How Uber and Airbnb Attracted Their First 1,000 Customers – Justin Osborne
New emerging businesses often times struggle to find their first set of customers, especially in a shared community and network such as ours (that launches platforms on the treadmill). Not many companies managed to attain the success that Airbnb and Uber did, as their accomplishments were out of the ordinary and definitely not expected to achieve success so fast.
The strategies that these companies used are simple yet very effective, fact that must always be considered when starting off a business. If your strategy sounds complicated but lacks efficiency, there is no point in engaging in that scheme.
The chief connection successful companies make is this one – they connect what customers need with undeniable offers, which brings them market power and visibility in a hot minute. In the end, this is what Uber and Airbnb both did. Now let’s see how they did it and learn from this example.
The chicken and egg problem: pondered upon and solved
For those of you who are unfamiliar with this type of problem, here’s the gist of it. Let’s take Uber for example. Their business model implies connecting clients needing rides with drivers offering such services. So, this next question arises:
How can a company attract demanders without suppliers and vice versa? If there are no drivers, there will be no service available for clients; and without clients, drivers cannot exist.
When Uber and other similar companies realized what was happening, their strategy improved. They realized that concentrating on the supply side of the market would make more sense.
In addition, they started promoting their services at concerts and big events throughout the world, making their services look appealing (for example, Airbnb hired professional photographs to take shots of the apartments that were about to be promoted on their website).
Following these processes, clients started to knock on the door, so these businesses gathered more and more informational data on the type of services that customers requested and were in high need of, this allowed them to supply the necessary demanding attributes, turning their model into a winning one, and thus, achieving those initial 1,000 customers.
Expanding the marketing strategy
Since the era of physical marketing promotion passed for both Uber and Airbnb after reaching the first 1k, they turned to digital marketing as a new, more convincing way to reach new clients.
Instead of using the traditional advertising packages such as TV commercials and printed copies, they switched to Google and Facebook Ads, as well as YouTube video promotion.
They gathered the necessary demographical information to create a strong database of customers that they could later target through various forms of advertising.
“More than that, these big companies understood the right time and place to promote their services after running pilot tests and experimenting with engagement rates, as should any startup company do,” writes uni assignment help coordinator, Dan Kelvin.
A start-up can easily create new ads within short periods of time – by doing this, it will learn what it the most effective way to attract new customers. Uber, for instance, used an online advertising model where they would constantly post on social media platforms such as Facebook or Instagram to identify the reasons why clients would, in fact, sign up for their services.
Did they not have a job? Were they part-time workers? Were they students? What was their location of interest? This relevant data was further used to identify the right Uber drivers and sign them up for this service later on.
Shifting from a supply focused design to demand
As advertising switched from offline to online, so did customers’ expectations. These latter clients were not accepting low-quality products or services and were striving for perfection within their purchasing demands. Thus, Uber and Airbnb met the expected needs by asking customers what they wanted. By acquiring this information, they were able to provide the promised high-quality services.
Most important to mention here is the idea that Airbnb (for example) constantly asked for their customers’ feedback to make sure they stay on top of the game. They wrote down their game plans ahead of time by using a professional paper writer and followed it in great detail. When new information entered their database, they made sure they applied it as soon as possible.
The main idea is simple: as long as you are able and willing to listen to your customers, they will nevertheless respond to your demands, offering feedback and helping you improve the service/product that you’ve created.
Some of the things Airbnb learned were that (1) cleanliness was important, which is why the company was quick to acquire their own laundry and cleaning program, (2) safety is important, which is why they created Airbnb Social Connections and linked it to Facebook Connect (to ensure that hosts are no longer anonymous and that customers can now easily trust their providers).
Last but not least, the founders created their own vision of the project and made all the efforts towards achieving those ideas. By using essay writing services to lay down their design, they managed to understand exactly what the customer needs and what the company can offer.
The perfect experience was not as complicated as they thought, so by making a few changes and putting customers’ feedback in practice, they managed to attain their targets.
Overcoming Success Syndrome
Raising the first 1,000 customers can be slow for many companies, especially if their business model is not adjusted to the market or they do not use the best essay writer online to write their plans up.
After they’ve reached 1k though, businesses should think of new ways to expand and interact with the customers. The old tactics will no longer work if they do not incentivize users to join – and this can only be done by implementing new strategies. However, as a new start-up/emerging company, you need to be ready for when that time comes;
If you abandon your ideas too quickly, you will not be able to implement your plan accordingly, yet at the same time, if you are afraid to abandon what worked in the past for new, expanding features, you might be left behind.
Thus, analyze both the short- and long-term goals and factors and finally, apply these effective theoretical concepts to your business model.
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