Airbnb is valued at more than $25 billion today. Their humble beginnings, though, are what really caught our eye here at The Failure Blog.
When Airbnb launched in 2008, not a single soul was interested in the company. Most investors turned their nose up at the blossoming company. Co-Founder Brian Chesky went public with some of those rejections. Here is what a couple of those investor’s had to say:
“Thank you for the introduction. Brian good to meet you — while this sounds interesting it is not something we would do here — not in our area of focus, do wish you best of luck.”
“Brian
We decided yesterday to not take this to the next level. We’ve always struggled with travel as a category. We recognize its one of the top e-commerce categories but for some reason, we’ve not been able to get excited about travel related businesses.”
Luckily, the creators never let this type of feedback keep them down. As Chesky stated:
“Next time you have an idea and it gets rejected, I want you to think of these emails.”
Many successful entrepreneurs know that you have to face rejection in order to find success!