Barbara Corcoran / The Corcoran Group

Barbara Corcoran is the founder of The Corcoran Group, a Manhattan real estate firm she started in 1973 with a $1,000 loan from her then-boyfriend (who later left her for her assistant — a story she has told on television approximately 200 times). She grew it over 25 years from a two-person shop into New York City's largest residential brokerage with 1,000+ agents, and sold it to NRT Inc. in 2001 for $66M. She has since been a founding Shark on Shark Tank (Season 1, 2009) and is one of only two Sharks to appear in every season. She is the most prolific Shark Tank investor by deal count, with over 80 deals closed on the show.