New enterprise concepts can come from nearly wherever. Sara Blakely’s vivid concept was behind her the entire time—actually.
In 1998, the founder and former CEO of the ladies’s shapewear model was working as a fax machine salesperson when she obtained the inspiration for Spanx. Her white pants had hung in her closet for eight months with out put on as a result of she couldn’t get the “clean look” she needed. Blakely, then in her mid-20s, needed to put on one thing that wouldn’t present panty traces and got here with out the majority of the traditional girdle—so she reduce the ft off control-top pantyhose.
With that, Blakely had provide you with the concept would finally make her a billionaire.
“I needed my garments to suit higher, and so my very own butt was the inspiration,” Blakely stated throughout Fortune’s 2013 Most Highly effective Ladies Summit. “I is perhaps the one lady on the earth grateful to my cellulite.”
Blakely had by no means taken a enterprise class in her life, nor had she labored in style or retail—and he or she had solely $5,000 to her title to put money into the enterprise. A string of hosiery producers turned Blakely’s preliminary pitch down.
“They might all the time ask me the identical three questions. They might say and you might be? Sara Blakely. And also you’re with? Sara Blakely. And also you’re financially backed by? Sara Blakely,” she stated. “They’d present me the door and say no, thanks.”
What made Blakely’s product take off? Self-assurance.
“I’ve all the time trusted my intestine by means of the journey,” Blakely stated. “I believe it’s essential to be genuine.”
Blakely’s large break at Neiman Marcus
Whereas Blakely obtained quite a lot of preliminary nos on her concept that might in the end rework girls’s hosiery as we as soon as knew it, it didn’t cease her from pitching one of many greatest names in style: Neiman Marcus. Blakely referred to as her native Neiman Marcus retailer in Atlanta, the place she was residing on the time, and so they redirected her to the corporate’s shopping for workplace in Dallas.
“I’m Sara Blakely and into the product that’s going to alter the best way your prospects put on garments,” she informed them on the telephone. Neiman Marcus’ shopping for workplace stated they’d give Blakely 10 minutes in particular person to pitch her concept if she’d fly herself there.
Blakely was about 5 minutes into her pitch when she realized her concept wasn’t completely resonating with the shopping for consultant, so she made a snap resolution to mannequin the product. She guided the shopping for rep to the lavatory, modeled her white pants with and with out Spanx on—and in that second, her idea was obtained.
“She instantly [said], ‘Oh I get it. It’s sensible—and I’m gonna put it in seven shops,” Blakley stated through the Fortune interview. “It was unbelievable.”
The producer who had lastly agreed to make Spanx didn’t imagine Blakely when she referred to as him the information. In truth, he informed Blakely he thought she was simply going to “give these as Christmas presents for the subsequent 5 years,” she stated.
Rising the $1 billion Spanx empire
Forward of Spanx’s 2000 launch at Neiman Marcus, Blakely referred to as her buddies who lived close to the seven shops to get them to purchase the product. She even provided to pay them again for buying the product.
“Proper after I was working out of buddies and cash, Oprah referred to as,” Blakely stated. “She selected it as her favourite product of the 12 months.”
In 2000, Oprah Winfrey added Spanx to her annual product roundup—and have become a long-time fan of the model. Within the subsequent twenty years, Oprah continued to champion the model.
“Spanx actually modified the best way I wore garments,” Oprah stated on her present in 2006. “When Sara first got here on The Oprah Present to inform us about her concept for Spanx, I knew it was sensible. We’d all been chopping off our pantyhose for years! So from the second I wore my first pair, they turned a staple in my wardrobe.”
As Spanx continued to introduce new merchandise together with its consolation bra, “Bra-lleluja,” and slenderizing activewear, extra celebrities together with Gwyneth Paltrow, Katy Perry, Mindy Kaling, and Chrissy Teigen jumped on the bandwagon. What Blakely had been informed was a “loopy concept” had blown up—and he or she made a co-branding cope with Goal to develop a extra reasonably priced line of shapewear for the most important retailer. In 2006, Belongings by Sara Blakely launched at Goal, and in the identical 12 months Oprah relinquished all put on of different panties, saying, “I solely put on Spanx.”
Stick it to the person
When Blakely initially got here up with the thought for Spanx, she realized that hosiery merchandise have been so uncomfortable as a result of males have been those who have been making them.
“It had by no means dawned on me as a shopper, however all people making our shapewear and hosiery have been males,” Blakely stated within the Fortune interview. “The folks making it weren’t sporting it—and in the event that they have been they weren’t admitting it.”
Males who ran manufacturing services have been additionally those to first flip down Blakey’s enterprise, which was valued at $1.2 billion as of late 2021. However Blakely didn’t outright disown males—as an alternative, she launched merchandise for them in 2010. She even introduced a compression undershirt to the 2013 MPW Summit for Warren Buffett—the one man within the crowd—to attempt.
“Thus far, I haven’t tried it on,” Buffett stated. “I’m afraid I is perhaps too harmful with this group.”
A model of this story initially printed on Fortune.com on February 27, 2024.
