THE GROWTH STORY UNVEILED - AIRBNB

Airbnb is a household name when it comes to the online accommodation rental community. It has successfully gained a strong foothold in the US and ASEAN region in which they currently operate in 191 countries. But behind the success of this company that started in 2008, is a story of how Black-hat techniques has helped build this startup to a $31 billion valuation in less than a decade. 

Back in the earlier days of Airbnb's, the company has faced numerous rejections as nobody would have believed that people would be willing to accept strangers staying in their house. There were so many pending questions to such a far-fetched idea that had too many cracks to fall in and fail. 

Hence, Airbnb made use of Craigslist; one of the black hat techniques which is a popular classified advertisement website with a massive user base. In order to capitalise on its existing market, Airbnb urged their users to list their properties on Craigslist portal as well. This led to Airbnb success in allowing their users to take a streamlined version of their elegant listing and cross-post it with a single click on Craigslist. 

Example of Airbnb's technique

Furthermore, a research done by Mr. Dave Gooden also illustrated how Airbnb were black hatting in order to acquire more users from Craigslist. To prove his theory, Gooden set up a trap by using Craigslist email to list rented properties and mass-mail only the Craigslist users. Within hours, he received replies from users whom "claimed to be interested", together with an Airbnb link attached to the mail (as seen from the screenshot below).  




With these tactics, Airbnb has successfully converted many Craigslist users to switch to their portal and generated a large pool of customers. 

Although black hat techniques are often shunned away by businesses, it is no doubt that it does help Airbnb to grow their listings quickly at almost zero cost. 

Do let me know what you think of Airbnb on the comment box down below~