Spanx founder Sara Blakely shares a practical ideation exercise for prospective entrepreneurs looking for their next breakthrough concept.
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…”
Assertion Partly supported
Blakely: Spanx ran zero paid advertising for its first 16 years
“You know, Spanx has never advertised until this year, and we're 16 years old, so this has been a word of mouth brand.”
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 …”
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.”