Who doesn’t like Airbnb? Their style, idea, creativity, meaning, and most of all their story. A true customer brand, as I would like to call it.

The thing about Airbnb’s story is that throughout their journey they did multiple growth hacks for survival. Be it “three clicks to booking” inspired by Steve Job’s iPod design of three clicks to get to a song.
In 2007, designers Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia faced the lowest point in their life. They couldn’t afford the rent on their San Francisco apartment. They had to think about ways to survive and not burn out. They thought about the options they had.
What if they flipped the switch and turned their problem into an opportunity?

They decided to use their house to pay for itself.

Why not share the space with strangers and make them pay for the experience?

A pretty weird, or rather bold idea. But they had no choice, they had to survive. To make their ends meet, they decided to turn their loft into a lodging space.

But they did not want to make this feel impersonal and disconnected. It shouldn’t look like they were doing something for the heck of it. They did not want to list their house on Craigslist because of this reason.

There was a design conference coming to town and the hotel space was limited and expensive, so they set up a simple website with pictures of their loft-turned-lodging space—complete with three air mattresses on the floor and the promise of a home-cooked breakfast in the morning. They designed an experience and decided to sell that.

The following spring, they enlisted former roommate and engineer Nathan to help them get Airbed & Breakfast off the ground. They planned the launch around another conference to capitalize on the resulting lack of hotel space. Fast forward seven years, and that folks is how Airbed and Breakfast got a name and identity, a brand which we all hold dearly today - "Airbnb".
Tune in to know more about their growth hacks and customer experience story.