Take Risks to Land the Right Investor

As a founder, perseverance has really paid us off and has led to long-term thinking. A clear example of this would be when we were raising Series A from Sequoia. We were going through the process of due diligence, and the process was going pretty well, but we were not at the final step yet. At that time, another investor had given us a term sheet, And we basically had one week to say yes or no. To top it all, we only had one month of money left in the bank, and we had to figure out how to pay our 5 employees. At that time, everybody said that a bird in hand is better than two in the bush. Take it. Take it now. It is the perseverance that led us to long-term thinking. We wanted to build an enduring company by partnering with a VC that had actually invested in other enduring companies like Apple, Google, Dropbox, DoorDash, Airbnb. We brought a team on board and basically decided to say no to the term sheet in hand. And we persisted through the process of Sequoia due diligence. In 2 weeks, we actually had a term sheet. And that became a defining moment for Zoom. And I would say an inflection point for Zoom because that made the things rolling for us and have us build the company in a very enduring way. So perseverance is a quality that leads to a momentum, that builds momentum around you, which is very hard to stop once it starts.