In October 2007, Amol graduated from the Arizona State University Design Department and was eagerly attending the upcoming Industrial Design Conference in San Francisco.Amol is looking for ways to get nearly $ 1,000 to buy a ticket. Therefore, he has no money to rent a room in expensive hotels.
"I only pay for tickets if I can find a place to stay." Every cheap hotel or motel I visit is full of visitors. "Amol said.
While wandering around design blogs, Amol found a link to a new website called Airbedandbreakfast.com, the predecessor of Airbnb.com.
"I clicked on it because I liked the logo," Amol said. He was born in India and went to the United States to attend college in 2004.
The site is rather sketchy, there is no link to the booking page and there is no contact information with the two hosts, Joe Gebbia and Brian Chesky.Amol continued surfing the web and somehow he found Joe's phone number. Joe is also a designer. Amol called Joe and booked a night's sleep.
"I went to the apartment at Rausch Street and Joe greeted me in the pilot's hat, he had all the characteristics of a designer," Amol recalls.
The founders of Airbedandbreakfast.com no longer have enough money to pay for their three bedroom apartments so have figured out how to rent a cushion and serve breakfast to earn extra.
Design conference attendees pay $ 80 for each night at Joe's apartment. And that was just an early test of Joe and Brian.
Nine years later, Joe and Brian became billionaires while their company was worth over $ 25 billion.
"I got a mattress, and two other designers were sleeping on my cushion in the living room, but the best part was that Joe took the time to take us to San Francisco," Amol said."We are all designers and we are very compatible, it feels like we've known each other for so long."
The name of the site was later reduced to Airbnb.com and the startup group was added to Y-Combinator.
From night Amol sleeps flat so far Airbnb has attracted 80 million visitors. Currently the US $ 25.5 billion company has received funding from investment firms such as Sequoia Capital, Keith Rabois, Andreessen Horowitz, Ashton Kutcher, Founders Fund, and TPG Growth.
Life changes completely
Joe and Brian frequently invited Amol to meet the Silicon Valley tech community.
"Being the first guest of Airbnb has completely changed my life, and I have a place in the front row at events where American business people share the idea of becoming startups. It changes the way I live and travel, "Amol said.
"It also made me a part of the technology world, before I did not care about technology blogs."
Since then, Amol has used only rental properties through Airbnb. He used to live in bamboo houses, dormitories, castles or even rent a private island.
Amol thinks that the design skills of Airbnb's founders help them a lot in the start-up process.
"Both Joe and Brian are surprised to lead a technology startup, but thanks to their design-based skills, they know how to meet the needs of their users," said Amol. Share.
