Airbnb

27/10/2007

Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia create the initial concept for Airbnb (initially: AirBed & Breakfast) during the Industrial Design Conference held by Industrial Designers Society of America. Airbnb is an online marketplace that enables people to list, find and rent vacation homes.

To help fund the site, the founders created special edition breakfast cereals, with presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain as the inspiration for "Obama O's" and "Cap'n McCains". 800 boxes of cereals were sold in just two months at $40 each, attracting the attention of Y Combinator's Paul Graham which then provide the initial funding.

Harvard University graduate and technical architect Nathan Blecharczyk joined in 2008 as Airbnb's third co-founder.

The site's content had expanded from air beds which came up to the two co-founders as their idea for Airbnb, to a variety of properties including entire homes, apartments, private rooms to castles, igloos, boats, islands and others.

The company is based in San Francisco, California.