Long before Airbnb persuaded strangers to sleep in one another's homes and became a $31 billion company, it was just an idea to earn a bit of extra money to make rent.After their first guests, Airbnb's founders realized they were on to something bigger than a stopgap for rent. They faced rejection plenty of times — and created their own version of Obama O's cereal — but the three founders of Airbnb have built a big business in the past nine years.Here's how they turned their idea to rent out an air mattress into a business that has the hotel industry running scared.

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