10 Ideas that Earned $100 Million

#4 Spanx

Master Brain: Sara Blakely

It was luck that the idea for a new business struck Sara Blakely. One night, she cut off the bottom of her pantyhose, thus, the idea of Spanx was born. With only $5,000 in hand Blakely researched and wrote her patent for footless pantyhose.

Her next challenge was to get mill owners to make her product under her brand massively. She went in search for them along North California and most of them showed their ill hope that the product will never sell. But she couldn’t stop herself, as her hopes were still strong. Finally one mill owner decided to take a chance and helped her turn her “crazy idea” solid.

In 2000, she further made perfections in her product and started hitting up high-end department store buyers. In the first three months of the year recorded with a sale of over 50,000 pairs. And gradually she expanded her business to include a full range of products under the brand name that are now sold across the world. And what more! She landed on the Forbes World’s Billionaires 2012 list, with estimated revenue just under $250 million.