Jess Ewing thought she had a great idea to shake up the book industry. The Google vet took countless meetings with VCs...and they all disagreed. But that turned out to be her greatest asset. “I spent a lot of time alone, drank a lot of tea (and other, less healthy substances), and thought about what I could build,” she says. “Entrepreneurship requires bushwhacking and pathfinding in your mind until you see a little clearing and jump on it. Finally, I did.” She launched @literatikids, a monthly book club for kids, in 2017, and has since raised $12 million and expanded to offer curated book clubs for adults, too. All that rejection, she says, is what got her to this moment of success. “My definition of a good VC isn’t someone who writes you a check,” she says. “It’s someone who provides insights that you just can’t see — and pushes you toward your own best vision.”