7 Rejections by Brian Chesky

Brian Chesky is the co-founder of Airbnb. This essay first appeared as a Medium post in 2015.

On June 26, 2008, our friend Michael Seibel introduced us to 7 prominent investors in Silicon Valley. We were attempting to raise $150,000 at a $1.5M valuation. That means for $150,000 you could have bought 10% of Airbnb. Below you will see 5 rejections. The other 2 did not reply.

The investors that rejected us were smart people, and I am sure we didn’t look very impressive at the time.

Next time you have an idea and it gets rejected, I want you to think of these emails.

If you’d like an essay like this sent directly to your inbox every Sunday, subscribe to the free newsletter.

If you’re a founder and would like to contribute an Op-Ed to this publication, please email [email protected].