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Brian Chesky is no stranger to starting a business in tough economic times.
Chesky cofounded Airbnb in 2007 and built the business during the 2008 financial crisis. In a recent podcast conversation with Michelle Obama and her brother, Craig Robinson, Chesky said it was challenging to get the business off the ground during a recession, even with some of the advantages and connects he and his founders had that other entrepreneurs might not have.
However, he said there was one “silver lining” to growing the business during tough times, which might resonate with founders facing today’s economic uncertainty.
“A lot of great companies have been started in a recession,” he said in a Wednesday episode of “IMO with Michelle Obama & Craig Robinson.”
“And the one, I don’t want to say it’s a good thing, but what it does is it teaches you a certain type of discipline,” he said. “A tough economy teaches you a discipline that gets institutionalized into your culture.”
By comparison, a strong economy might give founders more cushioning to “perpetuate bad strategies and be a little less disciplined,” Chesky said.
“I think the good news is a lot of great entrepreneurs are incredibly resourceful, and they will find a way to work,” the Airbnb cofounder said. “But we absolutely need like a very stable economy.”
Chesky said that entrepreneurs he’s spoken with recently told him “a lot of fundraising, for all intents and purposes, was kind of on hold.”
“A lot of limited partners and investors are just like hunkering down. And what we know about investors, they don’t like uncertainty,” he said.
He believes investors will “sit this one out until things stabilize.”
“And if they don’t stabilize, we’re going to be in for a very prolonged kind of dry spell for fundraising,” he said. “If you did not go to a prestigious school, if you weren’t, like, purely a team of technical engineers, if you’re not trying to create an AI company, you’re just trying to create a business, that will be more difficult.”
Airbnb isn’t the only successful business to emerge from the Great Recession. Companies like Uber, WhatsApp, Venmo, and Square also started around the time of the 2008 financial crisis.
“It’s always a great time to start a business — and some of the most successful businesses are started during recessions,” certified financial planner Cary Carbonaro previously told BI. “Adversity is the mother of invention.”
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