An entrepreneur’s journey is filled with ups and downs, encouragement and disappointment, successes and failures.  This roller coaster of emotions and events is perhaps why successful entrepreneurs are so well respected; it takes a stroke of luck and a generous amount of determination to achieve success.  It is for this very reason that Sara Blakely, founder and inventor of Spanx, is an entrepreneur worth emulating.  She managed to take an idea no one believed in, created a product no one knew they needed, and broke into a multi-million dollar male-dominated industry.

The big idea was made possible because she could never figure out what to wear under white pants.  That is, until the day she cut off the feet of her pantyhose.  She could immediately tell that this was a product women needed, and she spent two years convincing others to share in her vision.  Using her sales experience, she managed to land spots in retail stores, and before she knew it – Oprah called naming Spanx as one of her “Favorite Things.”

Oprah’s PR is what really launched the product to new heights, but the company has grown exponentially since then.  With an expanded product line, products for men, and Blakely’s recent philanthropic efforts, it seems as though there is no stopping this global brand.  My favorite part about this founding story is that Blakely never took any outside funding.  She was able to bootstrap the company from the ground up, and has remained the sole owner of Spanx.