“You can't build that much of a valuable business. “If you’re churning customers-kind of the classic MBA paper is a leaky bucket-if you're returning customers, you cannot get to too much scale,” he said. Hoffman hearing “no” from investors led him to where the business challenge was, too. There’s also a lesson to be learned that relates to marketing and finding the right audiences. Or I’ve not found someone, which means I'm unhappy, and I don't think this is the right place or service for me.” I’ve either found somebody, in which case I'm not unhappy. But the problem is that I go into this classified system, and at three months I’m done. It was also professional networking-and part of where the LinkedIn idea came from-and golf partners and roommates and all that. “Originally, SocialNet wasn't just dating. “Part of that very good reason I learned from was when you're doing a classifieds business, that classifieds business has this problem,” he said. While talking about the book over Zoom, Hoffman recalled his first startup, SocialNet-which was founded in 1997 years before social networking became a phenomenon-and said lots of VCs passed on the business “for very good reasons.”

In it, he also points out how often knowing what to listen for around “no” can actually be a good thing. The book begins with a chapter titled “Getting to No,” where Hoffman details how various successful founders encountered rejection long before they had anyone onboard.

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