← Shopify Masters
Shopify Masters
How Bette Bentley Built Skimpies Into a No. 1 TikTok Brand Without Spending a Dollar on Paid Ads
00:43:59
Former comedy writer Bette Bentley built Skimpies—the world’s first liner designed specifically for leggings—into a number one TikTok brand entirely through organic livestreams, bypassing paid ads by treating the platform like an interactive group chat. This innovative founder breaks down how she embraced raw authenticity to collapse the traditional sales funnel, handle extreme burnout, and turn a grueling six-month streaming schedule into a $60,000 warehouse livestream.
Loading summary
Transcript76 lines
- [00:00]
Bette Bentley
That's what I love about women. We are used to getting tips and tricks about how to live our lives from our friends. And if the product works and it's great, we'll buy it.
- [00:11]
Serena Smith
How does a comedy writer go from working with Will Ferrell to inventing a first of its kind underwear replacement? The answer isn't the punchline to a joke. It's the real story of Bette Bentley, who traded the writers room for the manufacturing floor in the name of solving a very personal problem.
- [00:26]
Bette Bentley
I get to make something great from the bottom up in a category where no one does that.
- [00:30]
Serena Smith
Bette is the founder of Skimpies, the world's first liner designed specifically for leggings. She joins us today to talk about what it takes to launch a brand new category, finding massive success on TikTok Live and the realities of founder burnout.
- [00:42]
Bette Bentley
I want women to know that their setbacks are the slingshot that's gonna launch them forward.
- [00:46]
Serena Smith
Welcome to Shopify Masters, your companion for starting and scaling your business. I'm your host, Serena Smith.
- [00:51]
Bette Bentley
Bet.
- [00:52]
Serena Smith
Welcome to the show.
- [00:53]
Bette Bentley
Thanks, Serena. I love that intro. That was so cool.
- [00:58]
Serena Smith
Thanks so much. I mean, listen, it's you, it's your life. You earned it.
- [01:02]
Bette Bentley
I'm fascinating.
- [01:04]
Serena Smith
You are fascinating. Right? Like, as I was doing the research on this, I thought, wow, like, the. The comedian to underwear replacement pipeline is probably one of one, and it's you. You spent years writing, performing, working with some of the greats. What was that season of your life like?
- [01:25]
Bette Bentley
I love comedy, and it's still a huge part of what I do and what keeps, like, my pilot fire going. That season of my life, I was in my early 20s. I was in New York City. I was living in a closet, and I was discovering who I was as a comic. I went through school being a very serious actor and writer. And when I plopped down in New York City for absolutely no reason and had no right to be there, I. I found myself at UCB along with incredible other performers. Sometimes I think about that journey and why comics are so great at starting businesses. And I think it's because comedy is all about truth and being vulnerable and being authentic. It's not playing into the joke. It's seeing what's happening on stage and how can I be a part of this community and build this game together? Help your joke succeed and solve this problem. And that is exactly what having a startup is.
- [02:26]
Serena Smith
God, I love that reflection. And it makes me think of the very core tenet of improv. Right. Which is yes. And. And how incredibly useful that must be in the world of being a founder. Right. Where you don't have the luxury to have the response of like, no, or that's not gonna work, or I can't figure it out. You kind of have to. Yes. And everything into your way towards success. Right.
- [02:53]
Bette Bentley
Completely. It teaches you that what looks like a failure, what looks like a setback, is actually like the launch pad for the next thing. Because that's totally what doing improv is. If there's a moment where people mess up on stage, it usually gets a laugh and you need to play into that. That's part of the game, of the joke. Right. And so I've totally done that with Skimpy's. There's been so many times where I felt like, wow, this did not work out, or could I turn this on its head? Could I do a talking head video of this embarrassing moment and make this a great success? So completely. Yes. Anding in your startup, in your business, with your community is always a good idea. Yeah.
- [03:36]
Serena Smith
And you've really used that to parlay Skimpies into massive success, especially with TikTok Live selling, which we'll talk about in just a little bit. Can you just explain what Skimpies is? Because it's not a panty liner and it's not a period product. Right. So give us the brass tacks.
- [03:57]
Bette Bentley
Yes. It's actually the first liner that's been made that has no medical period purpose. Right. It's made to be an undie alternative. So Skimpes is a small cotton strip that goes directly into your pants so that you don't have to wear traditional underwear, but you get all the free freedom and line free look of Commando.
- [04:18]
Serena Smith
Before Skimpies became a baby of yours, you stepped away from comedy to become a mom, which I'm about to have my first baby myself. I can attest it's a sort of scary proposition. As a brazen careerist, what inspired the decision for you?
- [04:38]
Bette Bentley
So I have always been a workhorse. I love working and also I just love people. I'm a people person. I'm a total extrovert. So the idea of not working was really daunting. But when I was seven months pregnant, my husband was hired to be the creative director of Best Buy. We were living in LA in a tiny apartment downtown. It wasn't great place to bring our daughter into this world. We knew we wanted a different environment for her and the universe just plopped that right into our lap. But I was like, Brian, Minnesota, I don't know Anyone in Minnesota. That's where the headquarters of Best Buy is. I work a lot. I film commercials, I write, I act like I was a part of supporting the ecosystem of our family. I was like, you have to tell them no. So we did, and then they came back with a different offer and I was like, oh, you have to tell them yes.
- [05:33]
Serena Smith
They sweetened the deal.
- [05:34]
Bette Bentley
Sweetened the deal. We moved to Minneapolis, and thank goodness we did. Oh, was that a godsend? Like, truly, it was such a blessing we moved there. We bought our first home on a beautiful lake, Worst house on the best neighborhood. We fixed it up ourselves. We brought both of our children into this world in Minnesota. We were there for five years. But resetting and restarting in Minneapolis was a major ego check for me. I knew I wanted to work, and the industry is just different there. There aren't SAG projects shooting all the time. There aren't people who are pulling writers into writers rooms for punch up. So I joined the little underground improv community there, and it was old dog, new tricks for me. I was on the main stage a few months after we moved super pregnant, like you, Serena. And then my first main stage show with them, which was their holiday show, I did with Josephine and my little carrier and like blocked the whole thing and then handed her to my husband and would do the show and I would like totally get milk through my little milk saving pads that were in my bra. But it was awesome. And it really taught me that it's up to you to be flexible and to be willing to learn and adapt
- [06:45]
Serena Smith
that flexibility and an openness to having a beginner's mindset. How does all of this lead to the genesis of the idea for Skimpies?
- [06:55]
Bette Bentley
So we moved back to LA, height of COVID 2020 lockdown. Parks were closed. Oh, I don't wish it on like my worst enemy. Terrible time to move. We moved back into, like, our hometown, basically the city we fell in love in and where we knew we wanted to raise the kids. And I was in leggings more than ever before. I was nursing one baby, homeschooling another baby, working and like, working out is my piece. It's my therapy. I feel like it's probably cheaper than therapy to go run around the block, but I'm also old school and don't like talking about my problems with nobody, even myself. So I. I was running around the block. I had Lucky in the stroller. I was just like in leggings all the time. And I was also at that stage of motherhood. Where I feel like you just need to be wearing work pants, because being a mom is a workout. And I really was kind of fed up with the fact that there was no good underwear solution. I was going commando in my leggings. And that's not great for your leggings. It's not great for your hoo ha. It's not great for your pilates instructor. So I was like, there has to be a solution here. So I tried wearing regular underwear. They bunched. They were uncomfortable. When I was doing squats, I was getting wedgies. I tried wearing seamless underwear. UTIs not great. Full of toxins, and they still had lines. They're not actually seamless. So then I tried putting a panty liner in my leggings and going for a jog, and it totally balled up and, like, went up my butt. And then I stopped. I was two miles in, and I was like, wait, this is an idea. This is a problem I could solve. If we can make a liner that sticks to panties, why can't we make a liner that sticks to pants? And why can't we make it better with, like, no toxins and, like, no bleach and no plastic? And then, like, it actually gives me goosebumps to this day. I was like, wait, I could do that. I could solve that problem for billions of women, and it could be a fun time. So I became, like, obsessed with it during COVID It was my weird. Other people had sourdough. I had liners. It was, like, my weird project.
- [09:00]
Serena Smith
How did you recognize that this was more than just a you problem? You said, you know, you became obsessed with the idea that you could solve this problem for millions, if not billions of women. Where were you validating that idea?
- [09:16]
Bette Bentley
So I started looking it up on, like, googling it. And there are dedicated Reddit threads, YouTube videos, TikToks that are super viral. I mean, the Reddit thread alone, like, I still go back to that thread, and I'm like, am I solving these problems for the okay, great of people talking about, what do we do? I go commando in my leggings, and it's not my first choice. And then people would also say, like, and please don't tell me to wear seamless underwear. Please don't tell me to wear a thong. Like, that's not the tea for me. And I was like, this is a thing.
- [09:50]
Serena Smith
When I first found your product, you have one of those moments as a consumer where you're like, oh, my God, yes, duh. Why didn't I know about this? Like, this is very much a problem in need of solving. Also kind of exists in one of those categories for people, maybe for women in particular, where we've just sort of accepted that there might be no solution. You know, it's one thing to launch a new product into the market, period. It's quite another thing to launch an entirely new category. You don't necessarily have people even Googling for the solution because they don't think the solution exists. So how were you reaching people?
- [10:33]
Bette Bentley
Before I answer that, I just want to say something you just said became, like, my driving force, that women are just comfortable with the discomfort. We're used to it. We don't need dedicated products to solve our problems. We can hack things and deal with a bad experience. And I think that partially was why I became so stubborn and obsessed with it. Like, I was like, I am too Texan and too stubborn to let my best friends, the most beautiful, courageous, amazing women in the world, get, like, a wet spot on their leggings. Like, I love them too much. I just didn't want women to sacrifice their comfort because there were no options out there. And we're so used to being uncomfortable and that being okay in a variety of ways we deal with it. We're kind of built for it. Pregnancy, our menstrual cycle, our annoying boyfriends. We're built to handle discomfort, and I want to be able to take a little bit of that stress off of every woman's shoulder. I believe that women's essentials shouldn't be centered around shapewear. They should be centered around organic cotton and fem high and underwear. And I want Skimpy's to be the first brand to solve that problem for every woman in the world. We started with the original leggings liner, but we are going to branch out into multiple other products, and that is the underlying goal for me.
- [12:06]
Serena Smith
Mm, that's exciting. There's a whole horizon ahead of you. When you say femme high, by the way, you're talking about feminine hygiene. So you connect with this German woman who is picking up what you're throwing down. And I always think it's so incredible in the founder's journey and frankly, in all of our career journeys, like those instrumental people, like that one person who's like, I'll take a chance on you.
- [12:31]
Bette Bentley
I just kept calling manufacturers who make fim high and was like, okay, this is this panty liner. I tried it, balled up. Why? How do you make this? What's the process like? And pretty much everyone would hang up the phone on me. And then I got one manufacturer in Germany on the phone. I told her the idea and she said, that is a good idea. I would wear that. And I was like, oh, my goodness. And so she sent me tech, she sent me books of cotton, samples of adhesive. She's told me, like, what can go through with the current machinery, what can't? Why making it in the shape that I think it needs to be in after just like cutting things up and testing on my own, why that would be really expensive. I just got so much knowledge from her. She let me pick her brain and I was able to develop our first prototype. And then I found someone who would make it. But making it in our now patented shape was going to cost $25,000. Because there's a reason every panty liner is the same shape. They all use the same molds, and it's what every factory has. So to create our own mold was going to be really expensive. So I had her make the first skimpies, basically, like in a sheet, and I would hand cut them. I used to have a little. My own little mold, and I would cut it around and that's how I would make skimpies. And then I would hand deliver them to our subscribers.
- [13:47]
Serena Smith
I want you to take me inside the iterative process. You have no background in manufacturing. You have no background in product development. You have no experience being a founder. Like, what were those early days of tinkering like? And how many permutations did you have to work through before you found something where you were like, okay, this is kind of good.
- [14:06]
Bette Bentley
It works. So many. I have a picture of me surrounded probably by a thousand iterations of skimpies of just hand cut liners. Our shape is so specific and so important. We're more narrow in the front, wider in the back. We have a patented way we lay our adhesive that no one has done before. And there's reasons why it's more expensive. It's more complicated to lay your adhesive using the technique that we do, which is edge to edge and covers the entirety of the liner. We also are made without plastic. That is hugely important to the success of a liner sitting flat and being comfortable in a gusset. The plastic backing that you see period products have, that's great for what they're made for, but they're not going to be flexible and feel good in your pants. So we had so much innovation that we had to do in an industry where no one is innovating. I mean, I don't want to be shady but like in fem high, when you see new products come out, they're just white labeled things of what's already out there. Like, no one is calling manufacturers being like, let's create a new mold, let's use new materials. That just isn't happening. So I also had to find someone that was willing to take a chance on me with manufacturing and do something completely different. Then they had no guarantee there'd be a second order. And I knew that I needed to pick someone small. I knew I wanted to pick a factory that was clean, that had, like, certain environmental standards that are just personally important to me. And like, we don't even advertise that or put it on the box. It's just important to me. And I also feel like that good energy, this is where I get woo woo. I feel like that good energy makes your product better and healthier and feel better for women. And so if I can take that back end stress off their backs where they're like, oh, this is biodegradable fab. I didn't even know that. Like, I don't have to stress about it. Great. Because we have so much stress. So I just want to shave off as much as I can for our community. For the Skimpy sisters, I was innovating in a space that no one wanted to, so I had to create multiple versions, you know, hundreds on my own. And I feel comfortable with that. I'm a crafty queen. I'm super stubborn. And I think that part of being a mom is realizing that a lot of your work is invisible. And sometimes there isn't a lot of verification that you're doing it right. There isn't someone at the water cooler being like, good job with that nap today, girl. Like, you just do it quietly. And that was a real adjustment for me being a performer who loves making people happy. But it was a great set setup and immediate validation. Immediate validation. And, honey, I live for the applause. So it was a big adjustment for me coming into motherhood, but that really prepped me for being a founder. Because when you're a founder, pretty much everyone in your house is like, where's mom? Oh, she's doing that weird thing where she makes no money doing it, and it's taking up all of our time. And, like, why is she late for carpool? Like, every. You're kind of getting devalidated, right? But. But you're used to doing things because you're going off your gut. You know, this is right. And you learn to trust yourself a lot as A mom. So I really pulled into that power in the early days of skimpies when I was getting the product ready.
- [17:25]
Serena Smith
Yeah. Did the people in your life think you were nuts?
- [17:28]
Bette Bentley
Abso freaking lutely. Absolutely. And I wasn't, like, really posting about it, but I knew that there was something into it, Serena, because I'd go to the park, and people would talk about, like, what undies do you wear with your leggings? Like, what's the. You know.
- [17:42]
Serena Smith
No, don't.
- [17:43]
Bette Bentley
Gatekeep. Yes. Women. That's what I love about women. We are used to getting tips and tricks about how to live our lives from our friends. And if the product works and it's great, we'll buy it. It's why our backs hurt. We are carrying the economy.
- [17:59]
Serena Smith
It's so true. I talk to my husband about it all the time. I'm like, how do you find the answers to anything? Like, I know the conversations happening on the text chains with my girlfriends. Like, we'll spend 90 minutes discussing, like, the back clasps on different strapless bras. It's like, this is how the grassroots marketing happens. It's so true. Or, you know, at the park, in the conversations with other moms.
- [18:26]
Bette Bentley
And that's how I developed my little group of subscribers. I had about 10 subscribers, and they would just Venmo me, and I would drive them over some skimpies, and I'd wrap them in this cute little brown paper, and I'd put rosemary in it, and I would. I would print out. I, like, had a terrible skimpy logo, which is, like. I think was Garamond typeface that I just printed, and I would paste it onto the brown paper. I mean, it was so janky.
- [18:49]
Serena Smith
No, but it was also homegrown. Right? It's artisanal. There's something about that connection for early adopters where they see truly, like, how personal it is, you know, that I think can cultivate a certain kind of loyalty.
- [19:04]
Bette Bentley
One thing I want to say about being, like, a homegrown business in femme high and underwear is that no one has done that before. And that's why when you walk into that aisle, it feels so clinical. No one's face is on it. The way people put their face on syrup or cookie dough. No one's like, this was my grandma's recipe. It's so clinical, and I feel so blessed. Like, it really is God's calling for me to make these products for women from the heart that start from my hands because I want my daughter to wear them. My mom and sisters all wear skimpies. Like, I just feel so honored that I get to make something great from the bottom up in a category where no one does that.
- [19:45]
Serena Smith
And you are and have been and continue to be the face of it so people know that it really is yours. But delivering these skimpies by hand, wrapped up in brown paper with sprigs of rosemary, while lovely, does not a thriving, sustainable business makes. So was there a light bulb moment for you where you thought, okay, I gotta go all in on this?
- [20:10]
Bette Bentley
I was too scared to go all in. I posted no content on social media. It was all word of mouth. I would drive it to our subscribers and I would say, I can't wait to be in your pants. And we would laugh and we would hug, and it was just, like, fun girly time. And then a few weeks after that, like, I kind of had, like, this word of mouth business going. I found a tumor in my left breast and had a double mastectomy three weeks later.
- [20:34]
Serena Smith
Wow. Okay. There's a lot to dig into there.
- [20:37]
Bette Bentley
There's a lot. So when I woke up from my double mastectomy, I woke up, I had no breasts, I had no career. I knew I wasn't gonna have a third baby. And I felt so low, like, even talking about it right now, I have to, like, take a little breath. I felt so low. And I just told God I needed joy in my life. Sorry. I told God I needed joy in my life. And I felt so connected to him in that moment. I think when you have those big moments like childbirth, like a major medical situation, sometimes you feel very connected to a higher power. Like, the bullshit just fades away. And, like, someone was speaking to me. As clear as you are right now, I heard in my head, list your joy out loud. So I said, God, my kids, my husband, and skimpies. And right when I said skimpies, I was shocked because, like, it was a side hustle. I was scared to go all in. I'd never even really post on the Internet about it, but I knew. I knew that it was a huge source of joy in my life and that it was something I could do that would build a lasting legacy and help billions of women. And right when I said skimpies, this little hummingbird flew up to my window and I was like, that's it. That's my sign. My grandma told me she would visit me as a hummingbird. My grandma was the most badass woman I'd ever known in my life. She graduated from the University of Texas in her late 80s. Like, she was such a cool Texas woman. And I was like, I can do this. This is my purpose. And it was clear and it was concise. So I told my husband, he came into the room and I said, we are going to buy a mold in China for $25,000 today. And I was like, what is he going to say? And he was like, yeah, we are.
- [22:33]
Serena Smith
Oh, credit to supportive husbands. My word. And how incredible that you had that moment of absolute clarity in this aftermath of this incredibly intense, not just medical, but psychological and emotionally trying situation. And to have, you know, on a list with your husband and your kids and, God, skimpies come through in that moment, it's. It's amazing.
- [23:00]
Bette Bentley
So after I decided to go all in on the business and I was recovering from my reconstruction, I just started making videos. I was like, we are building in public. The same way you test a joke as a comic. You don't test it in your living room with your spouse. You go on a stage in front of lots of people and you feel where they drop off and you feel what doesn't work and you tweak it. And I can't test skimpies on my own. I have to go out there in a big way. So I just started going out there and I think having my mastectomy made me all the things I was nervous about before. Who cares? Like, I'm alive and I get to make women feel good. Great. Who cares if a carpool mom laughs at me? Cause of a camel toe video? Truly, like, you know what I mean? Like, and then she's not thinking about it a second later, you know, like, it just isn't that deep. So I started going out there and really paying attention. Where do people drop off? What do people connect with? Putting stuff on Instagram. And then I'd put my scraps on TikTok. Instagram sort of was like the space I felt most comfortable in. And I had this video that I put on Instagram and I was like, immediately cringed by it. It was this video that showed like a before and after. Like a really close up of like, what you look like before skimpies and after skimpies. Because skimpies can sort of soften a look down there if you're getting write up or anything like that. And I was like, you know what? I'm gonna do the. For the first time, I'm going to edit this video specifically for TikTok. What I like to see on TikTok, I'm gonna put all the fun right up front. I'M gonna give no instruction, no information, no brand name, no anything. I'm just gonna do before and after. Boop. Eight seconds long. I woke up the next morning and I thought my phone had had a malfunction because our sales had doubled. Our lifetime sales had doubled in 24 hours. The video had 6 million views. And people were very either heated or obsessed with this 40 year old woman tied up over leggings. And I was like, oh, TikTok people have their credit cards out. TikTok is the group chat where we're talking about, like you said, how the bras clasp in the back. Instagram is a billboard. And I like the group chat. So it's like, okay, thank you for this guidance universe. I will be running with this and how can I talk to these people every single day? TikTok live. Wow. So that's what I did.
- [25:25]
Serena Smith
Okay, so take us inside because we, you know, we have a lot of founders on who are building in public and they're building on TikTok and they're posting content every day or super consistently on TikTok and they're building community that way. And that's beautiful and it works. But selling on TikTok Live is like a totally different beast. So take us inside the world of live selling. What does it require? How does it feel unique from posting other content on social, et cetera?
- [25:54]
Bette Bentley
There's a lot of criteria to succeed on live. Consistency is incredibly important and duration of your live sale. So I would start watching people just scroll through lives and Google like top live sellers and then go to their lives and see how long are they on. They're usually on for more than two hours. It's a big time commitment. And for me, if you're sitting down selling me something, I'm like, no girl, I'm sitting down. You need to stand up. So I like someone who's standing up, energetic, talking to camera. I don't need a fancy set. In fact, personally I prefer not. I like to be in someone's home, in their environment, in a well lit room. And consistency matters for the algorithm. So I took what I learned from other life sellers and also from classic qvc. I'm a millennial, I grew up watching qvc. I love flash sales, I love fun facts. I love it when they talk to people who call in. You get to do all of that on live through people watching and they're gonna give you real time comments and you can engage with them. So I knew I wanted to start going live. That first time I went live I kind of made an announcement in my house the same way I do if I'm gonna take a bath. And usually it never happens, but I was like, I'm gonna start going live every single day, everybody. I'm gonna go live for six months on TikTok. Everyone was like, okay. I was like, tonight will be the first time I go live. Dad, you're taking everyone out to go get burgers. Because I just kind of wanna, like, do this on my own. And that was my very first live. Zero sales, total snooze. I was on my feet for three hours, and I slowly started to realize what works. There were four people in that live when I ended my four hours, but those four people, two of them stayed the entire time. And I remember TikTok sending me this little notification being like, for duration of watching, you're beating 90% of other creators. And I was like, okay, there's something to that. They liked that I was telling stories. They liked that I was bringing people in. So I was like, I just need to keep doing some of that and add some other things. So I just kept testing stuff, testing timeframes, testing what works most for us. But I think the key thing to live selling is live selling will really reveal what your brand story is and what it's all about. I always view live selling as a way to get the community together, give them really good deals, enjoy each other, have fun, do private product demos. Because when you're live selling, you get to tell everyone what your brand is all about. Storytell, do sales, and also show people how the product works. Problem solve customer service. You have this issue. Let me show you what that might be. Let me show you how to properly put this product in so you're really getting to do everything and you completely collapse the sales. Sales funnel.
- [28:50]
Serena Smith
You have a long history as a performer, which no doubt served you well as you made this transition into live selling. Do you have any advice for founders who want to take a crack at this who don't have that background?
- [29:04]
Bette Bentley
Okay. I think if you're live selling and you are camera shy or scared of the camera, I would suggest taking like an improv class or any kind of class that requires you to, like, get in front of people and express yourself. If you're not camera shy, you're a content creator. You can make content, but live selling is new for you. I would meditate before you go on. I would visualize how you want it to go. I would imagine your ego because I'm sorry, but a lot of content Creators have really big egos, but not everybody, but some people do, because this isn't going to be a glossy Photoshop picture. This is going to be real you. Oh, yeah. And don't do a filter. I think it's, like, really distracting. I was, like, playing, like, trying, and I was like, no, this is just. We just need to keep it real. But imagine your ego getting into a really small little ball and throwing it out and saying out loud, I'm here to play. I'm here to have fun. Whatever happens, happens. And also be willing for the first few lives to just get. Just, like, find yourself getting comfortable with the actual tech of doing a TikTok live, navigating the seller center, doing your Flash sales. It's gonna be clunky. And embrace that. Let everybody know. People want people to build in public. They want your origin story. So tell them. This is my very first life. Do you know how to do a Flash sale? This is weird for me. People wanna give their opinion, be a part of it. So bring them into the process.
- [30:31]
Serena Smith
That vulnerability pays off.
- [30:34]
Bette Bentley
Yeah, for sure. Well, when I first launched Skimpies, I never talked about my mastectomy. I thought that that would be, like, my little secret. Because it isn't the ideal glossy picture of health. Right. And I run a brand that makes people feel beautiful and comfortable and confident in their leggings, celebrating their natural shape with a healthy organic cotton. And I was like, they don't want to think about the fact that I lost my breasts. And one day during a live, I just started talking about it, and I noticed how people really responded. They felt like this was a real community. Like we were women that were really there for each other. They wanted to be there for me. So it was my lives that taught me that this was something I can talk about in my business. This isn't a secret. This isn't embarrassing. This is a way that we can all come together.
- [31:23]
Serena Smith
God, and how gratifying. Just from, like, a personal healing journey perspective as well. To be able to remove that shame and share it with not only the people you love in your life, but with, like, a group of, you know, virtual strangers and get that kind of support completely. It's beautiful. Telling every day, every day for six months sounds incredibly intense. You've got two kids at home and a husband. Something's got to give. What got compromised during that time?
- [31:58]
Bette Bentley
Definitely my relationship with my husband. You know, live selling is really. It's beautiful and it's really draining, especially if you're an empath, because you Are there are millions of people coming through your space in a couple hours. And it's a lot of energy to process and you care, you love them, that's why you're here. You made something for them. So it's very draining. And it was really hard for me to explain that before I would live sell and after I would live sell, I needed space and time to either prepare or decompress. And you have like girl math going on in your head. It's like, okay, my lifestyle starts at 11. I need to take a shower at 9:30 so I can do my hair, so I can do my makeup, so I can set up my lifestyle, which means I need to walk the dog at 8, which means I can't do carpool, which means, you know what I mean? And so I was really leaning on him and at that stage of the business, like I wasn't making any money, so I was leaning on my husband who was the breadwinner to take time out of his schedule to help me with the kids because I believed in this. And frankly that caused tension and I had to tell myself and put it up to God that that's okay. It's okay. He loves me unconditionally. He can be a little bit annoyed right now. That's fine. We'll sort that out later.
- [33:16]
Serena Smith
It's temporary.
- [33:18]
Bette Bentley
It's temporary. And there's times in my life where I've been annoyed with him. We have a beautiful, long lasting, over a decade marriage. If you think that you're never gonna be annoyed with their spouse, that they're not prioritizing the wrong things or the right things, get out of town. Yeah, you need to give people grace to feel their feelings and realize that it's not always super personal. But yeah, we weren't having much couch time hanging out and watching tv because when I wasn't live selling, I was catching up on everything else with the business, trying to launch a brand. You still have to post three dedicated social posts a day. You still have to be feeding that on top of your live selling, on top of inventory management, hiring, fulfillment. I mean, the list goes on and on. So it was really intimidating. And I'm a mom and I'm used to being a full time mom. I'm used to being the one doing all that stuff.
- [34:07]
Serena Smith
You did it because you had this inherent faith in the potential for the business. What was the upshot at the end of the six months?
- [34:16]
Bette Bentley
Oh, wow. Well, in June, we were the number one brand on TikTok. At the end of our Sort of stint. We ended this run with a 10 hour live from our warehouse which made $60,000.
- [34:29]
Serena Smith
Incredible.
- [34:30]
Bette Bentley
It makes me tear. It allowed me to hire my first full time employee that wasn't like 1099. She was in house, she was, you know, like a right hand person. It built a virality around the brand that still I, you know, I, I get called to speak and go to people's offices and teach them how to live selling. I speak on panels. I mean it made us a household name for free. I did no paid ads, not until a couple months ago. We were strictly organic. I put nothing behind our lives, never paid TikTok a dime. I mean now we do, but I really feel like I earned that spot to start doing paid media by putting in the time to be there with our community so that we can build this real trust around each other in an organic way. Live selling has given skimpies everything.
- [35:21]
Serena Smith
You also got to the end of that six months and you said, okay, I'm not going to do this every day anymore. It's not sustainable forever. What does it look like now and how are you keeping the sales engine churning? Is it the paid ads that's coming in and sort of filling in the space of you not doing live selling every day?
- [35:41]
Bette Bentley
Yeah, so the tail end of the lives. Right after that 10 hour sale which went so viral that actually we like weren't even really prepared for it. We had to hire extra people to go to the warehouse to fulfill. It was pretty crazy. I started my first in person tour because on top of that I do IRL events and I'm a real proponent that you have to spend as much time in person as you spend online. I once again feel like it's a spiritual woo woo thing. The vibe, just feels it. If you're just living behind a camera, you feel it through the socials. It feels, feels static versus if you're in person. Not only do you get great content to throw online, it just fulfills the community needs in a whole other way and it's just good to be in service in that way. So anyways, I was doing my first in person statewide tour of Texas and when I was driving my entire family because we needed our car filled with skimpies and tables and whatever on a, what is it, 14 hour road trip to Texas with my laptop up processing. I mean like it was crazy because that's, we had an order every 40 seconds for like months after that live sale. It was just wild. So I was like, okay, while we're in Texas. While I'm doing this live tour, I will not be live selling because I'm going to just focus on being in person and spend my energy doing that. And during that time, it was a great time to recalibrate. We were in a whole new state and I was like, why don't I start looking at the back end of the ad center of TikTok? What does this look like? What videos of mine does it love? Let's start throwing a little bit of money behind things and just see how it happens. It's before we had, you know, a head of marketing, it was just me sort of testing things. I think for us, we realized that going live and the IRL events are always going to be a huge part of what makes Skimpy's really special because we're just really about the Skimpy sisters. And as we move into new products, I want us to solve problems for them in a variety of ways. Right? So I want to know our girl, our woman, personally. But to this day, I go live about every two weeks. It's special, it's a fun event. People know it. I get to see our OG people and continue to make content daily. And then we promote that content on both Meta and TikTok.
- [37:57]
Serena Smith
Did you burn out?
- [37:59]
Bette Bentley
Oh, yeah, I burned out after our Texas tour for sure. I think that amount of virality, I wasn't ready for it. I'm so grateful for it. And if I couldn't handle it, it wouldn't have happened. I'm a firm believer of that. You get what you can handle. I came back from Texas and I had a. Actually, I had probably a nervous breakdown. I. My legs went numb. I was laying in bed, I could not move my toes. I was having like a total anxiety attack and I felt really tired, which is not like me. I'm kind of like the energizer bunny. For days after this, I realized that for me, I had to really prioritize my mental health. I had to make sure that I had playful, fun energy in my life because that's part of my pilot fire and that's important to the brand. It's important to my family. It's important to my little body that houses my soul. So I made a vow that I was going to start prioritizing my health. And a big part of that is performing and finding fun ways to be creative. And then the number one thing I can ever do to like, reground is to be playful and in the moment with my children.
- [39:16]
Serena Smith
It seems like burnout is an all too common reality. Almost a foregone conclusion for so many entrepreneurs. When you look back, do you see any ways in which you could have avoided it?
- [39:27]
Bette Bentley
Oh, that's such a good question. Well, I also went back to school. I graduated from Stanford school in March.
- [39:38]
Serena Smith
She's busy, she's busy.
- [39:40]
Bette Bentley
I think I could have taken on less. That was the thing and I knew it while I was doing it, I was like, this is the thing. I could have totally shaved off. And when I was halfway through, I really wanted to quit. And I'm really glad I didn't because it was so powerful for me to like walk on that stage. In March, I did a TED talk from the Stanford stage and I was chosen by my classmates to be the one to do it. So I get why I did it, but I really shouldn't have. I'm an Aries, I'm super fiery, and I really do feel like I can walk through fire if I know that there's peace or a pond at the end of it. So I just kept visualizing that and I was like, I know I can get through it and I will. You know, my husband is going to look back on this time and be like, wow, she did it. Not like, where was she? You know, and that is how it is. Like, we are fully, fully do skimpies together in so many ways. I mean, he is our head of brand. He is so incredibly creative and get to get be able to bring him in. It was like a huge source of confidence for me. It was like, wow, my business really does make money.
- [40:49]
Serena Smith
What does your team look like today?
- [40:50]
Bette Bentley
We have about three in house, fully in house employees. We have our head of marketing who has changed my life. She also handles like a little bit of our distribution. And I think for hiring, I learned a lot of lessons. I learned that for me, I need to hire people that don't want to be micromanaged, that really want freedom and trust. That's the type of business I want to build. I want to give women flexibility to work when they see fit, to get projects done at what hours work for them. I really am passionate about giving moms a second chance at the workforce after getting back into it after having kids. I feel like if that woman in Germany hadn't inspired me, maybe I wouldn't be here today. So I just know that one person taking a chance on you, even it's just in an interview, just them saying, you're amazing and we want you can change the course of your life. And then we have about like probably 5-99s who are also essential, and I love them.
- [41:52]
Serena Smith
Okay, so tell us as we wrap up, where is skimpy's going from here?
- [41:56]
Bette Bentley
Well, we have a new product coming out in about two months. It's our omg, I'm in menopause liner. It's the first panty liner designed for perimenopause and menopause. And I just kept getting comments from people like, I wear my skimpies in my panties and sometimes they're like a little too sticky, but I just love that they're flexible and luxe and I love how they feel. And I just wish you made femme high. Like, please get into traditional femme high. So I just started thinking about gaps in the market and I'm perimenopause the idea of having like a cooling panty liner that's organic and fabulous and, like, has our patented skimpies design with no plastic and no toxins. I was like, sign me up. So I'm really excited and I think this is going to be huge. We already actually have some, like, preliminary interest from some big box people.
- [42:44]
Serena Smith
Amazing. God. Can't wait to see where the trajectory continues to take you. And thank you so much for sharing this story that is in so many ways about taking what could be your own personal shame in so many areas and really turning it into a strength and an opportunity.
- [43:04]
Bette Bentley
It's beautiful. That means so much to me. I really feel like that's one of my legacies on earth. I want women to know that their setbacks are the slingshot that's gonna launch them forward. Sometimes you just have to be in that pain and then aim your hope and let go and see where it takes you.
- [43:20]
Serena Smith
You're doing it. Thank you so much for being here. This was wonderful. Thanks, Serena.
- [43:24]
Bette Bentley
I appreciate you. This was so fun.
- [43:26]
Serena Smith
That's Bette Bentley, founder of Skimbeast. Shopify Masters is produced by Hyacinth Parker, Alicia Clark and Schwang Esther Shan. Our engineers are Matt Schwartz and Miku Beitlam, and Rachel Reich is our senior content lead. And I'm your host, Serena Smith. Come back every Tuesday and Thursday to catch a brand new episode of Shopify Masters. And be sure to check out our YouTube channel for all of our video interviews. Until next time, thanks for listening. Sa.