When Airbnb was getting started in 2008, the company’s founders met with several top investors who passed on this great opportunity.
There are many reasons why investors would pass on such initiative, such as lack of expertise or the offer not being in their core markets.
This short article provides rational ways for startups to handle the "No's" from world-class investors and how to continue and persevere with the next investor options on the list.
Chesky recently shared those 2008 rejection emails on Medium (he omitted names of people and firms). There are two valuable lessons we can learn from this material. The first is the obvious one: don’t give up. Even the biggest and best operations faced rejection early on. But behind this lesson is another opportunity, a window into the art of rejection, from some of the world’s greatest rejectors. And I mean rejectors in the best possibly way. These are the top venture capital firms controlling billions in assets. Their job is as much about rejecting offers as it is accepting them.
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