Sara Blakely started Spanx with $5,000. A bathroom won her Neiman Marcus.
She had no investor and ten minutes with the buyer.
In the 1990s Blakely sold fax machines door to door in Atlanta. She hated the lines her underwear left under dress pants, so before a party she cut the feet off her pantyhose. She spent two years and $5,000 of savings on the idea.
Every hosiery mill in North Carolina turned her away. Two weeks after she got home, one owner called back. His daughters had urged him to help.
She cold-called Neiman Marcus and got ten minutes with a buyer in Dallas. "I could tell I was losing her," Blakely told the US public radio network NPR in 2016. She took the buyer to the bathroom, put Spanx on under her cream pants and walked out. In her telling, the buyer said, "Wow, I get it." Spanx went into seven stores.
In November 2000 Oprah Winfrey named it one of her Favorite Things. In 2012 Forbes called Blakely the youngest self-made woman billionaire. In 2021 Blackstone bought a majority stake in a deal that valued Spanx at $1.2 billion. Until then she had no outside investor.
Seeing the product on a person did what the pitch could not.
One-minute true story. AI-generated illustration with narration by an AI voice.
What was the demo that won your first big customer?
What the captions say
- This is the story of how Sara Blakely turned $5,000 into Spanx and became a billionaire. And she won Neiman Marcus in a bathroom.
- At 27, Blakely lived in Atlanta and sold fax machines. She sold them door to door for seven years.
- She hated the lines her underwear left under her dress pants. Before a party, she cut the feet off her pantyhose.
- They kept rolling up her legs, but the lines were gone. She spent two years and her savings developing it.
- Now she needed a factory and a store.
- She drove to the hosiery mills of North Carolina. They asked who was backing her, she recalls. She gave her own name.
- Every mill turned her away. Two weeks after she got home, one mill owner called back. His daughters had urged him to help her.
- Blakely cold-called Neiman Marcus and talked a buyer into ten minutes in Dallas.
- The pitch was not going well. Blakely could tell she was losing the buyer. So she asked her to come to the bathroom.
- In a stall, she put Spanx on under her cream pants. The buyer looked at her. Blakely remembers what she said: "Wow, I get it."
- Spanx went into seven Neiman Marcus stores. In November 2000, Oprah Winfrey named it one of her Favorite Things.
- In 2012, Forbes called her the youngest self-made woman billionaire. In 2021, Blackstone bought a majority stake. The deal valued Spanx at $1.2 billion.
- Until that deal, Spanx had one investor. The name she gave the mills. Sara Blakely.
