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Airbnb Has Arrived: Raising Mega-Round at a $1 Billion+ Valuation

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Re: Airbnb Has Arrived: Raising Mega-Round at a $1 Billion+ Valuation

#91

Post by sunir »

ChuckFrank wrote: post #43

I've been waiting for some time to call out Airbnb, and I think this is the right time. Firstly, the idea of short term residential rentals is not new. Long before Airbnb major cities, Paris, London, New York, and Toronto were dealing with the issues and the problems of short term / nightly residential rentals. In fact the latest condo boom in Toronto has been ascribed to international investors buying condos explici…

It's a fallacy to complain that Airbnb is a new idea or not. It doesn't matter if they are a new idea! It only matters how much business they are driving.

Re: Airbnb Has Arrived: Raising Mega-Round at a $1 Billion+ Valuation

#92

Post by jerf »

ChuckFrank wrote: post #70
revorad wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Finally, someone had the insight to call out this company! I mean they've only managed to build a billion dollar business by turning ordinary homeowners into businessmen, provided better accomodation to hundreds of thousands of travellers across the world, destabilised an established old industry with entrenched market leaders while taking on a myriad of social and local government issues. Seriously, they don't deser…

Obviously that's a strawman argument. If I'm mistaken about calling Airbnb to the table, address my points, as I will address yours. 1. They haven't build a billion dollar business, they are only valued at that. There's a bid difference. 2. Ordinary homeowners have and had many other options to rent their properties - Short term rental brokers and VRBO are just two of them. Craigslist in another one. Airbnb alone can…

"4. The internet itself is destabilizing the entrenched markets."

This one is a bit unfair, though I don't know about the rest. "The Internet (TM)" doesn't just destabilize industries in an abstract sense, it destabilizes them by a set of real companies that take market share from entrenched competition, and by allowing that entrenched competition to sometimes improve themselves in the new market (which doesn't happen as often as you'd think). It's not "The Internet (TM)" that gets credit, it's those companies.

Re: Airbnb Has Arrived: Raising Mega-Round at a $1 Billion+ Valuation

#93

Post by suking »

ChuckFrank wrote: post #43

I've been waiting for some time to call out Airbnb, and I think this is the right time. Firstly, the idea of short term residential rentals is not new. Long before Airbnb major cities, Paris, London, New York, and Toronto were dealing with the issues and the problems of short term / nightly residential rentals. In fact the latest condo boom in Toronto has been ascribed to international investors buying condos explici…

A little off topics, vrbo was bought by homeaway, which recently filed to go public. Their whole model was to acquire every competitor and sort of monopolize the vacation rental market. I'm guessing they've probably made an offer on airbnb, but probably too big for them now...

Re: Airbnb Has Arrived: Raising Mega-Round at a $1 Billion+ Valuation

#94

Post by run4yourlives »

temphn wrote: post #85
ChuckFrank wrote: post #43

I've been waiting for some time to call out Airbnb, and I think this is the right time. Firstly, the idea of short term residential rentals is not new. Long before Airbnb major cities, Paris, London, New York, and Toronto were dealing with the issues and the problems of short term / nightly residential rentals. In fact the latest condo boom in Toronto has been ascribed to international investors buying condos explici…

^ This post is a classic example of why it's so hard to be an entrepreneur. No matter what mountain you climb, there will always be people yelling that you don't deserve the success, or that anyone could have climbed that mountain, or that you should stop climbing mountains right now lest you "empty the downtown core". Always another brickbat.

That's just silly. You aren't going to get anywhere in life spouting "haters gonna hate" ad nauseum.

The comment has some very compelling points to consider. None of us, and nothing we create is so beyond constructive criticism that intelligent contrary opinions can be rejected outright.

You may have had a tough day, but god help us all if we start believing our own bullshit 24/7.

Re: Airbnb Has Arrived: Raising Mega-Round at a $1 Billion+ Valuation

#95

Post by forensic »

nostrademons wrote: post #35
tptacek wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Big ticket items: * Mainstream promotional marketing * Direct sales efforts (identifying target markets, staffing sales teams to pursue them) * Business model changes to ramp up customer acquisition at the expense of profitability * Rollups of related companies and acquisition of complementary companies. * International expansion * Lobbying And there's just always something to be said for having a war chest; in today…

Hiring as well. I remember that Twitter was about 25 people when I was looking for jobs in 2008, just as they'd closed their mammoth $50M+ round. They're now at 400+.

Everything he said involves hiring.

Re: Airbnb Has Arrived: Raising Mega-Round at a $1 Billion+ Valuation

#97

Post by dominostars »

tpatke wrote: post #21

I bet the guys behind CouchSurfing are kicking themselves about now. http://techcrunch.com/2006/06/29/couchsurfing-deletes-itself... Always keep a backup of your database! :-) In this case, I think it is pretty clear the execution is worth a heck of a lot more than the idea.

Couchsurfing and airbnb offer completely different services. Couchsurfing is free, and very focused on community building. It is definitely alive and kicking.

Re: Airbnb Has Arrived: Raising Mega-Round at a $1 Billion+ Valuation

#98

Post by jasonwilk1 »

ChuckFrank wrote: post #43

I've been waiting for some time to call out Airbnb, and I think this is the right time. Firstly, the idea of short term residential rentals is not new. Long before Airbnb major cities, Paris, London, New York, and Toronto were dealing with the issues and the problems of short term / nightly residential rentals. In fact the latest condo boom in Toronto has been ascribed to international investors buying condos explici…

Well to correct your point, CouchSurfing.org was the first one to do it back in I'd say 2005 or 2006. However, this was to help people on their travels find free places to stay. I used it quite frequently on my first world trip. AirBnB just put a business model on it and came out in 2008.

I support AirBnB 100% however I have not had good experiences with it in Los Angeles so far. Lots of spammers, strange anonymous people emailing me trying to either low-ball my offer or asking if they could throw a party or something at my spot. No thanks.

Re: Airbnb Has Arrived: Raising Mega-Round at a $1 Billion+ Valuation

#99

Post by nl »

Random financial speculation:

Around 5000 rooms a night get rented (via the video).

The make an average of ~10% per transaction (3% from the host, the rest from the guest: http://www.airbnb.com/help/topic/hosting)

Say an average of $60/night.

60 * 0.1 * 5000 = $30,000 revenue/day.

That's pretty decent money.

Re: Airbnb Has Arrived: Raising Mega-Round at a $1 Billion+ Valuation

#100

Post by kwis »

nostromo wrote: post #86

I'm curious how well Airbnb is doing outside of New York. New York's real-estate market is so out of whack it strikes me as fertile ground for p2p hotel rooms. One example: I wonder how many people are renting out rent-controlled apartments on Airbnb at a huge profit, while the owner maintains the unit at a loss?

If I caught the details correctly, they state that they do as many rooms in the NYC region as the largest NYC hotel, which puts them at 2k+ rooms/night in NYC.

Then I believe they claim about 5k rooms/night total, which means that >40% of their global business is NYC.

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