00:20 Outline
00:44 Do things that don't scale
03:40 Founders should learn how to do sales
08:45 The sales funnel
13:50 Charging your first customer
15:24 Working backwards from your goal
19:51 Summary
- - - Podium is a venture fund across sports and entertainment, based in Silicon Valley.
Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky was heading into an IPO that would have been filed on March 31st until his company, travel and the world were hit with a global pandemic that disrupted everything.
As of late June 2020, travel was making some recovery for local trips, but travel might never be the same, especially for business travel and high-density cities.
Instead, outdoors, national parks, small communities and experiences may increase along with a population shift where people don't just work from anywhere, but may want to experience living from anywhere.
Over the long-term, online experiences may also become bigger than travel itself.
Every startup, no matter how small or big, has been faced with how to adjust and adapt to the pandemic and whatever the new normal that emerges.
One of the difficult decisions Airbnb had to make was to reduce its workforce with lower demand, maybe the hardest decision a CEO has to make since in this case, it had nothing to do with quality of work but an unexpected change in the business.
A big lesson learned for startups shared by Brian has been about how success can sometimes veer a company into doing too many things at once.
The crisis has forced Airbnb to be focused, lean and scrappy...back to its startup roots.
This also means that when Airbnb does go public, likely later this or next year, it may be better positioned for growth and success.
Sometimes, less is more and this crisis may turn out to be a challenge that helped shape an even better future for Airbnb as it shifts from a company of homes and a marketplace to a community of connections and experiences.
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Podium is a venture fund, accelerator and community across sports and entertainment, based in Silicon Valley. Learn more at www.podium.vc | twitter | FB | linked-in | IG
Podcast 🎧 Airbnb Story and the Art of Resilience with Joe Gebbia and Tony Robbins September 2019
Summary: Airbnb started as a simple solution to a pressing problem; co-founders Joe Gebbia and Brian Chesky couldn’t afford rent, so they opened up their San Francisco apartment for guests to stay in. They soon realized they may be onto something bigger than just a way to avoid being evicted. So, along with their old roommate, Nathan Blecharczyk, they started to build it into a business. But that was nearly 10 years ago.
Airbnb has evolved substantially since then, though it was by no means a straight path to success. In fact, they launched and relaunched a number of times. They found themselves up to their ears in debt, rejected by investors over and over and were very close to flatlining on more than one occasion.
You will hear their story of perseverance, and how they were able to find opportunities for massive growth where there were seemingly none. You will also hear about the importance their design background played in creating trust amidst strangers and giving customers the experience they wanted. And you will hear how they transcended cultural boundaries and were ultimately able to turn a floundering idea into a global business that operates in more than 34,000 cities in 91 countries, and is now estimated to be worth $30 billion.
