Airbnb finalizes deal to buy social payments startups Tilt
techcrunch.com
techcrunch.com
I wonder if they will integrate it directly with AirBNB or keep it as a standalone.
1. Person A takes the initiative and books an Airbnb
2. Airbnb gives him a link to a landing page.
3. On this page, his friends can 'opt-in' to the vacation. When they opt-in, the cost gets split. Say, if the rent/night is $200 and 3 people opt-in, the cost would be $50 each (including person A).
4. Each person who opts in gets charged for his share.
5. Airbnb can also promote other services on this custom landing page such as guided tours. Person A doesn't have to worry about getting the 'yes' from his friends; if you've opted in, you're coming.
Even if you burn though millions without figuring out a market, you will land on your feet (if you are on the executive team). Your employees? Not so much.
My words may sound negative, but my point is: most people who are working at startups should seriously consider starting one instead.
N=1, but a friend has done this twice as a product manager with joining late stage startups, getting a decent amount of equity/stock and then the company has IPO'd.
I agree with your point though, the risk/reward for most early employees who are not part of the founding team is not worth it. You'll work just as hard as the founders with a fraction of a fraction of the payout compared to the founders
Bummer for the remote employees. :(
Luckily we had a stellar remote team, and most of our growth was coming from our international markets. Anyone would be lucky to have one of them if they are still available.
I have an answer to this question: illegal drugs. I don't have a second answer to this question. This makes me think that you'd have difficulty finding 1,000 of legal packages to run through a proof of concept, to say nothing of scaling to the millions you need to have a viable logistics business.
When Uber first came out i thought it won't work because of all the kidnappings and robberies that would happen. I wonder if you have the same skepticism about travellers becoming carriers.
Edit: not disagreeing, it's a totally valid reason.
Huh? Where/in what culture is that? I don't think I know anyone who does ship items with friends with any kind of frequency. I think I've shipped an item with a friend once in my life (a figurine that I could only find on sale in the US), and there are proxy buyer services that cover that use case in a much easier (and safer for them) way.
Maybe that doesn't count as "shipping an item with a friend" but it's quite similar.
And while it's a fair example, I think Canada, where most of the population lives very close to the US border, probably doesn't generalise to the rest of the world.
Luggage by contrast is expensive. The marginal cost of a checked bag is far more than just posting the thing to the destination.
So the only value might be in ""disrupting"" local customs enforcement. Brazil has a 50% import duty on electronics, for example. So you might be able to do something there - although the customs people are already alert to this possibility.
Our "IRS" shut down the company, even with they claiming every traveler would declare and pay proper taxes.
"Did you pack this bag yourself sir"
"Oh yes"
"And all the contents is yours"
"Well, no. I mean, there's a package in there that I'm taking with me that's somebody elses"
"But you wrapped the package yourself?"
"Well, no"
"So you didn't pack the bag yourself?"
"Yes I did, there's just one brown paper wrapped item I'm couriering for a friend"
"So your bag contains a package that it not yours, and that you've not seen inside which was given to you by someone else?"
"Yes. But it's fine. I got it via an App..."
Some comments point out that it would make group payments for Airbnb bookings a lot easier which seems fine. But is that problem worth spending $12 mil in cash + tens of millions in employee retention packages?
https://twitter.com/paulg/status/712020590840778752
I wonder what happened.