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In 1995, twenty-five-year-old Sara Blakely was selling fax machines door-to-door in Florida for Danka, facing rejection daily but learning persistence and how to keep asking questions. In 1998, in her Atlanta apartment, she grew frustrated trying to wear white pants without visible undergarment lines. Grabbing scissors, she cut the feet off pantyhose, testing a makeshift fix that worked and sparked an idea. She spent months refining a prototype, calling hosiery mills until one agreed to help. In 1999, at Neiman Marcus headquarters in Dallas, she showed a skeptical buyer the difference by wearing her prototype under white pants. That simple moment launched Spanx, which by 2021 became a global brand valued at $1.2 billion, with Blackstone as majority owner and Blakely retaining a significant stake.