Most business stories are told from the summit. This one starts lower down. Reshma Saujani lost an election. Barbara Corcoran lost her business partner and her boyfriend at the same time. Serisha Barrat watched her first product miss the mark. None of them quit. Each used the setback to work out what she really wanted to build.
A lost election, a breakup and a failed first app led Reshma Saujani, Barbara Corcoran and Serisha Barrat to their real businesses. Each setback showed her what she actually wanted to build. A setback can show you where the real opportunity is.
Reshma Saujani (United States): from a lost election to Girls Who Code
In 2010 Reshma Saujani became the first Indian-American woman to run for the US Congress, and she lost. It was a very public setback. But on the campaign trail she visited schools and noticed something that stayed with her: computer science and robotics classrooms were full of boys, not girls.
She launched Girls Who Code in 2012. On paper she wasn’t the obvious founder. She has said that if she had applied to be its CEO, she wouldn’t have got the job: she didn’t code, and the only thing she had ever built was a failed campaign. But she believed you don’t need to be an expert to solve a problem you care about. She has said that losing the election taught her she could survive failure, which made her braver. The programme began with a first class of 20 girls.
The results speak for themselves. In 2012 she raised $500,000 from corporations, and by 2021 the organisation had helped 450,000 girls learn programming, raised $100 million and supported 10,000 clubs. She later founded Marshall Plan for Moms, which campaigns for better support for working mothers.
Barbara Corcoran (United States): from a breakup to a $66 million sale
Barbara Corcoran was a diner waitress who had held a long list of jobs when she borrowed $1,000 from her boyfriend, Ray Simone, to start a real estate business in New York in 1973. He took 51% of the company, and she worked as a rental agent. Her hiring method was simple: whenever she had more than the $180 it cost to run a three-line ad in the New York Times, she used it to recruit another agent.
She found her feet quickly. A rental client decided to buy instead, and the commission was more than ten times a rental fee, so she moved into sales. By 1975 the firm had 14 agents and annual revenue of about $560,000. That was when Ray told her he was marrying another woman.
She went on to build the Corcoran Group on her own, and in 2001 she sold it to NRT for $66 million. Looking back, she has said the breakup pushed her into building her own company, and that she’d spent seven years learning the business first. She also says endings, from bosses she was fired by to a boyfriend, forced her on to new beginnings. She also handed day-to-day operations to her team and trusted her people, which let her focus on growth. The Corcoran Group started selling real estate online in 1993, two years before most of its New York competitors.
Serisha Barrat (South Africa): building it twice
Serisha Barrat studied psychology and linguistics and was completing a law degree when she started Lawyered Up, a platform to make legal help more affordable. In 2021, at 27, she was preparing to launch it, backed by R5 million from an undisclosed investor.
The first version didn’t work. She started with a small budget to set up the company and build iOS and Android apps, but quickly discovered a mobile app wasn’t the best solution for users’ needs. A podcast host who interviewed her describes the first version as a failure that left her with partnerships collapsing and capital drying up, forcing her to start over.
She rebuilt it as an AI-powered platform that helps small and medium-sized businesses across Africa manage contracts and compliance. Lawyered Up now has a team that is about 70% women, and clients such as Old Mutual, and is scaling across several African countries. It wasn’t her first venture: she was previously co-founder and CEO of Boardroom App, a professional dating app, so she brought startup experience to the rebuild.
What they have in common
Each setback pointed to the real opportunity. Saujani’s loss led her to the girls missing from computer science classrooms. Corcoran’s breakup pushed her to run her own firm. Barrat’s first product taught her that the people she wanted to help needed something different.
None of them pretended the setback didn’t hurt. Each treated it as information about what to do next, and each moved on with a clearer idea of the problem she was solving.
What we can learn
Let the setback show you the real problem. The loss, the breakup and the failed app each revealed something the founder hadn’t seen before.
You don’t have to be the expert. Saujani didn’t code and Barrat came from psychology and law. Passion for a problem can matter more than a perfect CV.
Learn before you go alone. Corcoran spent years learning the business before she ran it on her own.
Be willing to rebuild. The first version of a product is often a draft. Barrat rebuilt hers completely.
One key takeaway
A setback can show you where the real opportunity is. The founders in this story didn’t just bounce back. They changed direction because of what the setback taught them.
Conclusion
Starting again isn’t the opposite of success. For Reshma Saujani, Barbara Corcoran and Serisha Barrat, it was the way to a better idea. If you are facing a setback right now, their stories are a reminder that the next chapter may be the one you were meant to build.
Sources
- TechCrunch: Girls Who Code founder Reshma Saujani spills business tea with Meghan, Duchess of Sussex (2025)
- Stanford Daily: Girls Who Code founder Reshma Saujani urges empowering women in technology (2021)
- Fortune: 40 Under 40, Reshma Saujani (2015)
- Entrepreneur: Want to achieve big goals? Get comfortable with failure
- Intuit: Girls Who Code’s Reshma Saujani aims for bravery, not perfection
- Fortune: Barbara Corcoran, from waitress to real estate queen (2013)
- Fortune: Barbara Corcoran on the best career moment (2024)
- Wikipedia: Corcoran Group
- DCFCU: Unlikely Heroes, Barbara Corcoran
- WomHub: AI-powered legal solutions, Serisha Barrat’s journey (2024)
- ITWeb: Social justice tech entrepreneur intros legal advice app (2021)
- Africa Tech Summit: Serisha Barrat
- She’s Taking Over podcast: Serisha Barrat
Disclaimer: This story is based on information available in the public domain, including the sources listed above, and has been carefully researched. It is shared for information and inspiration only. Details can vary between sources and change over time. GritView is not affiliated with the people or companies mentioned. If you spot an error, please let us know and we will review it.
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