Many entrepreneurs have a deal they in all probability want they did not make, or, maybe worse, one which acquired away. And actual property pioneer and longtime “Shark Tank” investor Barbara Corcoran remembers hers clearly. She advised her Instagram followers on Monday that she invested her first main revenue right into a “genius” concept that ended up being a complete flop — and a bit forward of its time.
“My best successes occurred on the heels of failure,” Corcoran wrote. “The second I made my first revenue, it felt like all of the lengthy nights and rejection lastly paid off. I needed to take a position it in one thing huge that may set me aside.”
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Corcoran says she “took each penny” she had, which was round $75,000 on the time, and made videotapes of all of her firm’s actual property listings.
“I believed it was genius!” she mentioned. “Consumers may pop in a tape and tour our flats from the consolation of their La-Z-Boy chair.”
Nevertheless, Corcoran did not anticipate her fellow actual property brokers not wanting handy out tapes together with her face on it (and never their very own). So, tens of 1000’s of {dollars} price of VHS tapes went into bins and “sat untouched” in storage.
“My sensible thought was a complete flop,” Corcoran mentioned. “Identical to that, my $75,000 was gone.”
However when the Web went mainstream shortly after, she knew she was again in enterprise.
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“I heard whispers about this model new factor known as ‘the Web.’ Most individuals thought it was a joke,” Corcoran mentioned. “I did not. I registered my firm’s URL instantly, and I snagged my competitor’s, too. (That is a narrative for one more day.) Then, I remembered these dusty tapes.”
Corcoran says she took the bins out of storage, uploaded the tapes to the web site, and inside every week had “two gross sales got here in from London, web site unseen.”
“The identical concept that had failed miserably immediately grew to become my breakthrough,” Corcoran says. “The very best successes typically occur on the heels of failure.”
Ethical of the story? Put your failures in a field out of sight, however do not throw them away — you by no means know when they are often repurposed into success.
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