Airbnb's Joe Gebbia At The HIBT Summit

Joe guy, it is absolutely amazing that 10 years ago, no one in this room, no one listening, no one in the world could have imagined that people would be sleeping at the homes of random strangers. So, let's start with the idea. The beginnings of Airbnb go back to 2008. Really, at this point, nobody wants to invest in this business. You go, if you remember the podcast, they emailed 20 investors, 10 replied, five agreed to have coffee with them, none invested. I mean, I'm not surprised that at the time people were telling you this is a stupid idea and it's not going to work right because that's what you were hearing. We got that. I can tell you all the times and show you all the emails from really credible investors, like people that picked Google and PayPal and YouTube and Facebook and all of the internet greats that came before. And so sitting in their offices, it was just demoralizing to be sitting across from somebody who has a good instinct for a good idea apparently based on their portfolio and to look at you and just say, 'This is never going to work.' Or there was one investor that will go unnamed who said, 'You should really focus on church groups.' And then he said, 'But you know what? Church groups aren't a big market, so I'm going to pass on this.' Because he couldn't get over the hump of how could you possibly build a company that's based on strangers posting pictures of the most intimate parts of their home, their bedroom, their kitchen, their bathroom on the internet, and people are going to pay to come stay in their home.

That was absolutely happening. And you know the truth is if you made decisions based on what a spreadsheet tells you, our spreadsheet said, 'This is not going to work. Get a job or start something else.' Like, it was highly irrational to keep going with our product. And I'll never forget when we went home, Brian, my co-founder and I, he went back to upstate New York, I went back to Georgia. So the holiday, we went home for Christmas 2007. And you go home for the holidays and what do people ask? 'What are you up to? What are you doing? How's the year been going for you?' And so, neither of us really had a lot to say about the year except this one time when people stayed in our apartment during a design conference. And one of two things happened: people were either like, 'Oh my god, tell me more. This is really interesting.' Or people went, 'Oh my god, you're insane.' Yeah. And there was something about that visceral reaction that it got out of people where Brian and I were like, 'Maybe there's something here. Maybe there's more to this than we think.' And there were enough people that wanted to hear more about it that said, 'Yeah, I travel like that.' Or, 'When I was in college, I was traveling through Europe and I'd get off the train station and a woman would be standing there with a sign that said Pension, we'd go and stay in her place.' So, like, people started to tell stories about actually, you know, people are already traveling this way. It's just not formalized. It's not easy.

You know, there were times at studying design at RISD where professors would tell me something couldn't get done and that was all I needed actually.

Here's where I go to when I think of that question. We had an experience that those investors didn't. We had three people stay in our home for 5 days. We knew exactly what that felt like. It was magical. I mean, getting to show them San Francisco, getting to really go from strangers to friends, but in such a short arc of time for us was really inspiring. And one thing you just reminded me of is a piece of advice that Paul Graham, who started Y Combinator, gave us, gives all his startups, which is very simple. In a startup, do one thing. Don't die. Keep going. Just figure out a way to keep going. I think your story about Stuart is so on point because it's just like keep going. You don't know what you'll uncover or what other idea you will stumble onto. You'll never get to idea C if you haven't tried A and B first. And if you give up on A, forget about it. And being mindful of folks in this audience who are early stage entrepreneurs, there are times when it's better to kind of pack it in or pivot or give up on that idea and accept the failure and move on, right? Yes, probably. I think it's also worth remembering that the way that our service started, we thought the big grand idea was airbeds for conferences and we actually started, it was very laughable. Thank you. We thought that we were going to be an event website where conferences that sold out people could inflate an air bed in their living room and that was the big idea. So our next iteration for South by Southwest in 2008 was literally a conference website. After the dud of that launch, we regrouped and listened to people's feedback and then we launched again for the DNC and that flopped and then we launched a fourth time a year after that and that's where the numbers finally started to click. The product and market actually had a fit. So I think the important part there is that we were constantly listening and iterating. We got it wrong four times in a row. And the good news though is that if you launch and it's a dud, you can launch again because nobody knew about the first one. So being an entrepreneur is not easy. That's why if it was easy, more people would do it.

I think it can absolutely be learned. From my own experience, I've looked back in my life and I've recognized a pattern that whenever I've been uncomfortable with something, I tend not all the time, but I tend to see that as an invitation to engage in it. So, for example, I was reminded recently I was back on RISD's campus a couple weeks ago for alumni weekend and I was walking around campus and I remembered how uncomfortable I was public speaking at that time in my life. I could not get in front of an audience. I was terrified, sweaty palms. I'd be nervous shaking, which is a common feeling. Totally right. And I knew that about myself. And so I purposefully signed up to be a tour guide on campus because I knew it would force me to be in front of people and have exposure therapy. Some. Is that what it called? Yeah, that's what it's called. Yes. I didn't know this. Okay. Yeah. So I that's one of a few. So you would force yourself to confront things that you were uncomfortable with. And that's sort of how you practiced this kind of... Yeah. And I don't always do that but there are times where there's something in front of me and I'm like I don't want to do that. I don't want to talk to that person. I'm nervous. I'm intimidated. They're more important than me. The blah blah like whatever the excuses goes on in your brain. Yeah. Like I think an entrepreneur can reframe those things and say, 'Ooh, opportunity.'

Let's put this in context for everybody. So over the years, when you start, you do everything. So what do we do? Every role in the company. I remember in the earliest days, we realized, oh wait, people are using our service now. We probably need a number for them to call if there's a problem. In a last minute decision, I threw my number up on the website as customer service. And my phone almost immediately started ringing. And from that point for the next probably, gosh, I don't know, year and a half, I was very closely associated with customer service. Eventually we hired a team and they took it over and I got to get out of that a little bit. But people would call like in the middle of the night. Hey, I'm trying to check into my place in Berlin and I can't find the host. How do I get the keys? And I have to go scramble, get to my laptop, look up their account. It's like 3:00 in the morning in San Francisco. I was just reminded of another story where I'm about to go to bed. It's 11 o'clock at night. I am just so tired and we're still working out of our apartment at this point and I'm about to turn the computer off and I go, I'll just check the Gmail inbox one more time. I'm about to close it out. I hit refresh and sure enough right at the top there's a big bold black email subject line that says like 'Help' with like 12 exclamation points. Oh boy. So I click on it. Sure enough, it's this couple, a young couple in their 20s, checking into the marina here in San Francisco. They're somewhere in the marina. They're lost. Their host isn't answering the phone. Their phone doesn't work. They found Wi-Fi at a cafe nearby. They said, 'We're standing at this intersection of like Laguna and something.' And so I just jump in my Jeep and I drive to the intersection and it's at night. It's 11:00. It's dark. There's not a lot of street lights. And I'm driving slow with the headlights on. And sure enough on the corner I see a couple with the big roller bags. I'm like, the scarf and like, that's them. And so I pull up and I wave in the window. And I had emailed them that I was coming so it wasn't like this random guy in a car. I say, 'Hey, it's Joe. I'm here. I made it.' And at this point I'm like, 'Why don't you get in the car and we'll find a place for you?' But I had no option to take them to. I'm just like, we're going to make this up as we go here. And so we start driving back to our apartment and I'm talking to them. 'How was your trip? I'm really sorry about this. We'll get to the bottom of it. Don't worry.' And as I'm driving back, I realized our friends had an apartment below us and they had an extra bedroom because the roommate hadn't moved in yet. The only thing is it wasn't furnished. I'm thinking to myself, okay, I've got a room. How do I get it furnished? The clock is ticking here. We're almost back to the apartment. They think I have a solution for them, but I don't. And I get them in the apartment. I bring them up to the living room and I get them a beverage of some kind. And I said, 'Just hang here for a minute. We're going to get the room ready for you.' Meanwhile, I blitz down the hall and I rip the bed sheets off my bed and I grab my mattress and I drag it through the hallway. Thank god they couldn't see this part. And I bring it downstairs. I'd been corresponding with my friend in the apartment and I get in the room and I go to make this bed quick. I make the bed. I run back upstairs to the couple. I say, 'Your room will be ready in just a minute.' And they end up staying in the room and their stay in San Francisco went just fine.

Thanks everybody.