Spotlight 90: Superwoman Entrepreneur - Marnie Rabinovitch Consky

#EntrepreneurLife #BeyondLabels #LoveThighSelf

Q: Let's take it back to the beginning: can you tell us the story of your business's first month?

A: That was a long time ago - July 2009, to be specific. But I do remember it vividly as I was working full-time in my windowless, shared office at The University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management. I had spent the full year prior designing and testing prototypes for Thigh Society's first anti-chafe short and learning the ropes of eCommerce. My career history was in consulting, training and HR strategy - I had zero experience in retail, manufacturing or sales - so every day brought with it new questions and learnings. I was energized by it all and it was definitely never boring! But the time had finally come to introduce the world to Thigh Society. I understood then that people don't just flock to a website, they need to be told about it. So I spent that first month emailing editors, bloggers and everyone I knew to tell them about my new business. I had boxes of product in my home office and took great care to package every order exactly right every evening, printing off a shipping label, and then walking to the post office the next day at lunch from my day job. I was in awe of the fact that I didn't know the people that I was shipping to - these were total strangers who had somehow heard about my anti-chafe shorts and were willing to take a chance on a tiny little Canadian brand they found on the internet. Little did I know that 14 years later, we'd have sold 1 million pairs (!) and have a cult-like following across the globe for our breathable, lightweight, and seamfree shorties that solve for chafe, butt sweat, modesty, sleeping, fitness, maternity and postpartum, menopause, medical conditions, and general comfort. We’re the OG pioneer in the category of long leg underwear for women, making non-shapewear, high-performance bottoms in an inclusive size range.

Q: When was there a time that a person or experience changed your life and your perspective of it?

A: It wasn't a single person, but a few people in my orbit in 2016 who started to encourage me to pursue Thigh Society full-time. I had been working on the business part-time for 7 years and was reluctant to quit my safe, secure pensioned job for the uncertainty and risk of full-time entrepreneurship. But I had just turned 40 and the business was growing successfully and profitably. I wondered what I could achieve with it if I gave it full-time attention, and didn't want to have regrets later about being too afraid to find out. I decided to give it a year,? and if I couldn't see measurable growth, then I'd go back to the corporate world. That was 7 years ago this month and I never looked back...

Q: What is your biggest challenge right now, and what drives you to keep going?

A: Our biggest challenge right now is still the supply chain delays lingering from the pandemic; we need to put our purchase orders in with our manufacturers in late September for delivery in February. That's almost a 6 month lead time to forecast our sales volume, colour palette, new styles, etc. It's tough to predict and I'm always nervous as we get closer to finalizing our next year's lineup.?

Bonus Question: what's an accomplishment or feature article you've recently achieved?

I'm really proud of this Nasdaq feature which tells the story of why I started Thigh Society - https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/beyond-shapewear-marnie-rabinovitch-conskys-mission-to-revolutionize-womens-undergarments