#ShesSoFly: Sara Blakely

Sara Blakely became the world’s youngest female self-made billionaire in 2012. Her invention of Spanx, body slimming wear, is the best known brand of undergarments. After graduating college with a degree in communications, Sara had a whole bunch of jobs including working at Walt Disney World. She was selling fax machines door to door, when she had a party to attend and wanted to wear white pants, but wasn’t sure what kinds of undergarments would help her appear slimmer and be undetectable. After cutting off the feet on panty hose, Sara knew she had something good.

Sara hustled as she worked on the prototypes with her own personal investment, doing her own research of factories and how this business would work. She found a factory, wrote her own patent application, named her brand, and created a logo, before cold calling buyers at department stores to get her product on the shelves. Now, she has all kinds of lines, reaching far beyond undergarments. She has everything from women’s fashion, to men’s underwear and loungewear.

With the money she won on a reality tv show, she established the Sara Blakely Foundation, a philanthropic organization providing scholarships and grants to aspiring female entrepreneurs. Sara has also been named in Time Magazine’s “Time 100” annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world. Then she was listed as the 93rd most powerful woman in the world by Forbes. She is married and has 4 children, and is still the CEO of Spanx today.