Brian Chesky took the theater in the center of Los Angeles on Tuesday to tell a story about the future.
This story went something like this: 17 years ago, when Chesky lover AirbnbPeople were skeptical. Those who will remain in the home of a strange person, were moving. (In 2008, Seven investors rejected The company, rejected what would have been 10 % of a share of $ 150,000.) But the startup challenge the possibilities-it is now a verb, name, and Fortune 500 with a general trading with the maximum market 84 billion dollars.
Now, Chesky explained, it’s time for the company to ignite a new path again by redefining what “Airbnb” means.
Through non -fortified Airbnb and Airbnb experiences, Chesky has drawn a picture of a world in which Airbnb relies as a axis for the single vacation experience. Chesky talked about Airbnb as an unforgettable moments, once in a lifetime. Think: Make pasta with a chef in Rome, dancing with the K-Pop star in Seoul, exploring Notremam with a restoration engineer, wrestling with Luuttchor in Mexico City, or even spending Sunday with Patrick Maqoum.
Chesky closed with a new logo: “Now you can Airbnb more than Airbnb.” The idea is that you are “Airbnb” massage on leave-Airbnb-AIN, makeup artists, and hair designers, not only on vacation, but when you are at home. In short, the launch of the SuperPP was a moderate technology disguise – “somewhere along the way, something was drifted, and we started spending more time looking at the screens and less time in the real world,” Chesky told the audience – the Silicon Valley screen incredibly.
This presentation, in which Chesky put his best “Founder’s position” is a character On the screen, it was met with both the noise and criticism. Zenga The founder Mark Pinkos praised Chesky’s performance as “Steve Jobs Isk” Others were skeptical Airbnb users will resort to the application in their daily and non -scattered lives, and they are interrogated in the market that Airbnb uses.
The truth, almost certainly, falls somewhere between them.
There are certain ways in which the idea is logical. For example, if one of the criticisms of Airbnb is that you are losing the amenities in the hotel, it follows the company to repair it. Traveling is an amazingly fragmented industry, and Airbnb is not alone in seeing the white space level open for monotheism –McKinsey He has estimated The global travel experiments market is an opportunity worth northern trillion dollars, but it is spreading between some online platforms and “countless smaller operators.”
At the same time, Airbnb’s ambition is to become a destination for experiences not new; Airbnb is, after all, re -launch.
Elie Mertz, Airbnb Finance, described the company’s early effort as a victim of circumstances. “We have launched experiences for many years,” Mertz said in an interview. “We started to expand its scope. He hit the epidemic, we put it on the back stove, and we did not do anything with it until this point.”
Mirtz said, by taking advantage of a “multi -year stop”, Airbnb experiments, as it brought more flexible prices, a stronger examination to ensure high -quality offers, and a re -design application makes it easy for travelers to find the experiences that suit their journey.
“This year is about launch, she said. “We want to put these products and services in the hands of our consumers … Our ambition is to pay these companies so that they are on an independent basis contributing to our line in our supreme line.
For the company that achieved $ 11.1 billion revenues last year, it could be an additional billion dollars on the upper -line. But the resonance of these revenues will take a lot of work and money, as Airbnb is tried to establish new consumer habits.
To help make the Airbnb experiments issue, the company launches Airbnb Originals – a set of distinct experiences, supported by Starpower. For example: Megan You Stallion was in the room where the original Chesky Airbnb described that the company sponsored with it-with a rapper in an anime house specifically designed. The goal of experiments like this is that they are the days you remember for the rest of your life.
At the end of the day, I took in one experience of this sudden experience – a listening party with Chance The Rapper in Los Angeles, where the beloved independent rapper examined about ten new songs to a room full of influencers, as well as me. We sat in a room filled with bean bags, the growing green headphones and the songs filled with songs. It was a block of an hour and a half where the world stopped.
It was intimate and surprising, and it was a type of StarPower who felt greatly originally – as the rapper, the last studio album released in 2019, was at the front of the room when the explanatory show ended, and I answer questions about his music that many people heard. Airbnb did not share details about the financial conditions involved in partnership with these celebrities, although it seems safe to guess that whatever (revenue, fees, or some other arrangements), it is not cheap.
This reaches the difficult part of Airbnb tries to do, because it holds a wonderful new addition to the participation economy and the size of the business. I do not think it is impossible for Airbnb to work in these new verticals – I may want to reserve a makeup artist through Airbnb as a consumer – but I do not know if you can coordinate a market of individual and intimate experiences. Often, by definition is limited and it is difficult to examine magic for quality at the global level.
The idea is somewhat contradictory and may not work well as critics believe. At the same time, you should also be an idea of the idea of staying in the homes of others on vacation.
This story was originally shown on Fortune.com
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