Airbnb Saw Sluggish Growth for Three Years Before Achieving Liquidity
Anu Hariharan · a16z Podcast | Not all Network Effects Are Created Equal · Jan 2, 2019 · at 10:40
Anu Hariharan (a16z) explains the initial difficulty of establishing liquidity in global two-sided marketplaces, citing Airbnb's room-night growth metrics.
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“The first three years of Airbnb was a real slog, because it's a global marketplace and they were trying to build supply. At the same time, they were also trying to build demand, and they needed to sign up the homes. They needed to make sure that people were, people trusted the marketplace and felt secure to make a booking. But three years into, until then, the growth was really sluggish, and you can almost see it in their graphs that they share. The Room Nights book just started growing enormously after the third year because they had sufficient liquidity, both supply and demand, and it started working.”
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