Sara Blakely: From Fax Machines to Billion-Dollar Shapewear Empire
Sara Blakely is an American businesswoman and philanthropist best known as the founder of Spanx, a shapewear company that revolutionized the undergarment industry. Her journey from selling fax machines door-to-door to becoming a self-made billionaire is a testament to her creativity, perseverance, and unconventional approach to business.
Early Life and Education
Sara Treleaven Blakely was born on February 27, 1971, in Clearwater, Florida. She grew up with aspirations of becoming a lawyer, following in her father's footsteps. While she excelled in school, she struggled with standardized tests, particularly the LSAT, which she took multiple times without achieving her desired score.
Blakely's mother is Ellen Ford, the only child of Charles Kelton and Morrow Weber Ford, of Bay City. Ellen married attorney John Blakely after her graduation from the University of Michigan. She and John Blakely, who are divorced, also have a son, Ford Blakely.
From Comedy to Fax Machines
Faced with the setback of not getting into law school, Blakely explored other avenues. She briefly tried stand-up comedy, showcasing her willingness to step outside her comfort zone and embrace new experiences. However, her career took a different turn when she began selling fax machines door-to-door. For seven years, she honed her sales skills, learned to connect with customers, and developed a thick skin in the face of rejection. This experience proved invaluable in her later entrepreneurial endeavors.
The Birth of Spanx
The idea for Spanx came to Blakely out of a personal need. As she was prepping for a party, Sara Blakely, then 27, realized she didn’t have the right undergarment to wear under white pants. Dissatisfied with the available options, she took matters into her own hands. To solve the issue, she pulled out a pair of scissors and cut the feet off her pantyhose. This makeshift solution sparked an idea: shapewear that was both comfortable and invisible under clothing.
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Blakely saw a gap in the market for shapewear that addressed women's needs and preferences. She believed that existing hosiery options were outdated and uncomfortable, and she envisioned a new type of undergarment that would provide a smooth, seamless look without sacrificing comfort.
Launching Spanx: A Bootstrapped Beginning
With no business degree or formal training, Blakely embarked on her entrepreneurial journey. She started with $5,000 in her savings account and took no outside investments. For Blakely, part of the success of Spanx was that she didn’t take any outside funding. She started with $5,000, and it was profitable from the beginning. Whatever money she made from selling Spanx, she put back into the business. “A lot of people want to start big and think big and oftentimes get ahead of themselves,” she says. “That can end wildly successful, but it can also cause a lot of problems.
Blakely wrote her own patent to save on legal fees. She then drove to North Carolina, the location of most of America's hosiery mills, to present her idea. She was turned away by every representative; these companies were used to dealing with established companies, and did not see the value of her idea. Two weeks after arriving home from her North Carolina trip, Blakely received a call from a mill operator based in Asheboro, North Carolina, who offered to support Blakely's concept, as he had received strong encouragement from his three daughters.
In the beginning, Spanx was a one-woman operation and Blakely was in charge of every department at her new company. She was the packer and shipper. She was head of sales. She wrote her own patent to save on legal fees. “I was everything,” she says. “I was out in the field talking about the product and sharing the story of why it was better. There’s so much about my journey where I was like, ‘I am not going to let my success be contingent on other people.
Overcoming Obstacles and Redefining Business Norms
Blakely faced numerous challenges in the early days of Spanx. She heard “no” for two years from manufacturers before getting her first Spanx product made. She also didn’t like how masculine the traditional business environment felt, so she turned tradition on its head. “At a cocktail party after I first started Spanx, one guy came up to me and said, ‘Sara, we heard you invented something. I hope you’re ready to go to war. Business is war.’ I remember looking at him and thinking, ‘Why?’ I went home that night and sat on the floor of my apartment and thought, ‘I don’t want to go to war.’ Then this voice inside of my head just said, ‘Do it differently.
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Another time, when her product wasn’t in a visible space at Neiman Marcus, she took matters into her own hands. “I realized that my product was in the sleepiest part of the department store. It was back in the corner and nobody was going there. I immediately went and bought envelope dividers, put Spanx in them, and I ran around Neiman Marcus and put them at every register.
Spanx's Success and Blakely's Leadership Style
Spanx’s unique shapewear undergarments, plus dozens of other products like pants and leggings, are now available in more than 50 countries. Blakely came up with the idea for Spanx by thinking differently about hosiery, and she continues to generate ideas for new products, more recently a fitted men’s undershirt and Spanx Arm Tights to wear under shirts and dresses. “I think of a lot of ideas at traffic lights,” she says. “I pay attention to things that haven’t evolved and why. I ask myself questions all day, every day. I could be looking at a table and be like, ‘Why is the table like that? When was the table first created? Is that the actual best design for a table?
A key tenet of Blakely’s leadership style is admitting to her mistakes and giving her employees room to do the same. She even schedules “oops meetings” at Spanx where employees stand up and say how they messed up or a mistake they made, usually turning it into a funny story. “If you can create a culture where [your employees] are not terrified to fail or make a mistake, then they’re going to be highly productive and more innovative,” she says. “I’m curious about the things that hold power over us. And one is fear of embarrassment. We all have that.
Blakely is no stranger to vulnerability. In addition to admitting to her mistakes, she’s open about her process with her customers and shares intimate details about her life as a wife and mother of four on Instagram. “I love the idea of CEOs showing vulnerabilities and the ups and downs,” she says. “I don’t feel I need to put on a facade to be taken seriously as a leader. When I started Spanx, instead of talking at my customer, I wanted to talk to them. I felt other companies were like, ‘We need to be perfect, and you need to see us as the authority. That’s how we’re going to sell you a product.’ They weren’t really talking to me, and I didn’t necessarily trust them. [Instead], I made myself vulnerable. I was like, ‘Hey, I’m one of you. Here’s what it does for me. This is why it works.’ I used my own butt in the before and after picture.
At Spanx, new employees go through a training boot camp, and one of the mandatory activities is doing standup comedy. Blakely does this because it helps employees let go of their fears, loosen up, and use humor when selling Spanx products. “I don’t subscribe to the fact that you have to act serious to be taken seriously,” she says. “When I started, I wrote, ‘Don’t worry. We’ve got your butt covered,’ right on the package. I named my company Spanx, which made people laugh. All of a sudden you had celebrities like Gwyneth Paltrow and Julia Roberts flashing their Spanx on red carpets and saying, ‘I’m wearing Spanx.’ I think it’s because I chose to do humor and people wanted to participate in that.
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Philanthropy and Giving Back
Sara is the youngest self-made, female billionaire to join Bill Gates and Warren Buffet’s Giving Pledge, a commitment made by the world’s wealthiest who have dedicated the majority of their wealth to philanthropy.
Since its launch, The Sara Blakely Foundation has funded scholarships for young women at the Community and Individual Development Association City Campus in South Africa[29] and Blakely appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show in 2006, donating $1 million to the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls.
The Sara Blakely Foundation has been a long-time supporter of GCAPP, a capacity-building and training organization focused on youth health and empowerment. The Sara Blakely Foundation sponsored a Habitat for Humanity home build for a local, single mom.
In the fall of 2019, The Sara Blakely Foundation launched the “Mindset Series by Sara Blakely” in 13 schools, in partnership with 3DE. This series aims to accelerate outcomes by equipping students with the social and emotional skills needed to thrive in today’s world. Through a combination of videos, activities, discussions and reflections, the series highlights the importance of mindset - the work students need to do to mentally prepare for greatness. It’s about getting to know yourself, believing in yourself and having the courage to keep going when things get hard.
For the third consecutive year, The Sara Blakely Foundation teamed up with the Center for Civic Innovation (CCI), to provide funding to a new class of Atlanta-based social entrepreneurs. Each woman received a $5,000 Red Backpack Grant, and the chance to pitch for more funding later. They also received hundreds of hours of coaching and training, but more importantly, they built a community of lifelong peers and mentors. These women made significant growth in their ventures that launched many of them into the next phase of their entrepreneurial journey.
The Sara Blakely Foundation committed $500,000 to advance women’s leadership around the world via Vital Voices’ 2020 Fund, which was created to accelerate support for women leaders through programming and through the development of the first-of-its-kind global headquarters for women’s leadership. Housed within the Vital Voices Global Headquarters, the Sara Blakely Center for Entrepreneurship will chart a new course for women’s economic empowerment in the United States and around the world.
The Sara Blakely Foundation partnered with Spanx and the PowHERful Foundation to host the second PowHERful Enrichment Summit in Atlanta. The PowHERful Foundation has been successful in getting women to and through college and provides women with the services necessary to thrive in their education and professional choices. The organization provides financial assistance, mentorship, and wraparound support to help their scholars achieve their highest potentials. We were thrilled to host the largest Summit turnout yet!
The Sara Blakely Foundation celebrated Giving Tuesday by inviting female-focused organizations to gather at Spanx HQ for a philanthropy fair designed to inspire, engage, and give back! Each Spanx employee was given funds to donate to the charities that gathered as they learned more about each group’s mission, impact, and the different ways people can volunteer to help. The fair highlighted such causes as health and wellness through Girls on the Run, career development through Dress for Success, education via Generation Infocus and Global Village Project, empowering the homeless through ChopArt and Rainbow Village, and human trafficking via Wellspring Living.
100 high school girls joined The Sara Blakely Foundation at the Spanx HQ for “My Future Credit”, a creative media-focused event hosted in partnership with re:Imagine/ATL-a local nonprofit that empowers the next generation of storytellers. This full-day workshop incorporated intention setting, mindfulness, panels, dance, improv and more to encourage these teens to achieve their dreams and break barriers in the entertainment industry.
The Sara Blakely Foundation teamed up with the Center for Civic Innovation (CCI) for the second year, to provide funding to a new class of Atlanta-based social entrepreneurs. In addition to supplying a year of wraparound business services, the grant included a personal stipend, leadership development training, and attracted additional investment opportunities for these world-changing companies. To jumpstart this exciting initiative, CCI-along with a few Spanx employees-joined the Foundation for a mentorship kick-off and celebration.
The Sara Blakely Foundation sponsored a Kode with Klossy camp, hosting 25 young women from the Atlanta Girls School at Spanx HQ for a weekend of girl power, coding and fun.
The Sara Blakely Foundation partnered with Spanx and the PowHERful Foundation to host the first ever PowHERful Enrichment Summit in Atlanta. The PowHERful Foundation has been successful in getting women to and through college and provides women with the services necessary to thrive in their education and professional choices. The organization provides financial assistance, mentorship, and wraparound support to help their scholars achieve their highest potentials.
The Sara Blakely Foundation donated $250,000 to 10 local, social entrepreneurs through the Center for Civic Innovation. The grant provided the women a year of wrap-around services, leadership development training and attracted additional investment opportunities for these world-changing businesses. To kick off this exciting initiative, the Maverick1000 team joined the Sara Blakely Foundation and the Center for Civic Innovation at Spanx for a mentorship intensive and business-pitch competition. The Maverick1000 awarded the four winning women in-kind services around marketing and communications.
The Sara Blakely Foundation sponsored Akola’s launch event at Neiman Marcus in Atlanta, GA, proudly supporting founder and past SPANX Leg Up Winner Brittany Merrill Underwood as Akola became the first full-impact social brand in the luxury space. Akola is a female-owned non-profit jewelry company that has employed more than 500 women living in poverty, empowering them to break the cycle and transform their lives.
The Sara Blakely Foundation donated $100,000 to Let Girls Learn, a Peace Corp initiative that seeks to elevate and expand educational opportunities for adolescent girls-including girls in areas of conflict and crisis.
In conjunction with the launch of her new book, the Sara Blakely Foundation hosted a baby shower for expecting and new mothers at Grady Hospital, a 125-year-old Atlanta institution with a long history of serving the community’s most vulnerable and underserved populations. Blakely and team gifted more than fifty women with new strollers and car seats.
The Sara Blakely Foundation sponsored Every Mother Counts (EMC) annual fundraiser after Sara launched the Belly Art Project: Moms Supporting Moms and committed 100% of author proceeds to support EMC and raise awareness for maternal health. This gift will enable Grameen America to empower more than 100,000 low-income women entrepreneurs through microloans, credit and asset-building services.
The Sara Blakely Foundation sponsored the Atlanta Film Festival in support of the New Mavericks, a program that highlights female directors and crews that create films focused on female leads and empowerment. During the festival, Sara presented a New Mavericks director Elisa Paloschi with an additional grant, recognizing her inspiring work: “Driving With Selvi”.
Inspired by Malala’s incredible journey, the Sara Blakely Foundation gives $150,000 to support The Malala Fund.
The Sara Blakely Foundation supports Rainbow Village, a transitional housing community for homeless families with children in north metro Atlanta. Most of the heads-of-household at Rainbow Village are women who have fled lives of domestic violence and poverty.
The Sara Blakely Foundation supports The Global Village Project with a 3-year commitment to help launch an educational STEAM Program, which exposes female refugee students to Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Math. This program opens up a world of opportunity and provides a safe environmnent for these girls to realize their potential.
The Sara Blakely Foundation connects Spanx employees to international “sisters” via Women for Women International, an organization that supports women in countries affected by conflict and war. In addition to notes of encouragement from their Spanx family, the partnership provides these marginalized women training, resources and support to create sustainable change for herself, her family and her community.
The Sara Blakely Foundation provides its fourth year of support to the Harold Robinson Foundation whose mission makes it possible for Los Angeles’ less fortunate children to attend camp in a safe and nurturing environment. HRF strives to create a sense of purpose and accomplishment in each individual by providing a safe haven to explore fears and dreams while learning leadership skills and applications.
The Sara Blakely Foundation donates $100,000 to Veronika Scott, founder of the Empowerment Plan: a non profit that hires previously homeless women to make sleeping bag coats for homeless people. “Without your support at that crucial moment in time, we would not have been able to grow into the company we are today. Your gift and early belief in our mission encouraged other donors to follow in your footsteps,” said Veronika Scott.
The Sara Blakely Foundation gives $150,000 to the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy in Africa. The academy provides a nurturing educational environment for academically gifted girls in grades 8-12 who come from disadvantaged backgrounds and have demonstrated academic talent and leadership potential.
To celebrate Spanx’s 10th anniversary, The Sara Blakely Foundation gives $10,000 grants to 10 Atlanta organizations that support women: Cool Girls, Drake House, Dress for Success, Edge Connection, Our House, Quality Care for Children, Atlanta Day Shelter for Women and Children, Partnership for Community Action, Atlanta Children’s Shelter and All Grown Up.
The Sara Blakely Foundation gives $100,000 to the Atlanta Girls School to support their Entrepreneurship Program and its business plan completions. Finalists are awarded up to $1,000 in venture capital to continue research and development of their business plans.
The Sara Blakely Foundation partners with the Marist School to help fund and build a Habitat for Humanity home for single moms in Atlanta. Sara hosts a premiere of the powerful documentary Pray the Devil Back to Hell, which honors the strength and perseverance of Liberian women who came together to end a civil war. The Sara Blakely Foundation pledges to match donations to support women and help build a medical clinic in Liberia.
The Sara Blakely Foundation, alongside Virgin Unite, helps launch CIDA’s Women on the Move program. This program offers mentorship and leadership training to empower underprivileged South African women to develop economic independence and become agents of change in their communities. Sara launched the Foundation in 2006. Each VIP ticket provided a one-year scholarship to the CIDA (Community & Individual Development Association) City Campus in Johannesburg, South Africa. With $600k raised, The Sara Blakely Foundation sent 278 women to college!
Recent Ventures
In 2025, Spanx Founder Sara Blakley Creates Unicorn Companies by Targeting 'Dying' Industries.
Spanx founder's high-heeled sneaker brand drops OOH for NYFW. Sara Blakely's Sneex Evolves Marketing to be More Approachable. Spanx Founder Sara Blakely Introduces Sneex, a Sneaker-Heel Hybrid Starting at $395 a Pair.
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