AirBnB scraped emails on Craigslist for anyone renting a space and encouraged them to switch to their service. They also made a one-click integration to list directly on Air BnB from Craigslist.
Uber’s earliest employees ordered over 5,000 taxis on rival apps and canceled them to cause financial issues for any of their competitors.
PayPal created a bot that listed low-priced goods on eBay and then bought and paid for them using PayPal, tricking eBay into thinking users loved this payment method. Naturally, eBay ended up making Paypal their biggest payment provider.
Salesforce hired fake protestors to disrupt their biggest rival’s conferences. The founder then commandeered all the taxis at the event and delivered a 45-minute pitch about his product. Nowhere to run!
Reddit started off creating thousands of fake accounts and made them all interact with one another. Which then drew in actual users, the true strategy of faking it til you make it! This also allowed Reddit to control the tone of voice they wanted for their platform which still filters through today.
