I met Joe my co-founder and both of us
had this dream that we were going to do
something that would make an impact in
the world we need to know what that
meant I think a key to getting things
are learning is having mentors and a key
thing to having mentors being shameless
start with the perfect experience with
just one person get that right and then
figure out how to scale something great
he said Brian startups died of suicide
not homicide all great companies that
had a downfall they died of
self-inflicted wounds everything around
you was designed by somebody else if
it’s not if it’s man-made you can
redesign the world you live in if you
know those binders you put baseball
cards in kids with Facebook we put
credit cards in those weed sleeves
credit cards five-star is what people
expect but to build something people
love you almost need to do something
more than they expect he’s an American
internet entrepreneur he’s best known as
one of the cofounders of Airbnb he was
named one at times 100 most influential
people of 2015 he was Brian Chesky and
here’s my take on his top ten rules for
success I got to RISD
art school and everyone was like
creating their own projects and I had a
teacher who said you’re a designer
everything around you is signed by other
designers you can design the world you
live in
I met Joe my co-founder and both of us
had this dream that we were going to do
something that would make an impact in
the world we don’t even know what that
meant I got this job at an industrial
design firm in Los Angeles the head
health insurance my life felt a little
bit like I was in a car and the road in
front it’s like you look out of a car
and the road in front of you looks
exactly like the road behind you and
you’re like that’s your life and
something about that really terrified me
Joe had been calm you have to try to get
me to start a company and then one day I
go into work and I quit my job I’m
living in a house in Los Angeles with
three friends and I tell them I’m
leaving Los Angeles I pack everything in
the back of an old Honda Civic a foam
mattress $1,000 in the bank account
hardly any savings or any money I have
to pursue the dreams I’d rather fail
doing something I love then always
wonder what could have been and so that
one weekend it’s October 2007 I Drive to
San Francisco and that was the beginning
of Airbnb when I came to the valley
I did not know much about Silicon Valley
in fact somebody told me there are these
people called angels and I know they
they meant angel investors I think a key
thing to learning is having mentors and
a key thing to having mentors being
shameless shameless people learn really
quickly and are successful most people
are just afraid to ask people for help
and so we Joe Nate and I were shameless
about asking people for feedback whether
it was just our investors or meeting
famous entrepreneurs like Mark
Zuckerberg or Jeff Bezos who end up
becoming an investor or Warren Buffett
you know you seek out people and most
people are really nice and they’ll help
you if they can and Paul Graham said
something to me that I’ll never forget
he’s now written an essay about he said
do things that don’t scale and it’s
counterintuitive and what that meant for
us was we were able to go door to door
meeting every one of our users trying to
provide an amazing experience and if we
had only relegate ourselves to a bedroom
or our office apartment you know because
that’s the only thing that seems
scalable we would never created an
amazing experience and oftentimes the
best methodology is to start with the
perfect experience of just one person
get that right and then figure out how
to scale something great instead of
scaling something not so great and then
trying to improve it that’s really hard
to do I get to San Francisco I had a
rent check of $1,150 and I have $1,000
to bank and I can’t pay rent let alone
live in San Francisco is very expensive
and Joe had the same problem the first
weekend were there this international
Zion conference is coming to san
francisco and all the hotels are
recommending are sold out we said well
what if we go to turn our house into a
bed and breakfast for the design
conference I mean people need housing we
certainly need money we didn’t have any
beds I just moved up there and Joe said
don’t worry I’ve three air mattresses we
called it not the bed-and-breakfast but
the air bed-and-breakfast we built this
website and we ended up having three
people stay with us it made enough money
mega rent we also made some deep friends
and that was the very beginning of
something that we saw many people told
me was the worst idea I’ve ever heard of
it was months and months and months of
people trying to talk us out of her idea
and so we had to continue to think like
look at the mountaintop and not worry
and not look down
you know Paul Graham I used to he was
our first investor and I used to worry
about all these random things like
competitors you know kind of cities all
the stuff and he said something to me
I’ll never forget he said Brian startups
died of suicide not homicide all great
companies that had a downfall they died
of self-inflicted wounds so what are
those self-inflicted wounds horrible
things I know but anyway and it’s really
the key thing is about like there’s this
thing that like you’re a small company
and you exist because no one else
especially big companies couldn’t do
what you can do as a small nimble
company you know public art is saying
the older you get the stronger the wind
gets it’s always in your face it’s like
small companies become big company
sometimes become really bureaucratic and
the culture gets lost people leave the
company that is something it’s not
unique to Airbnb
but that’s the thing that we have to
worry about and I’m deeply paranoid
about that I want to make sure that
we’re always a start-up maybe the
world’s biggest startup but they stay
there you’re scared of yourself you have
to be afraid of what you might become if
you’re not like you know if you relax
that’s for sure we believe in a
reasonable vision of the way the road
could look and we believe that world can
be designed I mean I had a teacher at
RISD and he told me Brian your designer
everything around you was designed by
somebody else if it’s not if it’s
man-made
you can redesign the world you live in I
think so many of us go through life or
not not people here but a lot of people
go through life thinking they’re living
in someone else’s world we enter someone
else’s world but we leave our world
behind the world that we’ve contributed
to in design and I think the sense that
anything can be rethought anything can
be designed anything around you is just
somebody else did that with less
information you have today is an
unbelievably empowering idea and as I
think about running Airbnb I don’t try
to presume any convention of running a
company anything could be done a little
bit better if you just imagine like
where you want to get to we tried to
raise $150,000 and sell 10% of the
company that would have been an amazing
deal and we got introduced to more than
a dozen investors mostly investors we
got introduced who didn’t even return a
phone calls or emails a few of them
wrote back and say this is not something
we’re interested in and the very few
that met us did not give us money
we’re air bed-and-breakfast the air beds
aren’t working maybe the breakfast will
work so we decided let’s sell
collectible breakfast cereal Oh
beause the breakfast of change and then
we also came up with a John McCain
themed cereal we ended up making a
thousand boxes cereal we sell them for
$40 box and we made almost $30,000 and
this is how we funded the company before
that we were funding the company on
credit cards I know if you know those if
you know those binders you put baseball
cards in kids with baseball we put
credit cards in those weed sleeves
credit cards I would go to sleep and
wake up kind of like my hobby pounding
and I think oh my god
like how do I get myself at this
situation I have no money like we
launched a year ago we still have no
customers that people don’t like the
idea and what are we gonna do now what I
kept saying now what and like when is
this going to happen and then you get
the courage over the course of the day
and you’d find a new plan you get
through the day and you go to sleep
confident you’re like you know what it’s
gonna be fine
and tomorrow’s a new day and you go to
sleep and you wake up and you do oh my
god and your heart starts pounding again
we had launched three times we launched
no one use that we launched we launched
again in a year later we have almost no
customers tons of credit card debt and
every investor we knew said no many
people have asked why well why didn’t
you lose hope at that point and I guess
I just believed in the idea and we
believed that people could experience
what we’d experience then this would be
an idea that would spread they just need
to experience it it would just take more
time one of the most common things
people say when they hear about the idea
of everybody now and I see people all
over the world doing it is why didn’t I
think of that it’s such a simple idea
why didn’t I think of that you might not
have thought of that it’s because when
we thought about that years ago then
most common thing people said is are you
nuts
either when we design products we
imagine okay this is what customers
expect they expect to have a five-star
experience and then we basically ask the
intoxication so let’s take airport
pickup for example what’s a five-star
like like check-in experience on Airbnb
f– the five-star check-in experience is
you you they give you the address you
get to the house you knock on the door
and they’re there and they’re open the
door and they let you in the house and
that’s five-star and anything worse and
that you start to leave like four stars
call them they’re like five minutes away
you’ll probably leave a four star and
like one star is obviously like they
never showed up
so the bar is kind of low like you knock
on the door and they pick they open the
door that’s a really low bar so we ask
well what’s a six star well a six star
is they probably pick you up at the
airport so you don’t knock on their door
they actually pick up at the airport so
what’s a seven star review you can
actually play is kind of fun well seven
star is they don’t pick at the airport
they send a limousine and you open the
limousine door and they know that you
like
I know Pringle so I was sorry I was a
weird example this is all this is like
this like improv so we’re rolling with
it so there’s Pringles there and there’s
like coconut water and they like they
know you are into surfing and there’s
some surfing magazine even in your San
Francisco you’re not going to surf
that’s fine and that’s a seven star so
what’s an eight star pick up well an
eight star check-in is you know there’s
a like you know you get to the airport
and you they’re like they’re like we’re
coming and like where are you and all of
a sudden you see like a giant elephant
an elephant is walking by the gate the
terminal and there’s a parade in your
honor you get on top of the elephant and
you are paraded away and you said well
what’s what’s a nine star check-in if
that’s an eight star check and how do we
get a nine stars a nine start check-in
is you get off the plane and you don’t
even you moment you step off the plane
there are 5,000 screaming 13-year old
women and boys and they’re holding signs
I call it The Beatles check-in it’s the
Beatles a nightly support coming to
America and they’re just cheering for
you screaming for you and you basically
they follow you and they do a press
conference in the front yard of your
Airbnb and so then what’s a 10 star
check-in well I can go to 30 but I won’t
because it’d be a long day and that the
10 star is you you you you get to the
airport and there’s a little card and
it’s got your name on it and you’re like
great there’s my ride but you realize
the person dressed in the limo suit is
Elon Musk and he just takes you to space
and so i-i’ve exact I’ve exaggerated to
make a point usually we don’t go all the
way to ten but the whole point is that
like if you if what you need to do is
just find a hundred people to love you
then it’s very easy to take for granted
the five star is what people expect but
to build something people love you all
must need to do something more than they
expect and so like every moment is an
opportunity to do something slightly
more than people expect and you we play
this out you go to like all the way to
ten okay now we’re not gonna do all that
but like maybe suddenly six stars
doesn’t seem so bad like now we should
have a service airport pick up or
something like that so we do this about
almost every frame of the experience and
this also can apply to almost anything
office a sign or like how you hire
people like you know we storyboard and
end the interviewing experience if it’s
August we had on a peak night 1 million
people more than the popular San
Francisco staying in a home around the
world in 180 countries and one of the
stories I heard was this post his name
is Sebastian and he says to me Brian
there’s a word you never use in your
website and I said what’s that word he
said a word is friendship he said six
months ago the London riots as a couple
years ago broke out us on my home and
the next day my mom called me to make
sure I was okay he said here’s
interesting thing between the time the
riots broke out the time my mom called
me was a 24-hour period of time and in
that period of time he said seven of my
previous Airbnb gets called me just to
make sure I was okay I wonder how many
people would call the hotel by the way
but the point is that Airbnb is not
about spaces and it’s very easy to come
to our website and you see a couple
million spaces but it’s really more
about the people and our mission is to
provide this feeling not of space but
belonging and we belong at home we
belong at our work sometimes but we want
you to be able to belong anywhere in the
world in 34,000 cities
thank you so much for watching I made
this view too because seen a gelett ah I
really hope I pronounced that properly
asked me to so there’s a famous
entrepreneur but you want me to profile
next leave it down in the comments and I
will join the discussion I’d also love
to know which of the top ten rules
resonated the most with you leave it in
the comments and I will join the
discussion thank you so much for
watching
continue to believe and I’ll see you
soon
air B&B we created a company not because
I wanted to be some successful
entrepreneur and make a bunch of money
if I was going to do that I would not
have started air beds for conferences
around the country that was not going to
be a good idea in fact um I had a mentor
I told Mott the idea of ever been
breakfast and he told me I hope that’s
not the only idea you’re working on and
my mom growing up all she ever wanted
cuz I went to art school she said just
make sure you get a job that has health
insurance and so I created when we
created our bed and breakfast she said
us I guess you never got that job of
health insurance this is what happens
you start having to let strangers in
your homes but you know one of the
things we did a few years ago is we had
asked ourselves what business are we in
are we in the business of homes or in
business of space we made a decision a
couple years ago we said we’re not in
the business of homes or space we’re in
the business of trips that’s we’re in
the business of you travel have a trip
not to have a space and so a space is a
part of it but we’re in the business of
trips and we trade this thing that we
call snow-white it was basically we
storyboard out with a perfect trip would
look like we said we’re only present
right now in a few of these frames we
want to give the place where we’re
present throughout the entire journey
and so obviously like dining in homes is
one experiment we’re doing you know we
have tours
that’s another experiment there’s a lot
of different things we haven’t
officially unveiled anything we want to
make sure when we launch something it’s
truly amazing
I don’t we may very well be the first
website on the Internet where you could
actually book in with somebody else and
pay them directly in other words there
was a Bay and eBay use PayPal but you
didn’t feel there was yet yeah it checks
exactly and and and we had we there
wasn’t a lot of legacy there you know
because we looked at there was a bay and
Etsy and they were both before us and
Etsy use PayPal and both of them you
would book and it would send you on a
PayPal gateway and we wanted to feel
like booking hotel you never leave
Airbnb we would hold Kwak to remit the
money and so on whereas they were like
paying direct and they would take a cut
and there was two different payments so
we and that was kind of a crazy idea and
almost scared us it seemed insane that
like you would actually be able to pay
somebody else and be able to book
something with them and you would get a
reputation system we decided let’s just
do it and at the time were like this is
a little too crazy it’s a little too
scary I know if we’re allowed to do this
I’m not sure if it will work we do
decided to do it anyway and it you know
and so then in the summer of 2008 we
ended up basically designing the final
version the product so we designed this
product where you could book someone’s
home anywhere in the world
we had a roll three clicks the Bukit
button because there were so many clicks
and so many different ways to get a home
that it was just too hard and I remember
hearing the story of when Steve Jobs
domain I pod no matter where he was in
his iPod he want to make sure he was
always three clicks from a song he said
we should always be three clicks from a
being able to have a paid booking and so
we created this basically a home page
for the search bar listings the home and
that’s exactly the product is you see it
today with reviews payment system and
customer service and we basically ended
up landing on that
had this dream that we were going to do
something that would make an impact in
the world we need to know what that
meant I think a key to getting things
are learning is having mentors and a key
thing to having mentors being shameless
start with the perfect experience with
just one person get that right and then
figure out how to scale something great
he said Brian startups died of suicide
not homicide all great companies that
had a downfall they died of
self-inflicted wounds everything around
you was designed by somebody else if
it’s not if it’s man-made you can
redesign the world you live in if you
know those binders you put baseball
cards in kids with Facebook we put
credit cards in those weed sleeves
credit cards five-star is what people
expect but to build something people
love you almost need to do something
more than they expect he’s an American
internet entrepreneur he’s best known as
one of the cofounders of Airbnb he was
named one at times 100 most influential
people of 2015 he was Brian Chesky and
here’s my take on his top ten rules for
success I got to RISD
art school and everyone was like
creating their own projects and I had a
teacher who said you’re a designer
everything around you is signed by other
designers you can design the world you
live in
I met Joe my co-founder and both of us
had this dream that we were going to do
something that would make an impact in
the world we don’t even know what that
meant I got this job at an industrial
design firm in Los Angeles the head
health insurance my life felt a little
bit like I was in a car and the road in
front it’s like you look out of a car
and the road in front of you looks
exactly like the road behind you and
you’re like that’s your life and
something about that really terrified me
Joe had been calm you have to try to get
me to start a company and then one day I
go into work and I quit my job I’m
living in a house in Los Angeles with
three friends and I tell them I’m
leaving Los Angeles I pack everything in
the back of an old Honda Civic a foam
mattress $1,000 in the bank account
hardly any savings or any money I have
to pursue the dreams I’d rather fail
doing something I love then always
wonder what could have been and so that
one weekend it’s October 2007 I Drive to
San Francisco and that was the beginning
of Airbnb when I came to the valley
I did not know much about Silicon Valley
in fact somebody told me there are these
people called angels and I know they
they meant angel investors I think a key
thing to learning is having mentors and
a key thing to having mentors being
shameless shameless people learn really
quickly and are successful most people
are just afraid to ask people for help
and so we Joe Nate and I were shameless
about asking people for feedback whether
it was just our investors or meeting
famous entrepreneurs like Mark
Zuckerberg or Jeff Bezos who end up
becoming an investor or Warren Buffett
you know you seek out people and most
people are really nice and they’ll help
you if they can and Paul Graham said
something to me that I’ll never forget
he’s now written an essay about he said
do things that don’t scale and it’s
counterintuitive and what that meant for
us was we were able to go door to door
meeting every one of our users trying to
provide an amazing experience and if we
had only relegate ourselves to a bedroom
or our office apartment you know because
that’s the only thing that seems
scalable we would never created an
amazing experience and oftentimes the
best methodology is to start with the
perfect experience of just one person
get that right and then figure out how
to scale something great instead of
scaling something not so great and then
trying to improve it that’s really hard
to do I get to San Francisco I had a
rent check of $1,150 and I have $1,000
to bank and I can’t pay rent let alone
live in San Francisco is very expensive
and Joe had the same problem the first
weekend were there this international
Zion conference is coming to san
francisco and all the hotels are
recommending are sold out we said well
what if we go to turn our house into a
bed and breakfast for the design
conference I mean people need housing we
certainly need money we didn’t have any
beds I just moved up there and Joe said
don’t worry I’ve three air mattresses we
called it not the bed-and-breakfast but
the air bed-and-breakfast we built this
website and we ended up having three
people stay with us it made enough money
mega rent we also made some deep friends
and that was the very beginning of
something that we saw many people told
me was the worst idea I’ve ever heard of
it was months and months and months of
people trying to talk us out of her idea
and so we had to continue to think like
look at the mountaintop and not worry
and not look down
you know Paul Graham I used to he was
our first investor and I used to worry
about all these random things like
competitors you know kind of cities all
the stuff and he said something to me
I’ll never forget he said Brian startups
died of suicide not homicide all great
companies that had a downfall they died
of self-inflicted wounds so what are
those self-inflicted wounds horrible
things I know but anyway and it’s really
the key thing is about like there’s this
thing that like you’re a small company
and you exist because no one else
especially big companies couldn’t do
what you can do as a small nimble
company you know public art is saying
the older you get the stronger the wind
gets it’s always in your face it’s like
small companies become big company
sometimes become really bureaucratic and
the culture gets lost people leave the
company that is something it’s not
unique to Airbnb
but that’s the thing that we have to
worry about and I’m deeply paranoid
about that I want to make sure that
we’re always a start-up maybe the
world’s biggest startup but they stay
there you’re scared of yourself you have
to be afraid of what you might become if
you’re not like you know if you relax
that’s for sure we believe in a
reasonable vision of the way the road
could look and we believe that world can
be designed I mean I had a teacher at
RISD and he told me Brian your designer
everything around you was designed by
somebody else if it’s not if it’s
man-made
you can redesign the world you live in I
think so many of us go through life or
not not people here but a lot of people
go through life thinking they’re living
in someone else’s world we enter someone
else’s world but we leave our world
behind the world that we’ve contributed
to in design and I think the sense that
anything can be rethought anything can
be designed anything around you is just
somebody else did that with less
information you have today is an
unbelievably empowering idea and as I
think about running Airbnb I don’t try
to presume any convention of running a
company anything could be done a little
bit better if you just imagine like
where you want to get to we tried to
raise $150,000 and sell 10% of the
company that would have been an amazing
deal and we got introduced to more than
a dozen investors mostly investors we
got introduced who didn’t even return a
phone calls or emails a few of them
wrote back and say this is not something
we’re interested in and the very few
that met us did not give us money
we’re air bed-and-breakfast the air beds
aren’t working maybe the breakfast will
work so we decided let’s sell
collectible breakfast cereal Oh
beause the breakfast of change and then
we also came up with a John McCain
themed cereal we ended up making a
thousand boxes cereal we sell them for
$40 box and we made almost $30,000 and
this is how we funded the company before
that we were funding the company on
credit cards I know if you know those if
you know those binders you put baseball
cards in kids with baseball we put
credit cards in those weed sleeves
credit cards I would go to sleep and
wake up kind of like my hobby pounding
and I think oh my god
like how do I get myself at this
situation I have no money like we
launched a year ago we still have no
customers that people don’t like the
idea and what are we gonna do now what I
kept saying now what and like when is
this going to happen and then you get
the courage over the course of the day
and you’d find a new plan you get
through the day and you go to sleep
confident you’re like you know what it’s
gonna be fine
and tomorrow’s a new day and you go to
sleep and you wake up and you do oh my
god and your heart starts pounding again
we had launched three times we launched
no one use that we launched we launched
again in a year later we have almost no
customers tons of credit card debt and
every investor we knew said no many
people have asked why well why didn’t
you lose hope at that point and I guess
I just believed in the idea and we
believed that people could experience
what we’d experience then this would be
an idea that would spread they just need
to experience it it would just take more
time one of the most common things
people say when they hear about the idea
of everybody now and I see people all
over the world doing it is why didn’t I
think of that it’s such a simple idea
why didn’t I think of that you might not
have thought of that it’s because when
we thought about that years ago then
most common thing people said is are you
nuts
either when we design products we
imagine okay this is what customers
expect they expect to have a five-star
experience and then we basically ask the
intoxication so let’s take airport
pickup for example what’s a five-star
like like check-in experience on Airbnb
f– the five-star check-in experience is
you you they give you the address you
get to the house you knock on the door
and they’re there and they’re open the
door and they let you in the house and
that’s five-star and anything worse and
that you start to leave like four stars
call them they’re like five minutes away
you’ll probably leave a four star and
like one star is obviously like they
never showed up
so the bar is kind of low like you knock
on the door and they pick they open the
door that’s a really low bar so we ask
well what’s a six star well a six star
is they probably pick you up at the
airport so you don’t knock on their door
they actually pick up at the airport so
what’s a seven star review you can
actually play is kind of fun well seven
star is they don’t pick at the airport
they send a limousine and you open the
limousine door and they know that you
like
I know Pringle so I was sorry I was a
weird example this is all this is like
this like improv so we’re rolling with
it so there’s Pringles there and there’s
like coconut water and they like they
know you are into surfing and there’s
some surfing magazine even in your San
Francisco you’re not going to surf
that’s fine and that’s a seven star so
what’s an eight star pick up well an
eight star check-in is you know there’s
a like you know you get to the airport
and you they’re like they’re like we’re
coming and like where are you and all of
a sudden you see like a giant elephant
an elephant is walking by the gate the
terminal and there’s a parade in your
honor you get on top of the elephant and
you are paraded away and you said well
what’s what’s a nine star check-in if
that’s an eight star check and how do we
get a nine stars a nine start check-in
is you get off the plane and you don’t
even you moment you step off the plane
there are 5,000 screaming 13-year old
women and boys and they’re holding signs
I call it The Beatles check-in it’s the
Beatles a nightly support coming to
America and they’re just cheering for
you screaming for you and you basically
they follow you and they do a press
conference in the front yard of your
Airbnb and so then what’s a 10 star
check-in well I can go to 30 but I won’t
because it’d be a long day and that the
10 star is you you you you get to the
airport and there’s a little card and
it’s got your name on it and you’re like
great there’s my ride but you realize
the person dressed in the limo suit is
Elon Musk and he just takes you to space
and so i-i’ve exact I’ve exaggerated to
make a point usually we don’t go all the
way to ten but the whole point is that
like if you if what you need to do is
just find a hundred people to love you
then it’s very easy to take for granted
the five star is what people expect but
to build something people love you all
must need to do something more than they
expect and so like every moment is an
opportunity to do something slightly
more than people expect and you we play
this out you go to like all the way to
ten okay now we’re not gonna do all that
but like maybe suddenly six stars
doesn’t seem so bad like now we should
have a service airport pick up or
something like that so we do this about
almost every frame of the experience and
this also can apply to almost anything
office a sign or like how you hire
people like you know we storyboard and
end the interviewing experience if it’s
August we had on a peak night 1 million
people more than the popular San
Francisco staying in a home around the
world in 180 countries and one of the
stories I heard was this post his name
is Sebastian and he says to me Brian
there’s a word you never use in your
website and I said what’s that word he
said a word is friendship he said six
months ago the London riots as a couple
years ago broke out us on my home and
the next day my mom called me to make
sure I was okay he said here’s
interesting thing between the time the
riots broke out the time my mom called
me was a 24-hour period of time and in
that period of time he said seven of my
previous Airbnb gets called me just to
make sure I was okay I wonder how many
people would call the hotel by the way
but the point is that Airbnb is not
about spaces and it’s very easy to come
to our website and you see a couple
million spaces but it’s really more
about the people and our mission is to
provide this feeling not of space but
belonging and we belong at home we
belong at our work sometimes but we want
you to be able to belong anywhere in the
world in 34,000 cities
thank you so much for watching I made
this view too because seen a gelett ah I
really hope I pronounced that properly
asked me to so there’s a famous
entrepreneur but you want me to profile
next leave it down in the comments and I
will join the discussion I’d also love
to know which of the top ten rules
resonated the most with you leave it in
the comments and I will join the
discussion thank you so much for
watching
continue to believe and I’ll see you
soon
air B&B we created a company not because
I wanted to be some successful
entrepreneur and make a bunch of money
if I was going to do that I would not
have started air beds for conferences
around the country that was not going to
be a good idea in fact um I had a mentor
I told Mott the idea of ever been
breakfast and he told me I hope that’s
not the only idea you’re working on and
my mom growing up all she ever wanted
cuz I went to art school she said just
make sure you get a job that has health
insurance and so I created when we
created our bed and breakfast she said
us I guess you never got that job of
health insurance this is what happens
you start having to let strangers in
your homes but you know one of the
things we did a few years ago is we had
asked ourselves what business are we in
are we in the business of homes or in
business of space we made a decision a
couple years ago we said we’re not in
the business of homes or space we’re in
the business of trips that’s we’re in
the business of you travel have a trip
not to have a space and so a space is a
part of it but we’re in the business of
trips and we trade this thing that we
call snow-white it was basically we
storyboard out with a perfect trip would
look like we said we’re only present
right now in a few of these frames we
want to give the place where we’re
present throughout the entire journey
and so obviously like dining in homes is
one experiment we’re doing you know we
have tours
that’s another experiment there’s a lot
of different things we haven’t
officially unveiled anything we want to
make sure when we launch something it’s
truly amazing
I don’t we may very well be the first
website on the Internet where you could
actually book in with somebody else and
pay them directly in other words there
was a Bay and eBay use PayPal but you
didn’t feel there was yet yeah it checks
exactly and and and we had we there
wasn’t a lot of legacy there you know
because we looked at there was a bay and
Etsy and they were both before us and
Etsy use PayPal and both of them you
would book and it would send you on a
PayPal gateway and we wanted to feel
like booking hotel you never leave
Airbnb we would hold Kwak to remit the
money and so on whereas they were like
paying direct and they would take a cut
and there was two different payments so
we and that was kind of a crazy idea and
almost scared us it seemed insane that
like you would actually be able to pay
somebody else and be able to book
something with them and you would get a
reputation system we decided let’s just
do it and at the time were like this is
a little too crazy it’s a little too
scary I know if we’re allowed to do this
I’m not sure if it will work we do
decided to do it anyway and it you know
and so then in the summer of 2008 we
ended up basically designing the final
version the product so we designed this
product where you could book someone’s
home anywhere in the world
we had a roll three clicks the Bukit
button because there were so many clicks
and so many different ways to get a home
that it was just too hard and I remember
hearing the story of when Steve Jobs
domain I pod no matter where he was in
his iPod he want to make sure he was
always three clicks from a song he said
we should always be three clicks from a
being able to have a paid booking and so
we created this basically a home page
for the search bar listings the home and
that’s exactly the product is you see it
today with reviews payment system and
customer service and we basically ended
up landing on that
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