SHOOTS PER MONTH5000375025001250 0 Dec Joe Zadeh, Airbnb presentation at Lean Startup SXSW, Austin

Joe Zadeh @joebot

Today

NIGHTS BOOKED5 million4 million 3 million 2 million 1 million 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012

THE STORY OF AIRBNB PHOTOGRAPHY (GROWTH WITHIN GROWTH)

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CHAPTER 1.Go to where your users are.

Today

2009

CHAPTER 2.Do things that don’t scale.

CHAPTER 3.Establish your hypotheses.

VALUE: Hosts with professional photography willget more business.GROWTH: Hosts will sign up for it.

CHAPTER 4.Build a concierge MVP.

Concierge MVP ReceivesHost Accepts Offer Schedules Facilitates Completion Email Recruits Uploads to Pays viaConcierge photographer Recruits hosts Assigns Shoot Listing PayPal Installs Uploads to ReceivesPhotographer Schedules Shoots Dropbox Dropbox Payment

CHAPTER 5.Measure.

VALUE HYPOTHESIS: TRUEProfessionally photographed listings get 2-3Xmore bookings than the market average!

GROWTH HYPOTHESIS: TRUEHosts are wildly enthusiastic to receive the offer.

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CHAPTER 6.Build.

AIRBNB PHOTOGRAPHY Requests Receives cleans ReceivesHost Photography Schedules Facilitates confirmation space Confirmation Makes offer to hosts in market Resurrects Assignment Receives ListingSystem Notifier backlog Algorithm Confirmation Updated Fills out Receives ReceivesPhotographer Reassignment Schedules Shoots Uploads profile assignment Payment Reassignment FlagsOperations Recruits photographer Monitors PaysCoordinator photographer and sets rate (USD)

AUTHENTICATION GEOCODINGEXISTING CODE → USER PROFILES PHOTO UPLOADER EMAIL NOTIFICATION

EMAIL MARKETER RECRUITERCONCIERGE → QUALITY CONTROL SUPPORT

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CHAPTER 7.Measure.

BUILD A DASHBOARD

LOOK AT ALL TYPES OF DATA Host email conversion (high) Photoshoot turn-around (fast)Photographer decline rate (low) % of listings covered (low)

If we could automate payments to photographers,we could spend more time recruiting.

CHAPTER 8.Iterate.

CHAPTER 9.Change requirements... and break the whole site.

“Let’s watermark our images.”

“Make sure the original is >12 Megapixels.”

“Let’s have our Customer Support team offer Photography when someone calls in.”

“Let’s start turning off listings without photos (when there’s a photographer nearby).”

CHAPTER 10.Bigger scale means different tools.

CHAPTER 11.Scale the operations team.

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CHAPTER 12.Enjoy the view.

San Francisco

Brooklyn

Vermont

Mexico

London

Milan

Portugal

Thailand

Mumbai

Austin

1500 cities 35,000 shoots 500,000 photosit all starts by meeting your users.

Thank you!

SHOOTS PER MONTH5000375025001250 0 Dec Joe Zadeh, Airbnb presentation at Lean Startup SXSW, Austin

500 Startups

SHOOTS PER MONTH5000375025001250 0 Dec