The brainwave of two young tech entrepreneurs who were struggling to pay their rent, the Airbnb net worth makes it one of the biggest internet companies around.
“If you launch and no one notices, launch again,” Airbnb co-founder Brian Chesky once insisted.
The internet entrepreneur knows just how important it is not to give up, having watched his innovative room rental marketplace fall flat twice.
Chesky and Joe Gebbia created ‘Airbed & Breakfast’ soon after moving to San Francisco, as they struggled to pay their rent. After converting their loft into a makeshift hostel, the duo made $240 in one night. Realising that they had stumbled upon a gap in the emerging tech scene, they set about upscaling their enterprise.
Yet, the process was far from easy. Despite achieving some success in their early days, Airbnb struggled to grow its audience. For eight months, Chesky, Gebbia and their newly appointed Chief Technology Officer Nathan Blecharczyk were living off of just $800 a month between them.
Yet, their determination to achieve success eventually handed them the break that they needed.
3 key strategies that got Airbnb through its early struggles
Creativity, perseverance and decisiveness are three huge traits that can make all the difference at a startup. Thankfully, Airbnb’s founders have all three, as their innovative ideology proves:
Don’t stick to the ‘norm’
According to Gebbia, there is a belief in Silicon Valley that any problem can be solved with a few lines of code. Yet, designers by trade, Airbnb’s founders failed to buy into that belief.
Airbnb struggled to grow their profits following their launch and soon identified poor images as the cause of their problem. Rather than finding a way to improve them or force users to upload higher quality images, the team opted to rent a camera and spend some time visiting their hosts to take professional pictures. Within months, Airbnb’s profits had doubled.
Don’t make assumptions
Analytical data makes running an online company significantly easier. You can see exactly how your users are interacting with your service and make changes accordingly. Unless you’re Airbnb.
The innovative company never rejects an idea solely because past data goes against it. Every employee (which Gebbia refers to as ‘pirates looking for nuggets’) is given the opportunity to pitch new ideas, which are then implemented, tested and altered accordingly.
Never give up
Chesky, Gebbia and Blecharczyk struggled through some difficult spells during Airbnb’s early days. At one point, they spent months living off of leftover cereal following their ‘Obama O’s’ stunt.
The failure to grow would have turned many hopeful entrepreneurs off of the idea and forced them to give up on their creations. Yet, Airbnb’s founders refused. Their bold persistence saw them labelled as ‘cockroaches’ by investors. Yet, with billions in the bank, being patient certainly paid off.
Airbnb net worth: Just how much has the rental startup made?
Airbnb charges guests a 6-12% fee, as well as hosts a 3% fee on all rentals. During the summer months, more than 800,000 people book rooms through Airbnb each day. As a result, the company has made more than enough money to pay off the hefty credit card debts that it racked up during its early years.
Airbnb has yet to go public and is unlikely to do so in the near future. Yet, recent venture funding generated $1 billion, which estimated the Airbnb net worth at approximately $31 billion.
Having recently announced that the company is turning a profit for the first time, continued growth will likely see the company’s value skyrocket over the next few years.
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Famous entrepreneurs all share these specific traits. Do you?