Altman's Market Size Advice
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A story about how Sam Altman advised Brian Chesky to think bigger about Airbnb's potential during Y Combinator.
"There's this really great story with Sam Altman, who at the time was at Y Combinator, and Brian Chesky. In 2011, Chesky was getting ready to pitch at YC's demo day. Brian was with Sam going over his pitch and said 'this company one day is gonna make $100 million a year.'
Sam was like, 'Brian, can you do me a favor? Anywhere in this presentation where you have a number, add a zero behind it at the end.' He told him 'anything that you have an M, I want to see a B, change it all.'
Brian responded 'but that's lying, there's no way we're gonna do that, it's impossible, no one has done this before.' Sam explained 'Yeah, but you know, it seems like a big market and here's my reasoning - logically it makes sense, there's so many people who stay at hotels, of course you can do this.' Even Brian Chesky didn't believe it at the time."
Sam Parr
Host of MFM and fitness influencer
Sam Parr is a serial entrepreneur and business media pioneer.
In 2016, he founded The Hustle, a business news media company that started in his kitchen with just $12 and grew to eight figures in revenue.
Sam led the charge in making newsletters popular when few believed in their potential.
After four successful years, he sold The Hustle to HubSpot, a publicly traded company. Now operating as HubSpot Media, The Hustle reaches 3 million readers daily, employs a team of nearly 100, and has been the launchpad for dozens of its staff to found their own media companies and newsletters.
Sam remains the host of the popular business podcast, My First Million, and continues to start and sell companies. He also co-founded Hampton, a highly vetted community for entrepreneurs, founders, and CEOs, and teaches people to write better through his platform, Copy That.