Amazon founder Jeff Bezos recently talked about the early gruelling days of Amazon. He revealed the challenges he faced while raising seed capital for his fledging online bookstore and admitted that his blunt honesty may have cost him potential backers. As reported by Fortune, speaking at the DealBook Summit with Andrew Ross Sorkin, Bezos revealed the uphill battle of securing the first million dollars of funding for Amazon in 1995. Despite Amazon today boasting a $2.38 trillion market cap and Bezos himself worth $236.1 billion, the company’s beginnings were far from assured.
Bezos talked about the 60 meetings and 40 rejections Amazon faced
Speaking at the summit, Bezos recalled the time when he had 60 meetings with angle investors and each of them required multiple rounds of discussions. He revealed that total 40 angel investors said no to the idea on an online bookstore. “It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, basically,” Bezos said.Bezos said that his pitch was simple and straightforward. He offered 20% of Amazon at a $5 million valuation, with around 20 investors eventually contributing about $50,000 each.Bezos also explained that convincing the investors was a difficult task as at that time only a few people understood World Wide Web’s commercial potential. “The first question was what’s the internet? Everybody wanted to know what the internet was,” Bezos recalled.Amazon founder also admitted that he was also a little naive at that time. “I would always tell people I thought there was a 70% chance they would lose their investment. In retrospect, I think that might have been a little naive. But I think it was true. In fact, if anything, I think I was giving myself better odds than the real odds.”However, he also emphasise that early commitments were pivotal, “The whole enterprise could have been extinguished then.”
When Jeff Bezos revealed his dream job
Recently, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos revealed his dream job. His dream job was nothing g related to technology but crafting high-end cocktails behind a bar. He was replying to a question from his brother Mark who asked about his dream job if money wasn’t a factor.“I pride myself on my craft cocktails. I do have this fantasy that I want to be a bartender,” he said. The conversation in question is a 2017 discussion. While opening up more on his “fantasy” job, Bezos said that he has “glamorised the job” in his mind, but he loves talking about a well-made drink.
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