Spanx founder's 6 "unhinged" hacks for building her $1.2 billion business

Spanx founder and billionaire Sara Blakely shared six “unhinged” things she did while starting her now $1.2 billion company.

Transcript

00:00Spanx founder Sarah Blakely launched her company with just $5,000 in savings, and it's now worth

00:05$1.2 billion. I wanted my clothes to fit better, and so my own rear was the inspiration. Blakely

00:12became a billionaire in 2012, but her success story didn't happen overnight. On Instagram,

00:17the 54-year-old shared six unhinged things she did while starting the company. One, she bought

00:22a Spanx license plate as advertising, until women started following her home asking for free products.

00:28Two, Blakely signed up for reality TV show The Rebel Billionaire Branton's Quest for the Best,

00:34and won the second place prize of $750,000. Three, she mailed her Spanx prototype in a

00:40handwritten note to Oprah Winfrey. The gamble paid off when Oprah named it her favorite product of

00:45the year in 2006. Four, she paid her friends to go into Naaman Marcus department stores and buy

00:50Spanx so it wouldn't tank. Five, Blakely shipped early orders in regular envelopes with absolutely

00:56no tracking numbers. And lastly, the billionaire admitted she would sneak into stores and move

01:01the products from the back corner to right by the cash registers.