Thread by @jspujji

At 27, she took her $5,000 life savings, a good idea and tons of hustle to build a BILLION dollar business.

The Crazy Part?

She had almost no prior experience in business.

This story never gets old 👇🏽👇🏽👇🏽

1/ Sara was born in 1971 to an Artist Mom and Attorney Dad.

Her dad made it a point to ask weekly at the dinner table: “What did you fail at?”

He drilled into her that if you are not failing, you are not trying

Sara had early entrepreneurial instincts…

2/ A hustler from the start, she was always coming up with “kid businesses”:

Sold special charm socks at school.
Ran the neighborhood haunted house.
And later started a babysitting service.

At 16, she faced a life altering tragedy.

3/ Her best friend was run over and killed by a car right in front of her.

That same year, her parents divorced.

Later, both her prom dates independently died.

These experiences gave her a unique urgency for life.

But immediately, she went nowhere...

4/ After college, she failed the LSAT twice.

She got a job at Disney world and absolutely hated it.

Finally, she found a job and was good at it: hustling.

In 1992, Sara started selling fax machines door to door.

There, she built and honed her greatest skill:

5/ Cold calling.

“They gave me a cubicle, a phone book and a territory of four zip codes in Clearwater and said, ‘Now go sell $20,000 of fax machines a month door-to-door.”

She was so good that they made her a trainer in just a few years,

One day, inspiration struck!

6/ Selling door to door, she noticed how much firmer she looked and felt in panty hose.

But they were uncomfortable, hot and had a huge ugly seam.

That night, she cut off the feet and wore them under a pair of pants to a party.

They still needed work, but Sara was inspired…

7/ She took her $5k in savings and for the next 2 years worked 9-5 at her day job while working 5-? on the new business

She taught herself to write a patent since the lawyers wanted $3K+ to do it - her entire savings!

It was accepted. Now all she needed was a manufacturer...

8/ Sara began cold calling hosiery mills around the US, no one would even speak with her.

Most were in North Carolina, so she drove out and went door to door.

Still, nothing. They wouldn't even see her.

2 weeks after she got home, one mill owner called her back…

9/ He had run the idea past his daughters and they loved it.

Then Sara began to see the big problem:

Panty Hose were being made by MEN for WOMEN.

Sara puts it best: “Our pantyhose had been so uncomfortable for so long because the people making them aren't wearing them...

10/ ...they took the same size waistband and put it on every pair… I also learned that they were putting a tiny rubber cord inside of our waistbands. I immediately said ‘We have been miserable, we can't breathe, we're cutting our waistbands. ...that was the first change I made.

11/ ...the way that they did sizing just blew me away. They had these plastic forms in their mill, and they would put the product up on the form and they'd all stand back and go ‘Yep, that's a medium.’ I'm like, ‘Ask her how she feels.’ And they just looked at me.”

12/” So, with Spanx, I started testing my prototypes on real women, my mom, my grandmother, all my friends.”

Sara knew she had a winning product, but no one knew about it yet.

She fell back on her best skill: cold calling.

She called every dept store.

13/ After a few weeks, she eventually got the name of the hosiery buyer at Neiman Marcus, but they weren’t interested.

When Sara offered to fly out to Dallas, they agreed to give her 10 minutes.

But the buyer wasn't getting it. Sara Panicked...

14/ Out of desperation, she begged: "will you please try it on?"

The buyer agreed, and immediately it clicked!

Spanx was in Neiman Marcus.

Bloomingdales, Saks, and Bergdorfs quickly followed but it took another year until Spanx hit it big...

15/ Spanx’s big break came in 2000:

Knowing that Oprah cut the feet off of her hose, Sara had been Spanx samples.

In Oct she got the call:

Spanx would be on Oprah’s Favorite Things. Be ready for a lot online orders.

The only problem, Spanx didn’t have a website…

16/ Sara had two weeks. She quickly put up a site.

Just a package photo and a buy button for $18/month. It was bare bones, but worked perfectly.

When the show aired, Sara sold out their entire stock.

2000 closed with $10,000,000 in sales!

But Oprah was just the beginning...

17/ QVC agreed to have her on and Sara sold over 8,000 pairs in under 5 minutes.

In 2005, she came in second on Richard Branson’s Rebel Billionaire TV show and won $750K to start her own charity.

By the end of that year, sales hit ~$100,000,000!

18/ Sara ran her company with simple but powerful principles I love

• Try to Fail Regularly
• Visualize and Review Your Goals Daily
• Make Sure Your Business is Self Sustaining
• Keep Your Big Ideas Secret Until They’re Ready
• Don’t Give Up!

19/ Last week, after 22 years, Sara Blakely sold a majority stake in Spanx to Blackstone for 1.2 BILLION.

She was the sole owner until then.

And true to her mission, she did not forget her team in the celebration...

20/ Every employee got 2 first class tickets anywhere in the world plus $10k! That’s an inspiring gift!

21/ Sources
inc.com/sara-blakely/h…
forbes.com/global/2012/03…
nymag.com/vindicated/201…
entrepreneur.com/article/219367
success.com/5-things-you-d…
ajc.com/news/storied-a…
money.com/mark-cuban-sar…
fundable.com/learn/startup-…

22/ This story is a reminder that:

1) Hard work pays off
2) Great ideas start with real problems
3) You rarely find your calling at 21
4) LEARN TO COLD CALL!
5) You aren't trying if you're not failing.

And that anyone can do it...

23/ If you enjoyed this thread, follow me @jspujji

I tweet a Bootstrapped Giants🧵 like this every week.

RT the whole thread to share this amazing story!!

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