Many successful business started with meeting a need felt by
the business owner. One woman started
her business this way. She felt that pantyhose did not exactly bring out the
best of her figure whenever she put on a figure fitting outfit. She set out to
make a product that would.
Sara
Blakely had frustration with clothes that she thought would look great only
to be disappointed with the exposure of panty line and imperfection. This led
her to the idea of an undergarment like a pantyhose without the foot cover and
of course the disappointing lines. It would help improve her figure not make it
look worse. This was the start of SPANX.
The road to success was not easy. A sales trainer by day and
a standup comedian by night, she managed to start her entrepreneurial quest
with $5,000 dollars savings and worked out of her apartment. To keep cost down
she even wrote the patent herself aside from the fact that the lawyers she
approached thought her idea was crazy. She did finally got her patent and the
trade mark name SPANX.
If the lawyers thought her idea was crazy then the mill
manufacturers she visited didn’t really have a positive opinion of her product
either. She kept on visiting until one of the millers said he would help manufacture
her idea.
With an actual demonstration of her product to a lady buyer
of Neiman’s she was able to show the before and after effect of wearing SPANX.
It worked, Neiman’s displayed her products, and sales took off. Saks, Bloomingdale, Nordstrom, later on sold
her product. She was on her way up. Target got interested so she created the
ASSET product line for a broader market.
She founded the company in 2000 and 12 years later, Forbes Magazine lists
her as the youngest self- made female billionaire in the world with a net worth
of $1 billion. Her figures have certainly improved.
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