Picture: You've just took the biggest risk of your life, quitting your job (or dropping out of school) to go after the dream everyone and your mother said you shouldn't. Months and months of hard work leads to surprising growth, write-ups on all the major tech blogs, and interest from top-tier VCs. Now, another hurdle, if you could call it that: the inevitable acquisition offer. Sure, the first bid was low-balled, an insult even. But then the offers start to multiply. Could you turn down $100 million? Maybe, despite nagging family members and close friends decrying your insanity. But what about $1 billion?

Hot (and even ice-cold) startups must face these challenges at some point during their rise to success. And oftentimes, there's nothing as seductive as a check from Google with a googol of zeroes. And still, on the flip side, nothing can be so painfully up in the air and potentially regretful as rejecting one or more of such offers. Here's a look at some of the larger bids and rejections in business, and how those involved came to terms with rejection.

Image: Abode of Chaos

Reportedly, Steve Jobs personally courted Dropbox CEO Drew Houston, but was unable to sway the young MIT graduate. A reported $800 million offer was left on the table by Dropbox. But no matter: The startup recently raised $250 million at a $4 billion valuation.

Image: jdlasica; acaben

Don't forget Dropbox's enterprise counterpart, Box.net, which reportedly turned down a $600 million takeover by Citrix. Instead, the startup raised $81 million, and plans to continue on its own. (Note to self: Start a cloud company.)

Image: gaborcselle; Irish Typepad

Bill Nguyen's highly anticipated photo-sharing service, which raised $41 million even before launch, reportedly rejected a massive offer from Google for $200 million. Turns out Nguyen may have missed Color's best option, as the app ended up a dud. After months of reconsideration, Nguyen has greatly pivoted the company, but it's still unclear whether it'll ever be able to fully recover.

Image: Robert Scoble; niallkennedy

Get used to this trend: Google reportedly tried to acquire Path, the personal social network, for $100 million. Founder Dave Morin rejected the offer, and instead raised $8.5 million in capital. Path has since been growing steadily, recently nearing the 1 million user mark. Google, meanwhile, has launched its own social network, Google+.

Image: Robert Scoble; Charles Haynes

The video game giant behind such blockbuster hits as Grand Theft Auto faced a hostile takeover from rival Electronic Giants in 2008. But after months, Take-Two survived the $2 billion bid. The company has since put out L.A. Noir and has revealed plans for another edition of their flagship GTA product.

Image: FT Techfeed; Take-Two Interactive

Microsoft put serious effort in courting Yahoo to accept a $44.6 acquisition offer. But as CEO Steve Ballmer recently said, the company got "lucky" with Yahoo, as shares of the company have dropped roughly in half from what Microsoft had offered in 2008. But new talks have since surfaced, this time from a possible takeover by Google or a merger between Yahoo and AOL.

Image: jdlasica; Yodel Anecdotal

Speaking of Yahoo, the company had the right idea in 2006 when it offered to buy Facebook for $1 billion. Mark Zuckerberg presciently turned down the offer, and soon had another bid from Microsoft for a reported $15 billion. Again, Zuck rebuffed, and smartly so, as Facebook is said to be worth as much as $80 billion.

Image: kk+; Yodel Anecdotal

Andrew Mason's daily deals service became one of the hottest tech stories in 2010. The Chicago-based company experienced remarkable growth, and eventually caught the eye of Google, which offered Mason $6 billion. Mason turned the offer down. Since then, a slew of competitors have entered the space--Google Offers, Living Social--and with a series of delays and problems with its IPO, some have said Groupon might go public at a valuation less than $6 billion. It's not clear yet whether Mason made the right decision in turning down Google's acquisition.

Image: The DEMO Conference; Freedom to Marry

Yet another service Google set its watchful eyes on: Yelp, the reviews-listing site, which these search giant reportedly offered $500 million to acquire. But Yelp turned down the offer, and has since butted heads with Google over allegedly scraping its content. Since then, Google has taken an alternate route by acquiring Zagat for the far cheaper price of $151 million.

Image: Abode of Chaos; jdlasica

Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg tried to acquire Twitter in 2008 for $500 million. Twitter turned down the offer. Since then, the company has gone through several huge funding rounds, and now reportedly has a valuation near $4 billion. Still, the company is having trouble translating its growth and user ship into revenue: the company is reportedly on track to make just $140 million in revenue this year.

Image: Brian Caldwell; Guillaume Paumier