During our time at Y Combinator, we pivoted to focus on eliminating the risk of vacancy for landlords, offering them a compelling solution.

In the early days of Clever, we would send out 10 to 50 cold emails to prospects, ensuring they were short, personalized, and actionable to increase the chances of getting a response.

We secured our first customer by doing door-to-door outreach, waiting for the food truck owner to show up.

Hiring a business development person early on was crucial, as they helped us establish important relationships with banks.

In the early days, I used email to experiment with pricing by sending different offers to customers, which helped us find the best price for our market.

To attract customers, we initially set up a website but received no bookings. We then resorted to giving away free water bottles at a fair to engage potential customers and successfully booked cleanings.

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

Landlords often negotiate, and we provide them with a fair understanding of our pricing strategy and the rationale behind it, which fosters open communication.

In the early days, we struggled to raise money, which taught us to focus on solving real problems and to build an efficient, profitable business from day one.