Sara Blakely<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\nKicking off our amazing startup stories, we have the origins of the final product you would think had humble beginnings: Spanx. There’s an insanely interesting and inspiring story behind the elastic product.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Spanx is a product that was created by Sara Blakely. The start of this startup takes us to the year 1998. Sara was in a stump in her life. She was struggling to sell fax machines door to door in Florida. Before this, she tried to be an attorney, worked at Disney, then randomly enough, was a stand-up comedian for some time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Wherever she worked, and whenever she wore light-colored slacks, she grew annoyed with the panty lines that always showed. After too many fashion faux-pas, she decided one day to cut off the feet of a pair of pantyhose and wear them under her pants. And that’s how the idea for Spanx was born.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But just because you– or Sara, in this case, had a billion-dollar idea, doesn’t mean she didn’t need help taking her brand off the ground. But here’s how Sara’s story wildly differentiates from everyone else. The unbelievable part came in when Oprah made her Spanx product famous!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But this is getting ahead of the subject. Before Oprah’s Midas touch touched Sara’s product, Blakely started working nights and on weekends to visit manufacturers, research patents, and settle on a prototype.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She was working at a company called Danka, and for the next two years, she spent a total of $5,000 of her savings in research and development.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She was 27 years old when she drove up to North Carolina, the capital of where most of America’s hosiery mills are located. And get this: every representative rejected her hosiery idea. These companies refused to deal with someone who wasn’t an established company, so the value of her idea went over their heads.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But all hope was not lost. Blakely went home, and two weeks later, she unexpectedly received a call from a male mill operator in Asheboro, North Carolina. He told her that his three daughters loved the idea, so he wanted to support Blakely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Blakely then used her own credit card to purchase the trademark “Spanx” on the USPTO website for $150. One of the most defining moments of her startup occurred when Blakely scored a meeting with a representative of the Neiman Marcus Group. To show her persistence, Blakely went to the ladies’ restroom to change into the product to prove its benefits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Seven Neiman Marcus stores picked up her product as a result of this innovative meeting. Then shops like Saks, Bloomingdales, and Bergdorf Goodman followed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Around this time, ambitiously, Blakely sent a basket of her products to Oprah Winfrey’s show with a gift card that detailed what she was trying to build off the ground.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Also, by this time, Blakely was handling all the business aspects of “Spanx.” That includes marketing, logistics, and product positioning. She wanted her product to be sold alongside shoes in retail outlets rather than in the hosiery sections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Left and right, Blakely contacted friends and acquaintances from the present and the past, asking them to buy her products from department stores, offering them a check that she would send to them by mail to show her gratitude.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Then, on a legendary day in November 2000, Oprah Winfrey named Spanx a “Favorite Thing,” which wildly skyrocketed its popularity and sales. In Spanx’s first year of business, it earned a whopping $4 million. The second-year? $10 million.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In 2012, Blakely was a billionaire. If that’s not the ultimate startup goal, then I don’t know what is. Forbes magazine featured Blakeley on their cover for being the youngest self-made female billionaire in the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Is this story almost too good to be true? Imaging struggling to get your product to be picked up and having Oprah Winfrey offer you that chance of a gold platter? Never mind, earn $4 million in your first year of business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Believe it or not, our next story is even more unbelievable because this person started with a lot less.<\/p>\n\n\n\n