Things take time in entrepreneurship; success is often a long journey rather than an overnight achievement, and patience is key.

When you launch your company, you hope to see hockey stick growth in the first year, which is what we experienced at Airbnb with the number of guests booking through our platform.

Successful companies like Airbnb and Stripe took time to hire their first employees, focusing on building their product before scaling their teams.

I regret not investing in Airbnb when I had the chance; I was focused on my own startup and missed the opportunity to meet with them before they signed with Sequoia. If you move slowly in investing, you're likely to face adverse selection; companies that take too long to engage may not be the best opportunities.

It took us eight years to find success, which is normal in the startup world, and sometimes it can take even longer.

After our initial launch, we didn't see immediate success and even explored creating a roommate matching website before pivoting back to Airbnb.

As young founders, our naivety allowed us to explore ideas without preconceived notions, leading us to discover the unique experience that Airbnb could offer. When we started Airbnb, we were in a very different position compared to Uber; the founders of Uber were already wealthy, while we were just trying to survive.

After graduating, I focused entirely on my startup but struggled to achieve profitability, which taught me the importance of having paying customers.

Starting a company is going to be longer and harder than you might imagine, regardless of how successful it appears from the outside.