$5,000 and a Pair of Scissors: How Sara Blakely Built Spanx

The problem was personal

In the late 1990s, Sara Blakely was working in Atlanta, selling fax machines door to door. She had a day job she was good at but did not love, and she kept a private idea in the back of her mind that she wanted to build something of her own.

The idea came from an everyday annoyance. She wanted to wear white pants to a party, and she wanted a smooth look underneath, but nothing in the stores did what she wanted. Regular pantyhose had seams and feet that showed through open shoes. So she did something simple: she cut the feet off a pair of pantyhose and wore them under her pants. It worked better than anything she could buy, and she realised other women probably had the same problem.

Starting with $5,000 and no experience

Blakely has said in interviews that she started with about $5,000 in savings. She had no background in fashion, no connections in the hosiery industry, and no investors. She researched the market at night and on weekends while still working her sales job.

Her first big obstacle was manufacturing. Most hosiery mills are in North Carolina, and she travelled there to pitch her idea in person. Many mill owners turned her down, and some did not take her seriously. The turning point came when one mill owner agreed to try it after his daughters reportedly encouraged him to back the idea.

Doing the unglamorous work herself

Blakely did not hire expensive lawyers or designers early on. She wrote much of her patent application on her own, using a book on patents to guide her, and only later paid a lawyer to review it. She also designed the packaging herself. She chose bright red packaging because she believed it would stand out on a crowded store shelf full of beige and neutral boxes. She picked the name carefully too, since she believed a catchy, slightly unusual name would be easier to remember.

Getting into stores

Instead of trying to reach hundreds of stores at once, Blakely targeted one big buyer: Neiman Marcus. She secured a meeting, and rather than just describing the product, she went into the bathroom with the buyer and showed the difference between wearing her product and not wearing it. The buyer placed an order for a test run in a handful of stores.

After that, other major retailers followed. Sales were driven largely by Blakely herself, who travelled to stores and showed customers how the product worked, and sometimes stood in the aisles encouraging shoppers to try it.

The Oprah moment

In 2000, Oprah Winfrey named the product one of her favorite things, which brought it a huge wave of publicity. Sales grew quickly, and the company went on to expand into many other kinds of clothing. In 2012, Forbes listed Blakely as the youngest self-made female billionaire in the world at that time. Spanx remained privately owned for many years, with Blakely keeping control of the company.

What this story teaches anyone starting a small business

• Solve a problem you actually have. The idea came from her own frustration, which meant she understood the customer from day one.
• Start small and keep your job. She kept her income while testing the idea on the side.
• Do the research yourself. Learning the patent process, manufacturing and packaging saved money and taught her the business.
• Stand out visually. Bright packaging and a memorable name made a simple product easy to notice.
• Show, don’t tell. A live demonstration to one buyer opened the door to national distribution.

A note on accuracy

This story draws on interviews Blakely has given over the years. Some details, such as exact dates and the number of stores in the first order, vary between retellings, so treat the finer points as approximate.

What everyday annoyance could become your product? Share it in the comments below, and let’s see whether other readers have the same problem.