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Comment by foobarqux | Hacker News Reader

Maybe because AirBnB found success in commercial property rental, not renting out your couch to someone, the original pitch. But I still don't think it's clear why AirBnB succeeded.

(Although parent didn't mention AirBnB?)

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Even very early on though the plan revolved around there being no real natural barrier between couches and commercial property no? It's in the email exchange released by PG to show how people can miss the idea. If someones plan involves starting with X because it's a good stepping point to Y, I don't think it's fair to say "oh but they were only found success with Y".

It's not clear couch rentals was a good stepping stone to whole unit rental; why not list whole units directly? And I'm wary of claims that grand strategies existed from the beginning, those strategies are usually post-hoc inventions.

In retrospect AirBnB could have been more accurately pitched as a better VRBO but there still isn't an obvious reason why that would have been a good investment.

Exactly. Also noting that there is a similar theme that has gone around in business calling companies stupid for, say, not green lighting computer or idea that "a Wozniak" (he wasn't probably the only one just the one that we know about because of what happened next) showed them and didn't recognize the potential. Could have been the pitch could have been 1000 other reasons. (And of course sure maybe they did miss the opportunity possibly..)

VRBO 2.0 -> Airbnb

Photography. Make your landlords properties look better than the same property on another site and you are on the way to being a unicorn.

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