LinkedIn

But digital distribution channels did not simply change how hotels were sold. They changed what hotels are. Airbnb unlocked millions of rooms in new inventory by lowering the cost of finding, booking, and trusting them. Others used Airbnb as a channel to offer a more standardized lodging product, with a business model that flipped the real estate o... See more

The Airbnb backstory is also a great reminder of how an edge in UX can be *the* thing that catapults a startup from challenger company to world-changing business

Hospitality is dispersing — from a few destinations to many, from hotel towers to individual rooms — and value is shifting from from asset-heavy hotel companies to the network-based Airbnb. As knowledge workers come back to the office after a year of working from home, they won’t want to give up their newfound flexibility. The rise of gig workers, ... See more

Vertical Search Aggregators

Google is a great example of how the internet enabled scale and speed: every page on the web returned in an instant. But increasingly, we’re seeing this scale is at odds with a fundamental human need: relevance. Someone who wants to find the best freelance designer, or the best sushi restaurant, or the best NFT to buy wi... See more