[cianchette]

One solution is lots of money so that you can buy your way into both marketplaces quickly.

A better solution as jchung pointed out is to narrow your scope until you have enough resources to create a great market. For example:

USA -> California -> Bay Area -> Stanford -> One Dorm

[bbcbasic]

This is the 'get a small number of users to love your service' approach that I have seen mentioned alot in solving the chicken and egg. It is how Facebook got going.

[arisAlexis]

how to do that if my service doesn't involve professionals? uber may had to spend money to convert taxi drivers but airbnb used ordinary people. you mean through advertising? that too needs people to be already present in the platform..

[smeyer]

Are you asking how airbnb could have spent money to attract users? For example, they could have spent money to provide a discount (charge the guest $100, pay the host $200, both are more likely to join than at a market rate of $150). Also, they could have acquired hosts by offering a guarantee, such as paying for 3 nights a month if they don't have at least 3 nights worth of guests. There are also more general techniques like advertisements and salespeople and such.