Entrepreneurship · Week 6 of 18 · NKUHT International Tourism Management
Reverse-engineering the Business Model Canvas through the company every student already knows: Airbnb.
Session overview
This session answers one question before students touch their own canvas: what is a business model, and what does a complete one actually look like? Instead of introducing the nine blocks in the abstract, the class reverse-engineers Airbnb block by block, then uses that model as a template before starting the team's own left-half draft. Teach it as a warm-up before the standard "left-half only" activity, or as an extended session if you want students to see the whole canvas before narrowing in on infrastructure.
The case study
In 2008, co-founder Brian Chesky moved to San Francisco and struggled to make rent. When a design conference sold out every hotel in the city, he messaged his roommate Joe Gebbia with an idea: turn their apartment into a "Designer's Bed and Breakfast" for the event, offering out-of-town designers a place to crash for four days — Wi-Fi, a small desk, a sleeping mat, and breakfast each morning. Half-joking, they built a simple website overnight. Three strangers paid to stay with them that weekend. It didn't feel like a business yet. Six months later, Airbnb was born.
Tap each block below. For each, give the class the general idea first, ask the guiding question, then reveal Airbnb's answer. Work right to left — customer, then value, then infrastructure, then finance.
Companies partner to gain scale, reduce risk, or acquire a resource they lack in-house.
Who did Airbnb need early on that it couldn't build itself?
Payment processors for secure transactions, and later, local photographers — added after testing showed professional photos roughly doubled booking rates.
Production, problem-solving, or platform-building are the three common types.
What does the company have to keep doing every day?
Growing and supporting the host community, and continuously building features based on what hosts and guests need — platform-type activity.
Physical, intellectual, human, or financial resources.
Airbnb owns no real estate — so what does it own?
Brand trust, the host and guest community itself, and investor backing.
Not the product itself — the reason the customer won't leave.
What does each side actually get?
Travelers: a home away from home, and a local way to experience a city. Hosts: extra income from space they already own.
Ranges from low-touch self-service to high-touch personal assistance.
How does Airbnb build trust between strangers?
Host communities sharing tips, and constant iteration from feedback — like adding neighborhood info because guests cared about local context.
Covers the whole journey, not just where you sell.
How do people find and decide to trust Airbnb?
Direct app and website bookings, plus word-of-mouth — good stays get shared, bringing in new users for free.
Mass, niche, segmented, or diversified markets.
Airbnb has two very different user groups — who?
A two-sided platform: travelers looking for a stay, and hosts with space to rent — each with its own value, channel, and revenue treatment.
Where the money goes, and whether the model competes on price or on value.
Where does most of Airbnb's money actually go?
Mostly marketing and technology, plus partner costs like the photography program — a value-driven model, spending to improve trust and experience.
Usage fees, subscriptions, rental fees, or licensing.
Airbnb owns no property — so how does it make money?
A service fee charged to both sides of every transaction, host and guest — what makes the two-sided model self-sustaining.
Hour 2 · Activity
Working right to left, sketch a rough answer for all nine blocks — one sentence per block is enough for a first draft.
Stuck? Hospitality & tourism prompts:
Before we go
1. Which block should generally be defined first?
2. Why does Airbnb charge a fee to both hosts and guests?
3. What's the most common mistake when filling in Key Partners?
Same story, later in the semester
Used as a mindset hook before students know any Canvas vocabulary. Chesky's specific pitch to Gebbia — Wi-Fi, a desk, a sleeping mat, breakfast, for one type of guest — previews what a value proposition looks like, and the scrappy weekend fix previews the idea of an MVP, both without naming the terms yet.
The same founders return to teach fixed vs. variable costs and value-based pricing: novelty election cereal that cost a few dollars to make, priced at $40, raised about $30,000 — and convinced Y Combinator's Paul Graham to fund them.
這份教案把「商業模式是什麼？用 Airbnb 看懂商業模式九宮格」這篇文章，轉換成 Week 6 全英語授課的教學活動：先講故事鉤子，再用互動式九宮格逐格拆解 Airbnb（每格先給一般分類、再給 Airbnb 的具體答案），最後讓各組畫出自己的完整初稿。
同一個 Airbnb 故事也延伸到 Week 1（价值主張與 MVP 的伏筆，刻意不點名術語）與 Week 12（用賣政治梗玉米片撐過資金困境、進 Y Combinator 的故事教固定/變動成本與價值導向定價，並選讀 Paul Graham《駭客與畫家》的「金錢≠財富」概念）。完整教案內容請見隨附的 Markdown 檔案。