In 2007, a trio of brothers from Germany mastered a playbook that consisted of taking the most innovative start-ups developing in the Valley and copying and pasting these ideas into Germany/Europe.
That playbook worked wonders as, over the years, the trio managed to create many multi-million successes.
This is so much so that by 2011, they had applied the copy-paste playbook to travel by copying Airbnb.
The playbook was straightforward.
Through their venture capital arm, the trio of brothers found capital to quickly grow the team and build a competitor to Airbnb.
This playbook was supposed to end with the German founders' acquisition of the company they had founded in Europe at a great multiple, thus generating a massive exit for them!
In 2011, they figured this was what would happen as they created a company called Wimdu, which aggressively expanded to become the "European Airbnb."
That posed a threat to Airbnb's survival, as the company had only a presence in the US at that time. It was a turning moment in redefining Airbnb for a decade to come.
At that moment, Brian Chesky, with the company's help, had to decide whether to buy Wimdu from the German brothers or to blitzscale!
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