We eased into our new lives cautiously, subletting furnished apartments on Airbnb.com, Homeaway.com and Craigslist.
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He rents it out the rest of the year, using sites like HomeAway to book guests.
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Unlike HomeAway, people use Airbnb for all kinds of reasons having nothing to do with vacations.
With HomeAway, it wants the home owner and traveller to connect and talk outside of its website.
FORBES: HomeAway's Brian Sharples Talks Growth, Competition, Daily Deals
WIth the massive growth of daily deals websites, Sharples says HomeAway is experimenting in deals as well.
FORBES: HomeAway's Brian Sharples Talks Growth, Competition, Daily Deals
This year, IPOs like Pandora (NYSE:P), LinkedIn (NYSE:LNKD), HomeAway (Nasdaq:AWAY) and Zillow (Nasdaq:Z) got lots of buzz.
There are a number of markets HomeAway is not yet in, such as India, Russia, China and Japan.
FORBES: HomeAway's Brian Sharples Talks Growth, Competition, Daily Deals
In addition, if HomeAway can get transactions to occur on its site, it can also upsell other services.
FORBES: HomeAway's Brian Sharples Talks Growth, Competition, Daily Deals
HomeAway recently launched a new payment platform, Reservation Manager, that is in some ways similar to PayPal.
FORBES: HomeAway's Brian Sharples Talks Growth, Competition, Daily Deals
Fast-forward to more recently: The agency picked up new clients Walgreens and eHarmony and in the fall, HomeAway.
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There are also some big-time IPOs, such as from LinkedIn (NYSE:LNKD), Pandora (NYSE:P), HomeAway (Nasdaq:AWAY) and Zillow (Nasdaq:Z).
Paying through HomeAway makes it simpler for home owners and travelers, Sharples says.
FORBES: HomeAway's Brian Sharples Talks Growth, Competition, Daily Deals
High-fliers like LinkedIn, Pandora, Zillow and HomeAway had valuations that ranged from 5 to 15x projected revenue and defied gravity.
For example, your casual email conversation about a Homeaway.com rental will probably confuse Worldmate's processing engine, again forcing a manual entry.
Interestingly when HomeAway launches in a new market it often already has a large piece of inventory from renters in other countries.
FORBES: HomeAway's Brian Sharples Talks Growth, Competition, Daily Deals
In the past HomeAway has boosted growth by buying the leading vacation rental website in a market if it holds a strong position there.
FORBES: HomeAway's Brian Sharples Talks Growth, Competition, Daily Deals
As far as competition, big hotels are trying to fend off HomeAway by in some markets trying to get legislation passed to ban vacation rentals.
FORBES: HomeAway's Brian Sharples Talks Growth, Competition, Daily Deals
The company also brought in graphic recorder Sunni Brown to help sketch, in real time, what was discussed at a large company meeting on HomeAway's strategy.
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It aims to take on HomeAway (which has its own iPad app, launched in August 2011 ) and its portfolio of websites, including the popular VRBO.
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But Ventures does have a number of success stories under its belt, including investments in the recently IPO'd Silver Springs and vacation rental marketplace HomeAway, as well as Nest.
Homeaway, a publicly traded company based in Austin, TX, boasts more than 260, 000 vacation rentals on its website, available for one night stays, weeks and in some cases monthly sublets.
Despite all these issues, I think the most important one is that Zillow is a fairly small business, at least when compared to other recent IPOs like HomeAway (Nasdaq:AWAY), Pandora (NYSE:P) and LinkedIn (NYSE:LNKD).
Many online agencies list descriptions, photos and ratings of international holiday homes, such as AirBnb, Cluttons Resorts, FlipKey, HomeAway, Roomarama, Owners Direct, Vacation Rentals by Owner (VRBO) and West Coast Villas.
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