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Transcript: Michelle Mone, Founder of MJM International

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LONDON, England (CNN) -- In a crowded lingerie market, inventing a product that is comfortable and flattering is a challenge. That is where the Ultimo range comes in. Its design gives women a boost -- but not at the expense of comfort.

Founder Michelle Mone could only afford the basics growing up. She says it's those tough times that formed her fighting spirit.

But now she can afford the finest. CNN's Todd Benjamin caught up with her in London.

Benjamin: You showed entrepreneurial skills from an early age. When you were 10 you rounded up a bunch of teenage girls to deliver hot buns with newspapers in the morning.

Mone: That's right, yes. I did that for a couple of years. And I remember up the close was a tenement, what you call up the close, and I used to meet them on a Friday night to pay them their wages. They used to say, "but you know we are like 15, 16, you're only 10. How did you work that one out?" I said, "Well do you want to get paid or not?"

Benjamin: While others basically had posters of Duran Duran in their bedrooms, you really had a picture of Richard Branson?

Mone: Yeah, absolutely. I mean I didn't fancy him or anything, I just had a picture up because I just wanted to be like him when I grew up.

Benjamin: And the idea for the Ultimo bra came when you were attending a dinner dance with your husband, wearing an uncomfortable bra?

Mone: That's right. I just went into the toilets that night and I took the bra off because I just couldn't wear it anymore. I just thought women should not have to go through all of this pain to get cleavage and so I thought I'm going to change that and I have.

Benjamin: And the way you went about that, you went out and bought every bra on the market and you tore them apart?

Mone: Tore them all apart and I just did all of my research. It took three and a half years to do it and we tried everything and we finally got the ingredients right, and it's a liquid silicon gel that's patented world-wide.

Benjamin: But the interesting thing was you were £250,000 in debt even before the first bra was made.

Mone: Oh I know, I can't believe I did that but yeah. I had 2 kids at the time and a house owned by the bank but I was so passionate and I really, truly believed in the bra and I remember all my family coming to my house one day and I had lots of bras and my Aunty Joan -- and she'll hate me for saying this but she should be a man because she's flat as a pancake. And I thought if this bra can give her cleavage then I'm onto a winner, and it did. It gave her cleavage, so I thought if I could give Aunty Joan cleavage I could give the whole nation cleavage.

Benjamin: Where do you think your drive comes from?

Mone: I think being brought up in the hard east end of Glasgow and there's such wonderful people but you know it was a real struggle. You know we didn't have a bath or a shower until I was 12 when I had a toilet, and my bedroom was in with my mom and dad's. My bed was at the side of their bed and I just always had this dream that I just want to stay in the nice hotels and I want to look after my family and I want to give people a better life and that was what was driving me.

Benjamin: How difficult is it to run a business and have three children at the same time?

Mone: You know I do have my moments where I'll cry in the toilet and say to my husband: "I can't do this anymore. I don't have anything else in me to give." Everyone wants a piece of you. But he then says to me, "Michelle you are fortunate. We live in a lovely house. We drive nice cars. We've got 3 gorgeous children, is life really that bad?" And then you think God, life isn't that bad. And that's what keeps you going and that's what keeps you up.

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