Jeff Bezos Reveals the Brutal Fundraising Fight Behind Amazon’s Origin Story

The Amazon founder reflected on a mistake he made at the very beginning.

BY AVA LEVINSON, NEWS WRITER

Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon. (Photo by Miguel J. Rodriguez Carrillo / AFP via Getty Images)

Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s founder, is one of the wealthiest people in the world. He boasts a net worth of almost $219 billion, and his company is valued at over $2.2 trillion. The e-commerce giant also just clinched the top spot on the Fortune 500, surpassing Walmart after its 13-year reign.

But there was a time when Bezos was bootstrapping his business, figuring out how to scale his online bookstore. He told The New York Times that raising the first round of seed capital in 1994 was the biggest challenge he faced.

“The first question was what’s the internet? Everybody wanted to know what the internet was,” Bezos said.

The Hardest Thing Ever

Bezos said he had to meet with roughly 60 angel investors to convince them of Amazon’s potential.

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“It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, basically,” he told the NYT.  

Of those 60, many of which involved several follow-up meetings and negotiation, 40 angel investors said no. 

“They were hard-earned no’s. They weren’t just ‘no,’” Bezos said. “They were me, multiple meetings, working really hard, trying to get people to write that $50,000 check.”

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