Amazon founder Jeff Bezos said in a 2013 interview with Charlie Rose that he needed 60 investor meetings to raise $1 million in 1995, giving up 20% of the company. He described Amazon’s earliest days as its riskiest period.
Bezos said he raised the money from 22 people who invested approximately $50,000 each, but had been uncertain whether he would secure the funding.
“And it was nip and tuck whether I was going to be able to raise that money. So, the whole thing could have ended before the whole thing started,” Bezos said.
He recalled that the first question every investor asked him in 1995 was: “What’s the Internet?”
The Academy of Achievement’s biography of Bezos says he told his original investors there was a 70% chance they would lose their entire investment.
The fundraising remarks appeared in an extra segment accompanying the interview with Rose. The main interview aired on Dec. 1, 2013.
