Why Spanx founder Sara Blakely hid her billion-dollar business idea from friends and family for a year. (via CNBCMakeIt)
NEW YORK, NY - OCTOBER 25: Spanx Founder Sara Blakely speaks onstage for during day 3 of Fast Company Innovation Festival at 92nd Street Y on October 25, 2018 in New York City. In start-up lingo it's called "stealth mode" — where founders keep their business secret, sometimes to keep information from competitors, sometimes as a marketing strategy. But in the '90s, Sara Blakely hid her fledgling shapewear company Spanx from even those closest to her for a different reason.
"[I]t was just a gut feeling I had to keep it to myself, because I believe that ideas are the most vulnerable in their infancy," she said on a September 2016 episode of "." "And it's instinct to turn to your right or left in that moment and tell a friend or tell your husband." "Then you end up spending all your time defending it, explaining it and not pursuing it. So I needed to be at the place where I knew I wouldn't turn back no matter what I heard," Blakely said.
"I was working on my idea at night and on the weekends," she said on "How I Built This," adding that she needed to keep her day job "because I needed the money coming in and the health insurance and all that comes with that."
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