Hacker News Reader

Comment by iamwil | Hacker News Reader

One thing you guys should be worried about is the effort it takes for someone to host. Airbnb can be as much or little time and work intensive as the host likes. That makes it easy to host. With hosting a meal, it's always going to be time and work intensive, which limits the number of people that would be willing to do it on a continual basis.

Solve that, and you might have something interesting on hand.

View on HN

That's precisely where the airbnb analogy breaks down. One of the most powerful aspects of airbnb is the ability for a host to earn good money with little time/effort. Too many companies forget to copy that feature when building an "airbnb for X".

Millions of people already cook and clean for themselves and their family. Is it that hard to add one or two extra plates?

The cleanliness standards for guests is much higher. Plus, there are all sorts of dietary restrictions- this may not be more actual work, but putting a mental hurdle in front of users will reduce conversions.

Many more eat out or over the sink. Even families have been eating out more since fast food became more prevalent (at least in the US). Has the trend reversed?

I'm not saying it won't work. It's something that people miss when they think of this idea. Perhaps it works best in countries with a strong home cooking tradition, rather than the US, like the ones listed on their homepage.

Just talking about dinner, most people eat at home most of the time. Here is one study from 2005 on that:

RESTAURANT MEALS FOR DINNER LAST WEEK?

None: 47% 1 night: 27% 2-3 nights: 21% 4+ nights: 4%

http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-500160_162-1060315.html

This poll was conducted among a nationwide random sample of 936 adults, interviewed by telephone October 30-November 1, 2005. The error due to sampling for results based on the entire sample could be plus or minus three percentage points.

It's now our main focus.

Here is a great talk of Brian Chesky(Co-founder of Airbnb): http://www.justin.tv/startupschool/b/272180383

There is still a lot of work to do ! This is just the beginning !

Reply on news.ycombinator.com