Q: Why was HomeAway founded?
A: Over the years, Brian Sharples and his family rented a variety of ski and beach homes, enjoying the space, availability of a kitchen and flexibility to invite others on vacation. However, he found that finding and booking a property online in the highly-fragmented vacation rental industry was not as easy as finding a hotel.  It was out of this frustration, that he realized the opportunity to transform the industry and build the most complete marketplace for vacation rentals.  HomeAway, Inc. was founded by Sharples and Carl Shepherd in February 2005.