“It will not bring you a profit, you are just crazy.” That’s what everybody said about the idea of creating a marketplace where homeowners could rent an apartment or room to travelers.
Today you will hardly find anyone who hasn’t heard of Airbnb. This is a popular hospitality service, which provides its service in more than 220 countries and regions, with over 5M hosts and more than 2B guest arrivals worldwide. Even so, plenty of newcomers still type “what is Airbnb” into a search bar before their first trip. However, it was just an ordinary startup eighteen years ago, and multiple investors called it, to put it mildly, not the most prospective one.
PaySpace Magazine allows you to remember how a crazy idea of two designers turned into the Airbnb Success Story: a company with roughly $2.5B operating income that brought its founder the net worth of $9,2B (2026).
2008
Back in 2008, when the company started out, the creators of Airbnb, Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia, hit hard times and barely had enough to eat. One day they decided to scrape together some money, so they let strangers sleep on inflatable mattresses in their flat. That was what gave them the idea for a new business. People would have to pay homeowners around the world for the night, and prices would have to be reasonable. That was the key idea. However, during their first steps, they faced a lot of denials and failure predictions from the biggest Silicon Valley investors.
Thus, they drew up the airbedandbreakfast.com site in a day. In six days, they had already hosted three total strangers, and each of them paid $80 per night.
Friends realized that they had a promising idea that could be fruitful. A couple of months later, another classmate, Nathan Blecharczyk, joined the firm as CTO. In August 2008, the Airbnb service was launched. In the early years of the company, Chesky was in charge of almost everything: design, product, legal and financial issues, communications, and operations. “It was the easiest way to achieve something,” he said in an interview with Fast Company.
But in 2008, shall we say it didn’t work out too well. The site wasn’t popular during the first six months. The guys understood that they needed a wider audience, hence they needed investments for a “big boom”.
Nevertheless, the Rhode Island School of Design graduates were so passionate about their idea that they were ready to invest everything they had in it. When they realized that they, ironically, had nothing to invest in, the founders decided to sell flake boxes branded with the slogans “Obama O’s” and “Cap’n McCain’s”.
These special-edition cereals came in handy, taking into account the presidential campaign (2008), and the cereal packs were sold out for 40$ apiece. However, this was only about “Obama O’s”, since McCain’s cereals were not so popular – most of them were left in stock. Due to the cereal, they killed two birds with one stone, in particular: firstly, they paid off their debts, secondly, they drew the attention of Paul Graham. That was enough for a startup to get into his business incubator “Y Combinator”.
2009
In 2009, the company received the first $20,000 from Y Combinator. The business incubator founder Paul Graham advised young entrepreneurs to start with a small audience and come up with an optimum solution for it. Following Graham’s advice, Chesky and Gebbia spent their investments on a trip to New York, where they met with their first prospective clients and analyzed what elements should be further improved and elaborated. It worked out since the number of apartments and tenants increased. After a couple of months, the company attracted $600,000 of seed investment.
Since 2009, the company has grown rapidly. One of the key reasons for the success of Airbnb is that the company appeared right when the crisis erupted. People really needed money.
In late 2009, Airbnb attracted more investments ($7M) and reported to the fund that the number of transactions had already exceeded 700,000.
2010
In mid-2010, Chesky decided to do an experiment. He planned to live solely in Airbnb apartments for a couple of months. Brian moved into a new flat in San Francisco every week. Later, he said that this experience considerably helped him to improve the quality of service. Now he recommends all aspiring entrepreneurs to use the product/service they have created. That can help to solve different issues and improve service quality as a whole.
Then Chesky and Gebbia came to New York to double-check the weak points of their system. They visited clients’ houses and asked them about their rental experience.
This, in turn, helped them notice that most of the photos of the apartments were not of sufficiently high quality. That’s why they rented a reflex camera and came to Manhattan and Brooklyn addresses to take shots of those flats. Therefore, the quality of photos, descriptions, and the site improved significantly very quickly (apparently, with the involvement of professionals), and the number of offers and requests expanded considerably.
Nowadays, the issue of quality of shots on the Airbnb site receives much attention (sometimes even including the service of professional photographers). A guest doing a San Diego Airbnb photo discovery, scrolling through pictures of beach bungalows and downtown lofts before reading a single line of the description, shows why the founders’ rented camera paid off.
2011 to 2012
In 2011, the number of bookings on the Airbnb site reached 2M. In early 2012 that rate totaled 5M. Five months later, the number of bookings was no less than 10M. Since then, the company is considered to be an unquestioned leader in the market.
2014 to 2015
In 2014, the company introduced a new logo, the Bélo, and a fresh identity built around the idea of belonging. The same year, a funding round valued Airbnb at $10B. By mid-2015, the valuation had grown to $25B. A site that investors once doubted had become one of the most valuable startups in Silicon Valley.
2016
In 2016, Airbnb moved beyond rooms and apartments. The company launched Trips, which put local activities led by residents next to the usual accommodation listings. The aim was simple: to make a visit to a city about more than a place to sleep. By then, the platform listed over 2M homes.
2017 – 2018
In 2017, a new funding round brought the valuation to $31B. In 2018, Airbnb launched Plus, a collection of homes verified for quality and design. The idea went back to the early lesson about photos: guests trust what they can see, and hosts who invest in presentation get more booking requests.
2019
In 2019, the company bought HotelTonight, an app for last-minute deals on hotels. It was the first sign that the home-sharing service was ready to work with traditional lodging. The company was also preparing to go public.
2020
The year 2020 became the toughest test in the company’s history. When the pandemic stopped international travel, booking volumes fell sharply. In May, Airbnb cut about a quarter of its staff and focused on core business: homes and local travel. Yet in December 2020, the company went public on Nasdaq under the ticker ABNB. Shares priced at $68 and more than doubled on the first day of trading, which put the company’s value at roughly $100B.
2021 – 2022
During the recovery years, Airbnb adjusted to new travel habits. Remote work let people stay longer and book further from big cities, and in 2022 the company let its own employees work from anywhere. That year, Airbnb also made its ban on house parties permanent. In 2022, it reported its first full-year net profit: $1.9B.
2023
By 2023, annual revenue had reached $9.9B, and in September Airbnb joined the S&P 500 index. Regulation became a more visible topic: cities such as New York introduced strict rules for short-term rentals, and the company had to adapt its listings and tools for hosts accordingly.
2024
In 2024, revenue totaled $11.1B. The company banned indoor security cameras in listings and launched a Co-Host Network, which connects every Airbnb host who needs help with experienced local managers. Many hosts also rely on an Airbnb cleaning service between stays, so the demand for supporting services grew alongside the platform.
2025
In 2025, Airbnb returned to the idea it had started in 2016 and expanded beyond homes with relaunched Experiences and new Services, from private chefs to photographers and massage.
“People choose hotels for their services. People choose Airbnbs for the space,” said Brian Chesky, Airbnb co-founder and CEO. “Now, we’re giving you the best of both worlds—amazing homes with services that make them even more special.”
Revenue reached $12.2B, with $91.3B in gross booking value and 533M nights and experiences booked. India became one of the fastest-growing markets, with nights booked up 50% year over year. The company also began using an AI assistant in customer support. Guests who look for an Airbnb customer service number are now more likely to meet this assistant first, and in 2026 it resolves about 40% of support issues without a human agent.
2026
In 2026, the company set an all-time quarterly record of 156.2M nights and experiences booked in the first quarter. In May, Airbnb added boutique hotels in 20 cities, car rentals, luggage storage, and exclusive experiences around the FIFA World Cup 2026. The Airbnb app got a new homepage that shows stays, experiences, and services in one place, and conversational search lets travelers describe the trip they want instead of filling in filters. Someone typing “Airbnb near me” on a Friday afternoon can now find a cabin, a chef, and a rental car in a single session. Localized versions of the service, such as Airbnb UK, follow the same model.
The company still faces some issues and problems, but Brian tries to solve them right away. Who knows, maybe that’s the reason why the company is still №1 in the industry, and provides a handsome profit, more specifically, the revenue is roughly $12.2B.
