Crisis breeds innovation… and since the financial crisis, people and businesses have come up with some pretty creative solutions to make ends meet.
With strong, full-time employment a rare commodity these days, it’s no surprise people would take the simplest path for the greatest good.
We call it the “Uber Economy” or the “Sharing Economy” for a reason — if you have a car, take someone for a ride, and get paid to do it. If you have a spare room, rent it out!
This growing trend has been criticized as “entrenching us in part-time purgatory” … but if some people are content to settle for this kind of employment based on economic conditions or just where they’re at in their lives, who cares? Plenty of others use these platforms to subsidize income coming in from another job.
Who wouldn’t love an extra $300 to $400 a week?
But I think the real point is this — don’t underestimate the entrepreneurial spirit of humans, especially in desperate times.
Uber is available in 55 countries in more than 200 cities worldwide. But even they’re not the best example.
Airbnb — the faux “hotel chain” that allows folks like you and me to turn their spare room, garage, private island, treehouse, castle, or igloo into a bed and breakfast — recently celebrated the opening of their one millionth room… in over 190 countries… and 34,000 cities.
I think back to an op-ed in The New York Times an op-ed — one of my favorite mainstream authors — recounting how the business first started.
It started with two friends who, short for cash, turned their house into a bed and breakfast, even though they had no extra beds. They simply got some air mattresses and advertised the available place to sleep.
They started renting space to travelers when there was a big convention in San Francisco and hotels were sold out. They took in three guests, who slept on the air mattresses, then cooked them breakfast each morning and became their local guides. All for just $80 a night (per guest).
