What could YC/Airbnb have done to prevent this? Anything you guys would do differently in hindsight?
Subject: Airbnb
51–60 of 146 posts
Re: Subject: Airbnb
#52Could there possibly be a better pitch for YC than this? Awesome read!
Re: Subject: Airbnb
#53Interesting 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…
MARKET.
http://pmarca-archive.posterous.com/the-pmarca-guide-to-star...
That's all Fred is looking at in that phase-- because even an awesome team won't build a venture-sized business in a tiny or low-growth market.
At our Demo Day, there was two teams that had a veritable investor feeding frenzy around them-- and they were both attacking markets that were either huge/rich or markets that were growing like gangbusters (and they had the good sense to talk as much about the market opportunity as they did about their product).
Re: Subject: Airbnb
#54Unrelated to start-up investment, just a random thought about ABNB:
I was thinking about the impact of hotel chains' business traveler kick-back schemes (euphemistically known as "rewards" programs) on the independent room providers (a phrase I just coined to run the gamut between someone renting out his spare room and a boutique hotel) ability to attract business travelers. How, as a business renting out 40 rooms in a single city, do you compete with Marriott who can offer some guy and his wife a free weekend stay anywhere in exchange for funneling his company's (or even his company's client's) dollars toward their brands? What if ABNB offered up to these independent operators a rewards program similar to those offered by the big chains? They would move beyond be a transaction facilitator toward being closer to a consumer brand. I believe that lower-end hotel chains basically follow this model -- independent owners become franchisees of the brand as a way to get bookings, have a recognizable brand, etc. While I doubt that too many of today's ABNB bookings are business-related, that number will surely increase. I love playing armchair QB :)
Re: Subject: Airbnb
#55Is it just me or just Brian Chesky reply 2 minutes before PG sends the intro? Time differences won't account for it since NYC is ahead of SF
Re: Subject: Airbnb
#56The content is wonderful to read through but the time frame that this conversation takes place over (a month) has a lot to say in itself.
Re: Subject: Airbnb
#57Fascinating 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…
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 'cool' on Airbnb.
I wasn't around for the early days of Craigslist, but I imagine it was easy to like people you found on Craigslist because they were probably very similar people to be on Craigslist so early. But now, after scale and popularity, that's gone.
I wonder if Airbnb might lose the 'cool' people edge after scaling.
Re: Subject: Airbnb
#58So this post has done two things in my estimation.
1) Improved the perceived standing of PG among the entrepreneur-class. It proves that he really adds value the way he says he does - hawking, what can easily be seen as a very weird idea at a time when not many people see it.
2) Improved my perception of Fred. Even though he passed on the deal, he is stand-up enough to not only admit it - but allow PG to post this email exchange that shows that he was "one of the old guys" that were skeptical. It also shows that he wasn't just pulling PG's chain, but was really debating it internally.
Re: Subject: Airbnb
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
What? He was invested in them. Do you think he wants to see them crash and burn?
You still really think he did all of that only because of YC's ~6% stake in them?
I'm not trying to take anything away from pg here, but "all of that" refers in this case to 7 emails with one VC.
AirBnB has raised $7.8M (at, what, around a ~$40M valuation at the time? 6% of which would be over $2m). Is it really that incredible that someone would send a few emails for a shot at that kind of money?
Re: Subject: Airbnb
#60[deleted]