08/09/2026
Your biggest setback might be the thing your business actually needed.
Meet the team behind Project Chirag — an NGO that began as a college initiative in 2010, bringing solar-powered lighting to rural Indian villages with no access to electricity. What started with a handful of students has since grown into full rural transformation work — education, health, livelihoods — across hundreds of villages.
But growth wasn't a straight line. A few years in, the original team — the students who'd built it from scratch, moved on to pursue their own careers. For the founder, it felt like the ground had shifted.
"An inner voice told me that you're on the right track. Maybe this is good for you. Maybe you need fresh blood, more professional blood."
Not being an engineer, not having the "right" credentials for the work — none of it stopped continuous learning: reading constantly, leaning on advisors, staying open to being wrong.
The lesson for any founder: your setbacks are rarely the end. Often, they're exactly the push your business needs to become more professional than it was before.
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