After struggling for a year to get the Airbnb marketplace going, we decided to apply to Y Combinator in the fall of 2008 as a last-ditch effort.

We faced challenges in raising funds, with many investors not responding or passing on Airbnb, claiming it didn't fit their investment thesis or that the travel market wasn't big enough, but we eventually secured a $1.5 million valuation for Airbnb.

After our initial launch, we didn't see immediate success and even explored creating a roommate matching website before pivoting back to Airbnb.

The first version of Airbnb lacked essential features like payment processing and a map view, highlighting that early products can be very basic yet still serve a purpose for a small user base. It operated only during conferences, where they would rent out rooms and shut down the service when the event ended, which was their minimum viable product (MVP).

Airbnb's first product lacked payments and a map view, demonstrating that successful startups often begin with very basic versions of their products.

During the early days, I had to prove my concept without a website, relying on initial sales and mock-ups to validate my business idea.

In the early days of Airbnb, we struggled to achieve product-market fit and faced significant challenges in getting people to adopt our service.

When Matt and I first pitched the initial version of Beme, it was a makeshift demo held together with duct tape and spit, designed to impress investors.

I flew to Chicago for a meeting, but none of the partners were there, just associates without check-writing power. I gave a terrible pitch and there was zero interest in investing. You need to have a game plan for meetings, and I was completely unprepared.