Long before Airbnb persuaded strangers to sleep in one another's homes and became a $31 billion company, it was just an idea to earn a bit of extra money to make rent.

After their first guests, Airbnb's founders realized they were on to something bigger than a stopgap for rent. They faced rejection plenty of times — and created their own version of Obama O's cereal — but the three founders of Airbnb have built a big business in the past nine years.

Here's how they turned their idea to rent out an air mattress into a business that has the hotel industry running scared.

This podcast is brought to you by:

Digital Ocean is a cloud provider that makes it easy for entrepreneurs and startups to deploy and scale web applications with no issues and unplanned costs. Get started for free at do.co/rocketship.

Teamistry is a new podcast brought to you by Atlassian. Teamistry is the chemistry of unsung teams that achieve the impossible. Season two begins on September 21st. Subscribe today.

Rocketship is brought to you by The Podglomerate.

***

This show is a part of the Podglomerate network, a company that produces, distributes, and monetizes podcasts. We encourage you to visit the website and sign up for our newsletter for more information about our shows, launches, and events. For more information on how The Podglomerate treats data, please see our Privacy Policy. 

Since you're listening to Rocketship, we'd like to suggest you also try other Podglomerate shows surrounding entrepreneurship, business, and careers like Creative Elements and Freelance to Founder.