New adventures in 2018

We started Iamb&b almost 4 years ago. A startup with ideals. We believed that the local citizens from Amsterdam had just as much a right to profit from the increasing popularity of the city as the international hotel chains did.

We also saw the waste when people let their apartments sit partly- or temporarily empty for vacation, work or when the kids leave the house. We wanted to change that and make better use of the wasted space.

At our start we immediately started the dialogue with the municipality. As a company we saw opportunities for our customers, their guests and the city, but we also wanted to arrange the rental in a fair maner so that taxes were paid properly and that the neighbors would not experience any nuisance. .

For example, we proposed the municipality to use a separate color of garbage bags, we gave all our customers’ neighbors our number, we organized events at our own expense where the municipality could explain the rules to potential b&b owners, we hired tax consultants to explain the tax rules to landlords and we proposed to collect and pay tourist tax on behalf of our customers.

We launched a website and literally the next day the first customers walked through the door. They were about to leave for two months to work on their thesis in Madagascar and they wanted to rent out their property on Airbnb to pay for it. Our idea for Iamb&b suddenly became a reality and after that our growth took a huge flight.

With adding Jorg to the team, we completed our founding team to three and our office and host team grew so quick, so we needed a larger office for the third time and after 1.5 years we also spread our wings to Paris. We set up our own development branch and built groundbreaking software for Iamb&b.

At this moment we have achieved almost all our ideals:

• We help more Amsterdammers to benefit from tourism every year,
• We limit nuisance for neighborhood and neighbors
• Our guests spend millions with local entrepreneurs.
• The scarce dwellings are being used better and more efficiently without removing the homes from their original zoning plans
• We help to spread the crowds.

Iamb&b stands like a rock and has become a healthy, growing, and socially responsible company to be proud of.

For me that also means that it is time for a new challenge. While building Iamb&b , I learned a lot, worked with the most inspiring colleagues and the nicest customers. We still see the opportunities we saw 4 years ago to change travel & tourism, but at the same time there is the grateful duty to run an existing company and to offer our customers the best possible service.

To separate those, I decided to leave Iamb&b and focus on the big opportunities I see in housing, traveling and tourism. I am extremely proud and grateful for the past 4 fantastic years and I leave Iamb&b with confidence in the hands of one of my best friends and co-founder Jorrit. This step is also good for our customers because they now have a better focused business. Jorrit and the team still have many ambitious plans, which I will of course continue to follow as a friend and as a client of Iamb&b.

It is difficult to express in words how grateful I am for all the clients who have entrusted us with their home, our thousands of guests who have lived up to our trust in them, my colleagues our partners, friends and family and how happy I am with everything we achieved and what I have learned in recent years. It was a fantastic trip. By selling my share I can fully focus on new projects.

What’s next?

Now that the champagne is gone, my vacation is done, and I got bored by my playstation it is time time to go back to work. My first goal is to become the best growth expert I can be and that is why in 2018 I will optimize for learning. I want to expand my growth hacking skillset.
To do so I’m freelancing for companies and help them to grow and I will write a book on growth with all my new insights. After that I will start working on my new big idea that will change travel for the better. Stay tuned!

P.s. A slightly different version of this article was written in Dutch right after selling Iamb&b on http://www.dirkminnebo.com/blog/2017/10/25/new-adventures

P.p.s don’t hesitate to contact me if you have any questions abouth growht hacking. I will gladly help you out