Sara Blakely started Spanx with $5,000 and an idea she got from cutting the feet off her pantyhose. That's not a cute founding myth, that's literally what happened. She wanted something that smoothed things out under white pants without the visible foot part and when she couldn't find it anywhere she just made it herself.
Before Spanx she was selling fax machines door to door in Clearwater, Florida. She went to Florida State, got a degree in business, and spent her twenties in a job she didn't love. When she came up with the Spanx idea she didn't have any connections in fashion or manufacturing. She cold called hosiery mills, got rejected over and over, and eventually found one willing to make her product.
It took off. Oprah named Spanx one of her Favorite Things and that was basically rocket fuel. The company grew from Sara selling out of her apartment to a billion dollar brand. In 2012 she became the youngest self-made female billionaire on the Forbes list. When Blackstone acquired a majority stake in Spanx, she gave every employee two first class plane tickets and $10,000 spending money, which is one of the most baller moves a CEO has ever pulled.
As a guest shark on Shark Tank, Sara knows what it's like to start with nothing and build something massive. She's lived the whole journey from rejection to billionaire status, and that gives her a perspective the career investors on the panel just can't match.
A few milestones:
- Founded Spanx with $5,000 in personal savings
- Became the youngest self-made female billionaire (Forbes, 2012)
- Named one of Time's "100 Most Influential People"
- Built Spanx from a single product into a global shapewear brand