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Generally the ones that don't sound useful do better. Why Stripe? Why Airbnb? Why Twitter? There's less competition and winner takes all.

by muzani 2y ago

riffraff 2y ago
How do stripe and Airbnb not sound useful? "Need to get paid" and "find accomodation" are among the oldest business models on the internet.
- adastra22 2y ago
  There were plenty of ways to get paid on the internet before stripe. On paper it didn’t look like they were doing anything new. They just did it better. Airbnb… idk. Who wants to rent their house out to total strangers? I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t have thought it would take off like it did.
  - jjcob 2y ago
    Airbnb is mostly commercial listings that are basically unlicensed hotel rooms / appartments. I don't think people renting out their personal living spaces is a big part of their income. It's just a story they use to get around regulations.
    - KingMob 2y ago
      That's true now, but not when they first took off.
    - adastra22 2y ago
      None of that existed when they first started. The pitch was to rent out your house while you're out of town.
      - Lionga 2y ago
        But they only got big when the commercial "hotels" came on and saw they could "work around" laws like that.
        adastra22 2y ago
        That's the point--their utility wasn't obvious at first, until a new market showed up.
        immibis 2y ago
        Yes... later. They couldn't have predicted it when they started. It sounded like a stupid idea when they started.
  - aaronblohowiak 2y ago
    It was commercial version of couch surfing and/or web2.0 version of vrbo. I was highly skeptical of it taking off because it was “a copycat”! How wrong I was…
    - KingMob 2y ago
      Man, I used to use couchsurfing.org to get free places to crash in grad school.
- muzani 2y ago
  Paypal was dominant then. Stripe was PayPal with simpler onboarding. Airbnb is a favorite textbook example of VCs being wrong. They were rejected early on because people were thinking it's risky to rent out your house to strangers, and well, motels exist. But I think that's always been a blind spot with VCs - they just don't understand what it's like to be broke. Airbnb pivoted quite a bit from what made them big; they used to have top tier hosts and hospitality for much cheaper, now they're just alternative motels with no free breakfast.

Generally the ones that don't sound useful do better. Why Stripe? Why Airbnb? Why Twitter? There's less competition and winner takes all.

by muzani 2y ago

Generally the ones that don't sound useful do better. Why Stripe? Why Airbnb? Why Twitter? There's less competition and winner takes all.

riffraff 2y ago

How do stripe and Airbnb not sound useful? "Need to get paid" and "find accomodation" are among the oldest business models on the internet.

adastra22 2y ago
There were plenty of ways to get paid on the internet before stripe. On paper it didn’t look like they were doing anything new. They just did it better. Airbnb… idk. Who wants to rent their house out to total strangers? I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t have thought it would take off like it did.
- jjcob 2y ago
  Airbnb is mostly commercial listings that are basically unlicensed hotel rooms / appartments. I don't think people renting out their personal living spaces is a big part of their income. It's just a story they use to get around regulations.
  - KingMob 2y ago
    That's true now, but not when they first took off.
  - adastra22 2y ago
    None of that existed when they first started. The pitch was to rent out your house while you're out of town.
    - Lionga 2y ago
      But they only got big when the commercial "hotels" came on and saw they could "work around" laws like that.
      - adastra22 2y ago
        That's the point--their utility wasn't obvious at first, until a new market showed up.
      - immibis 2y ago
        Yes... later. They couldn't have predicted it when they started. It sounded like a stupid idea when they started.
- aaronblohowiak 2y ago
  It was commercial version of couch surfing and/or web2.0 version of vrbo. I was highly skeptical of it taking off because it was “a copycat”! How wrong I was…
  - KingMob 2y ago
    Man, I used to use couchsurfing.org to get free places to crash in grad school.
muzani 2y ago
Paypal was dominant then. Stripe was PayPal with simpler onboarding. Airbnb is a favorite textbook example of VCs being wrong. They were rejected early on because people were thinking it's risky to rent out your house to strangers, and well, motels exist. But I think that's always been a blind spot with VCs - they just don't understand what it's like to be broke. Airbnb pivoted quite a bit from what made them big; they used to have top tier hosts and hospitality for much cheaper, now they're just alternative motels with no free breakfast.