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How did they meet up with Nathan? How did they convince him to join them?
Ways you could have arrived at the idea for Airbnb
- Looking for industries that are ripe for disruption.
- Look for any industry that was born and largely developed before the Internet. Even if the industry is currently using modern tech in some way, modern tech may have undermined some foundational assumptions that the existing industry is based on, such that a better solution is possible. For example, the hotel / motel industry is based on the foundational assumption that people seeking accomodation
- Look for industries that require equipment that people outside of that industry also have and aren't always using.
- The hotel / motel industry requires rooms.
- The taxi industry requires cars.
- Looking for existing tech companies whose market may have grown beyond their ability to control all of it.
- Look for any equipment / product that sits unused for significant periods of time.
- The thing is, your car and your housing are the two major expenses for most people. When I was going through my mom's expenditures I saw that those two things dwarfed all of her other expenses.
- Look at what people are spending money on, group it by category. Each expenditure represents buying a solution to a problem. See if any of those problems could be solved more cheaply.
2008.08.11 - WSJ - The Business of Politics
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