6 ‘unhinged’ things Spanx founder Sara Blakely did that ultimately shaped the success of her $1.2 billion empire

• Sara Blakely, the founder of Spanx, revealed several things she did when she first started her billion-dollar brand that she now calls “unhinged.” Some of them include pitching Oprah Winfrey on her product in its early days and paying her friends to go buy her product at Neiman Marcus. Blakely is a beacon for female entrepreneurs, having become the first self-made female billionaire more than a decade ago.

Sara Blakely ideated Spanx while she was a fax machine salesperson in the late 1990s.