David Siegel
Nov 4 · 1 min read

This is a great rundown of how AirBnB’s flow is rewarding and motivating … but I’m not sure I agree that the flow is equivalent to Netflix’s ability to provide content to address a user’s “boredom” problem. To a great extent, you’re describing the solution to a design problem: “How can I FIND what appears to be a great place to stay in this area I’m going to be traveling to, and feel good about where I’ve chosen?”

The key value prop that creates ongoing engagement is the next step: “And my stay in the place I chose turned out to be GREAT!” Maybe that’s obvious and it’s implied in your writing… but if it were just a great search & select experience but every place you chose was filthy and horrible, then the service would not be returned to. And actually to that end, I know a lot of older users who refuse to use AirBnB’s because of that exact reason — they can’t tell from a listing whether it really will be clean, whether any light bulbs will be burned out, whether the room will be as big as the photo made it seem or if it is creative photography, etc.

Again, maybe that’s all obvious; I don’t disagree with your very well-stated and analyzed teardown in terms of outlining what makes AirBnB a good order flow. But seems to me AirBnB doesn’t have an acquisition problem — if anything they SHOULD have a retention problem, since adequate standardization of quality across non-centrally-owned inventory is a huge challenge.

    David Siegel

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    Product Manager, dad, husband, musician/song-writer, and man-about-town. Currently Sr PM @ Business Wire. History in fintech, aviation/analytics tech, edtech…