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After graduating from Florida State University in 1993, Sara Blakely of Clearwater applied for a job as Goofy at Disney World, but she was turned away for being two inches too short. Instead, she wound up selling fax machines door to door in Tampa Bay when her idea for Spanx was born.
With $5,000 in savings, product sketches her mother drew in the living room and a makeshift undergarment fashioned from cropped pantyhose, she soon got her product onto department store shelves.
Blakely catapulted to billionaire status in 2012 and was named one of TIME magazine’s 100 Most Influential People.
– Eve Lederman, The 100 Companies