Airbnb

Defining a new business line post-M&A and developing an innovation pipeline to sustain the business.

Design research/qual
Brand building
Innovation pipeline

  • Airbnb acquired Gaest, an online meetings and events marketspace, to jumpstart their next endeavor: moving into the events booking industry. Shortly after the acquisition, the company quickly realized that they needed a strategy that would extend beyond their initial pilot plans.
    Airbnb’s ambition was to disrupt the status quo of the event spaces category, but first needed to understand their own identity. 


  • Across 16 weeks, we used a classic design thinking methodology to move through immersion, discovery, and definition to graduate from what we don’t know/could be to what we do know/should be.

  • Through a series of facilitated workshops, we defined Airbnb Event Spaces north star by confirming white space opportunities, validating market sizing and share, and ultimately creating a manifesto, shared beliefs, and business definition. With a consensus on the “why”, we were able to pivot, define a targeted territory for growth, and build a 3-year Innovation Roadmap + Initiatives that set the stage for the next wave of sustainable growth and success.  

The images below illustrate some of the project deliverables. Certain details have been redacted or covered to protect client confidentiality.

We kicked off the project with an interactive work session that culminated into an Ideation Canvas, where we generated a preliminary set of future ideas using the newfound assets.

With the addition of internal stakeholder interviews, we summarized the outputs from an internal discovery exercise with brand positioning findings to arrive at a set of foundational insights describing the current state of the business.

A presentation slide with three sections and six circles. The first section is titled "The business we're building" with circles labeled "Compounding Anxiety" and "Our Biggest Blind Spot." The second section is titled "Our view of the market" with circles labeled "Selling Space, Buying Events," "If You Build It, Will They Come?" and "Mismatched Expectations." The third section is titled "How it comes to life" with circles labeled "A Sprinkle Of Aspiration" and "(Not) Solving For Convenience." The circles contain background images such as a blurred eye, yellow shoes on pavement, circuit board, a table with chairs, a cat, autumn leaves, and a person typing on a laptop.

38 ninety-minute interviews across four cities, coupled with captured key consumer feedback helped to create a consistent picture for the customer journey.

Infographic about conference details, including phone calls duration, language options, and city landmarks at the bottom.

Then, we turned our focus to a blend of qualitative and quantitative research to validate the competitive landscape…

A timeline of a project planning document with two speech bubbles highlighting planning challenges. One speech bubble says, 'Sometimes there is a lot of planning involved, which makes me a little anxious. Lots of things to do! -Coordinator.' The other says, 'I usually try to ask my assistant because I just don’t have the time to plan all the details. -Sponsor.'
A colorful table chart comparing 51 competitors across categories such as business size, geography, business type, space type, services and amenities, and other features.

…And completed a market sizing exercise to confirm the total addressable market for Airbnb Event Spaces.

Finally, we illuminated key consumer truths using research to pave the way for future whitespace opportunities.

Through the lens of the key stakeholders, we used the journey map to identify key friction points, emotions, and ultimately needs that, in combination with the inside out and outside-in insights, moved the team towards developing preliminary hypotheses on how to solve for the issues.

A table comparing US and European enterprise meetings by size, showing annual meetings, internal and external venue percentages, internal and external meetings percentages, total addressable meetings, spend per meeting, and total addressable market in dollars, with the total market highlighted at $45 billion.
A collage of images illustrating themes of social connection and interaction, including children playing outside, friends at a party, people watching a movie outdoors, individuals using mobile devices, and friends having dinner together.
A woman with short, curly black hair wearing a red top is pointing at a presentation slide displayed on a screen. The slide contains information about a sponsor named Jamie Hager, including personal details, bio, personality traits, motivations, and a motivational quote.

From Hypotheses to Strategy, our role was to help the Airbnb team align on priorities and create a collective vision for moving forward.

We built a set of hypotheses designed to fill the future innovation pipeline and challenge set conventions.

While aligned on broad direction and priorities, the project team still needed to agree on the soul of Airbnb Event Spaces…

So we created one, beginning with a business definition. And then, we created a manifesto that captured the essence of Airbnb Event Spaces, honoring the art of gathering.

From the manifesto, we built a vision, Simply Connected, and aligned the updated hypotheses, now initiatives, to the vision.

With an alignment on who they were, why they were, and what they were doing, we had permission to create a high-impact Innovation Roadmap that was relevant, had buy-in, and executable.

Each initiative was backed up with a full description, was supported with a business model canvas to outline the opportunity definition and considerations.

Collection of three sketches and notes for a business or project idea. The first is a template for idea development with sections for hidden assets, value proposition, features, and business considerations. The second is a hand-drawn map or floor plan with annotations about food and music. The third contains multiple sketches, diagrams, and notes about a content marketing campaign, including a mind map, flowcharts, and handwritten explanations.
A screenshot of a digital document titled "Visual Event Builder" with sections explaining features, concepts, and methods related to event planning and mood creation. The right side includes images of clothing and a style quiz.
Red background with white text titled "Airbnb Event Spaces Manifesto" outlining the importance of gathering and community, mentioning Airbnb's mission to connect inspired people through event spaces for various occasions.
A website homepage for a global community connecting inspired event planners, with sections on hosting, stories, partners, event hosts, and builder, featuring a background of people celebrating at a holiday event with Christmas decorations.
A timeline chart showing planned initiatives and their progression over time, including categories like 'Hero Initiatives' and 'Supporting Initiatives,' with various tasks marked by red and gray dots and arrows indicating flow from current to future phases.