Comment by KingOfCoders
5 years ago
Why do you think AirBnB looked silly?
"After moving to San Francisco in October 2007, roommates and former schoolmates Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia came up with the idea of putting an air mattress in their living room and turning it into a bed and breakfast." -Wikipedia
Agreed. This mythology keeps getting repeated, where the only thing that happened was a couple of rich VCs (pg and others) didn't like the idea originally. But as many others have pointed out, Couchsurfing was already big, and VRBO/HomeAway had already received huge funding rounds. Was it really that hard of a leap to see how people (especially millennials) would flock to cheaper urban rentals if a company made the safety and payment aspect of it much better than what existed before?
Seeing a market and implementing a unicorn class product are quite different things even if you have the accurate perception of market needs. There is a reason unicorns are called unicorns and not justsurveythemarketfortrends-corns.
I admit AirBnB was perhaps not the most relevant example given it's a different industry.
I have no reason to champion the team but having a fairly good knowledge of games and software development I don't see the need to criticize the YC investment based on the context of their pitch.
"Didn't like the idea originally" is no different from "looked silly". And it wasn't just "a couple of rich VCs" who thought that. (Btw, the word 'rich' seems gratuitous there.) YC wasn't going to fund them but did anyway because they liked the founders. It's not mythology.
"Was it really that hard a leap?" - yes it was. That it seems otherwise now is pure hindsight fallacy.
It keeps getting repeated that the original AirBnB idea was "crazy and outlandish" at the time, but it was only with hindsight that we see how it could be successful.
My argument is that that is false, because at the time there were already numerous examples of successful lodging sharing platforms, just none of which had the special combination of features (e.g. social reviews, ease of payment) that AirBnB had.
As another analogy, when Facebook launched there were already many previous social networks (MySpace, Friendster), but FB was the first with a unique combination of features (uncluttered design, real name policy, eventually the feed, etc.) that made them the primary social media winner. But nobody repeats the false myth "Oh wow, social media was such a crazy and outlandish idea before Facebook came along".
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> "Was it really that hard a leap?" - yes it was. That it seems otherwise now is pure hindsight fallacy.
Not diminishing building an $xx billion dollar unicorn, but I think the poster has a point about couch surfing.
Couch surfing really was one of those beloved and deeply embraced communities that also had that early underground internet feel to it. I don’t think it’s fair to say taking couchsurfer.com and the concept more generally and commercializing backed by vc money is hindsight fallacy, even if pg didn’t like the idea when YC funded Airbnb.
Now if the concept and strong organic community it inspired didn’t previously exist then I’m totally on board with your sentiment. But maybe I’m wrong too and Airbnb bears no relation or resemblance to couch surfing before it.
Edit: read the email thread you linked too, in it also confirms within the VC debate the old guys didn’t get it while the young guys did. This may be why the poster felt it was relevant to use the adjective “rich”, older or more established VCs were less likely to be or know couchsurfers. The other thing the vc noted were the Airbnb customers were already listing on multiple marketplaces.
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"Not funding" and "looked silly" is a difference, but perhaps it's my limited understanding of the English language.
My wife bootstrapped a startup, got "no funding", scaled it and sold it successfully to a competitor. I guess the idea "was silly" because no one wanted to fund it?
What about all these successful "one person bootstrapped SaaS" companies from time to time in HN threads that didn't get funding?
"But PG said so."
https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/logicalfallacies/Appeal-...
That didn't end up being the actual business model though. The vast majority of AirBnB's current revenue is from renting out private apartments or rooms, more in competitition with VRBO or hotels. You can definitely still rent out an air mattress in the living room, but that's not what AirBnB is making its money from.
There are good stories of their beginning out there.
The wikipedia summary really does not do justice to how hard their start was.
I enjoy especially the ones as told by their founder in the excellent startup school lectures. They were scrappy, lacked clear direction and hustled and struggled.