Bunmi Jembola
Airbnb is an online marketplace that enables people to list, find, and then rent vacation homes for a processing fee. It has over 1,500,000 listings in 34,000 cities and 191 countries.
How was it founded?
In October of 2007, roommates Brain chesky and Joe Gebbia were facing some financial challenge. They couldn’t pay their rent which had fallen due at the time. They had just moved to San Francisco. About that time too the Industrial Design Conference held by industrial designer society of America was about to hold. The duo came up with an idea, they offered their living room as accommodation online for a fee to conference goers who could not find cheap enough accommodation. They accommodated three guests on air mattresses and provided them home made breakfast. From what looked like a creative way of finding money to pay rent; which they did; a company was born.
“Airbed and breakfast” is shortened for “Airbnb”.
Airbnb valuation today exceeds that of every major hotel chain in the world including Intercontinental ($7.5Billion), Mariott ($18 Billion) and Hilton ($23.63 Billion) as of July 2016. Airbnb has served over 60 million guests in 34,000 cities of the world. The company is currently valued at $25.5 billion. More than 5000 companies use them for bookings annually.
If you are frustrated about something, produce the solution. Solve a problem. Stop ranting!