The Start:

Brian Chesky had a diverse background that combined creativity and entrepreneurship.

Born in Niskayuna, New York, to social worker parents, Chesky developed an early passion for design and sports, notably ice hockey. He pursued a Bachelor of Fine Arts in industrial design from the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), where he met future co-founder Joe Gebbia.

Chesky initially worked as an industrial designer in Los Angeles, earning $40,000 annually, before moving to San Francisco in 2007.

There, he and Gebbia famously launched Airbnb by renting out air mattresses in their apartment during a design conference when they couldn't afford rent​

The Problem:

The founders of Airbnb realized they were solving a legitimate business problem when they observed a consistent issue faced by travelers: the lack of affordable, unique, and flexible accommodations, especially during peak events.

They noticed that hotels were often fully booked or overpriced, leaving many without viable lodging options.

By offering a platform that connected travelers with hosts willing to rent out their spare rooms or entire homes, they provided an alternative that was not only more affordable but also offered personalized and authentic travel experiences.

Getting their first $$$:

The product was simple - guests could stay at the apartment for a night and be greeted with breakfast in the morning. The timing couldn't have been better for Joe and Brian.

There was a design conference in town, and hotel space was limited.

So Joe and Brian set up a website with pictures of their loft-turned-lodging space—complete with three air mattresses on the floor and the promise of a home-cooked breakfast in the morning.

They got their first three renters from this site with each one paying $80 for the night. Around this time, AirBnB implemented their most famous growth hack - they hacked Craiglist to grow the supply side of their marketplace.

Craigslist had a massive user base. To tap into this market, Airbnb allowed users who listed properties on Airbnb to post them to Craigslist as well—despite there being no sanctioned way to do so.

The founders realized that Craigslist saved listing information via a unique url. So they built a bot to visit Craigslist, capture the unique URL, input the listing info, and forward the URL to the user for publishing.

Now, users could cross post their AirBnB listing to Craigslist in one click.

By reposting on Craigslist, users got more eyeballs on their listing while still using AirBnB to manage & moderate inquiries.

As for AirBnB, they got valuable backlinks from Craigslist building up their domain authority.

Airbnb listings were also better with nicer descriptions and photos. Once the Craigslist users switched, they were more likely to ignore Craigslist and book through Airbnb in the future.

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