The inspiring story of how 3 young men went from selling cereals to fund their failing business idea to a $25B company that is Airbnb. Find out the end of the story at the original blog post at: https://getpaidforyourpad.com/blog/the-airbnb-founder-story/

1. The Airbnb Founder Story: From
Selling Cereals To A $25B Company
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2. Started late 2007 in San Francisco.
• No investors
• Thousands of $$ in credit card debt
• No employment
• Needed a way to earn extra cash
Airbnb founders Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia
just moved from New York
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3. At the local Industrial Design Conference,
they noticed that…
• Bought some air mattresses
• Created a website called Airbnb&Breakfast
So they…
• All the hotels were booked
• People were looking for a place to sleep
Their first guests…
• A 30-year-old Indian man
• 35-year-old woman from Boston
• 45-year-old father of four from Utah
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4. Their third co-founder, Nathan Blecharczyk
joined, but…
• Only two users, one of them was Chesky
• Launched at SXSW & received only 2
bookings
So they changed the website and launched
again in 2008
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5. This was the general opinion about Airbnb at the time:
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6. They made cereal to fund the Airbnb project
• They managed to raise
$30,000 selling Cap’N
McCain’s and Obama O’s
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7. Airbnb receives first funding
They close a $20,000 round
• Only making $200/week, use money to go to New York and meet users
• Discover that pictures for the listings aren’t good
• Buy a camera and go door-to-door themselves to take better pictures
2009 - Paul Graham at Y Combinator tries to convince venture capitalist Fred Wilson
to invest in Airbnb.
• Fred Wilson rejects the proposal. Find the link to the actual email conversation on
this original blog post.
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8. Airbnb finally starts taking off
Find out the end of the story and where they are now at the
original blog post…