An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

Don’t give up. It’s not going to be easy, but it’s not supposed to be. There is a reason your product doesn’t exist! If it was easy, everyone would do it.

As a part of our series called “Making Something From Nothing”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Rosie Mangiarotti.

Rosie Mangiarotti is the founder and CEO of Perkies. Perkies creates innovative undergarments for women to wear. Perkies’ signature product is the Perkies Sticky Bra, the only sticky bra (backless/strapless bra that sticks on) with reusable, removable, and replaceable adhesives …a clean bra, a fresh stick as needed, and a more affordable and sustainable option!

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dive in, our readers would love to learn a bit more about you. Can you tell us a bit about your “childhood backstory”?

Absolutely! Thank you for this opportunity to share my story. I grew up in Long Island, NY with my parents, my two older sisters and my younger brother. I attended Friends Academy, a small Quaker school in Locust Valley. We were a family of hard workers and high achievers both athletically and academically, so much so that three of the four siblings pursued a collegiate sport. Our parents never set limits on what we could achieve and drove us to every single practice, game, tournament, try out, etc. for any sport we happened to be interested in during that time. My dad has been an entrepreneur for as long as I can remember, and my mom is a real problem solver, so coming up with solutions to everyday problems was pretty normal for our family to do.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

A quote I heard just a few years ago struck a chord with me: “Don’t take advice from someone you don’t want to be.” We hear an abundance of advice, especially as entrepreneurs. A lot of this advice is conflicting and may not align with what we feel is right. Of course some advice we don’t want to hear, but need to hear, but at the end of the day, why would you want to take advice from someone who you simply don’t want to be? Someone who has a completely different life from what you’re striving for, a different vision, and different values. It’s important to take advice with a grain of salt and recognize who exactly is giving you this advice.

Is there a particular book, podcast, or film that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story or explain why it resonated with you so much?

NPR’s How I Built This Podcast by Guy Raz probably resonates with most founders, myself included. It’s a podcast highlighting the founder stories of all types of companies, from Bumble to Peloton, and the beginnings of the founders’ journeys, the ups and the downs, and how their companies got to become household names. One specific story, and founder who inspires me every day, is Sara Blakely, founder of Spanx. As I mentioned in the previous question, we shouldn’t take advice from people we don’t want to be. Sara Blakely is someone who I do take advice from and someone who I’d love people to associate me with. Sara built an empire on this idea of making women feel confident in what they wear, similar to my mission with Perkies. She did this with a positive mindset, a sense of humor, and a gracious heart. What better role model could I ask for?

Ok super. Let’s now shift to the main part of our discussion. There is no shortage of good ideas out there. Many people have good ideas all the time. But people seem to struggle in taking a good idea and translating it into an actual business. Can you share a few ideas from your experience about how to overcome this challenge?

I believe that documenting ideas is the first step in one day bringing that idea to life. Thankfully my friend documented an idea I had back in highschool … if it weren’t for that, I would have never launched Perkies! Another important part of turning an idea into a business is knowing there is a customer need for this product/service. In an entrepreneurship course I took at Brown, professor Danny Warshay taught us about the importance of “bottom up research”, the concept of the market telling you what they need, not you telling the market what they need. This too can help validate an idea or recognize that the market may not be big enough, or the problem you are solving may need to be tweaked a bit. Once you know that you are solving a true customer pain point, it can give you the momentum you need to spend the time and energy to build a real business.

Often when people think of a new idea, they dismiss it saying someone else must have thought of it before. How would you recommend that someone go about researching whether or not their idea has already been created?

Keywords exist for a reason! Companies that create products take into account how people would describe the specific service they are providing or product they are selling. Plugging in a few different search terms and phrases into search engines such as Google (or even Amazon to see if it’s being sold through on that platform) is a great way to get started with some preliminary research. If you find out that something like it exists, look deeper or even order the product (if it is a tangible business idea), and see if what you would create would enhance it or solve for a different customer pain point.

For the benefit of our readers, can you outline the steps one has to go through, from when they think of the idea, until it finally lands in a customer’s hands? In particular, we’d love to hear about how to file a patent, how to source a good manufacturer, and how to find a retailer to distribute it.

It is by no means a quick and easy process from the idea stage to the selling stage. What helped me was Jules Pieri’s book, How We Make Stuff Now. I found my bra manufacturer through Platform88, a suggestion Jules makes in her book. The adhesive manufacturing came from hundreds of phone calls and product testing on my end. Having advisors (or an experienced business partner) to help guide you and bounce ideas off of early is key. It’s all in the network — this is how I was connected to my incredible patent attorney, Harris Wolin. I am selling mostly direct-to-consumer so I did not have to establish too many retail connections; however for the few stores I sell in, I have had most success with showing up in-person with my product and my awesome founder story!

What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me When I First Started Leading My Company” and why?

1. The first step is getting started. Walk the walk, don’t just talk the talk.
2. Network with anyone and everyone. Someone will always lead to someone which may lead to something.
3. Fake it til ya make it. Imitate confidence, competence and an optimistic mindset and those qualities in real life can be achieved!
4. Surround yourself with supportive people who can be there for you when it’s not easy-people who encourage you to persist!
5. Don’t give up. It’s not going to be easy, but it’s not supposed to be. There is a reason your product doesn’t exist! If it was easy, everyone would do it.

Let’s imagine that a reader reading this interview has an idea for a product that they would like to invent. What are the first few steps that you would recommend that they take?

Make sure you do some bottom-up research and make sure you really are solving a true customer pain point that many people have experienced. Don’t tell the market what they need, have the market tell you what they need.

There are many invention development consultants. Would you recommend that a person with a new idea hire such a consultant, or should they try to strike out on their own?

I did not use an invention development consultant since I did not have the financial resources. That being said, my entrepreneurship professor always said there is a benefit to scarce resources. I do find that I learned a lot along the way by having to figure this all out by myself!

What are your thoughts about bootstrapping vs looking for venture capital? What is the best way to decide if you should do either one?

As I mentioned above, there is a benefit to scarce resources. You become very resourceful and connect with people who you may have not otherwise met. I think bootstrapping early on gives you a ton of flexibility in product design and vision, it takes off time pressures (you will need time to figure all of it out), and you don’t need to report to someone who isn’t as intimately involved as you are. I think eventually raising is a great idea especially if you want to make more products and scale marketing efforts, but try to go as long as you can without raising money. If you bootstrap long enough you’re the real winner as the value of your company increases by the time you raise.

Ok. We are nearly done. Here are our final questions. How have you used your success to make the world a better place?

From the moment I started Perkies, I made a promise to be mission driven. Not only did I want Perkies to empower women to feel confident in any style, I wanted to integrate some giving back initiative. Perkies is a proud partner of the Breast Cancer Research Foundation (BCRF). In 2022, Perkies is donating 5% of all online sales to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation®. BCRF’s mission is to advance the world’s most promising research to eradicate breast cancer. For more information about BCRF, visit www.bcrf.org. Perkies is involved in many ways with BCRF as well as the Pink Pom Pom Organization that gives gift baskets to Breast Cancer patients.

You are an inspiration to a great many people. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.

A friend of mine, Shilpa Yarlagadda, started a high end jewelry company, Shiffon Co. Shiffon has a non-profit arm, Startup Girl Foundation, that invests in young, aspiring founders who are creating companies that empower women. I LOVE this as it doesn’t just donate money to a cause, but to a generation of female founders.

We are very blessed that some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US, with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them.

Sara Blakely, founder of SPANX, is my absolute North Star. Sara has created an iconic brand with premium products all while infusing her fun personality and gracious heart into the brand and inspiring the next generation of female founders. To reiterate what I said earlier in the interview, Sara built an empire on this idea of making women feel confident in what they wear, similar to my mission with Perkies. She did this with a positive mindset, a sense of humor, and a gracious heart. What better role model could I ask for?

Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.

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Making Something From Nothing: Rosie Mangiarotti On How To Go From Idea To Launch was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.