Running an Airbnb business is harder than it looks

Thanks to the internet-enabled sharing economy, which allows one who has idle assets to make use of them via the peer-to-peer model, it is officially the era of "what is mine is yours" in China, or at least in major cities of the country.

As a tech reporter, I've been following the rapid growth of sharing-economy companies, such as Didi Chuxing and Uber Technologies Inc, for two years. And as a consumer, I've been actively using such apps to hail private cars or book a stay in complete strangers' apartments when traveling around.

So when my husband and I moved to our new apartment three months ago, which meant our old apartment was an "idle asset", I thought why not set up our own lodging business on Airbnb Inc and get further involved in the sharing economy?