ABC 4: From Zero to Billions - Airbnb’s Winning Empathy and Hustle Strategy
How Airbnb's Founders leaned into empathy to create one of the biggest unicorns ever
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Curious about the one habit that fuels extraordinary success?
There's a not-so-well-kept secret.
Empathy.
Simple in theory, but it takes a LOT of hard work.
I studied about the journey of Airbnb’s founders, Brian Chesky, Joe Gebbia, and Nathan Blecharczyk, and how they leveraged empathy and customer centricity at the intersection of relentless hustle to build better customer experiences that made them billionaires.
Advice of the Week
How Airbnb Poached Users From Craigslist By Solving for Trust
I always say the best product leaders have a “do whatever it takes” attitude to move the product forward in service of their customers.
And that’s exactly what Brian, and Joe did in the early days of Airbnb when they couldn't pay rent.
You see, they were not your traditional Silicon Valley founder pair—they both came from design backgrounds. Usually, the common makeup of a tech startup is a product/design-focused founder and a technology-focused founder. They brought in Nathan later for that focus, but they bootstrapped originally purely with their design, empathy, and hustle skills.
And ultimately - they won.
One significant part of their story that I believe serves as a great testament to empathy being a business and career builder was how they implemented a growth hack to acquire users at low cost from Craigslist, where the majority of short-term rental transactions were being done at the time.
Do you remember Craigslist? Does anybody still use it?
I remember back when I did my first Craigslist deal to sell a used phone as a teenager... I was scared. I heard about people getting robbed, but I really wanted to get some money for my used phone. I took the plunge and met a person in front of a police station.
It worked out, but I was sweating bullets the whole time.
I'm sure many can relate to doing deals on Craigslist—there’s a significant lack of trust because you’re dealing with faceless profiles that have no credibility or reviews.
Building a great product is just one half of the equation—you need great distribution as well.
And that’s what they lacked in the early days—users didn’t know about them, and they needed users to push the product forward. It costs a lot to acquire users, and they used their strength in empathy to retain most of the users they acquired.
How? Let’s dive in.
Rentals in America in the markets they were going after were all dominated by Craigslist. That’s where the supply and demand was.
They differentiated their experience by poaching customers from Craigslist and solving for the trust issue with an innovative growth hack bot that auto emailed their target users. They centered on value based messaging to the customer by promising higher returns for their rentals, and when users got there, they found they could trust the platform more.
The Airbnb Founders acquired their target users and retained them easily by providing features such as better descriptions, more photos, and more, that fostered trust.
The combination of empathy and relentless hustle turned Airbnb's founders into billionaires.
To me, their story underscores the importance of empathy in designing and building great products that people love.
What do they fear?
What do they avoid?
... and how can we solve for those things?
Those are the questions any product leader should be asking.
Breakthrough Recommendation: Read the Full Airbnb Growth Hacking Story
Why it’s awesome:
I love this story because it gives a detailed look at how Airbnb’s founders used empathy and customer-centric strategies to grow their platform from a struggling startup to a billion-dollar company.
I believe the story also has lessons to apply to life - not just business.
Empathy is applicable to any part of life. I cover more about this in one of my previous newsletters - check it out.
Read the full story here (it’s great!): Airbnb: The Growth Story You Didn’t Know (covered by GrowthHackers.com)
My Favorite Quote:
"In the summer of 2009, as the company was searching for new office space, Chesky stayed exclusively in Airbnb listings in order to gather firsthand data about the service."
I love that relentless hustle to keep the customer empathy at the center by being a customer yourself of your own product.
Kudos to Brian - super inspiring.
Actionable Takeaways
Be Relentless with Empathy: Constantly seek to understand your users' needs and experiences deeply. Don’t just collect feedback—immerse yourself in their world to gain genuine insights.
Obsess Over What Value Means to Them: Go beyond surface-level features and benefits. Understand what your users truly value and why it matters to them. Tailor your product and messaging to align with these core values.
Figure Out Their Fears and Delight Them Instead: Identify what users are anxious about or what pain points they face with your product or similar products. Design solutions that not only alleviate these fears but turn those aspects into delightful experiences.
Challenge: Show Empathy in a Product Discussion
This week, identify a discussion or meeting where you can practice empathy. Really think about the core fears and what your users or stakeholders are avoiding.
For example, do you build platform products where your persona is a developer?
Okay, what DON’T those developers want to do?
What annoys them?
Think about how they feel when they have to do those things. Ask your team what potential solutions could transform those experiences into delightful ones.
Another example, do you have a big meeting with an executive soon?
What don't they want? Another boring meeting, with haphazard preparation, and no clear ask. Executives are in pitch meetings every 30 minutes. Make it easy for them to say yes by presenting them options for a decision and well thought out pros and cons. It'll go a long way.
What I did this week
I was set to give a tech talk on APIs to a few hundred people, and I knew I had the chance to rally the troops towards a common mission. I laid out a story that everyone could relate to about bridges—people take bridges for granted, but if a bridge went down or was shut down, it would be anywhere from straight-up dangerous to very annoying and frustrating.
I explained that APIs are software bridges.
API users expect these software bridges to “just work,” and that galvanized the audience to think more about how mission-critical our APIs are.
The conversation was filled with great questions about how we could make that better, now that the empathy was there. And now, instead of it just being me thinking about how we could make a better API experience, there were hundreds of people thinking about it.
Innovation is just around the corner.
Thanks for reading!
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