CouchSurfing

src: sofascouch.com

Couchsurfing International Inc. operates Couchsurfing.com, a hospitality service and social networking service. The website provides a platform for members to arrange homestays, offer hospitality, meet other members, and join events. Like all hospitality services, Couchsurfing is an example of collaborative consumption and sharing. It is also a gift economy; lodging is always provided gratis.

The company raised $22.6 million in investment capital in two rounds of financing in 2011-2012.

Video CouchSurfing

How it works

See also How to use Couchsurfing, a how-to article from wikiHow

Profile

Members complete a profile page that includes information about themselves, their interests, the skills they can teach others, their favorite music, movies, and books, and photos of themselves and of the lodging they offer, if any.

Registration costs

Registration is free of charge; however, members can pay an annual fee of EUR19-55, referred to as "verification", which allows them to send unlimited requests for hosting. Otherwise, members can only send 10 requests for hosting per week. The fee is waived for 3 months after a member hosts a guest; members who host guests regularly will not have to pay the fee.

Meeting with, hosting, or staying at the home of other members

See also How to be a great Couchsurfer, a how-to article from wikiHow
See also How to host on Couchsurfing, a how-to article from wikiHow
See also How to write a Couchsurfing request, a how-to article from wikiHow

Members searching for lodging or a meeting can search for other members using several parameters such as location, age, gender, interests, availability to host, type of lodging offered (if any), and languages spoken, and then send messages to the members with whom they want to stay or meet. Members can also post their travel plans publicly and receive homestay or meeting offers from other members. Homestays are consensual between the host and guest, and the duration, nature, and terms of the stay are generally worked out in advance. Hosts are not allowed to charge guests for their stay. As a result, guest expectations are usually lower than paid hospitality services such as Airbnb.

Hosts and guests are encouraged to "share something" and to spend time with each other, to "make new friends and help each other discover new things about the world".

Members can start or join events. The largest events are called "Couch Crashes", in which members congregate in a city to explore what it has to offer, with the help of local members. Members can also use the "hangout" feature of mobile app to meet with nearby members.

Reference mechanism

Members are encouraged to leave comments ("references") on their experiences with other members on such members' profiles. Those comments can not be modified or deleted. Before hosting or staying with a member, members are encouraged to review such member's references, including negative references.

Maps CouchSurfing

History

Conception (1999-2004)

Couchsurfing was conceived by computer programmer Casey Fenton in 1999, when he was 25 years old. The idea arose after Fenton found a cheap flight from Boston to Iceland but did not have a place to stay. Fenton hacked into a university database and randomly e-mailed 1,500 students from the University of Iceland asking for accomodation. He received between 50 and 100 lodging offers and chose to stay at the home of an Icelandic rhythm and blues singer. On the return flight to Boston, he came up with the idea to create the website. He registered the couchsurfing.com domain name on 12 June 1999.

Couchsurfing International Inc. was formed on 2 April 2003 as a nonprofit organization in the state of New Hampshire.

The website was launched on June 12, 2004 with the cooperation of Dan Hoffer, Sebastien Le Tuan, and Leonardo Silveira. The company has encouraged the celebration of "International Couchsurfing Day" every year on its June 12 anniversary.

Development of the website by volunteers (2006-2011)

From 2006 until the company raised financing in 2011, development of the website occurred mostly at events called "Couchsurfing Collectives", in which members came together to voluntarily improve the website. Collectives took place in Montreal, Vienna, New Zealand, Rotterdam, Costa Rica, Samara, Alaska, Istanbul, and Thailand. However, the collectively-coded website, which was full of software bugs, could not handle the rapid increases in traffic and crashes were common. Many members believed that the website needed to be redesigned from scratch.

In June 2006, problems with the website database resulted in much of it being irrevocably lost. Founder Casey Fenton posted online asking for help. A Couchsurfing Collective was underway in Montreal at the time and those in attendance raised $8,000 in donations and committed to recreate the website.

Change to a for-profit corporation and financing (2011)

The company applied for status as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization in November 2007 but was rejected by the Internal Revenue Service in early 2011. Hoffler came to believe that non-profit status was an obstacle to innovation due to the audit and regulatory requirements and that a for-profit corporation was then the best structure for the company.

The New Hampshire entity Couchsurfing International Inc. was dissolved on 4 November 2011. Its assets were sold to a for-profit Delaware corporation, also called Couchsurfing International, Inc., which was formed on 3 May 2011.

At first, the company was a certified B Corporation; however, it is no longer listed as such.

In August 2011, in conjunction with the reorganization to a for-profit corporation, the company raised $7.6 million in a first-round financing led by Benchmark Capital and Omidyar Network.

In August 2012, Couchsurfing received an additional $15 million in funding from an investor group led by General Catalyst Partners, with participation by Menlo Ventures, as well as existing investors Benchmark Capital and Omidyar Network. The additional funding brought the company's total funding raised to $22.6 million.

Criticism from members

The conversion to a for-profit corporation was objected to by many members. Founder Casey Fenton said he received 1,500 emails in the days after announcing the conversion. Even though the founders did not receive any cash from the financing, members were opposed to the founders having a valuable ownership interest in an organization that was financed by donations and built using volunteer work. The company spent more than $10,000 on a public relations firm to educate its directors on how to respond to the press about the conversion to a for-profit entity. A 3-page letter was sent to over 1,000 volunteers.
The company was accused of censorship after two prominent members who were critical of the company had their profiles and posts deleted.
The company was criticized after updating its terms of service in September 2012. In a letter to the US Federal Trade Commission in September 2012, Peter Schaar, former German Federal Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information, criticized the terms of service because they "force the users to waive any control over their data if they want to continue to use the service." Schaar stated that these terms would be inadmissible under German and European data protection law.
Members were infuriated in 2012 when a site redesign was made without first gathering member feedback.

Management

Since August 5, 2016, Patrick Dugan has been the CEO, CFO, and Secretary of Couchsurfing International, Inc. As of October 2017, William Francesco Deparis was the Director of Operations.

Co-founder Dan Hoffer served as CEO from 2011 to 2012, Tony Espinoza served as CEO from 2012 to 2013, and Jennifer Billock served as CEO from 2013 to 2015.

The board of directors of the company includes founder and Chairman Casey Fenton as well as venture capital investors Matt Cohler of Benchmark, Todor Tashev of Omidyar Technology Ventures, and Jonathan Teo of Binary Capital.