By: Nahal Garakani

Sara Blakely didn’t come from fashion, product design, or business school. Before launching SPANX, she was selling fax machines door to door in Florida. What she did have was a simple idea: make women’s undergarments more comfortable, more flattering, and more functional.

She cut the feet off her pantyhose to wear under white pants and realized she was onto something. There was no product like it on the market, so she decided to create it herself.

With $5,000 in savings and no investors, Blakely started developing the prototype. She faced rejection after rejection from manufacturers. Most were male-run and didn’t understand the product. Eventually, one owner listened , thanks to a conversation with his daughters.

She wrote her own patent, designed the packaging, and cold-called retail buyers until she landed a meeting with Neiman Marcus. She even brought her prototype into the fitting room to demonstrate it. That meeting led to SPANX’s first order.

The product caught fire. Oprah named it one of her “Favorite Things.” Soon after, SPANX hit shelves nationwide.

In 2012, Blakely became the youngest self-made female billionaire, according to Forbes. When she sold a majority stake in the company years later, she gave every employee $10,000 and two first-class plane tickets to anywhere in the world.

Sara Blakely didn’t have the “right” background. She had a real problem, a creative solution, and the determination to keep showing up.

You don’t need permission to solve a problem. You need to start anyway and keep going until someone says yes.