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Thoughts on the Airbnb/Craiglist issue and how we will grow
There’s been a lot of discussion on the recent discovery that Airbnb, one of the fastest growing online accommodation rentals websites, has spammed Craiglist users to collect renters.
I have a lot of respect for Airbnb, both for their website and their approach to the accommodation problem, and I am sorry to see this has happened.
They were supposed to be the cool new guys in this industry, bringing ideas and much needed oxygen, not spammers.
I really welcomed them, and still do, even if they are competitors.
But why would such a cool website need to resort to spamming for growth?
Well, because it’s hard to convince the owners to add their property on yet another website and add one more round of update-prices-update-calendar-learn-system-get-maybe-requests-follow-the-internal-rules-maybe-get-reservation and…pay for it.
I have met too many owners around the world not to be aware of the fact that they spend way too much energy and time updating calendars. Read the rest of this entry »
How Adormo was funded by its future customers
When I started this business ten years ago I had just 2500 euro (in Liras) left in my pocket.
I had left my job and spent one year traveling in Australia and Asia, so I was close to broke.
I was supposed to go back to work.
But I desperately wanted to keep travelling and I had an idea: online apartments reservations.
So i drove from Venice to Prague’s railway station, where I made a few agreements with apartments owners, built a site in geocities (!) and I got my first reservation a few days later.
It was a glorious moment: money online. Wow.
So I started this, and the litte profit I made (after living and travelling expenses) was always reinvested.
I never asked money anyone.
No funders, Angels, VCs. Just me.
But when, a couple of years ago, I had the new idea for Adormo I knew I was going to need some capital.
It was a big project, too big for me alone. Read the rest of this entry »