SC

Strategy Canon

Airbnb: sourced choices

38 product and go-to-market choices, oldest first. Back to the case study

  1. 2007Product · First offer The founders rented air mattresses in their San Francisco apartment to visitors of a design conference whose hotels were full. AB1
  2. 2008-08Product · Transaction design Anyone with space could post a room with a price; travelers reserved and paid through the site, and hosts added photos of themselves and the place. AB21
  3. 2008-08Product · Scope beyond air mattresses Denver convention listings ran from a $20 airbed to a $3,000 whole house; San Francisco prices ranged from $10 to $175 a night. AB21
  4. 2008-08Go_To_Market · Event launch For the Democratic National Convention in Denver, where hotels had sold out, more than 600 people booked through the site and 50 to 100 new listings appeared a day. AB21
  5. 2008-08Go_To_Market · Press seeding The founders pitched bloggers and promoted Obama O's cereal around Denver; Chesky: 'All we did was become part of the story.' AB33
  6. 2009Product · Photography by hand, then by hire Chesky: the founders photographed homes until it was painful, then brought in other photographers. AB9
  7. 2009Go_To_Market · Market focus At Y Combinator, searches showed demand was strongest in New York, so the founders focused on New York and visited hosts in person. AB7
  8. 2009Go_To_Market · Craigslist emails From late 2009, people who posted rentals on Craigslist in some cities received emails promoting Airbnb. AB15
  9. 2009-02Product · Listing photographs Joe Gebbia and Brian Chesky rented a professional camera and photographed New York hosts' homes themselves. AB7
  10. 2009-02Go_To_Market · Early revenue Weekly fees were $460, $897 and $1,428 in the first three weeks of February 2009, against a $4,000-a-month ramen goal. AB7
  11. 2010Product · Photo Service A formal photography pilot began in summer 2010; by October 2011 about 1,000 contract photographers had shot 13,000 homes in 383 cities, and those listings were booked 2.5 times as often. AB16
  12. 2010Go_To_Market · Craigslist cross-posting Hosts could cross-post a listing to Craigslist in one click, told that reposting added $500 a month on average; Chesky credits adviser Michael Seibel with the idea, and the tool was removed in 2012 after Craigslist objected. AB15
  13. 2011Go_To_Market · Clone offer refused After meeting the Samwers in Berlin, Chesky declined to buy Wimdu and hired more than a dozen country managers, each given an Airbnb-in-a-box kit. AB25
  14. 2011-06Go_To_Market · Host warning Airbnb emailed more than 100,000 hosts warning that clone sites were soliciting them. AB18
  15. 2011-06Go_To_Market · Germany entry Airbnb bought the German site Accoleo and opened its first European office in Hamburg under Accoleo's founder. AB17
  16. 2011-08Product · Host Guarantee From August 15, 2011 a Host Guarantee covered loss or damage from guest theft or vandalism up to $50,000, backdated to earlier claims. AB20
  17. 2011-08Product · Trust and safety line Chesky: alongside the guarantee the company opened a 24/7 trust and safety line; the guarantee's draft figure of $5,000 became $50,000 at Marc Andreessen's suggestion. AB25
  18. 2011-09Go_To_Market · International build-out Within about three months Golden bought top-level domains for nine countries, assembled a translation team and cut page load times; offices opened in eight European cities. AB28
  19. 2011-10Product · Verified Photo ribbon Professionally photographed listings carried an Airbnb Verified Photo ribbon to show the place was real. AB16
  20. 2012Product · Guarantee raised Golden found a London underwriter that raised Host Guarantee cover to $1 million a few months after launch. AB28
  21. 2012Go_To_Market · UK supply Airbnb bought Crashpadder to seed supply in the United Kingdom. AB28
  22. 2012Go_To_Market · Market threshold About 300 listings, 100 of them reviewed, marked the point a market's growth took off; staff reached it with host meetups, outreach inviting guests to host and employee trips to unreviewed listings. AB28
  23. 2012-01Go_To_Market · European launch Airbnb launched officially in Europe with a press campaign offering the Country of Liechtenstein for rent. AB28
  24. 2013-04Product · Verified ID Verified ID linked accounts to a scanned identity document or identity questions plus online profiles; a random quarter of US users had to verify before booking, and hosts could require it. AB27
  25. 2014Product · Instant Book After finding guests left when hosts did not reply, Golden's team revived Instant Book with Verified ID and new calendar tools; 2 million listings used it two and a half years later and booking conversion rose more than 60%. AB28
  26. 2014-07Product · Double-blind reviews Host and guest reviews were revealed together only after both had written them, and the review window was cut from 30 to 14 days. AB34
  27. 2015Product · Cuba payments A temporary team built payments and operating arrangements to open Cuba. AB12
  28. 2016-05Product · Reputation and messaging design Gebbia: a well-designed reputation system builds trust, and the request message box was sized to draw out a medium-length introduction, which hosts accepted more often. AB26
  29. 2016-11Product · Trips and Experiences Trips added about 500 Experiences in 12 cities alongside homes. AB31
  30. 2019Go_To_Market · Self-recruiting supply In 2019, 79% of hosts signed up directly and 23% of new hosts had first been guests. AB1
  31. 2019Go_To_Market · Repeat guests 69% of 2019 revenue came from stays by guests with a prior booking. AB1
  32. 2019-06Go_To_Market · Host referrals Rachitsky: the host referral program became the most efficient source of new supply; staff activated about 100 listings in a new market before driving demand there. AB29
  33. 2020Go_To_Market · Pandemic response Chesky: after 80% of the business vanished in eight weeks, guests were refunded, $2 billion was borrowed and the company leaned into longer and domestic stays; nearly a quarter of nights booked were a month or longer. AB25
  34. 2020-05Product · Adjacent projects cut Chesky cut investment in transportation, studios, hotels and luxury to refocus on hosts. AB2
  35. 2020-09Go_To_Market · Direct demand About 91% of traffic in the first nine months of 2020 came directly or through unpaid channels. AB1
  36. 2020-11Go_To_Market · Brand over performance marketing The filing set out a strategy to raise brand marketing and cut performance marketing relative to 2019. AB11
  37. 2025-05Product · Services and Experiences Airbnb launched Services and relaunched Experiences in May 2025. AB4
  38. 2026-02Product · Booking terms Reserve Now, Pay Later and new cancellation policies were extended in late 2025 and early 2026. AB5