Spanx founder Sarah Blakely explains how her apparel company scaled into a global brand entirely through organic word-of-mouth.
Insight
Sara Blakely: Sharing fragile early ideas invites well-meaning discouragement
“An idea is its most vulnerable in its infancy, and that's also the moment in human nature we want to immediately turn to our right or left and tell our coworker, our friend, our boyfriend, our boss, you know, I have this idea, and out of love and concern, we h…”
Insight
Blakely: Spanx succeeded because she was actively hunting to execute an idea
“I meet women all the time that have been cutting the feet out of their pantyhose for years trying to solve undergarment issues for themselves, and they're always like, why didn't I do Spanx? And I really just think it's because I had been looking for this and …”
Insight
Blakely: Listing 15 improvable daily items will probably generate a big idea
“Anybody could do this exercise. Go home and look at 15 things in your life, and write them down on a piece of paper, and then write down how and why they could be better. You'll have probably a big idea right there on that sheet.”
Disclosure
Blakely: Taking a daily fake commute sparks her best creative ideas
“You know, I've identified where my best thinking happens, and it's in the car, and I live really close to Spanx, so I've created what my friends call my fake commute, and I get up an hour early before I'm supposed to go to Spanx, and I drive around aimlessly i…”
Disclosure
Blakely: Spanx addressed a gap between thick shapewear and visible underwear
“I went to Neiman's and Sachs and asked, you know, what do women wear under these white pants? And the sales ladies would always say, well, we don't really know, or they'd Point me in the direction of the shapewear that did exist, and it was really thick and dr…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Blakely: The Spanx founder wrote her own patent using library research
“I immediately went and researched patents at the Georgia Tech Library, and I Wrote my own patent. I got a book on patents and trademarks at Barnes & Noble on Peachtree.”