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Subject: Airbnb

paulgraham.com

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Re: Subject: Airbnb

#101

Post by pjscott »

ryandvm wrote: post #42
quickpost wrote: post #36

Fascinating 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 guit…

My take on it is that Airbnb is great unless you're the kind of person that doesn't trust strangers. Sadly, in the United States, the tendency to not trust strangers has been on the upswing for the last few decades.

I think the trusting-strangers thing actually comes down to two questions:

1. The collective level: are there enough people who trust strangers that Airbnb can make tons of money, and help out those people? It looks like the answer is yes.

2. The individual level: are you okay with trusting some random strangers from the internet? I think you probably should be -- people tend toward decency, overall -- and it's possible to change the way you feel about something with a little effort.

Re: Subject: Airbnb

#102

Post by metachris »

jrockway wrote: post #94
metachris wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can call it meaningless, but people in the business do understand exactly how it is meant. The way he phrased it just sounds a lot more polite.

Just because people understand businessspeak doesn't mean it's good to use. You would know what I meant if I typed "teh" instead of "the", but we all try to write "the" anyway.

Every niche has it's own lingo. VC's that need to bring the above message across several times a day just don't want to come across as rude or worse. Therefore they use euphemisms of which the messages are perfectly understood by their peers and which leave them as much room as possible (eg. making it easier to come back later and say "finished data acquisition phase -- we are in"). Classic VC play.

In the end, I can somehow understand, and don't find it 'wrong' or 'meaningless' per se.

Re: Subject: Airbnb

#103

Post by code_duck »

joshcrews wrote: post #57
randall wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just did my first AirBNB experience (actually am still in the middle of it) and I can say that it's actually been surprisingly smooth. It's almost like a paid way to make friends. The hosts who I'm staying with are so cool, and since I'm pretty public online, it was easy for them to feel comfortable with me staying at their pad. They've set it up as much like a hotel as I could ask for. It's really great, and it's…

I like Airbnb. I've hosted 8ish times and stayed with people once. Why I think the people on Airbnb are 'cool' is that its a small population that has a lot in common (young or young-at-heart, singles and couples without kids, internet natives, own a macbook, would love to hitchhike Europe while submitting correspond reports for the NYTimes). As it grows, I'm worried that everyone's not going to find everyone else 'c…

Like Craigslist, there's also the "everyone was really cool until someone raped and murdered a client" angle.

Re: Subject: Airbnb

#104

Post by jscore »

pg seemed a bit direct in terms of what he wanted in his email, which I found refreshing. On the other hand, Fred seemed to 'beat around the bush' as when he said 'we are in data gathering phase'.

Just curious what the norm is around the vc/angel circles. Are most people pretty direct/candid? or do they mostly hide behind business speak?

Re: Subject: Airbnb

#105

Post by robobenjie »

modoc wrote: post #86
robobenjie wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aww shucks, Thanks, Randall. We really enjoy hosting, and it seems like an even better deal for us (we get paid to make friends). About the only downside Iv'e experienced so far is that I have to wash sheets all the time (most people stay with us for 2-3 days and since we now have between 70%-100% occupancy thats a lot of sheet washing. I'm also about to go to Paris and the value proposition of airbnb there is even b…

If you're renting out your spare room 70-100% of the time, why don't you just get a roommate? Seems like it would be safer, less work, and you'd ideally have a better long term relationship.

Well, we like meeting new people, we probably would have to charge the roommate less and there are different social obligations for a roommate. (For example a guest that stays for a few days is unlikely to leave a mess in the kitchen). In addition any little annoying habits don't have enough time to become tiresome.

Lastly, we can have the room available for our friends and family when they come and visit (which is the point of having a guest room in the first place). My parent stay there (for free, of course) about 2 nights a month.

Re: Subject: Airbnb

#106

Post by jiffylu »

This seems right up USV's alley too. Marketplaces and platforms.

If I remember correctly, USV didn't exactly pass, but made a play around the time Sequoia did.

Re: Subject: Airbnb

#108

Post by zaidf »

cloudbrain wrote: post #32

Interesting 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…

Because "we" talk about it so much "we" are able to kill it and make it a non-issue so investors can focus on more imp issues.

Re: Subject: Airbnb

#109

Post by andrewparker »

Note that there is zero mention of VRBO or Homeaway in this entire email thread. That's the real opportunity (not hotels or bed and breakfasts) and neither Fred nor Paul saw it.

Re: Subject: Airbnb

#110

Post by andrewparker »

seiji wrote: post #16

Great examples of VCs never saying no directly and of a strange insider be-terse-and-get-out-of-my-way writing style.

That terseness is how Fred writes every email, it's not unique to this thread with Paul. When you try to reply to a couple hundred emails a day, this terseness is the result.
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