Who started Airbnb?
From airbeds at $80 a night to a multi-billion company
In 2008, Brian Chesky, Joe Gebbia, and Nate Blecharczyk created Airbnb, now a 12-year-old home-sharing company that has tapped into markets all around the world.
The company allows travelers to book a stay in someone's home, treehouse, castle or boat, if you will, in over 220 countries and regions around the world. To date, there are more than 7 million Airbnb listings. By 2019, the private company was valued at around $31 billion, according to multiple reports.
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Airbnb Founders Nathan Blecharczyk, Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia on November 17, 2016 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images for Airbnb)
However, the company's story began back in 2007 when roommates Gebbia and Chesky, who met at Rhode Island School of Design five years prior, were finding it hard to make rent payments, according to the Telegraph.
Luckily, the then 27-year-olds who were living in San Fransisco at the time found a way to fix that. After discovering that all the hotels in the area were fully booked due to a design conference, they decided to host guests at their apartment on Rausch Street. The duo laid out airbeds on their living room floor and made their guests breakfast the following morning, the Telegraph reported. Their first guests each dolled out $80 bucks for the stay, according to multiple reports. Suddenly, Airbedandbreakfast.com, later shortened to Airbnb in 2009, was born.
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At the time, Gebbia was creating two different ventures, one designing cushions for back sufferers and another building a website for product designers to find eco-friendly resources. Meanwhile, Chesky had just left a job on the Simon Cowell show American Inventor in Los Angeles, according to the Telegraph.
When they knew they had an ingenious idea, they looped in their former roommate, Blecharczyk, to help create the business website, Business Insider reported.
The 29-year old, and quietest one amongst the trio, had graduated Harvard with a degree in computer science in 2005. He was known as a 'brilliant programmer' the Telegraph reported. In fact, he was able to fund his way through school from the money he gardened through an internet software business he founded at 14 years old, the outlet reported.
However, when the company officially launched at South by Southwest in 2008, it only had two bookings, according to the company.
By that summer, the company went through an entire redesign. After meeting with investors, the home-sharing platform changed so making a booking was only three clicks away. Unfortunately, investors still weren't convinced, Business Insider reported.
Then, later that summer, the website capitalized on the Democratic National Convention in Denver, knowing that when hotels book up travelers would be forced to look for other options, according to Airbnb.
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To earn money for the company, Chesky and Gebbia decided to create and sell Obama O's and Cap'n McCains at the time. The idea earned them $30,000, Airbnb said.
In 2009, the creators decided to make their properties more enticing for future travelers. To do so, the boys stayed with some of their hosts, reviewed their homes and took images to post on the site, according to Business Insider. That same year the company expanded beyond just rooms into full homes, apartments or vacation rentals.
By 2010, the company had launched its iPhone app and by 2011 the company went international.