Original Summary

In 2007, Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia couldn't pay their San Francisco rent. A design conference was in town and hotels were full, so they put three air mattresses on their floor and built a simple website. Their first 3 guests paid $80 each. Then it got hard. Of 7 investors they approached, 5 said no and 2 never replied. To stay alive they sold election-themed cereal boxes and raised about $30K. In 2009 they got into Y Combinator. What actually made it grow: - They visited hosts in New York and took the listing photos themselves. Bookings reportedly went up 2-3x. - They cross-posted listings to Craigslist to borrow its traffic. - They added trust features (verified photos, a $1M host guarantee) and then mobile apps. In 2020, COVID cut revenue by over 80% in about 8 weeks and they laid off about 25% of staff. They still went public that December. Biggest lesson for me as a developer: find the exact point where users get stuck, fix it by hand first, then automate it. Which "unscalable" thing did you do first in your own project? Sources: Sequoia, GrowthHackers, Boston University Business Review, Axios   submitted by   /u/Aman_85m [link]   [comments]

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  • 信息来源：Reddit · SaaS
  • 发布时间：2026/10/21 00:52:33