You know your business is a hit when your brand starts to stand for its category. Take Kleenex. When you're about to sneeze, you may reach for a generic tissue, but you'd call it a Kleenex.
The same goes for Spanx, the shapewear company Sara Blakely founded 15 years ago from her Atlanta apartment. When a woman seeks an undergarment to help smooth out her pantylines under a dress, she doesn't go out looking for a girdle, she shops for Spanx.
Blakely spoke of turning her company from a one-woman startup to a billion-dollar international success story at Forbes' third annual Women's Summit in Manhattan, on a panel on building entrepreneurial capital alongside Ivanka Trump and Jennifer Hyman, CEO of the staggeringly successful fashion rental company Rent The Runway.
All three women spoke of building their brands despite naysayers -- men, in each case -- underestimating them.
Once Blakely had a prototype designed for her shapewear, she spent months driving to mills and factories in North Carolina seeking a manufacturer. Each time, she was turned away. Part of their reluctance was due to her lack of financial backing (she started Spanx with $5,000); part was a lack of understanding of just what a transformative product Spanx would be.
"One guy eventually took pity on me," she said. "It turns out he had daughters."
Rent The Runway's Hyman reminded the audience of entrepreneurs and leaders that only about 4% of venture capital funding goes to women -- even less so in 2008, when she was seeking investment for her fledgling company. She says she started each pitch by reeling off data and statistics.
"As a woman I felt I was always doubted on my analytical abilities," she said. Once, the head of a venture capital firm called her "adorable" and asked whether she was having "fun" playing with clothes. (She can laugh about that now: Rent The Runway is valued at upwards of $600 million.)
"Like all people who are quite delusional do, he thinks he was extremely supportive and gave me lots of ideas!" she said.
Part of her drive stems from this early sexism she experienced. Hyman now wants to build her brand into a multibillion-dollar business in order to show VCs that women's ideas are worthwhile and deserve funding.
After graduating from Wharton, Ivanka Trump started her career in the family business of real estate. Her first job wasn't working for The Donald, though.
"I was paranoid that after all of these years of wanting to be in the real estate industry, I wouldn't be any good, and I'd fail in the spotlight of the Trump Organization," she explained. Once she'd cut her teeth elsewhere, she went to work alongside her brothers, and found herself on a work trip with one of them to the Middle East.
Having been met at the airport, she and her brother were taken in separate cars -- he to a meeting regarding their real estate project, and she to a mall. "They thought I'd want to go shopping," she remembered.
Today Trump channels her desire to improve the lives of working women into her eponymous fashion label. She was frustrated by brands advertising what she saw as caricatures of workplace wardrobes -- black pantsuits and briefcases.
"The whole positioning of my brand is great product, accessibly priced, for this next generation of working women," she said.
Blakely described that early struggle to be understood as one of her greatest strengths. As panel moderator and journalist Gayle King summed up the sentiment: "Isn't it so nice to be underestimated and over-deliver?"
