The TikTok Live Playbook: How Skimpies Scaled to a $10M Valuation

0:00I put it up, went to sleep, next day I woke up, and our lifetime sales had doubled. The video had almost 7 million views.

0:08Bette Bentley:After years of writing comedy for Will Ferrell, Bette Bentley traded a writer's room for the manufacturing floor to solve a very personal problem. She launched Skimpies, a first-of-its-kind organic cotton liner for leggings. People will watch me live sell for three hours with one product if we make it real and authentic and we bring in the whole community. She's here to share how she live-streamed on TikTok, built a massive organic community, and scaled her startup to a$10 million valuation. Beth. Serena. Thank you for being here. Thank you for having me. Your life has had many chapters. As a comedian, as a full-time mom, as a founder, as an inventor.

0:50Bette Bentley:But at the very beginning, you were working in comedy with greats like Will Ferrell. beyond the joy of making people laugh? Was there something else that drew you to that world? I always loved speaking directly to women. I'm a girl's girl. Never really had boyfriends. I wanted them. They just didn't want me. And so I always found my space with other women. And when I got into comedy, I was the only girl in the writer's room, always. When I was doing standup, when I was doing improv, it was just a different, it was a different world. And I loved being the person who changed the scene from being about some romantic thing that was all about this girl obsessed with the guy and instead about a dynamic in a yoga class where a girl felt very wronged by her friend or just like very insular female stories that aren't about men.

1:44I loved that process. And I loved making, you know, comedy that made women feel seen and laugh. And I realized that was my soul's purpose.

1:53Bette Bentley:You were looking to pass the Bechdel test in all of your work. Yes. Yeah. It's so funny. I've made three films and none of them have a single male character. They're all only women. Wow. That's remarkable. Unintentionally, too. Like, I would write and I was like, oh, there's no, this is about a mom who's going through a midlife crisis and takes her son's toys to an amusement park. There's no guy in this. Like, you know what I mean? Like, it just sort of happened always. No boys allowed. No boys allowed. except for my son and my husband and their grandfathered in. So you got a boyfriend eventually.

2:26Yeah, eventually.

2:27Bette Bentley:It worked out. It worked out. It worked out in the end. Peaked at 28. Were you secretly entrepreneurial at the time or were you just like fully content in the comedy trenches in that phase of your life? I think that any writer or actor, any comic has to have an entrepreneurial spirit if you want to succeed in the industry. You need to be making your own opportunities and making your own content and viewing yourself and your art as a business. Who are you speaking to? How can you, as you say in comedy, hit that game every single time? For me, that game was making content for women. And so I knew that's what I always wanted to do.

3:12That was my brand, right? It was my brand because it was authentically me. So I think people who understand what they're providing and how to hit that mark every time, that is being an entrepreneur. And then also making independent films. I mean, talk about being a startup. Like it is being the CEO of a startup, making independent film. It's inspiring your crew, creating something out of nothing, going on set and being like, this is great. This is calm. This is chill. This is what we're meant to do. And everything is actually chaotic and falling apart, but they can't know you have to be inspiring.

3:46We're totally going to wrap at midnight.

3:48Bette Bentley:Absolutely. Not to imagine having a thousand things coming at you at the same time and having to be able to parallel process in those moments and not lose your cool. And raise money, you know, sometimes. Yeah. Ask people to believe and pitch. And deal with a lot of rejection. Deal with a lot of rejection. There's another thing, too, that strikes me as a parallel in that, you know, you had this improv background. what is improv if not like deeply entrenched in the spirit of invention you're literally on stage inventing things all the time right it kind of makes sense to me that then as skimpy comes to be you're like yeah i can be an inventor i already am an inventor i love that perspective so much i think every person in the world should do improv which i feel like being a nerd is like coming back so i feel like there was a while people like improv let's make fun of it and now i feel like is kind of coming back.

4:45So I'm really here for the Renaissance, but I think every person should do improv. It exactly what you just said. It teaches you that you can create something out of nothing with this. This is all you need. And then also it teaches you that you are a tiny cog in the machine. You might think that you're the person making this scene happen, but until this other person from the back line, who's been watching on the tips of their toes, realizes how to wrap the whole thing up, it was meaningless. So it's a team sport. Yeah. And that is what being a good human is.

5:15Bette Bentley:This has certainly served you well in your business, as we will talk about. Also, I think improv is probably up there with public speaking in terms of where it exists on people's fear scales. Ooh, yeah. You know, like that's scary. Yeah. You know, we're in this era where every founder is building in public. That is very much what you've done. It's also kind of second nature to you. You've been honing this muscle for a great many years, clearly comfortable in front of a camera. But you know, for a lot of people, that's terrifying. Yeah. You know, what's your advice for pushing through that? For me, I've always lived my life in service.

6:00So bear with me. If you think about your ultimate goal and how that can help other people, it usually makes you feel like it's less about you.

6:11Bette Bentley:Remove the ego component. Yes. So for me, creating content, creating sketches, working at Funny or Die and making stuff for women, it always felt in service. When I was doing a scene, if I was up on stage at UCB and it was helping my scene partner out, it was making the scene successful. It was part of the symbiotic nature of our group that's in service. When I'm doing skimpies, everything that makes me feel ick and embarrassed always is good for the brand. Like it's always a successful video because it's in service. It's making a woman be like, oh, I'm not the only person in the world with discharge.

6:49So I always try to live in service. And then it becomes less about you and the embarrassment, the fear sort of fades away because you're doing it for your girls. Skimpy's also came to be very much as a part of your motherhood story.

7:03Bette Bentley:You had gotten to the leggings phase, which I'd gotten to the leggings phase. I was running again, which has always been working out has always been really important to my mental health. I think after having kids, I think my body chemistry changed. I was more sensitive, susceptible. And I started getting UTIs from going commando in my leggings, which I always had. So I was on a jog and I could like feel a UTI coming on. This is so frustrating. So I went on Reddit and discovered that thousands and thousands of women were talking about this. And I was like, wait, this is a thing. This is a thing.

7:38And just like I made comedy for my girls, I was like, I'm going to solve this problem for billions of women. I'm going to put a panty liner in my leggings and go for a jog. You're welcome. I'm brilliant. So I did. And then it like totally balled up and went up my tushy. I was like, okay, well, that didn't solve the problem. But what if I re-engineered this to make this product work for leggings? So that's what I started to do.

8:00Bette Bentley:And it immediately struck you that a liner was the thing that you needed to produce. I mean, you were essentially inventing a new category. So at what point does your brain say, I think that this is the thing that we need? Yeah. So I think kind of similar to Sarah Blakely, like cutting the feet off of pantyhose and kind of creating shapewear by tweaking an existing product. I felt very akin to that. I was like, I know I want this to make you feel like Commando. So this can't be an under pant with like waistbands or sides. It has to be biodegradable or disposable in some capacity because I'm a mom.

8:37I'm not pulling a tiny strip out of my pants and throwing it in the wash and then trying to find it. Yeah, no way. Like that's my worst nightmare. So a lot of things about panty liners made a lot of sense. But what didn't make sense was the adhesive, the shape, and the construction. Using plastic and using a hot melt layer wasn't going to work for us. So I knew I needed to re-engineer it, but the problem is like there's been no innovation in that space ever. Like everyone uses the same mold. Everyone has the same shape. Everyone uses the same layering techniques. Everyone holds these layers together with a hot melt layer.

9:13Everybody uses the same plastic backing, the same adhesive. So when I was calling manufacturers to try to innovate with me, people were like, why? If women want to do that, they'll put a panty liner in. Who cares if it balls up on the jog? Women are okay with discomfort. We've been doing it for a very long time. Things don't have to be perfect. And I was like, have you seen my friend's butts? No, things have to be perfect. Like these are badass women. They don't need to be pulling a ball of cotton out of their tush. We've been keeping things out of the tush, not in the tush. So I was like, no, I want to innovate in this space.

9:47So I just kept pushing and trying. This was like my COVID project. I feel like other people had sourdough. I had liners. I just kept trying to find somebody. And then I found this German manufacturer on the phone. She works for one of the oldest adhesive manufacturers in the world. When people didn't want to innovate in construction, I was like, maybe I could find someone who's well-respected in this space and supplies adhesive for, you know, lots of businesses. So I explained the idea to her and she was like, that is a good idea. She was like, I would wear that. I was like, oh my gosh. Like someone serious was like, no, innovate in this space.

10:24Do it. So she sent me a tech pack of someone else's liner that was just very run of the mill, you know, what everybody does. But so I could see like, this is how people put together this product. These are the various layers. She sent me cottons that can go through machines. She sent me adhesives that people are using. and I was able to like fool around and test and try and create a prototype.

10:45Bette Bentley:So you have this wonderful German woman, a sort of business fairy angel who decides to take a chance on you. I mean, what does it feel like in that moment as you've been hitting, you know, closed door after closed door? It felt like this is a good idea and people who get it, get it. Because every other person I had talked to, not a user of the product. Right. And people who are very concerned about the bottom line money, making the cheapest liners possible. And this was a woman who worked at a historical factory who'd been in the industry for a very long time and was my customer. She said, where is that?

11:25She was my customer. We kind of shined a light on something that I think still rings true for skimpies. It's always about reach for us. When we get skimpies to the right girl, it's always a hit. She didn't send you a finished product though.

11:38Bette Bentley:She didn't send you a constructed sample. She sent you the pieces and then you went through the process of putting it together yourself? Yes. Basically testing, like what is the exact shape I need? How can I make this sit flat in the gusset of leggings? And then the bunch and crunch problem. So the traditional backing for panty liners makes your panty liner sort of like bunch up in your pants. After the sweat has sort of deactivated their adhesive, it kind of becomes like an accordion. And so I knew I had to take that off, but she was able to sort of get me going with what's currently in market.

12:16And then I could start re-engineering that.

12:18Bette Bentley:Was there no world in which she could have done that for you? No, I don't think so. They really make only adhesive. Got it. But they work with panty liner brands, so they have access to tech. But we do use their adhesive to this day. As you should, you know? Yeah, duh. Fairy godmother. Fairy godmother. She's I learned it. Yeah. This sounds very technical. Like I'm imagining you in your kitchen, cutting things out, layering things. Like what was the iterative process like? It was very technical. We actually have patents on the product. We're the first people ever to figure out how to go edge to edge with adhesive on a liner.

12:58We have a very particular technique that we use that I won't go into too much detail about, but our patent does center around the way were able to essentially double up on the adhesive lay while making it cover the entirety of the edge of the liner. And I'm really proud of that. Fem High has been around for a really long time. Underwear has been around for a really long time. And no one wanted to push the boundaries because like you said, people were okay with women getting sweaty. A lot of people work out with feminine hygiene products. And those products, when you're working out, do not stick or last.

13:30So I'm really excited to have innovated in this space because we are using those patents outside of our leggings liner. We're launching a period care line and we're using that patented technology for the period care line. It's the first period care line for perimenopause and menopause. Super excited because the same way I wanted women to be able to get a liner in their leggings and not feel like they were hacking period care. I want women who are going through perimenopause and menopause to be able to get products for them and not feel like they're getting the same products as a 20 year old because her period is very different and her needs for period care are very different.

14:04So I want those women to pick up their box and be like, work. I'm exactly where I should be. I'm getting the care exactly how I should be. This makes me laugh and smile and feel seen.

14:15Bette Bentley:Even though we live in the era of like kind of excessive self-disclosure, there is all this stuff about the female body that I feel like still feels pretty taboo and that we just sort of live in pained silence over. And it feels like you're taking that stuff and you're like, let's bring it into the light. Love that. That's my game. That's the game of skimpy. So the game in comedy is the first funny thing that happens in a sketch. So like in the Debbie Downer sketch on Saturday Night Live, the first time someone says something great and she's like, well, I went to Disney World and got food poisoning.

14:51So that's the game, right? And the game of skimpy is that we make women feel happy and seen about these, I don't even want to say issues, everyday gorgeous human woman things that we go through.

15:04Bette Bentley:Yeah. And we did that with discharge and UTIs and front wedgie. But one thing I discovered during that process of creating a brand new product of creating the original leggings liner is that those are all so taboo that you can't say many of those words even on social media. Right. You have to get very creative. You have to get very creative. And And hoo-ha is part of my vocabulary now. It's cute. When you're first to a brand new category, there's an upside and a downside, right? There's so much white space. And so there's endless opportunity. But when you're presenting something to someone that they don't even know that there's a solution to, they're not necessarily even looking for the solution.

15:49Bette Bentley:So when you land on that version of the skimpy that you're happy with and you decide it's time to take it to market, how are you even reaching people? That was a process. I had a double mastectomy during the time of prototyping and inventing skimpies. Wow. Yes. So I had a working prototype, but to get it in the shape I needed, it was going to cost$25 ,000 because we were the first people ever to use this shape. The leggings liner from skimpies has a front and a back. No one's ever done that before. So we had to create our own mold, which is really expensive. I had tons of imposter syndrome. I was like, I'm putting our family's hard-earned money into a liner.

16:30I spent my career making comedy. I don't know business. Are people even going to like this? Slash, can I go on the internet and talk about UTIs and discharge and being comfortable in your leggings. And I just felt embarrassed, unworthy. So anyways, my process was I had a manufacturer who would send us skimpies in almost like a sheet and I would hand cut them to make them our shape. And then I would hand deliver them to women. I had like a little core group of subscribers. They're all still subscribers to this day. And some people I'd ship it to, but a lot of people were like neighbors and stuff and I'd hand deliver it to them.

17:07The sisterhood is real. And I would wrap them in a little brown paper thing, a little like butcher paper. And I'd wrap them with twine and I'd put rosemary in. And I had a little like stamp that said skimpies. And even then, like what we do now is the same as what we did then. Because when women would get their little package, they felt so happy. They were like, this person, I mean, our tagline is we just want to be in your pants.

17:32Bette Bentley:I love that. This person who's in my pants loves me and cares about me. And have we ever felt like that with Femhi or underwear? No, I'd never had a relationship with these brands. And I've always wanted women to feel like that. So I'd hand women this package. And one time I did it to a girlfriend and I said, I can't wait to be in your pants. And we laughed and like started like, I don't know, I think it was her laugh and my laugh together. We just started like laugh crying and like holding each other. And it was just such a great moment. And I thought to myself, if I ever did anything with skimpies, which was always like this thing that surrounded me with love.

18:11I was like, if I ever did anything with skimpies, that would be our tagline. We just want to be in your pants. Well, two weeks later, I found a tumor in my left breast that ended up being pre-cancer. And then we found out that I have this thing called ADH, which is basically pre-cancer growth on your milk ducts, which we love our milk ducts. And I loved my milk ducts. And that was a personal journey for me because I I love being a mom. I love being pregnant. I imagined having a third baby. I loved breastfeeding. So I went through my own journey of like, like I didn't want to lose my milk ducks.

18:45I really get it. Yeah. It's a tree of life. And they did so much for me and my kids. And I also really wanted to have another kid. So it was whiplash. About five weeks after I found like the doctor that I wanted to continue this process with, I had a double mastectomy. And I woke up from that surgery and I had no breasts. I had no career because I was too scared to go all in on skimpies. I knew I wasn't going to have another kid. Oh my God. And I felt so freaking low. Who am I as a woman? Who am I as a person? And I kind of sat in that moment for a minute. and then I felt this overwhelming urge to list the things on earth that make me happy.

19:36And I said, God, my kids, my husband, and skimpies. And I said it out loud. Skimpies made the list. Skimpies made the list. Wow. I thought about all those times that I hand-delivered the product to friends. And I thought about like jumping up and down on the driveway and saying, can't wait to be in your pants. And I was like, I can do that. I can do that the same way I made those skimpies by hand and hand delivered them. I can create that energy for billions of women. And this is a good idea. And this is a big brand. So when my husband came in to check on me and I had like tubes coming out and, you know, I didn't look great.