Chesky: Meeting Barry Manilow's drummer inspired Airbnb's whole-home listings
Brian Chesky · #216 How Clever Entrepreneurs Turned 3 Air Mattresses Into Airbnb, The Site That Makes Any Home A Bed And Breakfast – with Brian and Joe · Jan 28, 2010 · at 54:04
Airbnb co-founder Brian Chesky explains how visiting early hosts in New York City led Airbnb to pivot beyond renting shared spaces.
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“Barry Manilow's drummer changed the course of our company forever because we met Barry Manilow's drummer. He, we realized that he didn't want to just list his bedroom. He wanted to list his entire apartment. Why? Because he goes on tour with Barry. And they go to Providence. They'll go to Boston. He'll be away for a week at a time. And suddenly, we found ourselves in a situation where we had a user, a really passionate user, that wanted to, you know, list his entire apartment on our website. That was entire user base that we didn't even realize wanted to use our product. As soon as we did that, we started saying, why don't we add the option to rent out your entire home, your entire apartment on our website? It turns out that that's a huge portion of our business now.”
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