After Bob Metcalfe talked at Capital Factory 2011, Brian Sharples of HomeWay gave the next talk and did an amazing job. Brian is the consumate serial entrepreneur that took time off to see the world after selling his company. His family preferred to stay in homes instead of hotels so he spent a good bit of time looking through different vacation rental sites, especially area and country-specific ones. It didn’t take long for his next big idea: roll up the leading vacation rental sites.
Here are some notes from Brian’s talk at Capital Factory:
- HomeAway timeline:
Started it in 2005
IPO in early 2011 - Three core areas:
The idea
The funding
Making it work (execution) - Big idea:
Consolidate worldwide market of vacation rental homes
Why isn’t there an Expedia for vacation rentals - Execution:
Team, tools, plan, capital
Manage risk
Intense curiosity
Understand competition - Market research:
Spent five months talking to people before starting - Previous attempts by others:
Expedia bought vacation rental co in 1999 and changed from subscription to percent of transaction and it died in a year
Owners and renters wanted to talk to each other so percentage wouldn’t work since they’d go around the system - Insights:
Most important thing in marketplace business is scale
Think ahead
Like game theory
Bought VacationRentals.com for $35M so that a competitor wouldn’t get it - Capitalization:
Acquired five companies on day the business started including one in Europe
Raised $405 million before going public including the largest venture round ($250 million) in nine years
Brian did a great job and his ability to execute is evidenced by the $3.2 billion market cap of HomeAway (source: Google Finance). If you have a chance to hear Brian Sharples speak I’d highly recommend it.
David Cummings on Startups 
Leave a reply to CubeVibe (@cubevibe) Cancel reply