Sara Blakely was getting ready for a party when she realized she didn't have the right undergarment to provide a smooth look. She cut off the feet off of her control top pantyhose and the crazy SPANX revolution began!  Like all revolutions:  it was not easy.

David Young:

Welcome to the Empire Builders Podcast. Teaching business owners the not-so-secret techniques that took famous businesses from mom-and-pop to major brands. Stephen Semple is a marketing consultant, story collector, and storyteller. I'm Stephen's sidekick and business partner Dave Young. Before we get into today's episode, a word from our sponsor which is, well it's us. But we're highlighting ads we've written and produced for our clients. So here's one of those.

[Tapper Jewelry Ad]

David Young:

Stephen, I don't know, we're fairly early in the series here but we're going to venture into the ladies undergarment department is that what I understand?

Stephen Semple:

That's where we're going.

David Young:

This is this the story of Spanx.

Stephen Semple:

Yeah. Spanx was started by Sara Blakely in 2000. And she had no history in fashion, of a history in any of those things and she's now a billionaire. So she took this from 2000 till today she's a billionaire. And I think anytime somebody does that it's like pay attention there's something to learn here. And the story starts with her basically putting on these expensive, she's going out to an event or a dinner, she puts on these expensive cream-colored pants and there's panty lines. She's like, "I don't want that, that's not..."

Stephen Semple:

So where did she go to? She goes to the control top pantyhose. But the problem with that is she wants to wear open-toed shoes. She's got these great open toes shoes that she wants to wear. So she grabbed scissors, chops off the feet, put some on, puts on the shoes and out she goes.

Stephen Semple:

And it's all great except what happens is the legs keep rolling up. So she then realize well, oh my God. And she thinks to herself and then she looks around she discovers there's no footless control top pantyhose out there anywhere, like they don't exist. So she starts figuring out well, how can I make this work? And there's two lessons in this story. Is the first of all is she discovered a problem that wasn't being solved. And pretty clear when you think it through it now seems obvious that that's a problem that a lot of women would face. You don't want the panty lines you want control top and you want to be able to wear open-toed shoes.

Stephen Semple:

That's not a stretch that this is a big unsolved problem. So she figures out how to solve the problem but then it gets more interesting as she goes knocking door to door at a top hosier companies to find a manufacturing partner. So she wants to find someone who wants-

David Young:

Who will make this.

Stephen Semple:

Yeah.

David Young:

Yeah.

Stephen Semple:

No, not interested. No, not interested. No. She gets rejection, after rejection, after rejection, after rejection. And then there's one night she gets a telephone call, honest to God when you hear her being interviewed this is how it's put. This plant manager calls her and says, "You know what, we'll help you with your crazy idea. We're willing to figure out how to make this crazy idea."

Stephen Semple:

So even this person was like, I'm not really excited but was like, "Well, what the heck. It's a crazy idea but what the heck. Well, we'll do a flyer and give you a hand on making this." So she persevered. The manufacturers all were rejection, rejection, rejection. So you think okay great I got it made now.

David Young:

Yeah. Now she's got product.

Stephen Semple:

Now I got product. I built a better mousetrap. Billionaire. No.

David Young:

No.

Stephen Semple:

She then hustles. It took her ages going store, to store, to store, to store,