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- [00:00]
Marnie
Problem solution. We are not about brand. We're about making sure that our potential customer understands what we offer as a solution to her pain point right away. It takes a long time to build a brand. There's a lot of sexy stories out there that the media loves overnight successes. But the reality is most businesses take a decade plus to hit their tipping point. We're leaning heavily into content from creators founder content which always resonates. I was met with that sort of resistance even from a lot of my male manufacturing partners were like are women going to buy long leg underwear? And I just kept saying yeah, they, they are, they, they are. And over 2 million pairs sold. You know they are.
- [00:52]
Eric Dick
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- [01:57]
Marnie
I'm doing great. Nice to see you again too.
- [01:59]
Eric Dick
This podcast is a. It's a theme near and dear to my heart. I absolutely hate chafing. It's got to be one of the worst things in the known universe.
- [02:07]
Marnie
I love that you started this podcast with that because it's how I start all of my conversations of do your thighs get chub rub? Do your thighs sweat? Do you get a rash? And most of the time people look at me right away and they're like, that's a strange way to open a conversation. But yes, they're keen to talk about it. So I'm looking forward to talking about that today and I'm sorry that you suffer from it. I have a solution for you, actually.
- [02:30]
Eric Dick
Yeah, well, we're heading into chafing season here, so walk us through Your hero's journey Starting thigh society.
- [02:37]
Marnie
Sounds good. I'll try to condense 15 years into a one or two minute story so your listeners don't get bored. And yes, that's right, 15 years. So it was 2008, I was working in a government job, my second career by that point in my life actually, and was working at downtown Toronto for your listeners that know BAE and Wellesley. And it was one of the first warm days of, of summer. And I had thrown on a dress like I love wearing dresses. And that morning, didn't think twice, threw on my dress and went to work. But when I went for a walk at lunch because the weather was warm, I suddenly felt my bare legs rubbing together and that all too familiar burning sensation between my thighs. And I thought, oh crap, you know, I forgot to put on my trusty black Nike bike shorts that I hadn't put on, truthfully, since the summer before because, you know, the weather wasn't conducive to going bare legged. I hadn't traveled anywhere warm. And so I thought, shoot, what am I going to do? I can't continue this walk. So I actually raced to the nearest shoppers drug mart pharmacy, grabbed some baby powder, which was my, like, best solution at the time, waddled back to my office like a duck and ran to the bathroom to throw baby powder on my legs, which made a huge mess for anyone who's been there, done got everywhere, and I literally shook my fist in the air and thought, there has to be a better way. So I really spent the next two months of my summer researching, looking for a long leg underwear for women. That's all I wanted. I didn't want to start a business. I literally just wanted a pair of underwear that was lightweight, seamless, breathable, cooling and invisible under my clothes. And I wanted something that wasn't shapewear because at that time the only long leg underwear option for women was shapewear. And so I started canvassing friends over the summer and literally anybody, anybody I met at friends parties, out and about, I would just talk to people and ask, are your thighs rubbing? Do you have a solution? And honestly, most people would show me their skirts and show me shapewear and like, you know, curse the fact that they had to squeeze into tight, hot, not breathable shapewear. Some women had been cutting their pantyhose or cutting leggings. And then one day I actually went to the Bay, which one day we'll look back and remember fondly the Bay. Because the Bay, yeah, Dire Straits right now.
- [04:58]
Eric Dick
Yep.
- [04:58]
Marnie
But I, I want, I Took myself to the big flagship location at Queen street west, and I went to the men's underwear section because women, like I said, women's underwear, Women's long underwear wasn't a thing. I mean, if you wanted, quote unquote, boy shorts, you could find those at Victoria's Secret or, you know, any lingerie shop. But those were never long enough to cover the area of my thighs that needed the fabric coverage and the protection. And so I walked to the men's underwear section, and I'll never forget, a representative from another men's underwear brand was there. At first I thought she was a salesperson for the Bay, but turns out she was from the label. And she comes over and she sort of taps me on the shoulder and she's like, hey, honey, are you here shopping for your boyfriend or for yourself? And I was like, wait a minute, what? Like, I'm not the only woman you've seen shopping for men's long leg underwear. She's like, no. She's like, I have women all the time. She's like, I'm the rep and I'm here just making sure our shelves are stocked properly. But I always see women shopping for themselves because you got the chub rub. I'm like, yes. So I had this realization in that moment that there was certainly, I knew there was more than me who needed this product. I thought, you know, there's got to be a better way, even from men's long underwear, because, you know, you guys have had boxer briefs forever, and there are many different fabrications, right? Many different leg lengths. But men's long underwear has more fabric in the crotch area than women need. And I didn't want that extra bulk. And I should say that by this point in time, I also had tried every single cream and gel and powder on the market. I mean, behind me there's a pink box you can't see. I don't know if your listeners do YouTube or whatnot, but that's filled, as is the box below it, with like hundreds of dollars worth of products that are, you know, the body glides and all of these so called chafing gels. And I guess I'm just a sweaty human being because those only lasted on me for about 10 minutes. And I always had to awkwardly reapply them and I had to carry them in my purse and it all got very annoying. Long story short is pun intended. I guess after two months of research and being frustrated with walking into a lot of small brick and mortar, you know, lingerie shops looking for this, this product that wasn't very complicated but that I couldn't find anywhere a non shapewear long underwear solution for women. I decided that, that I had to invent it myself. So I actually quit my, I quit my job twice to start thy Society. And this first time was in the summer of 2008 where I took about six months off to educate myself on all things retail, E commerce, intimate apparel, fabric. I mean my prior career was in consulting, training, recruiting, human resource strategy. Like I had corporate jobs. I was not someone who had been familiar with the intimate apparel business, but I really believed there was a need for this product. And I could not find anything, I couldn't find anything on the Internet. I mean this was pre, you know, Amazon was existed at this time, but it was like very early days. I mean the concept of people shopping for underwear on the Internet was still a foreign concept in 2008. And at that time, for what it's worth, Shopify was just a payment gateway. So I'm still looking for, for someone at Shopify to give me the real stats, but I'm, I can say with confidence, I think we were one of the first, you know, five hundred or a thousand businesses using Shopify even as a payment, payment gateway. So I taught myself, was learning about E commerce, taught myself how to code, how to program, hired a developer as well though, because I wasn't that good and basically took $8,000 of my own savings to start this company. So I just alluded to the technical side of things, but I connected with some local fashion entrepreneur groups, found myself connected to some local manufacturers and I always like to say that it pays to talk to people. I know, I know in early days of starting a business when you have an idea, people are really shy about talking about it with others because they're afraid that somebody might copy them. But the reality is it's a lot of work to start a business and most people aren't really interested. They don't have the time to copy you. Right. They're not actually going to take that initiative. So in my case I was talking to people about it and I'm glad I did because someone I used to work out with at my gym, turns out he was the production manager for Nike Canada and he was very well connected to local fabric manufacturers. And at that time a lot of them were looking to work with startups and have very low minimum order quantities, which was a good thing because I was just starting out and didn't know anything. And so I spent the, basically from August of 2008 until December, perfecting a prototype, continuing to work on the website with my developer. And then ultimately around March 2009, I actually took another full time job because I had been, I had not been working since August. And you realize very quickly when you're starting a company that it takes a long time to get everything up and running and it takes a long time to monetize. And I, at that point in my life had been used to living a certain way. We had just bought a house, you know, I had expenses. I wasn't really ready to give up all of that. So I also recommend for people to not quit their day jobs when you have an idea because it is possible to do, do both at the same time. So I went back to work in March of 2009 at the University of Toronto as a career coach to help MBA students transition their careers into consulting or finance, marketing, whatever they wanted, and launched the business in July of that year. So July 2009. And then I stayed working in that job until August 2016 when I. Wild, yes, a long time. Another career, another career, another career. You can always change careers in your life. But the business had gotten to that, to a compelling point in 2016 where I felt, and I also was turning 40. So it's never too late, you're never too old to start a business. And I thought, if not now, when? Right? And I was, I was just ready, I was ready for a change. By that point I had also looked at other possible corporate careers and every time I had a job offer in hand it was, am I going to have time to work on Thigh Society while you know. And the answer was always no. So right place, right time is always key. But yes, like maybe we'll stop there.
- [11:22]
Eric Dick
Yeah, super, super. Interesting. How big did you get it during that second career period where you were like, how you got it to the point where it became compelling and obvious that you needed to go full time with it? How during that, whatever that was, like almost 10 year period or more, eight years. How, how did progress go during that time when you were working full time?
- [11:42]
Marnie
So that's a great question. When I quit my job, we were somewhere around half a million dollars Canadian in revenue and I had grown the business to about $350,000 organically. I had stayed away from any paid marketing to that point in time. Again, this was 2016. So the way I had grown the business till that point was very organically by literally sending product to bloggers. Like influencer wasn't even a term back then. And then I was introduced to someone who was familiar with Facebook ads and was able to see, you know, the power of, of meta, when it's just now known as meta, but the power of putting a bit of money into marketing spend. Plus we had really good product market fit. I mean this was a product at the time. We were the, we're the category creators of size inclusive slip shorts. So I, you know, when I started this brand actually in 2008, 2009, when I was looking for this product because I didn't want to start a, an intimate apparel company, the only brands that were making a short that I wanted were plus size and they were UK based brands. And I know I'm segueing for a second, but I really resented that because I did not identify as a plus size woman. I had struggled with dieting and you know, trying to lose weight my whole life and really resented, you know, yet again diet culture rearing its ugly head, telling me that I had to lose weight just to get rid of my, my thigh rub. And I knew that even if I had been a size, when I had been a size 6 versus a size 12, my thighs always rubbed together, even if there was an, you know, a centimeter of rubbing, I would get a thigh rash. So I really, you know, when I started the company I knew I wanted to be size inclusive and I didn't, you know, I didn't appreciate that there was just these plus size companies making these cotton bloomers that quite frankly weren't even going to solve the problem because they weren't moisture. Wicking cotton absorbs moisture, it keeps it on your skin and, and I knew that that wasn't a way to solve.
- [13:34]
Eric Dick
Thy rash or the other option is shapewear which is overtly trying to squeeze you into something that's not comfortable.
- [13:40]
Marnie
It's trying to kill you. It's trying to kill you. It's trying to kill you. And also what it does for when you're wearing it, I don't know if you've ever tried on shave.
- [13:49]
Eric Dick
Never. I haven't. I should.
- [13:50]
Marnie
I hope you never have to.
- [13:52]
Eric Dick
Yeah.
- [13:53]
Marnie
What it does unfortunately is it keeps us focus focused inward on what, what it feels like. It makes us feel, you know, uncomfortable, tight and that distracts us from having conversations with people, being present in the moment, you know, living our best lives. And I'm not anti shapewear. I think there's a time and place we can all appreciate shapewear if it makes us feel comfortable. You know, I say you do you if someone wants to wear Shapewear. Go for it. I wanted an alternative to wear underneath my loose, flowing maxi dresses that was going to give me, you know, very light shaping, a little bit of smoothing, but really was super comfortable. I mean, and our shorties are so comfortable you can sleep in them, but you can also wear them under a bodycon dress if you, you want to feel confident. But digressing from there, you had asked me about, about Meta. We were still that these were. We were sort of, I think at that point we had missed like the real heyday of Meta ads, but of Facebook ads. Facebook wasn't known as Meta then, but we still had enough Runway and I was starting to see very clearly that, that there was opportunity with putting a little bit of paid spend and seeing some results that way. So yeah, that was.
- [14:55]
Eric Dick
And you're still single, or up until this point you're single. Skew. This is just. You have created the product that solves this problem.
- [15:01]
Marnie
Y. I mean, I like to say that. So we have five products and each of them has a different use case, but all of them do the same thing. So all of our fabrications are made by us. Now. We've grown a lot. In 2016, we moved overseas, but as a separate story of, you know, we were producing in Canada right up until, sorry, 20. I stand corrected. Our first production run from overseas was in 2019. So I was. We were producing in Canada straight up until 2019 for 10 years. And our products all solve for Chub Rub. They are all a solution to thigh sweat, butt sweat, crotch sweat, all the sweaty unmentionables that we love talking about, as well as for modesty, if you're someone like a teacher bending down in a skirt or dress all day around young kids for total comfort, for hot flashes, for, you know, perimenopause, for hot sleepers, for people who have skin sensitivity, whether they have surgeries and scarring in their abdominal area, whether it's a C section or, you know, endometriosis. People with lipedema, nurses, anyone wearing scrubs, love our products because anything with a dropped inseam where you can get that little bit of rubbing in between the top of your thighs. So they're really just, you know, a no brainer solution. You know, women the same way men wear long leg underwear to prevent thigh chafe or rubbing through your jeans. Women need this product too. They just need. We just, you know, we want to go bare legged in our skirts and dresses. But for those of us who can't and for whom creams and gels don't work Thigh Society are the absolute lightest, best, best fitting, moisture wicking, cooling underwear on the market.
- [16:43]
Eric Dick
I'm so. I remember when Marky Mark wore boy trunks like the, the boy version in the, in 19, like 90 or something like that. And that was like the first time that you, you could as a, even as a guy guy move away from briefs to something that may be protected against chafing.
- [16:58]
Marnie
Totally.
- [16:59]
Eric Dick
It's, it's an idea whose time has come. And you mentioned all these different use cases and all these different avatars, customer avatars. I'm curious, has, is that something that you translated through to your meta ads? For instance, were you calling out to these different avatars in your ads?
- [17:13]
Marnie
Yeah, we, we've been trying that in the last few years, I would say. And our, our customers were the ones that brought these use cases to the forefront for us. Because when I started the brand, I was, I was singularly focused on anti chafe. So as time went on, it became obvious that there were so many other reasons why people would use these. So and we, we have, yes, we have definitely tested these in our ads. I think we, we are ranked number one for sweaty butt. There's, there's less delicate ways to say it. If you go on Reddit, you know, you can find a lot of different swas. Swash, swash. Swamp ass, Swamp crotch. Swamp crotch. We do it all. Yeah, swamp crotch. We do sweaty crotch. Now we try to be a little more delicate with our terms, but there's no reason to be delicate. This is a real thing. I mean, we were all about, you know, destigmatizing these totally normal skin conditions, right? Like, nobody thinks twice about swapping some deodorant under their armpits in the morning to prevent sweat and body odor. So why would we have any shame about a totally normal skin condition? So, yeah, we have been, we have been using, we've been using a combination, I guess, of, of ads, creative and landing pages to test different use cases. But you know what? Our homepage consistently outperforms any of those so far. So we've. Yeah, I think it's interesting because the woman coming to our site or the men or the non binary person coming to our site looking for a solution to this is sort of deciding to choose a product based on the level of sheerness that they're comfortable with. So if they're primarily wanting to wear these underneath clothing and they want the lightest weight clothing for summer, they'll go with our cooling. And at the other end of the spectrum we have our original and cargo shorties, which offer all of the same features of a bike short, but they're lighter than a bike short, and you don't have to wear underwear with them, which is a big deal, because for most of my girlies out there that wear bike shorts like I used to underneath skirts and dresses, I was already pissed that I had to wear the shorts as a layer. I had to also wear underwear with them. So these eliminate the need for the multiple layering, and they're still super lightweight, and they'll cool you down. And they're wicking and they're seamless and they're breathable, and they're, you know, all the things you ever wanted in a base layer.
- [19:25]
Eric Dick
It's. It's super interesting because it's like, it's a product. It's a new product. It's a new category of product. But at the same time, it doesn't require that much education compared to maybe some other products, because people sort of intuitively get. Get it.
- [19:37]
Marnie
Yes, people do intuitively get it if they know what chub rub is or if they know what side shape is. And I feel like what's been really interesting in the last 15 years is seeing the conversation around chafe come into the mainstream. Even things about, you know, swaths, you know, and swamp crotch and all that, because even people who don't have thigh chafe, which, again, has nothing to do with weight, because I've met people who are size 22 who are like, I don't get night chafe. And women who are size two who are like, oh, my God, thigh chafe. The bane of my existence. In the summer. It's been really interesting to see it come more into the mainstream. So I'm. I'm all about. I mean, we have seen competitors copy us. Everyone's. Everyone's a copycat is what I like to say. But imitation is the most sincerest form of flattery. You know, we know that we make the best shorts on the market because that's all we do. I mean, to your point earlier, you know, we have stayed in our lane. We have, you know, over the years, I had been told by a lot of people to expand the product line. You know, are you going to make matching tank tops? Are you going to make matching panties? And I was like, you know what? We barely scratched the surface with getting our name out there for being really great at what we do. We have spent, you know, years perfecting these products and perfecting the fit and the feel of these products because we know that the woman wearing this or the person wearing this wants to feel like they're wearing nothing. And so we want to be really good at what we do and we want to be a household name for anti chase lip shorts for women. And that's, you know, that, that's what's led us here today. Sure, we have, you know, it's a lot of opportunity for product extensions and expansion, but it was always my goal that we, you know, be known for what we do best.
- [21:15]
Eric Dick
And so what's working at top of funnel the best right now? Is it still meta?
- [21:19]
Marnie
It is still meta. It is still meta. And, you know, we're leaning heavily into content from creators, founder content, which always resonates. Um, there's. I apologize to, to people that I meet now at events because they're like, oh my God, I just opened my phone and there you were. Because they're. One of our ads is doing really, really well with me in it. But it's so interesting. Just to digress for a second, you know, in 2008, 2009, even right up until 2015, like the concept of founder videos and founder content and filming yourself packing orders, you know, and, you know, walking to the post office, I mean, I wish I, I wish I could time travel back and, you know, feature, you know, take even pictures of when I had stock in my home office, when I had stock in my corporate office, like I was bringing. I stopped my, my old colleagues at U of T. Remember that I had boxes of thy Society in my office hidden behind, hidden behind the door. And I would pack orders at lunch and walk to the Canada Post Office here on, on Spadina and ship things. You know, there's, there's so much rich content that I was never able to capture as a founder in those early stages, which I know people love. Right? You see it, you see it on TikTok, you see it, you see it on Insta. And I don't have those early days, but we're, we're trying to make up for it now by showing, you know, our warehouse featuring me and the origin story for the brand. And, you know, another lesson there is it takes a long time to build a brand. You know, I think there's a, there's a lot of sexy stories out there that the media loves of overnight successes. But the reality is, you know, most businesses take a decade, a decade plus to hit their tipping point. And I think you just got to have patience. And like I said, I encourage people not to quit their day job. I wasn't working like crazy hours. When I was working at at U of T and working on Thai society at the same time, I wanted to have a life. I didn't want to burn out. I've never been a subscriber to Hustle Culture. I think it's not sustainable. Maybe part of that had to do with me going full time on this at 40. So I had already had 20 years of work experience and I had like paid my dues in my 20s and 30s, like working hard for other people and I was ready to work hard for myself, but not at the expense of, of my health and my life and my friends and all of that good stuff.
- [23:38]
Eric Dick
So, yeah, branding is not an overnight thing and it requires such a good product market fit, which I think is something that you, I think all the brands that I talk to, to, you know, you cannot cover that up with any amount of marketing or advertising if the people don't actually love your product. What do you find with people buying more than one pair? Do you have a really good returning customer rate?
- [23:58]
Marnie
We do. I think we have a great returning customer rate and we find that, that she returns. She may return only, you know, once in a season, but she'll come back year over year to refresh her underwear drawer and buy new colors. And, you know, the more we introduce these different use cases for the product that may not always be obvious to a certain customer, depending on where she's at in the journey, the more she comes back. So we'll see customers coming back or telling us things like, I'm buying these for my sister, I'm buying these for my mother, or I've told my, my, my friend about these. Or, you know, I didn't realize you can wear. Someone messaged us the other day saying, these are great under motorcycle gear. These are great for horseback riding. Riding. So people will have a pair or two in their, you know. Well, many women have more than one or two pairs. You know, the cool thing is when we hear from people who say, I have seven pairs, one for every day of the week, because I cycle through these all week long, whether I'm wearing a skirt or dress, whether I'm wearing a white linen pants and I need some coverage underneath, whether I'm riding my bike to work and I need, you know, a little bit more coverage, you know, hot sleepers, like I mentioned earlier. So it's for the person that comes in and buys it for one use case right off the bat, she's coming back to buy more for other use cases. So she doesn't have to do laundry every day. Do you have a referral?
- [25:12]
Eric Dick
Referral program? I just, I feel like it's a, it's a product that people could be really passionate about with their close friends.
- [25:18]
Marnie
They are very passionate with their close friends. And you know what, it's funny you mentioned that we, we don't have a referral program and I, if my CMO listens to this podcast, she'll, she would probably jump right in here and say, you know, in all of her years of experience, she hasn't really seen much lift from a referral. You know, we, we offer first time purchase discounts and you know, when, when people are part of our email flows, we, we don't really have promotions but we do offer a few promotions per year that, that do really well for us. We offer the ability to, to get, you know, multi pack discounts once you're a customer. And we found that, you know, while we haven't tested referral programs, I think that those are working for us better than referrals. And, and I don't know about you, but, and maybe I'm an anomaly here, but I've gotten referral links from, from once or twice from friends, but usually I forget to forward them on because in that moment when I see that link from another brand, I'm not thinking of like five friends that I can forward it to. And then I, and then by the time I remember to refer someone, it's more word of mouth, like, hey, I bought this great product. Go check out this site. They have a welcome discount if you sign up for their newsletter versus sending a link that I have to remember where it is, buried in my inbox of like 200 emails or whatnot.
- [26:30]
Eric Dick
And then are you guys exclusively DTC at this point or do you have some retail wholesalers as well?
- [26:35]
Marnie
I'd say we have about two dozen wholesalers that have passively come to us to ask if we have a wholesale program in Canada. And we are primarily D2C. We're looking right now into expanding our wholesale program. Again, we've stayed strictly D2C to this point because I'm a really big subscriber to the KISS principle, which is keep it simple, stupid and sure. There are many ways to grow and you can grow for sure at speed. And we have grown quite quickly. But wanting to have a lean team, my team is currently all part time freelance contractors who are remote and wanting to balance work and life, whatever that means to each of us. I've really chosen to focus on a few things at once. And that has led us to stay D2C to this point with passively incorporating some amazing brick and mortar women owned lingerie boutiques into the fold with hopefully more to come because we are exploring.
- [27:32]
Eric Dick
That now and I guess the Bay isn't an option anymore, even though.
- [27:36]
Marnie
No. And you know what? I. The Bay approached me in the early days to, to carry them and part of the, the advice I got in early days because I didn't know anything about retail was, you know, you're going to have to expand into other product lines because a retailer, a traditional wholesaler like, like the Bay is going to want to have a much bigger product assortment. Because when I started for many, many years I literally had two products. Like I had one product in black and beige. Like, like the same product. And, and people who had come from a really traditional wholesale career and background were telling me that I, you know, that was not the path forward. But I thought to myself, well, you know, there's this thing called E Commerce that seems to be growing here and like, I feel like there's some potential and I don't really want being a bootstrapped brand. My minimum order quantities are quite big already and I don't want to stretch myself thin by having different SKUs before I've prov, you know, these shorties. So the Bay was very interested at one point and but I just, I didn't want to hire like there were so many things that were needed like a point of sale display and then different packaging requirements and then the payment terms were all over the map and I thought, you know what, this is just too complicated right now. How can I focus, like, how am I going to be able to give attention to E Commerce right now and do this? Because at that point I was a solopreneur, solo founder. And even as time went on, as I started to see E Commerce being, you know, obviously flashback to net from then to now, I'm really glad that I, that I didn't go the wholesale route at that point in time. I think, you know, there's a point to that. You can expand, but you can take your business pretty far with one channel and D2C before you look at wholesale and totally bootstrapped.
- [29:18]
Eric Dick
I see you even turned down Dragon's Den offer.
- [29:21]
Marnie
Yeah.
- [29:22]
Eric Dick
Well, what was that like?
- [29:24]
Marnie
So not technically. Technically. So the clarification there is I turned down an opportunity to pitch the Dragon's Den.
- [29:30]
Eric Dick
Oh, okay.
- [29:31]
Marnie
They pursued me pretty aggressively while I was working at the University of Toronto. And at that point I hadn't made a commitment to do thy Society full time yet. And I was petrified of, you know, what would. What would the Dragon's Den TV show? How would they edit my performance in front of the Dragons? You know, if I didn't, if I bombed, like, would they. Would this. Would this literally ruin me from a professional standpoint and no one would want to hire me ever again? So I was. I was. Full disclosure, I was terrified of pitching. And because I wasn't convinced yet that I really wanted to do Thigh Society full time, the risk reward for me was like, okay, I'm not going to pitch them. Plus, you know, I, in hindsight, sure, that would have given me tremendous free pr for sure, and even in syndication would have catapulted thy society, I think, to a global level. But I just wasn't ready to take the risk at that point. And the second time I was, you know, adjacent to the Dragon's Den is Arlene Dickinson, came to actually be on a mini panel for some MBAs. And I snuck into the session because I was. I was a staff at the university, and, you know, I raised my hand and talked about my product and sort of pitched it to the judges, the women panelists. And at the time, she said, I don't think this is really going to go anywhere. Like, who's going to forego shapewear for these long leg underwear? And I thought, well, actually, Arlene, I respectfully disagree with you, but you know what? That's okay. Like, this doesn't have to be a mega business. You know, even if this ends up being, like, a really small business that affords me some travel upgrades and, you know, allows me to do a little bathroom renovation. Like, I was. I had a really small mindset at that time, and so I sort of took what she said and was like, all right, this is going to be a cottage business. This is going to be a really small company that maybe it'll just be me working for it, and maybe I'll afford to buy myself a designer bag. Like I was. Again, really, the mindset then was like, I was believing that. And. And thankfully, I had other mentors that I met shortly after and another woman at that same session who. Who thought, you know, I disagree here. I think. I think you have a bigger, bigger idea. And sure enough, I do. And I was met with that sort of resistance throughout the building of Thigh Society, even from a lot of my male manufacturing partners who were like, who's going to buy. These Are women going to buy long leg underwear? And I just Kept saying, yeah, they, they are, they, they are. And, and sure enough, you know, over 2 million pairs sold. You know, they are.
- [31:53]
Eric Dick
I was going to ask like, what can you use to qualify how big you've been able to get to. 2 million pairs sold.
- [31:59]
Marnie
Is a good million pairs sold. Yup, yup. And hundreds of thousands of customers. Yeah. And many more, many more. Because the minute we, you know, the minute women find out about our product, they're just like, okay, I'm sold. And they understand right away. They've, they've been through the hell and the trauma of finding yourself unprepared with side shape. It's, it's a position nobody wants to be in. It's a, it's a vacation killer. You know, like most people will find out when they're, you know, at an all inclusive and, or they're traveling Europe in the summer and they've spent the day in a skirt or, and they've just, you know, at the end of the day they're dying. They can't, they're, they're dying of pain. They, they don't know what to do. So we're like, let's prevent that before it even starts.
- [32:39]
Eric Dick
What is PR part of your. Because I feel like there's the story to be told and instantly resonates with people. Have you been able to get it out through, through pr?
- [32:49]
Marnie
So I did invest in, in hiring pr, probably about, you know, six, seven years in, by hiring someone professional that is to, you know, to do PR for us. I would say we landed in a few Canadian publications at that time, like Chatelaine and Meredith Shaw. It was, is a huge fan of ours. And so she was on, you know, Marilyn Dennis and Breakfast Television. But I don't think those really move, those, those instances really move the needle for us, honestly. And now, as many people know probably listening to this, there's no such thing as free PR anymore. A lot of things are pay to play. And so we expanded our affiliate program in the US But I will say this. You know, we have a saying at thy society, which is everything starts with an ad. And what do I mean by that? You know, if you can, if you can get and scale your meta ads, you have to remember that the editors of big time magazines, TV shows, publications, they're social media users like you and I, they're scrolling on their phone. And that's actually how we got organic. You know, I said there's no such thing as free pr. But this was free pr. We got organic placement on the Today show. In the US twice because the producers had seen and heard of our product and New York Times Wirecutter Organic. She had seen our ads and bought our product and went and tested it and then ranked us as her favorite. Thy trace short Oprah Daily. Same thing. So for us, it's a long winded answer to your question, but being out there in ads has resulted in PR for us in a way more so than traditional PR has, has ever done. And affiliates, which is paid essentially like, like a version of paid pr, has worked really well for us in the.
- [34:31]
Eric Dick
US to dive into just meta a little bit more specifically. Can you think of like, I'm sure you've had lots of angles and lots of ads over the years that have, that have been your big winners, but can you think of maybe your most successful ad or a recent successful ad and the angle and positioning that you took on it?
- [34:48]
Marnie
Yeah, there's so many. But TLDR problem solution. We're direct response marketers. We are not about brand. Right. We're about making sure that our potential customer understands what we offer as a solution to her pain. Point right away, whether that's me talking, whether that's women walking with their skirts up, you know, showing them, walking carefree on the street. Like, we don't do a lot of brand marketing. And I give advice to, I mentor a lot of, a lot of business owners who are starting out. And a lot of the time people are really focused on making sure that the customer knows their name right or knows their, like what their brand is. And I like to say that, you know, you're not Nike starting out. Like, we can all look at a swoosh sign and know right away who Nike is. But when Nike was starting out, nobody knew, right? Nobody knew the tagline, just do it. It was about finding a comfortable shoe. Right. And I, I read the book. I forget what it's called. Shoe Dog Nights. Shoe Dog, Exactly. Great, great, great read. But it takes a long time to build a brand and there are different ways to build, to build a company. You know, I know there are certainly a lot of great brands that are starting out that are building their brand on TikTok and people are knowing what the brand is like. But we took a very different approach with our ads. We now have seen a lot of success with creators who we pay through, you know, we work with through platforms like Aspire where we find creators who are really great at knowing how to produce video content. And some has done, some of those have done really well for us. We provide them with a creative brief around the brand and, you know, the essence of what we want them to say. But we give them quite a bit of free rein to create a video that will res. That they feel resonates with their vibe and their personality. Because we can't tell them how to tell our story. We can tell them what solution we're solving for. And we want them to be able to say that these are not necessarily influencers, by the way. So we're paying creators and then we're using those in ads. And so really it comes down to authenticity. That's done really well for us. And that's been a common theme, not just on our ads. Right, because an ad's an ad, but when you click on an ad, what's the experience? What experience are you giving that customer? You know, our, our brand language speaks very direct to customers. That comes a lot from, from me and the way I talk about there's no such thing as tmi. Let's destigmatize these totally normal skin conditions, and let's make it very clear what we're offering our customer right off the bat, you know, without trying to mince words, SEO.
- [37:19]
Eric Dick
I just, I just googled Chub Rub and you're like, number one for Chub Rub, which is great. I, I assume, have you had a very conscious effort with your SEO, or is it just something that's been a BYPR product of talking about the problem?
- [37:30]
Marnie
So we have been, yes, we, we have focused on SEO more intentionally in the last three years. Back in the good old days of 2009-2014 or so, die society was ranking first for all things anti Chafe and Chubra, because like I said, there was really no brands doing anything like what we were doing. So it was very easy to rank, to rank first and to rank on the first pages. And we have, we have been focusing more on SEO strategy in the last few years, mainly with blog writing around different content pieces. And, you know, that's, I think, how we ranked, how we got to be known for, for swaths, what, Sweaty butt, swamp ass? All of that good stuff. Talking about some of those things for sure. But yeah, I don't think you need to start with SEO, although, you know, our pages by nature of the, of what we're talking about and because we're so singularly focused on anti chafe as our primary use case, you know, it's, it's natural to have those terms and adjacent terms like chub, you know, chub rub, anti chafe, thigh chafing. Rubbing thighs, you know, baked into our, our website copy just by nature of what we do.
- [38:36]
Eric Dick
Well, Marnie, I want to thank you for coming on the D2C podcast today. If you're out there and you are have experienced the scorching pain of, of chub rub, we're headed to the season. So you got to go to thighsociety.com.
- [38:48]
Marnie
Cat thigh society CA for Canadians. And I say, you know, if guys are listening, you know, you can, you can try our shorties. If you size up from your normal size, we, you know, we'll, we'll probably fit you. But if you have a woman in your life or a person in your life who needs these, tell them to go to ThighSociety CA. Everyone needs a pair. At least everyone needs a pair or seven.
- [39:09]
Eric Dick
And if people want to follow your entrepreneurial journey, do you recommend maybe LinkedIn for that?
- [39:13]
Marnie
Yeah, I think I'm a little more consistent with LinkedIn. I'm trying to do better on Instagram. Instagram, but definitely more consistent on LinkedIn.
- [39:19]
Eric Dick
Do you have any events planned this year that you'll attend?
- [39:22]
Marnie
I am speaking at, I think something too close to, to this podcast. But this Friday I'll be speaking at an event, Ecom X with some other great founders. And at this point I don't have anything lined up, but I'm sure some things will, will turn up as they always do. Oh, and I do have something coming up for Ecom north this week or next week. And yeah, I love Ecom North. Love those guys.
- [39:46]
Eric Dick
Thanks again. This was super interesting and I'm going to keep a close tabs on Thigh Society.
- [39:52]
Marnie
Please do.
- [39:59]
Eric Dick
Thanks so much for listening to today's episode. If you're not a subscriber to our newsletter, you can do that right now at directtoconsumeralloneword. Co. I'm Eric Dick and this has been the DTC podcast. We'll see you next time.