We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Rosie Mangiarotti a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Rosie , looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Risking taking is a huge part of most people’s story but too often society overlooks those risks and only focuses on where you are today. Can you talk to us about a risk you’ve taken – it could be a big risk or a small one – but walk us through the backstory.

Starting a company is a risk. You are investing time, money, other people’s money etc. without a guaranteed return on investment. As a recent graduate, I decided to take on Perkies full time. I mitigated some risks as I was young (23), I was able to move home and live with my parents, and I didn’t have any type of mortgage to pay off or a family to support.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

Perkies is a female founded undergarment company that came out of a college entrepreneurship class.
With my own frustrating experiences with sticky bras, and after watching my friends and sisters have similar frustrating experiences, I thought there must be a solution to this, and if there isn’t, I am going to create one. Sticky bras lose adhesion easily, get dirty, and fall of when you least expect it. To combat these issues, I thought to create a sticky bra with replaceable adhesives. I thought of this idea in High School and it wasn’t until my junior year in college (Spring 2017) when it resurfaced. I took a class, ENGN1010, (The Entrepreneurial Process). We learned all about starting a company and did close readings on entrepreneurial case studies. As part of the class, you were split into teams to come up with an idea- product or service that solves a customer pain point- and to create a full fledged business plan. I pitched this idea and my team was on board. I worked alongside my classmates in a business team of six to transform the idea of the “Reliabra” (now, Perkies) into an opportunity, an opportunity that is now a commercial reality. After I graduated I decided to bring this idea to life!
Through my time working on this, I wanted to incorporate a social mission. I partnered with the Breast Cancer Research Foundation (BCRF) to donate 5% of our website sales to the organization. Through this, I learned more about breast cancer survivors’ needs and how my products can serve them. After learning that post mastectomy, many women are left without nipples, I thought to create nipple covers with a nipple as part of the design (nipple enhancers) to give these women the look and feel of having nipples again without intrusive surgery or permanent tattoos.

Perkies is dedicated to sustainability, inclusivity, and empowering women to feel confident, while also donating 5% of website sales to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation®.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

Bringing the Perkies Sticky Bra to life is my biggest accomplishment and truly exemplifies my resilience. I spent a FULL 3 years on R&D (without any funding- just my time!), figuring out how to layer the adhesives, finding the best quality medical grade adhesive that sticks well to skin without irritating skin, finding an adhesives backing to that that can be layered, adding in pull tabs etc. and then creating a bra that works well with these adhesives. I hit SO many roadblocks, but it felt so great to bring this vision to fruition and now have several of my girl friends wear this product all the time and order the replacement adhesives! It takes a lot of perseverance to spend 3 years doing something while not making a single sale (or any salary, and some times not much progress at all), but continuing to stick with it and trusting the process.

Have you ever had to pivot?

I think the key to a successful business is being able to put your pride aside and being able to pivot. I initially started Perkies as a sticky bra company – to date, Perkies Petals (nipple covers) are our best selling product and Perkies Nips are a spinoff and have gained a ton of press. None of this would have been possible without pushing my pride aside and being open to a pivot.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://perkies.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/myperkies/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rose-mangiarotti/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/myperkies

Image Credits
Photographer: Suki Smith