Sara Blakely wasn’t supposed to be a billionaire. She wasn’t born into wealth, didn’t have connections in the fashion world, and had no formal business training. In fact, before she founded Spanx, she was selling fax machines door-to-door. But with a five-thousand-dollar investment, sheer determination, and a pair of scissors, she changed the shapewear industry forever and became the youngest self-made female billionaire in the world.
Her journey is equal parts inspiring and downright wild, filled with rejection, perseverance, and a little bit of Oprah magic. Let’s take a look at how she turned an everyday frustration into a billion-dollar empire.
The Big Idea Came From a Common Problem
Like most great inventions, Spanx was born out of necessity. In the late 1990s, Sara was getting ready for a party and wanted to wear white pants. But there was one problem—she didn’t like how her underwear lines showed, and she didn’t love how her body looked in them.
She grabbed a pair of control-top pantyhose, cut off the feet, and put them under her pants. Suddenly, she had the smoothing effect she wanted without the bulky seams or uncomfortable fabric. That’s when the lightbulb went off.
“I remember thinking, ‘This should exist for women,’” Sara later said. But at the time, she had zero experience in fashion, business, or manufacturing. What she did have was a strong gut feeling that other women wanted this, too.
From Idea to Reality: Making Spanx Happen
Armed with five thousand dollars in savings from her fax machine sales job, Sara dove headfirst into creating her first product. She spent the next two years researching fabrics, shapewear, and manufacturing processes, all while still working full-time.
But there was one problem: no one took her seriously.
When she pitched her idea to manufacturers, she was laughed out of the room. “They’d never heard of a woman coming up with a hosiery idea before,” she said. “It was an industry dominated by men.”
Finally, one factory owner in North Carolina took a chance on her—not because he believed in the product, but because his three daughters told him it was a good idea. And with that, Spanx was officially in motion.
Hustling to Get Spanx on the Map
Once Sara had her first batch of Spanx, she had to convince stores to sell them. She went straight to Neiman Marcus and asked for a meeting with a buyer.
To prove how game-changing her product was, she didn’t just explain it—she put it on in the bathroom right in front of the buyer. The buyer was sold, and Spanx landed its first big retail deal.
But Sara didn’t stop there. She personally called department stores, convinced store employees to move Spanx from the hosiery section to the front displays, and even sent her friends out to “fake shop”—asking salespeople where Spanx was, so it looked like demand was high.
The Oprah Effect: How Spanx Went Viral Before “Going Viral” Was a Thing
In 2000, Sara got the break of a lifetime.
Oprah Winfrey, arguably the most influential woman in America at the time, named Spanx one of her favorite things.
Sales skyrocketed overnight, and Spanx went from being a small, scrappy startup to a household name. Women everywhere wanted a pair, and Sara was suddenly running a business that was exploding in popularity.
Building a Billion-Dollar Empire
Even after Spanx took off, Sara stayed deeply involved in every aspect of the company. She didn’t hire anyone for the first two years—she wrote the patent herself, designed the packaging, and even modeled the products.
She kept Spanx completely self-funded, never taking outside investments. This meant that when Spanx hit the billion-dollar mark, Sara owned the entire company—something almost unheard of in the business world.
By 2012, Forbes named her the youngest self-made female billionaire in history. And just to emphasize how much she stuck to her roots, when Forbes called to tell her she had made the billionaire list, she was eating a Chick-fil-A sandwich in her car.
Giving Back and Inspiring Women
Sara never forgot what it felt like to not be taken seriously as a woman in business, and she made it her mission to empower other female entrepreneurs.
She created the Spanx by Sara Blakely Foundation, which has donated millions of dollars to support women’s education and entrepreneurship. In 2013, she became the first female billionaire to join The Giving Pledge, committing to give away half her wealth to charity.
The 1.2 Billion Dollar Sale of Spanx
After twenty years of running Spanx, Sara made another big move. In 2021, she sold a majority stake in the company to investment firm Blackstone for one point two billion dollars. To celebrate, she gave every Spanx employee ten thousand dollars and two first-class plane tickets to anywhere in the world.
She called the sale the right next step but remains involved in the company, continuing to innovate in the shapewear space.
Lessons From Sara Blakely’s Success Story
Sara’s journey from door-to-door sales to billionaire businesswoman is proof that you don’t need a fancy business degree or deep industry connections to build something game-changing. Here are some key takeaways from her story:
- Solve a real problem. The best businesses come from recognizing a gap in the market and creating a product that people genuinely need.
- Be relentless. Sara heard no hundreds of times, but she kept pushing. If you believe in your idea, don’t let rejection stop you.
- Market creatively. She knew how to create buzz, from staging fake shoppers to getting her product in front of Oprah.
- Own as much as you can. Keeping Spanx self-funded allowed her to maintain complete control and reap all the rewards when it succeeded.
Sara Blakely’s journey from cutting the feet off pantyhose in her apartment to becoming the youngest self-made female billionaire is nothing short of legendary. Her story proves that with a great idea, determination, and a bit of hustle, anything is possible.
So next time you see a pair of Spanx, remember—they’re not just shapewear. They’re the result of one woman’s refusal to take no for an answer.
