Tuesday, March 12

Airbnb’s Brian Chesky Talks with Fortune

Here’s some sound bites from the interview:
It’s better to have 100 people who love your company/service, than 1,000 who kind of like you.
Make something a few people want. Use technology to scale once you have the product “right".
As your company and user base grows, there’s a real threat of overcomplicating your offering.  Also a threat of becoming detached from you audience.
Importance of discomfort in your business strategy was a theme, just like the Uber interview.
Storyboard the customer experience. Think about everything a customer goes through before and after they interact with your product.
Don’t build a product based on what appeals to investors. Employees should make a product customers love. Customers will then build a business that investors love.
Hire your community. A lot of their employees were early users or renters.
Don’t do just what will make you win (buy other companies, expand into “safe" offerings). You may not want to work there the next day.
Other companies were positioning themselves as the “Airbnb of X". So Airbnb asked “why can’t we be the Airbnb of X?" They realized that they are really in the mobility industry, not the travel industry. They now offer 1,000 boats for rent. 
President of Lichtenstein listed his country for rent for $7k. Removed it when Snoop Dogg tried to rent it.

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