00;00;08;14 - 00;00;28;21
Speaker 1
Hi, I'm Ian, co-founder at Digg Insights and President of the Innovation Insights Platform Upside. Welcome to Dig in. Digging is the place to stay up to date on what's happening in the world of innovation, research and technology to find inspiration from today's business and innovation leaders and to properly dig into hot topics that matter for consumer brands right now.

00;00;29;02 - 00;00;33;21
Speaker 1
And when applicable, we'll bring our own research to that conversation.

00;00;34;18 - 00;00;59;05
Speaker 2
Welcome back to this week's episode of Dig AM. Today we are chatting to Mani, the founder of our society. It was recently recognized as one of Canada's fastest growing companies in the 2021 report on Business by the Globe and Mail. We were lucky enough to make that list as well, and I reached out to Mani to chat to her about her business and how she stays.

00;00;59;05 - 00;01;24;12
Speaker 2
She stays customer centric. Mani herself is a career nomad. She's got an entrepreneurial mindset, and she's worked for 20 plus years in a variety of strategic management roles. Side to society was actually Mani Side Hustle for seven years until she decided to quit her full time gig and focus on it 100% in 2016. Mani, thanks so much for joining me today.

00;01;25;25 - 00;01;27;11
Speaker 3
Thanks for having me. I'm happy to be here.

00;01;28;27 - 00;01;33;26
Speaker 2
Do you want to tell anyone tuning in a little bit about who you are and the business?

00;01;34;09 - 00;01;52;02
Speaker 3
I always get in my mind that I wanted to start a business, but I wasn't anti going to work for someone else. And and actually that's, you know, that sort of ended up happening. I did I did start a very small business in university while I was doing my undergrad in commerce with some friends. And we started a tutoring company.

00;01;52;13 - 00;02;12;07
Speaker 3
Since I had been tutoring math and statistics through high school and then Sage Up, which is grades 12 and 13 and Quebec and Friends and I found that we had an app for university level statistics. So we started this company and I ran that throughout university and I had a thought about maybe doing that more full time when I was done my undergrad.

00;02;12;13 - 00;02;36;03
Speaker 3
But my two business partners were very focused on getting jobs in the corporate world. And I also was interested in in consulting because it appeared that it offered a lot of variety and the opportunity to work with different clients and get to do different work. And so I totally hopped on the bandwagon of campus recruiting and ultimately ended up getting a job at Accenture.

00;02;36;04 - 00;03;07;22
Speaker 3
So I put my entrepreneurial ideas on hold, if you will, and got some really great experience working at a consulting firm for seven years. And I actually ended up moving around quite a bit from client facing work to more internal focused roles, helping Accenture's and internal teams like finance and h.R. And marketing to improve their processes and internal services to to the external facing consultants.

00;03;08;08 - 00;03;25;17
Speaker 3
And throughout this time, I thought I was always trying to think about ideas for what a business could look like. So I paid attention to things around me that every time I had an idea, I felt like I killed it before. It really went very far because I couldn't justify how I would be able to monetize the idea.

00;03;26;07 - 00;03;54;17
Speaker 3
And so I kept working. I actually ended up taking on a lot of roles and getting a lot of roles within Accenture and subsequently at the Ontario government that were more entrepreneurialism. So as I think back to my early days in my career, it's no surprise that I ended up gravitating towards roles that were really not well-defined. And it didn't scare me, which is crazy now that I think about it, because I'm scared a lot in my business now.

00;03;54;17 - 00;04;19;06
Speaker 3
But back then, the idea of having this sort of carte blanche to create a role and come up with either a project plan or training or a roadmap for a team to follow and then execute on. It was always really interesting to me, so I think that's what kept me working in corporate and academia in the public sector for the better part of 20 years.

00;04;19;07 - 00;04;53;02
Speaker 3
So after Accenture, I went to work for the Ontario government for two years in strategic talent management roles, and then I completely pivoted to two working in as an MBA career coach. So actually it was around the time that I left the government that I had come up with the idea for the society. And I know we'll talk a little bit more detail about that in a few minutes, but I think it's important to stress that I took six months off when I was working, when I quit the government to actually lay the groundwork to start my business, because I had already been working for two years and felt two years at the government and

00;04;53;02 - 00;05;18;04
Speaker 3
felt like it was time to make a move and felt like in order to get my feet wet in this business idea that I had, I really needed to have those daytime hours or maximize the number of hours I was spending on it. And I couldn't do that with a full time job at zero experience whatsoever in manufacturing society for the last five years, full time.

00;05;18;04 - 00;05;21;09
Speaker 3
And that sort of brings us to where I am today.

00;05;21;09 - 00;05;32;04
Speaker 2
It's so interesting for anyone listening and who might not know the difference. What what's the difference between entrepreneurial and an entrepreneurial, if you don't mind me asking, right?

00;05;32;10 - 00;06;07;21
Speaker 3
Yeah. No, that's a good point. I shouldn't assume so. An intra preneur is a term I heard fairly recently, but what it is, is essentially someone who takes on the role of almost like a business owner, but working within a bigger corporation or company. So I think there is this fallacy that in order to be in an entrepreneurial mindset and mindset of creator or someone who's innovating or using skills like marketing or finance, one always thinks that one has to have this idea that you're going to bring to market and sort of berth it to market.

00;06;07;21 - 00;06;27;11
Speaker 3
But actually you can be an entrepreneur within the organization that you're working for by coming up with new ideas, being the one to suggest new approaches and new ways to do things, you know, in your team meetings and not being afraid to speak up and so that's where the term interpreter comes, where you're working sort of like an entrepreneur with that mindset inside an organization.

00;06;27;12 - 00;06;30;03
Speaker 3
I think both are equally valid.

00;06;30;03 - 00;06;44;11
Speaker 2
That's really interesting because I'm sure that that's the best way to start to feel comfortable with the idea of going out on your own and and actually being you're being an entrepreneur in its own right. So thank you.

00;06;44;21 - 00;07;17;29
Speaker 3
Person. Yeah, I think I think honestly if I hadn't had those roles, I don't know how I mean, it took me seven years to actually make a decision to quit my very full time secure pension with benefits, great salary, great job to focus is on society. So there is that. But I definitely think that the throwing myself into projects where I had no roadmap and creating those myself and those opportunities I had in those 15 years or so definitely prepared me psychologically and practically for for starting my own business with that society.

00;07;17;29 - 00;07;19;09
Speaker 3
Absolutely.

00;07;19;09 - 00;07;48;11
Speaker 2
That's amazing. I mean, without further ado, I feel like I'm like burying the lead here. Let's talk about high society that so way back in 2008, I mean, we love to talk to businesses that are growing really quickly and really satisfy a consumer or a customer. Pain point. And I've actually purchased by society. I love the brand. Tell us a little bit about what it is and the ethos behind it for sure.

00;07;48;25 - 00;08;16;15
Speaker 3
So thisis society are anti two things slip shorts that are not shapewear, that keep the person wearing them cool and dry and are intended to be worn mainly under skirts and dresses or underpants. When you just need a little bit of thigh coverage for fabric coverage between your thighs and the idea is quite simple. I mean, our products are certainly made very thoughtfully and with high performance yarns and whatnot that we can talk about a little bit later too.

00;08;16;15 - 00;08;32;27
Speaker 3
But actually the idea came to me because I could not find this what I thought was a very simple product anywhere on the market. So it was back in 2008 and I was working at my then government job going for a walk downtown on my lunch break, and I was wearing a skirt for the first time. It was early June.

00;08;32;27 - 00;09;06;05
Speaker 3
And so for anyone listening that lives in Canada or in Toronto specifically, you'll know that we basically skip spring altogether here and we move right from winter straight into summer. So I hadn't really been used to wearing dresses yet, and so I just had gotten dressed that morning and threw on my dress and left for work. But it was a warm day and as I started walking, it was probably about 10 minutes into that walk that I started to feel a very familiar rash between my thighs, which I completely forgotten about because I really hadn't gone bare legged until, you know, since the summer before that.

00;09;06;23 - 00;09;29;17
Speaker 3
And I knew that this was a rash that I experienced throughout my entire life, my and my friends and I would affectionately call it Chub Rub. Some people call it chafing, but I've always loved the term shrub. Rubbing basically means my thighs were rubbing together and loving each other a little too much, and combined with my skin sensitivity, I would always get a rash whenever there was some friction and moisture in between my legs.

00;09;29;17 - 00;09;59;20
Speaker 3
So that particular day I raced to the nearest pharmacy, picked up some baby powder, duck, wild penguin walk however you want to call it. My legs spread apart back to my office, rushed up to the washroom and then proceeded to slather my legs in baby powder, which honestly got everywhere. And it was a mess. And I was just bitter that I had forgotten to put on my trusty bike shorts, which were the solution I had resorted to in previous summers, and really thought to myself, You know, there's got to be a better way.

00;09;59;21 - 00;10;20;22
Speaker 3
Like these bike shorts that I had been wearing were already tattered and torn. They were old, they were black, so they weren't really functional under. And the only other option that I had in my daughter was shapewear. And the idea of squeezing into something like shapewear on a warm day was just a recipe for disaster. So that certainly was not an option.

00;10;21;00 - 00;10;43;27
Speaker 3
So I made it my mission for the rest of the summer to search online, which online wasn't Internet shopping, wasn't nearly as popular in 2008 as it is now. But I did what I could to shop online, and then I pounded the pavement and went to some big department stores here, like the Bay, as well as some smaller bra fitting specialty boutiques.

00;10;43;27 - 00;11;07;16
Speaker 3
And really what I was looking for was the underwear that I would ultimately end up creating, which is a super comfortable, lightweight, long leg performance. Boxer briefs for women that would feel invisible. So I started talking to some friends and asking some people, even some coworkers at work, if they had experienced thigh chafing and every you know, not every single conversation I had did I meet someone who did.

00;11;07;16 - 00;11;27;11
Speaker 3
But I would say there were a lot of people through those conversations that would either say, yes, it's something I suffer with all the time, or they suffered with it through a period of their life and nobody really had any practical solutions. We were all sort of cobbling together these MacGyver solutions, like having our pantyhose or cutting long johns or wearing men's underwear.

00;11;27;29 - 00;11;59;06
Speaker 3
And I really didn't think that was acceptable. You know, I felt that women deserve some some better options. And so I decided at the end of that summer that I was going to quit my job. So as I mentioned earlier, I was looking for a change at that point anyway. And I really spent the next six months immersing myself in in undergarment production, essentially starting from zero, teaching myself about how clothing is made, learning about Shopify, which was still at that time, a very, very small company.

00;11;59;06 - 00;12;19;05
Speaker 3
They weren't even offering website websites. They were really just a payment portal. So I was trying to pick up a little bit of WordPress to learn how to create my own website. And I really sort of thought like, listen, I'm going to take a few months off to see if I can actually create a prototype and come up with a product and see if I can sell, you know, maybe a couple of hundred of these.

00;12;19;05 - 00;12;26;22
Speaker 3
Like, I really did not think at that point in time that this would be a business that I could ultimately do full time.

00;12;26;22 - 00;12;47;20
Speaker 2
Wow. There's so much in there. I mean, yeah. Thanks for the story. There's there's so much in there. I mean, I think the first thing I want to touch on is you made the distinction between shapewear and I know we've chatted previously about how you're not anti shapewear in any way. It's just that what society does is different.

00;12;48;10 - 00;12;52;09
Speaker 2
Can you tell me about that distinction? Like, why is that distinction so important for brands?

00;12;52;23 - 00;13;14;02
Speaker 3
I think shapewear has a time and a place. I know for me, I have a couple of outfits where I just feel like I like the way my body looks and in them when I'm wearing a base layer of shapewear underneath. But those occasions are few and far between. So shapewear for me is when I think of shapewear, my body sort of fences up at the thought of already like putting them on.

00;13;14;02 - 00;13;50;12
Speaker 3
Right. They're difficult to put on. They're super tight. They're hot. You know, if you have to go to the washroom, that's a whole other ordeal. Taking them off. These are not the type of undergarment that you want to wear on a hot and sweaty day when you're just looking for some protection between your thighs. I also fundamentally have an issue with the way shapewear is marketed to women, and it's hard because shapewear markets and sells is basically telling women, Hey, your lumps and bumps and the natural curves of your body are not palatable to society in terms of how you show up in the world without any shapewear undergarments.

00;13;50;12 - 00;14;09;05
Speaker 3
So hey, put on our undergarments and your body will look so much better. And I know I just said that I have certain outfits that I prefer. So it is a personal preference as to when one dons shapewear or not. But my fundamental issues with the marketing. And so when I started the eyes of society, I knew I wanted to be very, very deliberate about the fact that our garments were not shapewear.

00;14;09;13 - 00;14;29;29
Speaker 3
This is not for the woman who's looking for smoothing underneath her clothing. We're offering a solution to a woman who wants to feel comfortable and confident in her skin. It's, I think, has already a lot of stigma around it. And y and people don't really understand why it happens. Oftentimes, there's a there's a misconception that it has to do with your weight.

00;14;29;29 - 00;14;58;19
Speaker 3
And if you're overweight, then you must automatically have thigh chafing. Or if your thighs touch, you must automatically have that thing. So, you know, putting a pair of long leg underwear on underneath your skirts and dresses to prevent by training is hour ready or when I started was already an act of that was laden with was taboo and shame and I really resented that you know I was like, I don't want to feel bad putting on an undergarment that is literally just protecting my thighs from sweating.

00;14;58;19 - 00;15;04;04
Speaker 3
I want to have any negative associations with this with this cream. I don't have bad associations. Right, like.

00;15;04;04 - 00;15;31;04
Speaker 2
This. I mean, but it's so funny and true. I'm I'm struggling to not I just did pipe in but like it when we had our initial conversation I was there's so much shame around around chafing and women not speaking about it. And I think that that's really where like the kernel of insight is for why society is seeing so much success now is that no one wanted to talk about it, but it was like such a real problem.

00;15;31;27 - 00;15;52;24
Speaker 2
And you kind of doing all of that desk research and and trying to buy different solutions to the problem online and not really finding what you needed. Like those are the businesses that are so interesting or those are the founders that are so interesting to talk to you because you had to kind of go out on a limb and ask people the uncomfortable question, like, women didn't talk about this.

00;15;52;24 - 00;15;57;25
Speaker 2
I don't think, especially on a podcast.

00;15;57;25 - 00;15;58;10
Speaker 3
No, they.

00;15;58;23 - 00;16;15;02
Speaker 2
Didn't. Yeah, they absolutely do that. So sorry. I mean, thank you for for talking about it and for creating a product that actually does satisfy that need because yeah, I don't even know why it's something we just assumed we had to live with.

00;16;15;02 - 00;16;36;24
Speaker 3
Exactly. I mean, I used the example that we, most of us put on deodorant in the morning. So we want to stop our underarms from sweating because underarm sweat and body odor are a completely normal function of the human body. You know, it's not something we think about. It's not a shameful act. Right. So why do we have all of this taboo around putting on an undergarment and again, I'll go back to sort of gender equality.

00;16;36;24 - 00;16;53;29
Speaker 3
Why do men get long leg underwear? I never wanted to accept that. For me, that was just not not an acceptable solution. So I went out and created what I thought would be something more. We're much more comfortable and fair and optimized for, for the person wanting to wear it.

00;16;54;17 - 00;17;18;17
Speaker 2
Yeah. And I think the way that you went about it too is, is really unique. So this idea that you spent for seven years, it was your side hustle. And I know we talked about, you know, you bootstrapped it to $1,000,000 in sales by 2018. Congratulations. It's unbelievable. I think I'm wondering I think it's it's great to say that you're risk averse, but how did you sort of validate that?

00;17;18;27 - 00;17;34;07
Speaker 2
There was there was like a big opportunity here. It wasn't just, you know, qualitatively, you'd heard from a few friends that it was an issue. Yeah. What how did you validate that? There was a a big opportunity there.

00;17;34;07 - 00;17;53;11
Speaker 3
So I think that the the conclusion that it was a big opportunity evolve with time. So when I first started the business and I was looking for a manufacture or I had spoken to a lot of fabric importers and local manufacturers, most of them were were owned by men. And most of them looked at me like I was nuts, like, what are you talking about?

00;17;53;11 - 00;18;20;26
Speaker 3
You can't make a business out of this. No one's going to buy it. These these little shorts, they're just shorts. What's the difference? Why would anyone want to even wear these under dresses? You know? So I was met by that on the one hand. And on the other hand, you know, when I would speak to some other people in the business community, they felt that this was too niche of the market and that it's too much of a product and that I wouldn't be able to actually scale this, that I could probably continue doing this as a little bit of a hobby.

00;18;20;26 - 00;18;46;05
Speaker 3
But there was really no concrete reassurance from anyone that this could be a big business. So I did what I knew best and it was I was most comfortable with, which was going slow and learning as I went. There were a couple of companies that were catering to a plus size audience exclusively. So like size 16 plus who were offering, you know, very basic cotton long leg underwear.

00;18;46;14 - 00;19;04;07
Speaker 3
And I sort of skipped over this part in the beginning of of our conversation. But that summer that I spent, you know, pounding the pavement and searching online, I did post in a couple of online forums where I thought I might find my target customer. And these were like fashion based forums where people would post about all kinds of things.

00;19;04;07 - 00;19;22;04
Speaker 3
And I did pose a question, those to the members of some of those groups about, hey, does anyone here suffer from from tribe Robin? Do you have any viable solutions? And if you haven't found anything, what are you doing? And if you could sort of wait your magic lines and come up with an undergarment that would solve this problem, what would it look like?

00;19;22;04 - 00;19;42;20
Speaker 3
What would it feel like? What would be some of the key features? And so I gathered all of that information, and that ultimately is what infused all of the the inputs, if you will, to that to those first product types into that product that we first that I first launched with. So how did I know that there was buy in for this product is that I saw my sales steadily growing.

00;19;42;28 - 00;20;03;07
Speaker 3
I saw competitors enter the market probably about five years in. I have no regrets about the pace at which I took because it was right for me and it felt that it matched with my level of risk tolerance. But if I could go back in time now, maybe I would have accelerated some of that and taking advantage of the fact that I society would always show up in organic search results back in those days.

00;20;04;09 - 00;20;28;08
Speaker 3
But I just kept getting reassurance from people who would hear about the company. At the time there were some bloggers I was reaching out to and they immediately wanted to sample the product and they would write about it. And I was getting a lot of positive reinforcement from the customers. So, you know, thinking back to all that sort of not so positive reinforcement that I got at the beginning of starting the business where I was told, you know, you're not going to be able to sell a lot of these.

00;20;28;08 - 00;20;50;07
Speaker 3
Nobody's going to buy this. Everybody wants shapewear. People have other solutions. I was getting reinforcements from our customers and that started to grow and grow. And so ultimately when our sales were reaching close to three quarters of a million and I was still working full time, I actually had a mentor who was how to delicately coach me out of my out of my full time job.

00;20;50;07 - 00;21;14;06
Speaker 3
And I would say that I was I was ready to make a move as well. I think we all reached a point in our careers where we were looking for change. And sometimes you can move around within your organization and find a new opportunity. And I had exhausted all of those opportunities. I had explored the market. I was looking at LinkedIn, trying to figure out what opportunities were out there that I could leverage my previous experience in consulting and and talent management.

00;21;14;06 - 00;21;40;11
Speaker 3
I still felt like I might be able to manage society full time, but finding that mentor at the time, I think, as well as speaking to some other entrepreneurs, made me built up my confidence to say that, you know what, this is a low risk proposition. I can quit. I can always get rehired somewhere else. I'm highly employable at this point in time, and I believed in myself that I could and should give this business a chance on a full time basis.

00;21;40;11 - 00;21;51;00
Speaker 3
And maybe turning 40 at that time had something to do with it. And, you know, again, that that if not now, when sort of mentality and basically that was five years ago and I haven't looked back.

00;21;51;10 - 00;22;19;15
Speaker 2
And I've got a few other questions. I mean, I want to just talk a little bit about the the actual material that you guys use, obviously sustainability and and being eco friendly and being environmentally conscious. Those are such key topics. And whenever I talk to anyone in the retail space that we'd like to touch on, and I know that you were really thoughtful about the actual material that you use, can you talk to me a little bit about that?

00;22;20;29 - 00;22;44;02
Speaker 3
Totally. So when I was designing this product, not only did I have to use your cousin Amazon mine, but I was a potential customer as well because I knew I needed this garment and I wanted something that was super stretchy and very lightweight because most people wearing this garment to prevent chafing don't really want to be wearing an underwear unless you're legit wearing it for modesty purposes.

00;22;44;02 - 00;22;58;22
Speaker 3
You really want something that is, you know, feels like a second skin that that you set it and forget it. So I was very intentional going out to find, you know, how could I find the most stretchy material and how could I find the lightest material? We do create a lot less faced with our with our seamless machines.

00;22;59;00 - 00;23;22;23
Speaker 3
We use different cylinder sizes, which I'm going to I'm not going to geek out on all of the details, but we really don't do a one size fits all approach. We we do have two sizes per size, and that's just allows us some flexibility. Again, I guess, no pun intended on that one, but that allows women to feel more confident when they're with when they're buying online, that this is not shapewear.

00;23;22;23 - 00;23;44;13
Speaker 3
You're never going to have to contort and squeeze your body to get yourself into this garment. It's going to go on super comfy. And then the yarns that we use are all chosen for their specific properties in terms of the ultimate, you know, the ultimate finished product. So our cooling shorts, for example, are so innovative. We've sourced a yarn that's actually incredible.

00;23;44;13 - 00;24;01;28
Speaker 3
And it has been proven to lower body temperature by up to one degree and it is light as air. So we knit that with some stretch spandex and what you get in the end is just like light as air short that has incredible stretch and that feels cool to the touch on the body and keeps the wearer cool.

00;24;02;04 - 00;24;15;24
Speaker 3
So that's just one example of how we how we innovate in our production process and how we use the make our own fabric to produce these to produce these shorts is really our own fabric, secret sauce or secret recipe.

00;24;16;16 - 00;24;42;06
Speaker 2
I love that. Yeah. And I can attest to I can attest to the Labissiere nature of the short. It's, it's pretty remarkable. I mean, I guess these questions are kind of linked. So I did want to touch on kind of how you stay in touch with your customer and you make sure that you're continuing to build the business with her in mind or with them in mind.

00;24;43;02 - 00;25;08;03
Speaker 2
And I guess this is kind of related as well to like what guys society might look like in future, you know, where, where the business is going and where you're innovating. So I guess first question, how do you stay in touch with your customers or consumers in general? And second question, how does that inform future product innovation or where you want to take the business?

00;25;08;11 - 00;25;10;13
Speaker 2
Mm hmm. Yeah.

00;25;10;22 - 00;25;41;04
Speaker 3
Great questions. I mean, we stay in touch with our customers, mainly on on social media. We will think person colors for for spring summer 2022. So we're able to do some really informal surveys on Instagram stories, you know, about which colors our customer would like. We stay in touch by seeing what our comments are on social media, what our comments on our ads are on Facebook and Instagram.

00;25;41;15 - 00;26;00;12
Speaker 3
Definitely reviews for our product. I mean, I love to pop in and read our reviews at least once a week because I love hearing what customers are saying, you know, both positive and negative, although they usually are overwhelmingly positive. And so that keeps us in the loop. And customers are very vocal about giving suggestions about what else they would like to see.

00;26;01;29 - 00;26;35;04
Speaker 3
That actually dovetails nicely into your your other question about what I see if I cited a couple of years or how are we continuing to innovate? And I think, you know, that stemmed from the answer stems from where where I want to be as the founder and where I think we should be. And I think by society needs to become known as the number one best multiyear slip short out there where a premium product, where high quality, you know, you might be able to cobble together some some substitutions with what you find on Amazon and whatnot, but nothing will rival the longevity and performance of our shorts.

00;26;35;10 - 00;26;56;16
Speaker 3
We know they're they're a solution to a problem. They're not going to right up. They're not going to roll down. All of the issues I had with everything I tried before coming up with these products has been solved with with this with these products. And so I think where I'd like to continue innovating is is still seeing how we can, you know, corner this live short market.

00;26;56;16 - 00;27;15;00
Speaker 3
So yeah, that's what we that's what we did when we had launched our cooling short a few years ago where we had started with one product, that being our originals, and they were a little bit thick and some of the feedback we got from customers is that they wanted something lighter weight. So we started researching what innovative fabrics were out there, and that's ultimately how we stumbled on cooling.

00;27;15;06 - 00;27;33;12
Speaker 3
Then we started getting feedback from customers who were looking for a more natural, you know, with a short made with more natural fibers like cotton where they wanted the feeling of cotton on their skin. So we came up with the cotton and then the for saying, Hey, we love the originals, but wouldn't it be great to have something a bit lighter than the originals but heavier than the cooling?

00;27;33;12 - 00;27;52;16
Speaker 3
And so we came up with a staple. So, you know, over time we've been iterating on on the flip shirt concept in terms of fabrication based on what our customers are using the shorts for, whether they want something for outerwear like our originals or layer it, we, you know, and they don't care if it's through like our cooling.

00;27;53;23 - 00;28;24;00
Speaker 3
So we're whether we're iterating on fabric or whether we're iterating on leg length. So we started I started by society doing one leg length and seven inch and then I moved to nine inch. And then we customers were asking us for even longer, 12 inch, and then we've gone the other direction now with launching five inch. And so in the short term, I definitely see us continuing to grow with, with slip short products because I still think there's a lot of room there to continue to offer different options because all of us as women want different things.

00;28;24;00 - 00;28;40;09
Speaker 3
And I mean our originals are a great example of that. They are our most opaque, short. They're a little more, quote unquote, smoothing than our other shorts just because of the nature of how they're knit. And they're a little thicker fabric and we've started phasing those out like pre-pandemic. We had not put another order in for those shorts.

00;28;40;11 - 00;28;58;16
Speaker 3
And then, lo and behold, the unpredictability of business like shorts took off as a huge trend during the pandemic, as people were staying at home and going for walks more in their neighborhood. And so we thought, oh, you know, our originals have been a huge runaway seller for the better part of five years before that. Let's let's bring them back.

00;28;58;16 - 00;29;22;02
Speaker 3
And so, you know, and customers have been asking us throughout the summer, you know, why don't you have your originals anymore? And so we ultimately ended up bringing those back with some improvements overall to the garments. So, you know, we do we do some R&D work. You know, we're always fermenting, we're looking at whether or not, you know, introducing a legging to work in sparks might be a good option.

00;29;22;16 - 00;29;49;07
Speaker 3
You know, whether or not they're high performance comfortable sweat preventing base layers could be a good option for us. And so truthfully, the honest answer is I'm not really sure we're working on that three year plan right now. And, you know, everything's on the table. But what our guiding principle is and the team is on board is that we want to be known for being the most premium based slip short company that you can buy.

00;29;49;13 - 00;29;54;27
Speaker 3
And so that's that's the driver for sure, for all of our our new innovations.

00;29;54;27 - 00;30;15;13
Speaker 2
Thanks so much, Marni. This has been so interesting. I think we're I think we're out of time. But thank you so much for for taking the last 40 minutes to chat to me about about all of this. I'm really excited to see where this society goes. Is there anything you wanted to leave the listeners with?

00;30;15;25 - 00;30;40;11
Speaker 3
Sure. I think one thing if I didn't come out and say it overtly, I think it's worth repeating is that guy chafing has nothing to do with your size or weight. It is a function of how sensitive your skin is when friction and moisture happen between your thighs. So even people with a thigh gap can actually get chafing when there's friction between their skin and the fabric over top, like polyester or wool.

00;30;40;11 - 00;30;57;25
Speaker 3
And so it's my mission in life to dispel the myths around chafing that it has nothing to do with your weight. It's not it's not only a plus size issue. That's why we offer sizes of extra small two to 6xl and we really need to be done with the stigma around thigh chafing. There is nothing to be ashamed of.

00;30;58;04 - 00;31;17;14
Speaker 3
Men wear long underwear underneath all of their clothing all the time, so there should not be any reason why women should feel any hesitation about putting on a super comfortable, long leg underwear that has so many purposes beyond just chafing protection. But it's really about being comfortable in your skin and confident to take on your day wherever that takes you.

00;31;17;14 - 00;31;37;06
Speaker 3
And I know that sounds like a cliche, but it's true. So if anyone wants to learn more about this study, they can check us out on our Canadian site, Esteem Society 68 and our US site is STI Society dot com and it's obviously a play on the words high society as it's STI society.

00;31;37;06 - 00;31;47;00
Speaker 2
Thank you so much. This has been such a pleasure. I will I will talk to you soon and I will hopefully see everyone else next week. Thanks so much.

00;31;47;20 - 00;32;15;13
Speaker 1
I thanks for joining us for this week's episode of Dig In. If you want more information about Digg insights or upside, please check us out on LinkedIn or on our Web sites that dig insights dot com or upside down. If you have any ideas for future episodes or would like to be a guest, please feel free to direct message me through LinkedIn.