentences seem clever and impressive. Nothing is further from the truth.
This is neither terse nor concise. Terse and concise means you write what you mean. When the VC writes, "we are still in the data-gathering phase", he really means "I see what you are saying, but my gut says no right now. I may contact you in the future when I know more."
This is longer, but it actually means something. Instead of saying that he needs more data in order to make a decision, he's said that he needs more time to make a decision. The data comes natrually.
A "data-gathering-phase" is the phase that everyone is always in about everything. I am currently in a "data-gathering-phase" with respect to whether or not I should make another cup of coffee. My current cup is cold, but still contains liquid. So it's not a sure thing that I should make myself another cup of coffee. On the other hand, hot coffee is nice. I can't decide, so I will continue to gather temperature and flavor data until I make a decision or I spill my coffee.
See how meaningless that is?
Re: Subject: Airbnb
#39Great examples of VCs never saying no directly and of a strange insider be-terse-and-get-out-of-my-way writing style.
Is it terse or is it just concise? So many 'business' people think that long waffling sentences seem clever and impressive. Nothing is further from the truth.
Just reminds me of: "Ron wrote back in literally 2 minutes and said, in what I have learned is Ron’s distinctive email style (immediate, short, all caps), “AM ON IT.”" (http://bhorowitz.com/2010/04/07/ron-conway-explained/)
The format seems more IM-over-email than "email where important shit goes down."
Re: Subject: Airbnb
#40It's interesting that in the end Airbnb raised from Sequoia, I wonder if lots of other VCs passed. It possibly shows why Sequoia are the best.
True that is. +1 for the suburban golf loving VC's - at the end of the day, they are successful for a reason.
Have you met the Sequoia guys?