Spanx: Sara Blakely (2017)

We're hard at work planning our upcoming live shows, so we bring you this favorite from the last year: Spanx. At 27, Sara Blakely was selling fax machines and desperate to reinvent her life. So she came up with Spanx — hosiery that eliminates panty lines — and set to work building her business. PLUS in our postscript "How You Built That," we check back with Chandra Arthur of the friend-matching app Friendish, and how it was recently featured on the show, Planet of the Apps. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Guy Raz?

  Hey, it's Guy here, and I hope you are enjoying your summer vacation as much as we are. We are taking a little bit of vacation this summer, and we're also hitting the road for a series of live shows. So occasionally this summer, we're going to replay a couple of our favorite episodes of How I Built This, including this one. This is the first episode we ever did with Sarah Blakely of Spanx. And if you've already heard it, give it a second listen. I promise you, you're going to pick up on things you missed the first time around. Also, stick around for the "How You Built That" segment at the end, because we have a very cool update for you from one of our very first guests. OK, here's the show.

• 0:39Speaker 01

  In the middle of my meeting with her, I could tell I was losing her, and I just knew it was my one shot. So I said, you know what, Diane? Will you come with me to the bathroom? She goes, excuse me? I go, I know, I know, it's a little weird. Will you just please come with me to the bathroom? I want to show you my own product before and after. And she said, OK.

• 1:06Guy Raz?

  From NPR, it's How I Built This, a show about innovators, entrepreneurs, idealists, and the stories behind the movements they built.

• 1:18Guy Raz?

  I'm Guy Raz, and on today's show, the story of how Sarah Blakely designed a new kind of underwear, called it Spanx, and eventually became the youngest female billionaire in America.

• 1:34Guy Raz?

  So when Sarah Blakely was growing up in Florida, she didn't exactly dream of designing ladies' undergarments. She actually wanted to be a lawyer. But when she took her LSATs, she failed, twice. So after college, she got a job at Disney World as a ride greeter. And then, in the early '90s, she got another job. It was selling fax machines door to door. By the way, did you ever feel, like, demoralized with all the rejection and the people sort of saying, you know, no soliciting, please get out of here? Or was it like water off the duck's back?

• 2:04Speaker 01

  Oh my gosh, no. I would feel very defeated and many times I would get in my car and drive around the block multiple times, you know, just trying to convince myself to walk through the door. And sometimes I'd walk through the door and they were small offices where the whole office would turn and look at me at the same time, you know? And sometimes I would completely lose my nerve and just say, "Oh, sorry, I'm in the wrong place," and turn around and walk out. So I stumbled my way through it, believe me. And I know this sounds crazy, but when I was selling fax machines door to door, I kept feeling like I'm in the wrong movie, you know? Like, where's the director? Where's the producer? This is not my movie. And I was really determined to create a better life for myself.

• 2:47Guy Raz?

  So how did working there, like, help you discover what it was you were supposed to be doing?

• 2:53Speaker 01

  That was when I first started wearing hosiery daily. And I realized and figured out what the control top portion of the hosiery was doing for me in my clothes. It was really making my clothes fit so much better. But I had spent money on a pair of cream pants. I spent $98 on them, which for me was a lot of money. And they just hung in my closet unworn, because every time I would go to wear them, you could see the undergarment. Regular underwear left a panty line. The thong wasn't a great solution. It also left marks that you could see. And then the shapewear was so, it was like, the girdles were so thick and overdone. And I saw an opportunity for something right in the middle that would just create the perfect canvas undergarment for women.

• 3:38Guy Raz?

  And I guess I should say, for people who have never worn Spanx, it's just like, this is an undergarment made out of an elastic material that basically tightens and smoothes everything around your butt and thighs.

• 3:49Speaker 01

  Yes. And so when I cut the feet out of my own control top pantyhose so I could wear those cream pants, the light bulb went off. And then I started pursuing the idea.

• 3:58Guy Raz?

  Like, how do you then start to build a business? Like, did you have any money? Did you have access to capital? Did you have wealthy friends or family?

• 4:05Speaker 01

  I had set aside $5,000 in savings from selling fax machines door to door, and that's what I started Spanx with. And so, the first thing I did was started to research if the idea existed. And I went to the Georgia Tech Library in Atlanta every night after work for a week and a half, researching every pantyhose patent that ever existed. And then, probably on the seventh or 10th day of me being in there, some guy came up to me and goes, "You know, there's a website called USPTO.gov." And I said, "No, what is that?" I scribbled it down in my notebook. He's like, "You can search, you know, put in a patent and it'll search for you." So, that website became one of my best friends.

• 4:46Speaker 01

  And once I determined that there wasn't anything that existed in a patent form, I then wanted to see if there was any market appetite for it beyond myself. So, I literally went and asked one person. I went to the Neiman Marcus down the street from my apartment, went in and asked the sales associate if she thought anybody would ever want something like a footless pantyhose to wear under pants. And her face lit up and she goes, "Yes, in fact, I have lots of customers who've been making their own homemade version of that, because there's no right undergarment to wear under a lot of their clothes." And so, that was my whole focus group guy. I was like, "That's it, okay, there's a market demand."

• 5:30Guy Raz?

  Had you ever sewn anything in your life? Like, were you, did you have a background in design?

• 5:35Speaker 01

  No.

• 5:36Guy Raz?

  Did you know how to, like, manufacture stuff?

• 5:38Speaker 01

  No.

• 5:39Guy Raz?

  What did you do? How did you even start to think, figure out, like, what material you needed to use?

• 5:43Speaker 01

  I've never sewn. I have never taken a business class in my life. I didn't have anybody in the industry or even know anybody that worked in fashion or retail. And so, what happened when I came up with the idea is I just started taking other pantyhose, and then I went to Hancock Fabrics down the street and all these different arts and craft stores and started trying to paper clip different pieces of elastic to the bottom and different pieces of lace. And, you know, obviously, I didn't get very far. And my idea actually needed to be made on a machine. And that's why I really needed a manufacturer to give me the time of day to see if I could even make the prototype.

• 6:23Guy Raz?

  And in the meantime, you were, you were still selling fax machines, right?

• 6:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, because I needed the money coming in and the health insurance and all that comes with that. So, I was working on my idea at night and on the weekends. And when I kept calling all the manufacturers that I found that were mostly in North Carolina on the phone and not getting anywhere, I mean, no one would take my call or they didn't, you know, I just learned from my cold calling days, you've got to be there in person. So I took a week off of work and drove to North Carolina and just started cold calling manufacturing plants.

• 6:55Guy Raz?

  So you just showed up and said, like, make me a prototype?

• 6:58Speaker 01

  Yes. So I walked in the door just cold and just said, hi, I'm here to meet, see the owner. And they're like, and you are? They always asked me the same three questions. They'd say, and you are? And I'd say, Sarah Blakely? And they'd say, and you're with? I'd say, Sarah Blakely? And you're financially backed by? And I'd be like, Sarah Blakely! And so you can imagine how that meeting went. You know, most of them were like, have a nice day. It's great to meet you, you know?

• 7:24Guy Raz?

  Were they just not interested in the idea at all?

• 7:26Speaker 01

  Well, yeah, the manufacturing plants didn't get it at all. And I found it very interesting that all I was meeting with were men. And then it kind of became clear to me why they'd probably been so uncomfortable for so long, because the people that were making them weren't spending all day in them, you know? And so, and if they were, they were not admitting it. So I had a hard time explaining why this product was so important. And they couldn't wrap their mind around it. I was basically coming in and disrupting an entire industry who'd been looking at something in one way, and they were on a decline year after year. But they were making hosiery to be seen on the leg. And I knocked on their door and said, guys, I just want your hosiery material, and I don't need it to be seen anywhere. It's actually going to be hidden under clothes. It's a new type of undergarment.

• 8:09Guy Raz?

  So how did you convince a manufacturer to take you on to make the prototype?

• 8:12Speaker 01

  Well, it took a few visits to North Carolina and a lot of really persistence. They all sent me away at first. And a couple of weeks after I left, one manufacturer, Highland Mills in Charlotte, North Carolina, the owner called me. And he said, Sarah, it's Sam. I have decided to help make your crazy idea. And I just paused, and I was about to jump out of my chair. And I said, really? Why? Why the change of heart, Sam? And all he said is, I have three daughters. And so later, I found out, when I got the chance to do it, that he had run the idea by his three daughters over dinner. And they said, Dad, this is actually a really good idea. We think you should give this girl a shot. And he still didn't understand it or think it was a good idea.

• 8:56Speaker 01

  But he said that my enthusiasm and my confidence in how good this idea was going to be stuck with him.

• 9:05Guy Raz?

  Did anybody know about what you were doing?

• 9:07Speaker 01

  No. So when I came up with the idea, I kept it a secret for one year. I did share my idea with people like manufacturers, or lawyers, or people that I thought could help me bring my product to life. But I was very careful right away, it was just a gut feeling I had, to keep it to myself. Because I believe that ideas are the most vulnerable in their infancy. And it's instinct to turn to your right or left in that moment and tell a friend, or tell your husband. And, you know, when you do that, instantly ego's invited into the mix. And 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.

• 9:50Speaker 01

  I had invested enough of my time, and I had enough sweat equity into the idea, that I told people. And the things I heard were, you know, "Well, honey, if it's such a good idea, why hasn't somebody else already done it?" And, "Well, if it is a good idea, Sarah, you know, you're going to spend your savings on this, and then in six months, the big guys will just knock you out of the water." And that was all coming from a place of love. But I feel like if I had heard that, the night that I cut the feet out of my panties, I'd probably still be selling fax machines.

• 10:19Guy Raz?

  So, once you started to come up with something that you felt was really special, like, unique, remarkable, did you begin the process of getting it patented?

• 10:31Speaker 01

  I did. So I went to three different law firms. I couldn't find a single female patent attorney in the state of Georgia. And I even called the Georgia Chamber of Commerce, and they said there isn't one. So, I said, "Okay, well, I'm going to do my best to explain this to three men. Let's see what happens." And, you know, they were very nice. They were not super impressed, probably, with the idea. And they all quoted me between $3,000 and $5,000 to patent it. So I decided to write it myself. And I went to Barnes and Noble on Peachtree in Atlanta and bought a book called Patents and Trademarks. And I wrote the patent. And then my mom's an artist, and so I asked her if she would sketch me in the prototype for the patent. And that is the picture in the U.S.

• 11:15Speaker 01

  Patent and Trademark Office. I went back to the one lawyer who gave me a little bit more of time of day than the other ones. And I said, listen, Dan, I have written my own patent. I have done all of the work except for the claims. That is the part that I am not trained for. I don't understand how to do that. Please, I need your expertise. Is there any chance you would do it for a discounted price? And he was blown away. He goes, you've written basically the entire patent. Yes, for $750, I'll do it over a weekend, and I'll write the claims portion of your patent.

• 11:46Guy Raz?

  So you, so then you got the patent?

• 11:48Speaker 01

  Yes, but you know, there was a moment in this journey that was quite funny. When we were in the final stages of the claims, the lawyer said, Sarah, there is, I need to know what's technically in the garment from a fiber and yarn level. And I said, OK, there's only one person to call on that, and that's Ted. And Ted had become my friend in the back of the manufacturing plant in North Carolina. And Ted had the most thick Southern accent you've ever heard in your life. I mean, it was intense. And so I called Ted on the phone. I said, Ted, my lawyer's on the phone, and we're trying to finalize the patent. Can you tell me exactly what's in the garment? And he's like, yeah, there's 70% nylon and 30% lacquer. And I said, OK, great. And so my lawyer and I are writing, and I go, thanks, Ted.

• 12:32Speaker 01

  And I'm up all night, Guy, the night before I submit my patent to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. And I'm thinking, how is there lacquer in this product? Like, how is that possible? So I called Ted the next morning, and I said, Ted, it's Sarah. Will you, will you spell lacquer for me? And he's like, yeah, L-Y-C-R-A. I went, oh, my God, it's Lycra. OK, OK, OK, thanks. So I called my lawyer. I'm like, do an all change on lacquer. It's Lycra. And he laughed sorely. He goes, you know how fast you would have gotten a patent there on trying to make pantyhose out of paint thinner? I'm like, yeah.

• 13:09Guy Raz?

  Coming up, how Sarah got Spanx into the department stores and into the closets of many women you may know. Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to How I Built This from NPR.

• 13:33Guy Raz?

  Hey, it's How I Built This from NPR. I'm Guy Raz. So at this point in our story, Sara Blakely has designed a new kind of shapewear, and then she wanted to get it out into the market. But first, she had to come up with a name.

• 13:47Speaker 01

  So the name was A Journey. But since the time I cut the feet out of my pantyhose till the time I launched it in stores was two years, and I had been writing names on scrap pieces of paper everywhere I was, and most of the names were on the back of rental car agreements because I had great thinking in cars. And I wasn't getting anywhere with it. I didn't like any of the names, and I knew it wasn't right. And then I sort of narrowed down my thinking at one point in time and thought, Kodak and Coca-Cola are the two most recognized names in the world. What do they have in common? And they both had a strong K sound to them. And I had friends that were stand-up comedians, and I knew that the K sound makes your audience laugh. So I just put all that together.

• 14:27Guy Raz?

  I wonder why that is.

• 14:28Speaker 01

  I know. I don't know, but it's a known trade secret among comedians. And so I thought, you know what? I need to have my invention have the K sound in it for good luck. And almost as soon as I narrowed my thinking down that way, the word Spanx came to me. While I was in my car, I saw the word across, like, in my mind across the dashboard of my car, and I pulled off the side of the road, and I thought, that's it. And I went home that night. I didn't tell anybody. And I wrote down SPA and KS. And I went on USPTO.gov, and I typed it in. And I sat there and stared at it for a while. And at the last minute, I backspaced and deleted the K and the S and put in an X. I'd read that made-up words do better for products than real words do,

• 15:12Speaker 01

  and they're easier to trademark. And even though it didn't actually have the K in it, it had still the K sound, and so I felt great about it. And the name was just right. It's just, my product was all about the rear end, and it's about making the rear end look better and no panty lines. And so the word Spanx was kind of naughty and kind of funny and a little bit risky. And it just all worked. And I hit send, and I think it was $150 with my credit card. And then a couple of months later, I got back an official certificate from the government saying that I was the proud owner of the word Spanx.

• 15:47Guy Raz?

  OK, so you've got a manufacturer, a patent, and a name. How did you start selling it?

• 15:54Speaker 01

  My very first account that I called on was Neiman Marcus.

• 15:58Guy Raz?

  How did you even get in there?

• 16:02Speaker 01

  I called them. Guy, I just called them. I went in the Yellow Pages and I looked up the Neiman Marcus number in Atlanta. And I said, "Hi, I'm Sarah. I invented a product. Can I come and show it to you?" And the lady laughed and goes, "Ma'am, we have a buying office and it's in Dallas." I said, "Oh, well, what's their number?" So she gave me their number and I started calling them. And I just kept calling and trying to get to the hosiery buyer. And I called for days at different times. And she answered the phone. And I took my shot. And I said, "Hey, hi, I'm Sarah Blakely. And I invented a product that is going to change the way your customers wear clothes. And if you give me a few minutes of your time, I'll fly to Dallas and show you."

• 16:40Guy Raz?

  And what'd she say?

• 16:41Speaker 01

  She said, "Well, if you're willing to fly here, I'll give you 10 minutes of my time." And I said, "Great." And I jumped on a plane and I flew to Dallas. And I was in the meeting with her. And she was this beautiful woman, impeccably dressed. I'm at the Neiman Marcus headquarters. I have a Ziploc bag from my kitchen with a prototype in it, a color copy of the packaging that I had created on my friend's computer, and my lucky red backpack from college that all of my friends begged me not to bring. They said, "Sarah, you cannot go to the Neiman Marcus headquarters with that red East Pack old dingy backpack." I said, "Yes, it's my good luck charm. I have to." And they were really pleading with me.

• 17:22Guy Raz?

  So what happened?

• 17:24Speaker 01

  In the middle of my meeting with her, I could tell I was losing her. And I just knew it was my one shot. So I said, "You know what, Diane? Will you come with me to the bathroom?"

• 17:34Speaker 01

  And she just paused. She goes, "Excuse me." I go, "I know, I know, it's a little weird. Will you just please come with me to the bathroom? I want to show you my own product before and after." And she said, "Okay." And she walked down the hall with me. And I went in the stall and I had on my cream pants that were the reason I invented this without Spanx on. And then I went in the stall and put Spanx on underneath and came out. And she looked at me and she goes, "Wow, I get it. It's brilliant." And she said, "I'm going to place an order and I'm going to put it in seven stores and see how it goes."

• 18:05Guy Raz?

  Wow.

• 18:06Speaker 01

  And I couldn't believe it. I got in the car and I was shaking. And I called Sam from the manufacturing plant. I go, "Sam, Sam, it's Sarah. I need more. I just landed Neiman Marcus." And he paused. There was nothing on the other end of the phone for, it seemed like, a minute. I go, "Sam, are you there?" He goes, "Sarah, don't take this the wrong way, but I thought you were going to give these away as Christmas gifts or something for the next, like, five years. What do you mean Neiman Marcus just took it?" I'm like, "Neiman Marcus just took it and I need more."

• 18:40Guy Raz?

  Okay, so you are in Neiman Marcus. Are you thinking, "All right, I've made it"?

• 18:45Speaker 01

  Oh, my gosh. That is the biggest mistake that entrepreneurs make. That is when the work begins. First of all, I paid people, basically friends, to go buy the product and create a buzz about it because I was like, you know, I've got to have these things move off the shelf or the buyer's not going to give me any more chance.

• 19:02Guy Raz?

  Wait, you paid people to buy them?

• 19:04Speaker 01

  Yes. I called every friend I had in all the seven cities that Neiman's sent the Spanx to and called friends that I hadn't even spoken to since 4th grade and, you know, kind of like, "Hi, it's Sarah. Remember me from 4th grade? Do you mind going to the store and buying Spanx and I'll send you a check?"

• 19:23Guy Raz?

  Wow.

• 19:23Speaker 01

  And it was really tough because I was one item in a department and a new brand. And I didn't even get a whole row in the hosiery department. I got a pocket. So I needed to do whatever I could to maximize this chance. And I went to the stores and I would explain what the product was. I would demo it. I'd show the before and after picture that my friend took. And then I would stand in the store from 9:00 when they opened until about 5:00 or 6:00 every day.

• 19:52Guy Raz?

  So you're basically doing everything.

• 19:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I realized that one of the biggest challenges I had was that where my product was being sold in the store was an issue. It was being sold in the hosiery department, and my customer was in the shoe department, and she was in the ready-to-wear department. And so I started realizing, I have a challenge. I've got to get my product out of the department it's supposed to be sold in.

• 20:16Guy Raz?

  So how'd you do that?

• 20:18Speaker 01

  Well, I went to Target and I bought stands, you know, for envelopes.

• 20:22Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 20:23Speaker 01

  And I ran around the store and put them at every cash register, and everybody thought somebody else approved it, so they kept them there for a while.

• 20:30Guy Raz?

  You were in, like, Neiman Marcus, moving your piles of Spanx next to the cash register, and they just assumed that that was like some higher-up said, "Do that."

• 20:40Speaker 01

  Approved, yes.

• 20:41Guy Raz?

  So, other than that, how were you letting people know about what you were selling?

• 20:46Speaker 01

  It was a lot of hard work for me to get the word out. I mean, I've never advertised. Spanx is 15 years old, and we've never done any formal ad campaign or anything, and so it's a very word-of-mouth brand.

• 20:57Guy Raz?

  You had no money. You had to get the word out, and you did things like, I read you sent it to Oprah.

• 21:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, I did. I sent it to Oprah with a note, and it turns out she ended up picking it as her favorite product of the year.

• 21:09Guy Raz?

  How did she even find it in the piles of mail she gets?

• 21:12Speaker 01

  Well, I found out that Andre, her hairdresser, got them and put them in her dressing room. And she tried them and put them on and has basically worn them every day since.

• 21:23Guy Raz?

  Wow. So after she picked up on them, did the orders start flying out the door?

• 21:28Speaker 01

  I was shipping pantyhose to women, or the Spanx, all across the world, basically, from my apartment. So that's an enormous opportunity. And then another thing, I made a decision that was really unconventional at the time. I decided to go on QVC.

• 21:44Guy Raz?

  The TV channel, the shopping channel.

• 21:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I had a lot of people say, "Sarah, your brand is at Bergdorf Goodman and Neiman Marcus. You can't also sell on QVC. You'll kill your brand." And I just said, "Guys, I'm going to be the one on QVC, and I'm going to control the message, and it's going to give me an opportunity to explain what this is." And I felt confident in that. And they gave me five minutes of airtime. And I sold 8,000 pair of Spanx in five minutes. And that was after, you know, a year of standing in department stores across the country. And on a really good day, I'd sell between, you know, 35 to 70 pair in a day.

• 22:24Guy Raz?

  And sales must have been, must have like kept going up because I read that like by the end of your second year, you, you made like, the company made like $10 million.

• 22:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:33Guy Raz?

  So did that feel, I don't know, did it almost feel like it was too much, too fast?

• 22:37Speaker 01

  It was great. It was great. I, I never was doing it for the money, you know, so I wasn't really that, ever that focused on it. I mean, I can even remember after a couple of years of Spanx, I was still in my apartment. And my accountant kept trying to convince me to buy a house. And I was like, I don't, I'm not interested. And my little brother was always calling and telling me different ways to spend my money. And I just, it was really just for the art of it. Like, I loved, I loved being able to pay my own rent and stand on my own two feet as a woman. That was a really important thing for myself. But it was really just, I love making the product.

• 23:11Guy Raz?

  Did you have, like, early on, did you have people coming to you saying, listen, you've got to scale up fast, you're going to need money, let me invest in this company, and let me help you figure this out?

• 23:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, I did. I had all kinds of things coming at me in the beginning and still do, you know, 15 years later. But I remember one of the most interesting was, within the first six months, I started having several people come up to me and say, what's your exit strategy?

• 23:37Guy Raz?

  Huh.

• 23:38Speaker 01

  And I had no idea what they were talking about because I've never taken a business class. And it dawned on me that people actually start things just to sell them.

• 23:46Guy Raz?

  And you still own 100% of this company?

• 23:49Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 23:50Guy Raz?

  Did you ever think the company would fail in its first few years?

• 23:54Speaker 01

  No. I was always nervous, but I was always so connected to the product. I mean, I was so, I was so creating this before it happened, while I was selling fax machines door to door. I was, I was thinking about it, I was writing about it, I was visualizing it, I was preparing for it. I thought, you know, I don't have the most money, I don't have a business degree, I have no idea what I'm doing in manufacturing or retail or any of this, but I do care the most, so let's see what happens.

• 24:23Guy Raz?

  When you see these, these things, when you see things like, you know, Sara Blakely, self-made billionaire, is that weird when you see that? When you, when you see that number, that word?

• 24:34Speaker 01

  Yes, it's very weird. It reminds me of, in middle school, there used to be these things in the malls where you could go in and pick the magazine cover you wanted to be on. You know, like your friends, and we'd all go in the booth and we'd smile and then we'd be on the cover of Vogue or whatever. It just says, it feels very surreal to me.

• 24:56Guy Raz?

  That's Sarah Blakely, founder of Spanx. 15 years on, the company has continued to grow and has yet to go public.

• 25:08Guy Raz?

  And please do stick around because in just a moment, we're going to hear from you about the things that you're building.

• 25:17Guy Raz?

  Hey, thanks for sticking around because it's time for How You Built That. And today, we're actually going to check back with someone who was on the show last fall.

• 25:26Speaker 02

  Hi, I'm Chandra Arthur, the founder of Friendish.

• 25:28Guy Raz?

  And Friendish is kind of like a low-key Tinder. It's a way to make a new friend, and just a friend, based on things you both like to do, like gardening, or hiking, or playing music.

• 25:39Speaker 02

  And the moment there are users that have things in common with you, you'll get a notification that you have friends waiting. So, once you get that notification, you can meet them, or you can keep swiping on other interests.

• 25:49Guy Raz?

  Chandra spent several months trying to get Friendish coded and to work out some of the kinks. And when she finally put a beta version up on the App Store on iTunes last spring, most of the feedback she got was kind of disappointing.

• 26:03Speaker 02

  The biggest criticism was that there wasn't enough people on the app. So naturally, we're based in Orlando, which is where most of our users are. But if you downloaded the app in Wisconsin, or in Berlin, or in London, there just wasn't enough users for people to feel like the app was functioning. So for them to have a bad experience is almost just as bad as them not downloading it at all.

• 26:22Guy Raz?

  But then, about a month after we first spoke to Chandra, she got some good news. She'd applied to be a contestant on a new reality show called Planet of the Apps, and she got in.

• 26:33Speaker 02

  It wasn't a typical reality show like The Bachelor, where it's like 20 girls, one guy.

• 26:39Speaker 03

  This is the search for the next great idea.

• 26:42Guy Raz?

  This show is produced by Apple, and it's more like Shark Tank for techies.

• 26:47Speaker 03

  You have 60 seconds on the escalator to get them to choose to be a part of your project. You'll know because at the end of your escalator ride, they'll either go green or red.

• 26:56Guy Raz?

  And you can probably imagine what happens next. If the show's advisors like your idea, you might eventually get a big investment in your app. Chandra can't tell us whether that happened to her because the episode she was on hasn't yet run, but she says it was really cool to just be on the show.

• 27:13Speaker 02

  You know, during filmings, a lot of people from Apple would be on set or just to, you know, kind of hear back from seasoned professionals about your app idea and for people to look at your idea in a different way that you haven't considered. It was amazing.

• 27:27Guy Raz?

  Chandra's episode of Planet of the Apps will drop in a few weeks, which is roughly the same time that the official version of Friendish will go live on the App Store.

• 27:37Speaker 02

  I hope that I'm becoming a success story for our Orlando tech ecosystem. So I'm quite happy to still be on this journey, on the roller coaster. I hope I don't fall off anytime soon, but I wouldn't have it any other way.

• 27:50Guy Raz?

  You can read more about Chandra, Arthur, and Friendish on our Facebook page. Just search How I Built This on Facebook. And of course, if you want to tell us your story, go to build.npr.org. We love hearing what you're up to. And thanks for listening to the show this week. If you want to find out more or hear previous episodes, you can go to howibuiltthis.npr.org. Please do subscribe. And while you're there, please also write a review if you like the show. You can write us. It's h i b t at npr.org. And if you want to send a tweet, it's at howibuiltthis. Our show was produced this week by Rund Abdel Fatah with original music composed by Ramtin Arablouei. Thanks also to Neva Grant, Sanaz

• 28:32Guy Raz?

  Meshkhanpour, Claire Breen, and Jeff Rogers. Our fabulous intern is Lawrence Wu. I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to How I Built This from NPR.

• 29:02Guy Raz?

  If you're looking for a new podcast to try, how about Planet Money? Give it a fresh listen. One thing people say about Planet Money is how much they love listening to it, even though they don't care about business or economics. It's just a smart show with great stories that help explain our world. It's explanatory journalism at its best for a time that really needs some sane reporting about the big questions. Find Planet Money on NPR1 or wherever you get your podcasts.