With a strong social mission, you can persevere through pivots and setbacks with confidence.

With a strong social mission, you can persevere through pivots and setbacks with confidence.

With a strong social mission, you can persevere through pivots and setbacks with confidence.

Debbie Sterling, founder and CEO of GoldieBlox, describes how she learned to focus product design on customers, not on the retailer. The maker of construction toy kits for girls dramatically increased production and dropped retail prices to appease Walmart, only to have products end up on clearance because no one wanted them. "It doesn't matter how much it costs," Sterling says. "If it's not a product that excites and gets every girl interested in wanting to build more and more, we failed."

GoldieBlox Founder Debbie Sterling describes her evolution from solitary inventor to becoming an entrepreneur who inspired others to believe in her mission to launch a line of construction toys for girls. Starting with a rough prototype, Sterling talks about encountering push back early on from older industry veterans, but then finding passionate followers among young social entrepreneurs.

GoldieBlox Founder and CEO Debbie Sterling recalls the moment she discovered what she wanted to do with her engineering degree. She says construction toys for little girls was something she wish she had as a kid and talks about how that would give them something more educational and empowering to play with than what was traditionally found in the girls toy aisle.

Debbie Sterling, founder and CEO of GoldieBlox, discusses the initial shock of seeing her small startup's toys on retail shelves, as well as how crowdsourcing helped her overcome a lack of resources. She recalls turning to GoldieBlox supporters on Kickstarter to film a commercial and win a contest for an advertising slot during one of America's most-watched events, the Super Bowl.

GoldieBlox Founder and CEO Debbie Sterling recounts the difficulty of addressing defects resulting from the rapid ramp-up in production as demand exploded for the toy. She explains how she turned the setback into an opportunity to increase customer loyalty by publicly apologizing for the flaw and sending out a million new blocks along with personalized letters to every child.