SARA BLAKELY

Sara Blakely was 27 and selling fax machines in Atlanta when she came up with the idea for Spanx — footless pantyhose that would smooth the body under white pants. She had $5,000 in savings and zero connections in the fashion or manufacturing industry.

She wrote her own patent (could not afford a lawyer), drove to hosiery mills in North Carolina to convince them to manufacture her product, and personally pitched Spanx to Neiman Marcus by showing a buyer the before-and-after in a bathroom. The buyer placed an order.

Oprah named Spanx one of her Favorite Things in 2000, and sales exploded. Blakely grew Spanx to $400 million in annual revenue without ever taking a dollar of outside investment.

In 2021, she sold a majority stake to Blackstone for a valuation of $1.2 billion. She became the youngest self-made female billionaire when she joined the Forbes list in 2012.

Spanx (founder, sold majority to Blackstone at $1.2B valuation), Sara Blakely Foundation (women's entrepreneurship), Spanx by Sara Blakely (fashion line)

Blakely is an entrepreneur-investor who puts money into women-led consumer businesses and social enterprises. She is not a traditional VC or portfolio investor.

Her investments tend to be personal — she backs founders she believes in, often women who remind her of her own journey. She also invests through the Sara Blakely Foundation, which supports women entrepreneurs globally.

Spanx. Building a $1.2 billion company from $5,000 and a cut-up pair of pantyhose, without any outside investment, is one of the most remarkable entrepreneurial achievements in modern business.

She owned 100% of the company until the Blackstone deal, meaning she captured the full value of her creation.

Blakely has talked about spending years trying to expand Spanx beyond shapewear into broader fashion — some product lines did not resonate as strongly as the core shapewear. She also waited arguably too long to bring in outside expertise and capital, which may have slowed growth in the 2010s.

Embrace failure. Blakely's father used to ask her at dinner: "What did you fail at today?" She was raised to see failure as a sign of trying, not of weakness.

She applies this to investing and entrepreneurship — she believes the willingness to fail publicly is the single biggest differentiator between people who build something and people who do not.

Married to Jesse Itzler (entrepreneur, co-owner of the Atlanta Hawks). Four children.

Based in Atlanta, Georgia.

Florida State University (BA in Communications). Studied to become a lawyer, failed the LSAT twice, sold fax machines instead.