Another analogy:
Page and Brin created a project Backrub in school that ranked websites based on how they linked together. They thought it was a great idea, but wanted to finish school so they tried to sell the idea to yahoo, excite, altavista, infoseek, and lycos. Most turned them down, but they got offered a small amount by Excite, I believe $1M. They thought their idea was worth more than that so they created their own company that now people recognize as Google and no one remember AltaVista.