Find Balance
Airbnb has announced that it is acquiring HotelTonight.
“Airbnb has built an unrivaled global community of hosts and guests — we can connect travelers to more than 6 million places to stay and tens of thousands of incredible experiences around the world. Airbnb ‘is now the most searched-for accommodations brand’ according to one Google executive, and guests are using Airbnb for every kind of trip, including business and last-minute travel. Today, more than 400,000 companies are using Airbnb to help manage their travel, and same-day bookings are now growing 2x year over year. Welcoming more boutique hotels to our platform will help us deliver on our commitment to [build] Airbnb for everyone, providing guests the authentic, local experience they have come to expect on every trip.”
Since Airbnb has been profitable for two straight years as a private company, it is no surprise that it is being aggressive in expanding its influence in additional spaces:
“Airbnb introduced boutique hotels to its platform in early 2018 and has boosted its quick growth. In 2018, the business said it more than doubled the number of boutique hotels, bed and breakfasts, hostels, and resorts available. Airbnb’s business travel unit, Airbnb for Work, also had quick success. Launched in 2014, it now accounts for 15 percent of bookings. In total, Airbnb offers some 5 million places to stay in 191 countries.
Airbnb is kicking off 2019 with an acquisitive streak. In January, the company acquired Danish startup Gaest, a provider of a marketplace-style platform for people to post and book venues for meetings and other work-related events. The company again declined to pinpoint the price, though given Gaest had raised just $3.5 million in equity funding, the deal pales in comparison to Airbnb’s HotelTonight acquisition.”
Airbnb is likely to enter the stock market in the next 18 months and it will be nice to see CEOs like Brian Chesky, among other tech leaders, take away some spotlight away from Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook ($FB):
Coincidentally, today, I both listened to a podcast episode with Ric Burton, a co-founder and Community Encouragement Officer of Balance, and then read his Medium post in which he recounts his journey these past 7 years:
“In 2010, I started a little company selling custom apparel on the internet. I integrated Wufoo, Google Checkout & PayPal to sell around 100,000 sweatshirts to students. In 2012, I read a blog post about a little company called Stripe. I instantly understood the value of what they were doing and decided to apply for a job there. I researched every single person in the company. I learned their names, read their tweets, sifted through their blog posts, and found spelling errors in their writing. I was completely focused on getting a job there. When I met John Collison and we started whiteboarding together, I knew two things: this guy is going to be a billionaire and I am definitely going to get this job.
The short time I spent at Stripe had a profound impact on me. It showed me what was possible when a few brilliant people get together and make something people want. My tiny contributions were highlighting how behind Stripe was on mobile and vigorously recruiting my good friend, Lachy. Stripe gave me a mental model for potential. An alien founder assembles a group of Jedi to start a cult and go on a mission together.
Patrick is the alien. John, Orla, Darragh, Ludwig & Greg were some of the Jedi. The developers raving about Stripe formed the cult. The mission was to grow the Gross Domestic Produce of the Internet. It seems to be working.”
I, for one, don’t think Disney ($DIS) should push out more Star Wars movies into theaters, but when it comes to corporate leadership at tech companies, we should want a Return of the Jedi.
