How Couchsurfing Plans to Take Back Its Corner of the Sharing Economy
Skift Take
Couchsurfing sobered up only to realize it was the last drunk backpacker left at the party and the rest of its friends had gone home to make money and travel in a more sophisticated fashion. Can it keep true to its beliefs to grow up without giving in?
Looking back on the rapid growth of alternative travel businesses, one can either look at Couchsurfing as an innovator that predated local culture-obsessed trends or as a young idealistic community that grew complacent rather than up.
Either, or both, Couchsurfing has been quietly entangled with politics and money problems while entrepreneurs and investors poured millions into peer-to-peer concepts all around it. It's now looking to escape a period that, though successful in terms of growth, was wrought with user revolt and financial stagnation.
The company announced this week that interim CEO Jennifer Billock will become the permanent CEO.
Billock originally took on the role in October 2013 when then-CEO Tony Espinoza stepped down amid layoffs and a platform shift towards mobile. The executive shakeup came one year after a rebranding that put the company at risk of losing its
