OUT OF THIN AIR

SHOULD THE ENTREPRENEURIAL WORLD NEED ANOTHER RAGS-TO-RICHES STORY, AIRBNB CEO BRIAN CHESKY, HOTEL DISRUPTER AND TRAILBLAZER OF THE SHARING ECONOMY, WOULD BE THE PERFECT POSTER BOY.

- HO YUN KUAN

According to Forbes, Brian Chesky currently has a net worth of US$4.2 billion (A$6.2 billion) and his business, Airbnb, is worth an estimated US$38 billion (A$55.9 billion). This is a fortune created out of thin air – which was pumped into three air mattresses back in 2007.

It started as a simple plan to make a quick buck during the four days that a big design conference was happening in San Francisco. Chesky was then living on US$40,000 (A$58,800) a year as an industrial designer. He and his roommate, Joe Gebbia, landed on the idea to open up their loft apartment to conference-goers caught out by the shortage of hotel rooms available during the event. In addition to the air mattresses, they threw in breakfast and wireless internet to sweeten the deal, then marketed their makeshift lodging with a simple website: airbedandbreakfast.com.

By June the next year, Chesky, Gebbia and Nathan Blecharczyk, a mutual friend they roped in, had decided that Air Bed and Breakfast was serious business. Unfortunately, the seven potential investors they approached didn’t think so. Five rejected them and two didn’t even reply, so the trio walked away from their effort to raise US$150,000 (A$220,700) empty-handed.

To the three friends, this wasn’t a cue to give up, but rather to get more creative in their marketing and capitalraising tactics.

Inspired by the presidential election that was happening that year, they designed and printed 1,000 boxes, 500 each, of ‘Obama O’s’ and ‘Cap’n McCain’s’ cereal, scoured San Francisco’s supermarkets for the cheapest breakfast bran they could find to fill those boxes with, and spent days assembling the boxes with hot glue. It was at this point that Chesky started doubting the idea. ‘Mark Zuckerberg didn’t have to hot-glue his way to success,’ he thought.