Can’t find a hotel for TechCrunch50 or the next conference you are going to? If you don’t mind roughing it, try AirBed and Breakfast. Anyone with an airbed (or couch) can “post a room” and how much it costs. Thrifty travelers can make reservations on the site and pay for the stay.
The site is spare but it does the job (it was pulled together for less than $20,000 in seed capital from friends and family of the founders—San Francisco designers Joe Gebbia and Brian Chesky, and software engineer Nathan Blecharczyk).
AirBed and Breakfast will definitely appeal to younger travelers, and conventioneers who can’t find a regular hotel room. In overbooked Denver, where 20,000 people will be descending for the Democratic National Convention, hotels are already sold out. More than 600 people have found alternative accommodations through AirBed and Breakfast, and 50 to 100 new listings appear every day. Prices range from $20 a night for an airbed to $3,000 for an entire house.
In general, the prices are usually much cheaper (rates in San Francisco, for instance, range from $10 to $175 a night, with the median being $85). And you get to stay with a friendly local who can steer you to restaurants and stores you probably would never find otherwise.
Typically, each person offering a room puts up a picture of themselves and the apartment or house, along with some very basic information. For instance, for $99 a night, you can crash in this 24-year-old’s room in San Francisco:
Accommodates: Single Person Techcrunch event San Francisco
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October 13-15, 2026
Description: My unit is a 700-square-foot loft in the historic Clocktower building, a 100-year-old warehouse renovated by architect David Baker. It has a shared courtyard space and rooftop view of downtown. Located in the heart of South Beach only a few blocks from the Moscone Center. Airbed is an AeroBed® raised mattress.
Bed type: Airbed
Room type: Common space
Breakfast: I’ll leave something out
Smoking: No
The combination of the AeroBed and the Internet has now made everybody into an innkeeper.
Erick has been discovering and working with startups his entire professional career as a technology journalist, startup event producer, and founder. Erick is President & Founding Partner at Traction Technology Partners. He is also a co-founder of TouchCast, the leading interactive video platform, and a partner at bMuse, a startup studio in New York City. He is the former Executive Producer of the DEMO conferences and former Editor-in-Chief of TechCrunch (where he helped conceive, lead and select startups for the Disrupt conferences, among other duties). Prior to TechCrunch, which he joined as Co-Editor in 2007, Erick was Editor-at-Large for Business 2.0 magazine, and a senior writer at Fortune magazine covering technology.
At TechCrunch, he oversaw the editorial content of the site, helped to program the Disrupt conferences and CrunchUps, produced TCTV shows, and wrote daily for the blog. He joined TechCrunch as Co-Editor in 2007, and helped take it from a popular blog to a thriving media property. After founder Michael Arrington left in 2011, Schonfeld became Editor in Chief.
Prior to TechCrunch, he was Editor-at-Large for Business 2.0 magazine, where he wrote feature stories and ran their main blog, The Next Net. He also launched the online video series “The Disruptors” with CNN/Money and hosted regular panels and conferences of industry luminaries. Schonfeld started his career at Fortune magazine in 1993, where he was recognized with numerous journalism awards.