Growth Hacking Example 1 - AIRBNB

Lesson Details:

This course is brought to you by Appy Pie as part of our Academy series hello everyone in this video I am going to talk about Airbnb now we all know Airbnb I hope and who might have used Airbnb services all around the world I am actually also a very frequent user of Airbnb wherever I travel I normally tend to take Airbnb okay so Airbnb is one of the start up started somewhere back in 2007 and the reason I am going to actually talk about Airbnb as a case study is because over a period of time over the past six months or so I am gathering a lot of information I am collecting a lot of you know information about startups and obviously studying a lot of growth hacking techniques how these startups have implemented during their initial stage now as I have collected a lot of resources links which I will be sharing that of course I have understood that it is very important for everyone to know how these companies have actually started off so that we know if there is any growth hack or growth hacking technique they have implied during their initial days and we would like to know and then maybe we can actually use that because we know all of these companies now have become unicorns and they become really really really big ok so what I have done is I have actually taken 8 case studies starting from Airbnb and I have divided into two parts which is one how let's say Airbnb has started which where we will be talking about how from the scratch how they started and what goes behind the scenes and what were the challenges and what was the funding they have received during all this past years in the second section of the same case study I will be then revealing the back or the growth hacking techniques they have implemented so that we know that you know it is all proven that these companies have already already tried these growth hacking techniques and maybe if it relates to our business or maybe we are in the profession or we are just learning growth hacking we can use and implement those as well ok so let's get started how Airbnb started now Airbnb is started by Brian Chesky and Joe these are the two main founders and later on nathan has actually joined them as a co-founder ok way back in 2007 or earlier the Brian in Joe in San Francisco was struggling to pay rent and they have what they did is they rented out three air mattresses to people and self breakfast in 2007 they make a very simple website a very small like a blogging with maps it's called a bed in breakfast comp and they made $80 out of that and they had the very first customer is two men one woman showed up and paid $80 each that means two hundred and forty dollars at that point in time now when they they had the very first guest or let's say the customers they thought that it's a really brilliant idea let's actually make this work and then they invited Nathan to come on board as a co-founder and they launched at SXSW as in here got two bookings SXSW is South for Southwest is media and music festival in Austin Texas United States whosoever is American would actually would relate to that but it's a music festival and it's a media festival quite a big one where they have actually hosted their startup and they've got bookings from there now in 2008 because they had was struggling with budget and money they sold Obama or Syria and before the election got $40 each making $30,000 but these are the some examples what we are going through is like you will not know generally how Airbnb because right now we see that it's a very very big company but if you go through the nitty gritties of these struggles and hurdles what they have gone through it is very understanding that they have you know come by far they have come a very rocky road and since 2007 until now and they have come through a lot of struggles okay in 2009 they got funding the first funding for $20,000 from Paul Graham's it's Y Combinator it's a huge Y Combinator accelerator program based out of us then they were making $200 a week for months so that means they had a challenge here right here that they were not making money but they were making little money but they were not scaling up so the scaling was the problem there then they realize that the photos what they put goes on the online they are not that really pretty because people or the customer would look at the photos of those houses and if they're missing people will not actually you know hire those places and they will not rent it out so what they did again it could be one traditional way of growth hacking which is they went out door-to-door in New York City and took photos of those listed houses which has been rented which actually boosted and made you know double the amount of money they were making way back into $200 they started making $400 a week and she had to grow they were also they are pushed lot of visas visas a venture capitalist who would like you know people who are the invest investors make who would put lot of millions and millions of dollars behind your idea and then make money out of that they were rejected by obviously in New York Times New York by Fred Wilson and then they have someone from a famous singer they would say Barry has rented out entire house and they raised six hundred thousand seed round from Sequoia Capital Sequoia Capital is again a bc venture capitalist and seed round is a very first round of your funding stage they raised seven in 2010 between two thousand ten in eleven they raised 7.2 million then another hundred and twelve million from many investors and Ashton Kutcher so Ashton is Apollo Hollywood celebrity and by 2014 they were actually $10 billion valuation so you see from 2007 or earlier than that 2007 till 2014 which is about seven eight years now it is already in 2000 and of 2018 and the valuation have obviously has gone up but they have already had ten years in eleven years of going through all that hurdles in their startup now in the next section in the next video I will be talking about what exactly the hack or the growth hacking technique they have implemented during this year and what was one one hack or the growth hacking technique they have implemented which has actually skyrocketed their business okay so stay tuned quite interesting I will see you in the next one we will be revealing the hack bye for now.