Copywriters Podcast

On the podcast Masters of Scale, LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman interviewed Brian Chesky, CEO of Airbnb. Chesky tells of advice he got 10 years ago, when the company barely had any customers at all. He got the advice from one of the wisest men in Silicon Valley, Paul Graham of Y Combinator. The advice was simple, but powerful: “Get to know your customers by one.” Brian Chesky and his Airbnb co-founders followed the advice. He remembers, “I’d just spend time with them, and I’m like, What if I did this, what if I did this — and from those questions, a handcrafted experience is born.” He also said, “You literally start designing touchpoint by touchpoint, the creation of a peer review system, customer support, all those things came from us. We didn’t just meet our users, we lived with them. I used to joke that when you bought an iPhone, Steve Jobs didn’t come sit on your couch.” Well, good joke, but, Steve Jobs used to walk around the Apple Store on University Avenue in Palo Alto and ask people who were tr