Our Sara Blakely Moment

by Seema Sanghavi November 26, 2020

Many of us have seen the picture of a young Sara Blakely, founder of Spanx, sitting on the floor in her apartment surrounded by Spanx orders ready to be shipped out. I know this picture well. In fact, I’ve saved the image on my phone. I love this photo because it’s a great example of what hard work and perseverance can accomplish. Since I started my business, this photo has become a source of inspiration for me. I hoped that one day I would experience something similar. That a tipping point would occur and my 2-3 daily sales would become 20-30. Well, my Sara Blakely moment arrived and the tipping point, a news interview.

Last Tuesday evening, a pre-recorded interview I did with Chef Dev Rajkumar aired on the CTV evening news. Within minutes, my phone notifications started going off. I didn’t know the interview had aired so I was really surprised by the number of orders coming in. Then messages from friends and family came in saying something like, “Hey, saw you and your aprons on the news!”. I would have never thought that a 2 minute interview could be so impactful. Think about it...as a solo entrepreneur you put hours and so much energy into things like posting on social, sending out newsletters, reaching out to influencers and this causes sales to trickle in. Then, you do a short interview, over Zoom as well so you don't even need to travel, and droves of potential customers come to your website.

I don’t know what the future holds for Cooks Who Feed but I can say that the idea of fighting hunger through the sale of a product that targets food lovers has been validated. Within 3 days of the interview, we sold over 400 aprons, translating into over 40,000 meals. We are on track to provide over 200,000 meals by the end of this year. As Victor Hugo said, “Nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come.”

Here’s to fighting hunger!