From poor to billionaires: The rise of Airbnb founders who rented out air mattresses in their apartment for $80-a-night to make rent and now run a $30billion global travel business

What do you know about Airbnb?

Would you rent a room in your house/apartment to visitors to your city?

Today, Airbnb is worth $31billion and is in 34,000 cities around the world.

Ten years ago it was founded in San Francisco. The company is the brainchild of roommates Brian and Joe. They got the idea because they were unable to pay their rent.

To get money, they blew up air beds and rented them out in their apartment. Their first three guests -  a 30-year-old Indian man, a 35-year-old woman from Boston and a 45-year-old from Utah - each paid $80-a-night. 

Officially, that was the first money for the company. Then they called it Air Bed and Breakfast. 

But it was very hard for them to make money.

With their other roommate Nathan joining the team they were desperate to raise money to grow the business. 

But then the global financial crash and skepticism over their idea made it difficult. So they looked for investors. They were introduced to 20 different investors. Fifteen investors did not reply to their first emails asking for money. 

One investor got up half-way through their coffee meeting and walked away. 

To try to advertise their business and some much needed money they decided to provide breakfast to people visiting the Democratic National Convention for Obama in Denver.

They hoped it would attract Obama supporters in Denver to open up their homes to other Obama supporters who were visiting.  

To do this the entrepreneurs produced boxes of cereal which they sold at the Democratic National Convention in 2008 for $40 a box. They made $30,000 by selling 1000 boxes and used it as their beginning money

In 2009, they changed the company's name from Air Bed and Breakfast to Airbnb. And they convinced bigger investors to put money into their company.

First, they were given an additional $600,000 from other investors. It was then that they started doing payments between guests and hosts on the site.  

In 2010, they asked for more - $7.2 million. An unnamed investor agreed. 

In 2011, celebrity-turned-investor Ashton Kutcher made a big investment. He is now on the board. In the same year, they got a $110million investment which allowed them to hire more staff to care for the website. 

By June 2012, the website had processed more than 10 million bookings. 

The unstoppable growth had some big difficulties. In 2011, they got bad advertising from the travel community when a host wrote on her blog about how her home had been destroyed by guests. 

Until then, Airbnb gave no insurance. To combat the problem, they implemented an initial insurance policy which protected hosts for $500,000 of damage. Now, they are protected for up to $1 million.

Between 2016 and 2018, the company's private valuation has skyrocketed to $31billion. 

Try to guess the meaning of the words in bold and match them with their closest meaning from the choices in the right. Some of the answers are very close and have similar meaning. The meaning of these words is how they are used in the reading. Some of these words have different meanings in the dictionary depending on how they are used.

 The answers are below the table.

A=2, B=8, C=1, D=7, E=5, F=4, G=6, H=3

Some example sentences using the new words or phrases from the meaning of how they are used in the reading to help you understand better.

1. Korea University was founded in 1905.

2. Hyundai was the brainchild of Chung Ju-young.

3. Every November students in Korea are desperate to get a good score in the university entrance exam.

4. He said he was sorry for his bad actions, but his girlfriend was skeptical that his words were true.

5. Many famous entrepreneurs came from Silicon Valley U.S.A.

6. If you want to combat getting a cold in the winter you must stay warm.

7. Next year, new rules will be implemented about visas to visit our country.

8. The prices of oil has skyrocketed this year

Some questions using the new words/phrases. Try to use the words/phrases in your answer.

1. What kind of company would you like to found?

2. What product or idea do you wish you could have been your brainchild?

3. What makes some people desperate to succeed?

4. Are you the kind of person who is skeptical or do you believe people more?

5. Who is an entrepreneur you really like? Why?

6. What problems do you need to combat in your life?

7. What new laws or rules would you like to see implemented in your country?

8. What prices of things have skyrocketed in your country in the last ten years? Why?