I have interviewed hundreds of peoplesuccessful entrepreneursCEOs and investors over the years – for Forbes, GOBankingRates and my own podcast. And I noticed something surprising: Companies that change lives often start because something first changed the life of their founder.
Very few successful entrepreneurs tell me that they simply spotted a gap in the market. More often than not, the catalyst was something much more personal: a loss, a diagnosis, financial hardship, or a moment that completely changed their perspective.
The most resilient founders I spoke with weren’t looking for a mission. Their mission found them, usually during one of the most difficult chapters of their lives.
Dr. Andre Esteva: Transforming Personal Loss into Medical AI
Few entrepreneurs embody this idea better than Dr. André Esteva.
The co-founder and CEO of ArteraAI did not aim to create another artificial intelligence company. After watching a loved one struggle with chronic illness for two decades and then losing his co-founder to cancer at just 48 years old, he became determined to help patients and doctors. make better treatment decisions.
Esteva has become a leading voice in medical AI, earning a spot on the TIME100 Health list in 2025. Under her leadership, ArteraAI was named one of TIME’s Best Inventions and selected by the World Economic Forum as a Global Innovator.
Today, ArteraAI’s technology helps oncologists personalize cancer treatment and predict which therapies are most likely to work for an individual patient. The company’s AI is now part of the standard of care for prostate cancer and is reimbursed by Medicare.
When we spoke, what struck me wasn’t his resume. That was how personal the mission had become. The clarity that ArteraAI tries to provide to patients and doctors is the same clarity that Esteva would have wished for her own family. “The best companies solve real problems,” he told me.
In his case, the problem was not theoretical. It was deeply personal.
Rashaun Williams: From Chicago’s South Side to Shark Tank
I heard a similar story from Rashaun Williams when he joined my podcast.
Now a permanent shark on ABC’s Shark Tank, Williams grew up on the South Side of Chicago, where his father struggled with addiction and his mother relied on public assistance. The family has been evicted several times.
Williams studied at Morehouse College, spent 13 years at Goldman Sachs and eventually launched his own venture capital fund, backing companies including Coinbase, Robinhood, Dropbox and Lyft. Today, along with his investing career and ownership of the Atlanta Falcons, he runs the Kidman Institute, an organization focused on financial literacy and economic opportunity.
His success was not born of comfort. This came from a desire to resolve the problems he had encountered personally and to ensure that others access to opportunities he never had.
Barbara Corcoran: Grief as a Business Catalyst
Then there’s Barbara Corcoran. When she came on my show, she spoke candidly about one of the most painful moments of her life.
Corcoran was a waitress when she met Ramone Simone, the boyfriend who loaned her the $1,000 that launched her real estate career. Years later, after building their business together, he left her for her secretary. “I was outside. She was in,” Corcoran said.
For many people, this kind of betrayal would have ended both the relationship and the business dream. Instead, it became his beginning.
Corcoran started again, built the Corcoran Group and eventually sold the company for $66 million. She has often said that without this breakup, she might never have built her business. She also spoke to me about helping care for a loved one with Alzheimer’s disease and how those experiences shaped her leadership.
One lesson has remained constant throughout his career: Some of life’s greatest setbacks can become the greatest opportunities.
Suze Orman: Rebuilding after financial ruin
Few stories illustrate rebuilding after financial ruin better than Suze Orman.
Before becoming one of the most recognizable names in the world of personal finance, Orman worked for years as a waitress in Berkeley, California. She also carried the weight of a speech impediment as a child, and a school counselor once told her she wasn’t destined for anything ambitious.
Eventually, customers at the restaurant where she worked loaned her $50,000 to open her own business.
Within months, the money was gone after a broker made reckless investments with his funds. Most people would have given up on finance forever.
Orman did the opposite.
She managed to get a job at the very company that had cost her everything, later got a settlement, and went on to build one of the most influential personal finance platforms in America. When she told me that money is simply a reflection of who you are, it didn’t sound like a motivational phrase. This sounded like someone who had rebuilt her finances and herself.
Michele Leahy: Turning Disability and Loss into an Advocacy Career
Michele Leahy’s journey to entrepreneurship was born from a mix of personal circumstances and necessity.
Leahy suffers from spina bifida and uses a wheelchair full time. After the September 11 attacks, she found herself unable to find work outside the disabled community and had to pay her bills. A disability organization hired her and she moved into roles as a job coach and support coordinator. It was in this work that she noticed a gap: Many families were focusing on the “soft skills” aspect of supporting a loved one with a disability, but were losing eligibility for benefits simply because they didn’t understand the underlying regulations.
This observation, combined with his own lived experience dealing with disability, shaped the direction of his career. She wanted to help disabled people achieve financial independence rather than face poverty, and she saw ways of working within the system, including trusts, to make this possible.
The mission became personal again a few years later. After her mother died, Leahy became her father’s primary caregiver as his health deteriorated and he eventually moved to an assisted living facility. When the family sold their home, they used a special needs trust to shelter the proceeds from a Medicaid buyout, thereby preserving funds for their own long-term needs as a disabled person.
Today, through his company, Leahy’s Life Planshe helps parents of children with disabilities navigate Social Security benefits, financial planning, and special needs trusts, so their children can be financially secure and access services without losing eligibility for the benefits they rely on.
The common thread
These stories are all different. One concerns cancer. Another concerns poverty. Another concerns betrayal. Another concerns financial ruin. Another concerns disability and care. But they all point to the same lesson.
The entrepreneurs I interviewed rarely started their businesses because they found a great business opportunity. They built them because they experienced a problem they could not ignore. Sometimes the experience that breaks you also gives you your purpose.
And if there’s one thing these founders taught me, it’s this: Your hardest chapter may not be the end of your story. Maybe that’s why you’re uniquely equipped to build something that matters.
IImage credit: Fuzzy Rescue, Pexels
