The Airbnb guys are scrappy and creative. They told this story about how hard it was to get the company going. It was 2008 and they had run out of money. Their last chance was to go to the Democratic National Convention in Denver and try getting folks to rent out their apartments to delegates. They came up with a promotional idea of designing a cereal box called Obama-O’s figuring “even if we can’t rent any rooms, we could probably get $5 bucks a box.” CNN and other news stations found out and gave them fabulous coverage. Needless to say, they did just fine renting out rooms -- and we were genuinely impressed. People all too often miss creativity as a key indicator for whether or not a team is special.