A version of this post titled “Airbnb’s pre-IPO strategy” originally appeared in the Startup Sunday edition of Data Sheet, Coins2Day ’s daily tech newsletter.
Thursday was among Airbnb’s biggest days ever. After years of work, the home-sharing company said it would expand beyond its roots in lodging to also let travelers book activities, cars, and restaurant reservations. In short: it became a tourism company.
Airbnb is also an eight-year-old startup valued at $30 billion that will likely file to go public sometime soon. And considering the regulatory troubles it has worldwide over issues like collecting hotel taxes, new revenue streams are sure to make investors more comfortable with its business model.
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And Airbnb isn’t the only contemporary so-called “unicorn”—a startup valued at more than $1 billion—to diversify as it inches toward a potential IPO. This week, word got out that Snap, the newly-formed parent company of teen sensation Snapchat, has confidentially filed to go public next year. The company rebranded to Snap last month when it unveiled—you guessed it—a second product: a pair of video-recording sunglasses.
Like most other social media companies, Snapchat, the app, makes its money from advertising. But it’s unsurprising that the company is thinking beyond the smartphone app to expand its business, especially at a time when Twitter continues to struggle with adding new users and even recently considered a sale.
For more on Snapchat’s IPO, watch this Coins2Day video:
Other unicorns with new-fangled business models are taking similar approaches. Ride-hailing company Uber has expanded into deliveries. Meanwhile, office co-working company WeWork has branched out from renting office space to startups by the month and is now signing up big companies as long-term tenants while signing less risky real estate deals, such as sharing its revenue with landlords instead of paying rent. And the list goes on.
Whether diversification persuades public market investors that these businesses are stable remains to be seen. But one thing is certain: 2017 will be a year to watch. It may be the beginning of a cascade of consumer unicorns going public.
