Spanx founder and billionaire Sara Blakely shared six “unhinged” things she did while starting her now $1.2 billion company.
Category
🤖
TechTranscript
00:00Spanx founder Sarah Blakely launched her company with just $5,000 in savings, and it's now worth
00:05$1.2 billion. I wanted my clothes to fit better, and so my own rear was the inspiration. Blakely
00:12became a billionaire in 2012, but her success story didn't happen overnight. On Instagram,
00:17the 54-year-old shared six unhinged things she did while starting the company. One, she bought
00:22a Spanx license plate as advertising, until women started following her home asking for free products.
00:28Two, Blakely signed up for reality TV show The Rebel Billionaire Branton's Quest for the Best,
00:34and won the second place prize of $750,000. Three, she mailed her Spanx prototype in a
00:40handwritten note to Oprah Winfrey. The gamble paid off when Oprah named it her favorite product of
00:45the year in 2006. Four, she paid her friends to go into Naaman Marcus department stores and buy
00:50Spanx so it wouldn't tank. Five, Blakely shipped early orders in regular envelopes with absolutely
00:56no tracking numbers. And lastly, the billionaire admitted she would sneak into stores and move
01:01the products from the back corner to right by the cash registers.