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In Chinese culture, certain numbers — like 4 — are generally considered unlucky because of how they sound. I don't speak Mandarin or Cantonese, but as I understand it, 4 sounds similar to "death." And this is even more the case in Cantonese.
Four sounds exactly like death, fourteen sounds like "definitely die," and forty-four is the equivalent of "die, certainly die." (Please correct me if I'm wrong.) It is for this reason that in certain real estate markets, and in particular Cantonese-speaking markets like Hong Kong, 4-related numbers are often avoided whenever possible.
This can also be the case in other markets. Before we launched sales for One Delisle, the team made the decision to be mindful of this superstition and skip floors 4, 14, and 44. The result is that the homes on floor 4 became suite 501, 502, 503, and so on, and the building itself went from having 44 floors to 47 floors.
We did this so that nobody would be buying on the "die, certainly die" floor, and so from a marketing perspective, I think these strategies can make a lot of sense.
But what I would also say is that, from a development perspective, you should avoid this whenever possible. It adds coordination complexity. What we saw happening early on was that someone would say suite 501, and then you'd have someone else question whether they were talking about the suite on architectural/construction/legal level 5 or the suite on marketing level 5.
To solve this, we had to be extremely draconian about how levels and suite numbers were allowed to be communicated. Firstly, there's no such thing as a "legal" suite number. Suite numbers are purely a marketing thing — a number that goes on a front door. The legal description of a condominium suite involves a legal level and a legal unit.
So what we did was call a meeting and tell everyone the following: Any and all communication regarding suites needs to include the legal level, legal unit, and suite number, and failure to use all three numbers means you will be liable for any mistakes. We then updated the drawings to reflect this nomenclature.
Building buildings requires some assholes.
My first boss used to tell me that development is the closest thing to being in the military. Never having been in the military, I can't say whether this is accurate or not, but it should give you an indication of what it can feel like to build. Sometimes skipping floors is just what you need to do. But if you can avoid it, it's one less thing you need to be an ass about.
Cover photo by Christian Lue on Unsplash
There are a lot of headwinds facing Airbnb. Cities around the world seem to be systematically making it more difficult to be a host. New York City, as many of you know, recently made it so that you need to be physically present while the dwelling is being rented. That is pretty limiting. Similar things are happening in non-urban markets too. North of Toronto in Muskoka, there's a draft by-law that will, among other things, limit short-term rentals to 50% of the total number of days within certain time periods. That eliminates the possibility of doing this as a business. So in many ways, it's easy to be pessimistic about the future of Airbnb.
But at the same time, if you step back and look at the bigger picture, there are over 7 million active listings on Airbnb. This effectively makes it the largest hospitality brand in the world. There are more accommodations on Airbnb than with Marriott, Hilton, Intercontinental, Wyndham, and Hyatt combined. (The below chart is from Scott Galloway.) It's also important to point out that while Airbnb doesn't own any of its own supply, the same is true of most hotel brands. They are, brands. The difference is that Airbnb created a more scalable platform and a more decentralized approach to aggregating supply.
It won't surprise many of you that, according to this recent data from Pew, about half of Americans now get their news at least "sometimes" from social media. Meaning, half consume the news either "sometimes" or "often" through social media, and the other half do it "rarely" or "never".
What may be more interesting, though, is how much TikTok has jumped over the last three years. 43% of its users now "regularly" use it to get the news. This is roughly inline with Facebook and second only to X:
Also interesting:
Different networks seem to have clear gender biases. Facebook is women. Instagram is women. X is men. TikTok is women. Reddit is men. And Nextdoor is men. There also seems to be a racial bias that I wouldn't have necessarily expected.
If you market on social media, you may want to give some thought to these charts. For the full Pew fact sheet, click here.
In Chinese culture, certain numbers — like 4 — are generally considered unlucky because of how they sound. I don't speak Mandarin or Cantonese, but as I understand it, 4 sounds similar to "death." And this is even more the case in Cantonese.
Four sounds exactly like death, fourteen sounds like "definitely die," and forty-four is the equivalent of "die, certainly die." (Please correct me if I'm wrong.) It is for this reason that in certain real estate markets, and in particular Cantonese-speaking markets like Hong Kong, 4-related numbers are often avoided whenever possible.
This can also be the case in other markets. Before we launched sales for One Delisle, the team made the decision to be mindful of this superstition and skip floors 4, 14, and 44. The result is that the homes on floor 4 became suite 501, 502, 503, and so on, and the building itself went from having 44 floors to 47 floors.
We did this so that nobody would be buying on the "die, certainly die" floor, and so from a marketing perspective, I think these strategies can make a lot of sense.
But what I would also say is that, from a development perspective, you should avoid this whenever possible. It adds coordination complexity. What we saw happening early on was that someone would say suite 501, and then you'd have someone else question whether they were talking about the suite on architectural/construction/legal level 5 or the suite on marketing level 5.
To solve this, we had to be extremely draconian about how levels and suite numbers were allowed to be communicated. Firstly, there's no such thing as a "legal" suite number. Suite numbers are purely a marketing thing — a number that goes on a front door. The legal description of a condominium suite involves a legal level and a legal unit.
So what we did was call a meeting and tell everyone the following: Any and all communication regarding suites needs to include the legal level, legal unit, and suite number, and failure to use all three numbers means you will be liable for any mistakes. We then updated the drawings to reflect this nomenclature.
Building buildings requires some assholes.
My first boss used to tell me that development is the closest thing to being in the military. Never having been in the military, I can't say whether this is accurate or not, but it should give you an indication of what it can feel like to build. Sometimes skipping floors is just what you need to do. But if you can avoid it, it's one less thing you need to be an ass about.
Cover photo by Christian Lue on Unsplash
There are a lot of headwinds facing Airbnb. Cities around the world seem to be systematically making it more difficult to be a host. New York City, as many of you know, recently made it so that you need to be physically present while the dwelling is being rented. That is pretty limiting. Similar things are happening in non-urban markets too. North of Toronto in Muskoka, there's a draft by-law that will, among other things, limit short-term rentals to 50% of the total number of days within certain time periods. That eliminates the possibility of doing this as a business. So in many ways, it's easy to be pessimistic about the future of Airbnb.
But at the same time, if you step back and look at the bigger picture, there are over 7 million active listings on Airbnb. This effectively makes it the largest hospitality brand in the world. There are more accommodations on Airbnb than with Marriott, Hilton, Intercontinental, Wyndham, and Hyatt combined. (The below chart is from Scott Galloway.) It's also important to point out that while Airbnb doesn't own any of its own supply, the same is true of most hotel brands. They are, brands. The difference is that Airbnb created a more scalable platform and a more decentralized approach to aggregating supply.
It won't surprise many of you that, according to this recent data from Pew, about half of Americans now get their news at least "sometimes" from social media. Meaning, half consume the news either "sometimes" or "often" through social media, and the other half do it "rarely" or "never".
What may be more interesting, though, is how much TikTok has jumped over the last three years. 43% of its users now "regularly" use it to get the news. This is roughly inline with Facebook and second only to X:
Also interesting:
Different networks seem to have clear gender biases. Facebook is women. Instagram is women. X is men. TikTok is women. Reddit is men. And Nextdoor is men. There also seems to be a racial bias that I wouldn't have necessarily expected.
If you market on social media, you may want to give some thought to these charts. For the full Pew fact sheet, click here.
The numbers also don't suggest that things are slowing down for Airbnb. (Here's their Q3 2023 shareholder letter.) Active listings on the platform grew 19% YoY in Q3 2023 (or by almost 1 million listings). Revenue is up. Free cash flow is up. And in Q3 of last year, the company repurchased $500 million of stock, bringing their one year total to somewhere around $3 billion. So despite all of the efforts to curb short-term rentals within our cities, the company, at least for now, seems to be holding up just fine. And if they can successfully diversify beyond their core business, there could even be reason to be bullish on the world's largest hospitality brand.
Full disclosure: I am long $ABNB.
The numbers also don't suggest that things are slowing down for Airbnb. (Here's their Q3 2023 shareholder letter.) Active listings on the platform grew 19% YoY in Q3 2023 (or by almost 1 million listings). Revenue is up. Free cash flow is up. And in Q3 of last year, the company repurchased $500 million of stock, bringing their one year total to somewhere around $3 billion. So despite all of the efforts to curb short-term rentals within our cities, the company, at least for now, seems to be holding up just fine. And if they can successfully diversify beyond their core business, there could even be reason to be bullish on the world's largest hospitality brand.
Full disclosure: I am long $ABNB.
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