We tried to book an Airbnb and were denied while our white friend was instantly approved. Here’s what we did next!
8 months ago we were trying to book an Airbnb and were told the property wasn’t available. One of our white friends requested the same dates and was approved right away.
That wasn’t nice.
So we built a company in response. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Here’s a behind-the-scenes look at what it took us to launch and grow a tech startup in the travel space.
Note, we wrote more on the backstory here:
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So we decided to do something about the issue of bias and prejudice that was making it difficult for people from minority communities to become full participants in the sharing economy!
Harvard came out with an Airbnb study and confirmed everything folks from minority communities already knew:
Discrimination on the platform was real and systemic!
We put out our 1st video announcing a way to improve our experiences as we travel and connect with communities all around the world.
We started to hustle and got a TON of media!
And social media supported us like crazy.
This was an issue that resonated with many people because people of color were actively living this reality. It was a long running joke on Twitter that minorities needed fake profiles to book on Airbnb. And many actually use them.
We started hiring! Most of our hires were from the the same communities affected by this issue. We now have a super talented team, many of whom until now have not had an opportunity to work for a tech startup.
That’s a discussion for another day.
We are completely self-funded, so we moved in together to pool resources and save money!
Yep, 10 people in one house, waking up every day to make this dream happen!
Needing money, we entered startup competitions to help raise funds.
And we won some.
We kept raising money creatively.
We sold stays on the platform and vacation packages to dope locations in order to raise funds.
With a bit of cash in hand, we started traveling around the world to make things happen!
We went to Amsterdam
And Mexico
And paris, and Cuba, and on and on. Goal? Build relationships and get properties!
We grew from 800 properties to over 200,000 in 7 months (Still adding them to the platform as we speak).
Results of this crazy hustle? We’re now at 70,000 signups, 200,000 properties and coming up on a crazy launch in a few days.
We still have a long way to go, but we wouldn’t be here if not for Facebook Travel Groups, Medium (where our original post went viral), and each and every one of you that shared out story and supported us from day one.
The goal is to build a platform that celebrates people from ALL backgrounds.
A truly Innclusive platform, if you will! :-)
Thank you all.
Sincerely.
Rohan and Zakiyyah and the Innclusive team.
