AirBnB is a new US’ phenomenal startup. Already it has interests many people in internet industry including investors. AirBnB was founded by Brian Chesky, Joe Gebbia, and Nathan Blecharczyk, established in August 2008, also a graduated from YCombinator, the legendary incubator. AirBnB already gets funded more than US$ 100 million from Digital Sky Technologies (DST), YCombinator, Sequoia Capital, Greylock Partners and othe Vencture Capital huge names.
AirBnB’s ambitious plan is to create a global scale company and open branches in other countries, two main reasons why they need hundreds of millions of USD of fund from investors. The planning is currently on going by acquiring Accoleo which basically German based AirBnb’s clone and has now officially becomes AirBnb’s rep office in Europe.
Actually this type reminds me of Groupon’s kind that slowly generates money and Groupon clone trend around the world and create thousands of clones ready to join the competition as local competitors and, inevitably, ready to be acquired. Groupon also looks at it as opportunity to expand globally by acquiring the largest daily deals player in a country and turns it into its official part, like Disdus turned into Groupon Indonesia.
It doesn’t take long and already I heard some people are working on websites similar with AirBnB and targeting local market. AirBnB clone. It’s no surprise for me, I even find it interesting to see whether Groupon trend in Indonesia will also happen for AirBnB. The product concept is relatively simple, clear type of business, it is absolutely an easy target to try as Internet business.
Culture might become a problem, but since Groupon managed culture problem real well, will the same happen for AirBnB? Most certainly so. Most people will not mind to rent a room/house/apartment to people with good reputation who can pay for it.
AirBnB can be the next big thing in Indonesia, just like Groupon.
