The apartment that started Airbnb
In October of 2007, co-founder Joe Gebbia and I needed to make rent. We had been friends since college, and I had just become his new roommate in a beautiful, but expensive, apartment on Rausch Street, in the South of Market district of San Francisco. That first weekend, an international design conference was coming to San Francisco, and we decided to create a temporary bed & breakfast to host conference attendees. We pulled out some airbeds from our closet, and alas, came up with the concept Airbed & Breakfast. We hosted 3 people, and made close to $1,000 that week.
Pretty soon, people around the world wanted to create their own Airbed & Breakfasts'. Since we were both designers, we needed an engineer to build a new site. Joe's former roommate on Rausch St, Nathan Blecharczyk, joined the team, and Airbed & Breakfast was born.
We didn't know much about starting a company. Luckily, our other roommate, Phil Reyneri, was working for a successful startup in San Francisco, Justin.tv. Phil introduced us to the founders, and they took us under their wings. They taught us the in's and out's of Silicon Valley. Airbed & Breakfast eventually became Airbnb, a marketplace where you can book anything from a couch to a castle by the night. Had it not been for our apartment, I would not have become Joe's roommate, we would not have started Airbnb, we would not have known Nate, and, without Phil, would have had no connection to Silicon Valley.
- Brian Chesky, co-founder of Airbnb
