How this Non-Tech Entrepreneur Built a $B Tech Company (Airbnb)
Here's how the non-technical co-founder of Airbnb built a billion-dollar tech startup without a technical background.
Brian Chesky, Co-founder Airbnb
Would you be interested in having two strangers stay at your place? Maybe not, but for the founders of Airbnb, this was a recipe for something big!
Airbnb is the perfect non-technical entrepreneur example for anyone. Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia were broke roommates who couldn't afford rent for their SF apartment.
What was their idea?
They put up a website called Airbedandbreakfast.com during an Industrial Designer’s conference in San Francisco and offered a bed in their living room along with breakfast for $80 each night. As all hotels were booked, three people showed up, making them realize that they were onto something.
How did Airbnb become so popular?
Success did not come overnight. The founders failed to launch their original tech product repeatedly. They later switched to making breakfast cereals, which took off and led to investors’ interest. This newfound interest brought them to Y Combinator and seed fundings, which paved the way to the success of their business idea.
Do the founders have technical education/know-how?
No. The two main co-founders are industrial design/graphics design graduates from Rhode Island University. Their third co-founder, Nathan is a technical graduate from Harvard who was brought in later to help with the tech bit.
How did they manage the tech?
They brought in Nathan Blecharczyk as one of the founders and developed a business model that could work. Nathan is a technical graduate from Harvard University. He built their first website and consequently formed the technical team that now runs Airbnb.
How did the funding help them succeed?
Empowered with $20,000 in seed funding from Y Combinator, Brain, Joe and Nathan moved to New York to focus on customer relations. Their customers helped by putting up reviews and photos of properties. By the end of the Y Combinator program, they gathered a group of customers that loved their idea and helped them grow their customer base. This fan base led to $600,000 funding from Sequoia, and the rest is history!
Read Whitney's story (founder, CEO - Bumble), and the rest of the Airbnb story here.