Airbnb has paved the way for a whole new ecosystem of startups looking to ride the coattails of its success straight to tickle-town.
Yesterday, Guesty — a startup that provides a suite of tools aimed at property managers that list on Airbnb (and others) — announced it has raised $35m to continue to help fund the company’s rapid growth.
Airbnb formally recognized in July that its consumers and suppliers have become more orderly in how they operate rentals. Problem is, the homeshare giant hasn’t done anything about it — which led others to take matters into their own hands.
Companies like Guesthop (a concierge service for products on Airbnb and other homeshare services), FlyCleaners (an on-demand cleaning service), and pricing analytics companies like Smart Host have all grown out of Airbnb’s neglect — and there are dozens more.
Similar to the way Salesforce’s success led to a partner community of consultants, and how the App Store bred the billion-dollar app economy, Airbnb’s business, albeit as a spectator, has opened the front door for startups to make hosting easier and more lucrative.
According to Skift, most of these companies have little to no connection to Airbnb, but still the real estate beast seems supportive. And why not? Pioneering an entire economy is literally every Steve Jobs wannabe’s dream.
And hey, if any of them get too big for their lot, Airbnb will just blob them up like the good pseudo real estate developer that it is — no sleep lost.