Angie Kurdys’s first introduction to Couchsurfing came from a peculiar piece of information she learned from a new friend she had met while traveling in Switzerland after college. The person told her he lived in a barn and would be hosting a bunch of overnight guests.

“I asked him, ‘Who are these people?’” Angie says. “He said, ‘I don’t know, I haven’t met them.’ I just kind of stared at him. I had never heard of Couchsurfing, so it was a strange thing to mention.”

Today, Angie has gone from surfer to leader. Today she serves as director of product and data for Couchsurfing, a social network–style accommodations site that connects travelers around the world with free places to stay during their travels.

Taking a consultant’s craft to a start-up

Angie is one of many Kearney alumni who have left the firm to pursue their dreams of entrepreneurship. Ankur Warikoo, who was a consultant in the Delhi office until 2009, began his start-up nearbuy.com while he was still a consultant—with the approval of his supervisors. Gita Muthuavinashiappan, a former sourcing associate, used her consulting experience for her natural and organic products company, ForGreen.

How Angie got to Couchsurfing was something of a fortuitous circumstance similar to her Switzerland experience. Angie was an Kearney consultant and one of the founders of the firm’s Venture Boost Camp (VBC), a two-day hackathon-style event in which high-potential, fast-growing start-ups team up with Kearney consultants to define and address their most important challenges.

Before the third edition of the VBC, a close colleague of Angie’s was managing it and let her know that Couchsurfing would be participating—“it was like a dream come true,” Angie says. Angie worked on the Couchsurfing during that event and got to know the company and its leaders.

After the event she began a correspondence with Couchsurfing’s CEO, and eventually she was offered a position with the company.

She says that her experience as a consultant informs her work today at a start-up.

“In consulting you often have a lot of really short-versed projects,” she says. “You might jump around industries or subject matter. To be successful you really have to be able to become an expert quickly. That skill set is super critical for a start-up—a small company with a small team.”

“The friends you haven’t met yet”

In the realm of start-ups, Couchsurfing is relatively mature; the site was founded in 2004 based around the idea that people all over the world would want to share their homes with “friends they haven’t met yet.”

Today, Couchsurfing boasts some 20 million members in more than 200,000 cities; in a typical year, some 400,000 hosts share their homes with 4 million surfers.

The company has managed the reticence that many might have about the dangers of staying with strangers, starting with a robust trust and safety team that weeds out bad actors. The company also has created features that allow members to interact in lower-friction ways, such as the hangouts feature on mobile apps.