🛏️ Ever booked a place to stay on Airbnb?

The company has revolutionized travel, but it started from very humble beginnings! 🌎

Airbnb was founded in 2008 by Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia, two friends who couldn't afford their rent in San Francisco 🏠💸

To make some extra cash, they decided to rent out air mattresses in their living room to attendees of a nearby design conference 💡

Their first guests were three travelers who each paid $80 per night to sleep on the floor 😴

This gave Brian and Joe the idea to create a marketplace for people to rent out their extra space to travelers 🏡

They brought on a third co-founder, Nathan Blecharczyk, and officially launched Airbnb (then called AirBed & Breakfast) 🚀

To fund their startup, they sold breakfast cereals themed after the 2008 presidential candidates 🥣🗳️

They made $40,000 selling cereals, which was enough to tide them over for 6 months

The Airbnb founders faced many challenges in the early days, from convincing people to use the platform, being rejected by venture capital investors to dealing with harsh regulators 😓

But they persevered and grew the company through a combination of scrappy marketing, product innovation, and international expansion 🌍

Over time, Airbnb raised over $4.7 billion in total from investors, and after a successful IPO in 2020, Airbnb is now a $100 billion public company, with listings in more than 220 countries 🌴🏙️