2 - Get in touch with your market and your customers to get feedbackĬrucial stage in the creation of a company: the search for the product-market fit. In the end, Airbnb will have tried three times to launch itself without success, and will have been rejected by many investors before acquiring its reputation. “Many ideas come from solving your own problem which aren’t life changing problems - but these ideas could potentially become life changing ideas.” Against all expectations, what seemed to be a default alternative became an accommodation solution with real added value: that of creating a link with one’s landlords instead of the impersonal atmosphere of hotels.Īt the time, they had no idea of the potential of their small business, Brian even said it was supposed to “pay the rent until we could think of the big idea”. The two young men are enthusiastic about this first experience. “While these three people were living with us, we had realized that the normal arc of a friendship that takes years to build - now took a few days when people were living with you in your home.” Hence the idea of the name “Air bed and breakfast”. The two roommates, in need of money and lacking available beds, decided to install three air beds in their living room and to rent them to designers who could not find a hotel room, including breakfast in the price. At the same time, there was this international design conference coming to SF and on the event page it showed all of the nearby hotels were completely sold out”. “I had learned my portion of rent for the place we had (in San Francisco) was $1,200 so I literally didn’t have enough to pay rent.

At the time, no one in Brian’s entourage thought for a second that his decision was the right one. His parents, social workers, had asked him to find a job with health insurance and follow a normal path.Īfter meeting his future business partner Joe Gebbia at work in 2007, he decided with him to move to San Francisco to launch a startup without the slightest idea in mind. He had never heard of entrepreneurship, let alone thought of embarking on it. Brian Chesky studied industrial design in art school. “One thing I learned is, big ideas sound stupid in the beginning”, Brian Chesky.īecause in the beginning, it was far from being won. Art by Mike Sullivan 1 - Don’t doubt your idea, but the way you implement it