141–150 of 165 posts
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And that claim is false. https://www.inc.com/magazine/201505/leigh-buchanan/the-vanis...
The U.S. Startup Barometer paints an entirely different view[1]. Nevertheless, I am talking about the entire world, not a single country. [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/startup-barometer/
This is just from memory. Correct me if I’m wrong. 2005: mobileride.com in Boston, phone-based ridesharing with voluntary cash exchange, shut down in 2006 with regulatory warnings 2006: zipcar hires some of mobileride team and enters rideshare business with shared zipcar rentals among BU students 2007: zimride starts with pre-arranged rideshare at Cornell, works with campus transportation directly to keep it legal. 2…
I would like to know more.
Why didn't VRBO/HomeAway become AirBnB? It seems there was already a marketplace for short term vacation rentals....
The only thing technical were that the sites usually had a calendar, but it was impossible to tell when and if it had actually been updated, so you had to be in contact with a dozen property owners to find a place with availability.
These services showed the potential but were little more than a collection of classified ads.
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For my own usage, they've taken the hotel market for personal travel. I don't think their hold is as strong in business travel yet.
until you find yourself in customer care hell. I've rented a fake room (lied about size, noise, etc. and had three honest-looking reviews) and I was talking to a rep in the US, in english. Meanwhile the host was talking to a service rep in the country i was in, in french. In the end, the US rep promised me a credit and help. But then the France rep flagged my account. Now i could not book anything until i reactivated…
I have experienced one issue where the host cancelled hours before arriving while we were already en route, but Airbnb upgraded us to a much better place as everything comparable was sold out (New Year's Eve in NYC).
Why didn't VRBO/HomeAway become AirBnB? It seems there was already a marketplace for short term vacation rentals....
Whatever you think they are missing, there is actually already a site for that.
Airbnb, like Uber, took advantage of regulatory inefficiencies instead of market inefficiencies. The model is do something (in the minds of regulators) illegal, quickly enough that you can become large enough to get a seat at the table when the regulations are reworked. The counter example to these companies are the ones that quickly raised capital to dump scooters on public streets before they could be shut down by…
Also you might want to notice that the last email from Fred is at 4:26am. In France that would be illegal in itself, sending a work email outside of the working hours. /s
This pg quote has an r/LateStageCapitalism vibe to me: "They just arrived back from NYC, and when I asked them what was the most significant thing they'd observed, it was how many of their users actually needed to do these rentals to pay their rents."
For me it was how PG pushed the investor with the "they WILL get hotels" line. Expected more data and less gut feeling from Ycombinator.
> Our two junior team members were enthusiastic > The three "old guys" didn't get it I think that's the main reason why they passed on Airbnb. The VCs themselves were too far away from the initial target market, and could neither relate with the "airbed and breakfast" user base, nor see how it could scale.
>So I think it can scale all the way to the bed and breakfast market > But I am not sure they can take on the hotel market Not an inaccurate assessment.
For my own usage, they've taken the hotel market for personal travel. I don't think their hold is as strong in business travel yet.
It's definitely not a big thing in business travel yet, but at least part of that is because business travel is a slow market to change (partly because of expense integrations, private rate deals, duty of care, etc.) That said, Airbnb is actively trying to build out their business travel group and in theory are signing up customers. It wasn't clear to me how much of that was marketing vapor.
My general feeling is that they'll eventually be able to capture a small chunk of that market, although not as high a percentage as they will in leisure. Mostly because I don't think they can get the amount of reliable inventory that a large portion of business travelers will want. I've done more than my share of working from AirBnb/guest house/hotel, but if I actually have critical business travel, I'm taking the 1000 room Hilton over any AirBnb.
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Right. New York, London, Paris and Tokyo have all "peaked".
Manhattan, London, and Paris all peaked in the early- to mid-20th century. Manhattan: https://urbanomnibus.net/2014/10/the-rise-and-fall-of-manhat... Paris: https://www.parisinsidersguide.com/population-of-paris.html London: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/01/07... City of London: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f6/Populati... Tokyo is probably approaching peak: https://proxy.d…