AirBed&Breakfast (now called Airbnb)’s early pitch deck shows the problem in one concise slide, titled Problem. It lists Price as its first problem, which is a concern that customers face when booking travel online. Its next problem is Hotels, saying that they leave travelers disconnected from the city and its culture. Its third problem is that No easy way exists to book a room with a local or become a host. To follow up on the Problem slide, the deck presents one Solution slide, saying that the solution is a web platform where users can rent their space to host travelers. This solution saves money when people travel, makes money when people host, and shares culture and local connection to the city.
The way they prove evidence that the problem is real is done also in a single slide, called Market Validation. It shows that on a website called courchsurfing.com there are 660,000 total users, and that on craigslist.com there are 50,000 temporary housing listings per week in the US. They size the market in a single slide called Market Size, showing the TAM (trips booked worldwide), the SAM (the budget & online trips), and SOM (trips with air b&b).
An investor might want to know more about what the existing competitors are and how they are truly differentiated. One slide lists a quote from press saying “Think of it as Craigslist meets Hotels.com, but a lot less creepy.” An investor would likely want to know what about the other two options is creepy, and how Airbnb would be able to avoid becoming creepy themselves, especially as renting living spaces can provide privacy concerns. For my pitch next week I would want to recreate how concise the slides are, with most topics covered in a single slide each.
