July 2, 2025 • 61 mins
#007 Wondering how much it really costs to start a candle business in 2025?
In this episode of the Candle Business PRO Podcast, I break down the actual startup costs of launching a successful candle brand, from testing and tools to legal setup and inventory.
As the co-founder of a million-dollar candle business, I’ve helped hundreds of makers plan smarter and spend wisely. Whether you're starting lean or going all-in, this episode walks you through every phase:
✅ What to invest in during the testing phase
✅ How much wax, wicks, and oils actually cost
✅ Where NOT to cut corners
✅ Website, insurance & legal costs
✅ Inventory strategy for your first launch
✅ Tools and software worth your money
✅ Tips to avoid overspending on supplies
🎧 Listen in and learn how we launched our brand for just over $1,200 — and how you can too.
Join our Candle Business Pro Inner Circle for more guidance, or download the free supply checklist from our show notes to see exactly what we use in our million-dollar candle brand.
WHEN YOU'RE READY
📬 Free Candle Business Supply List
***
CONNECT
***
SHOW LOVE
💜 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts
***
SPONSORS & DEALS
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
People ask me all the time how much does it really
cost to start a candle business?
Not just some number that theyfound online or possibly in a
Facebook group, but an actual,real world breakdown from
someone who's done it.
In this episode, I'm going towalk you through the startup
costs that I recommend andsharing where I think that you
can save and where you shouldn'tcut corners.
I'm Sebastian Garza, theco-founder of GarzaNet Beacon
(00:34):
Candle Company, a now milliondollar candle brand, and the
founder of Candle Business Pro.
Now, when we help students plantheir candle business budget,
we see most people are going tostart strong around that $1,500
mark.
Now that includes testing,branding, inventory and the
actual business entity setup.
You can absolutely do thatleaner or you can go bigger, but
(00:57):
that's a really solid groundNow for us.
We went lean when we started,with our costs coming in at just
about $1,200.
Now that's from testing tohaving an initial product
stocked and ready to go.
I want to break it down for youso that you can decide where to
(01:19):
spend more money, possibly alittle bit less, depending on
where your business needs lie.
Okay, so I'm going to breakthis up into three different
phases of building out yourcandle brand and what the cost
associated with that is going tobe.
So the first one is going to bethe testing phase.
Now this is the most importantinvestment.
This is the most critical stepin building out a candle
business.
So a lot of us get into candlemaking and we think it's going
to be rather easy.
(01:39):
It's very low entry gettinginto candle making.
You can buy a kit for less than$100 online and you get it.
You're excited, you startputting those candles together
and they're a disaster.
If you have been with us sincethe beginning, in episode one of
the Cannabis is Pro podcast, weactually talk about those first
(01:59):
candles, how they turned out.
So go listen to that if youhaven't already.
In fact, that's part one ofthree of how we got started, so
you can go and check that out ifyou would like.
But you're going to receivethat it's going to be a disaster
, but you have to keep going Ifyou want to turn this into a
brand.
Obviously you wouldn't be ableto just turn around and start
selling what you made from thatcandle making kit.
(02:21):
It's just not something that isgoing to be a reality.
That is just to have fun with,play around with and see if you
actually like candle making,Because one thing that I always
tell our students inside ofCandle Business Pro inner circle
is you have to love doing this.
If you don't love making candles, if you're just doing it as a
business, I would go and findsomething else.
I would go and find somethingelse that you really enjoy doing
(02:42):
and turning that into abusiness.
If you're wanting to be anentrepreneur, self-employed and
grow something, make sure it'sgoing to be something that you
love to do.
A lot of people will startmaking candles, realize that
they don't like the mathinvolved, they don't like the
science involved and they wantto go and do something else.
Go and make cookies or go andgo and sell a crochet.
(03:04):
Whatever you want to do, justmake sure that you enjoy it.
So let's talk about this testingphase and some of the costs
that are going to be associatedwith it.
So first off is going to be thewaxes right, so we got to get
some wax together.
So one thing I would definitelyrecommend start with one wax.
I know a lot of us when wefirst start, there's a lot of
noise out there.
Do I try this wax or this wax?
(03:27):
Go with the wax that you'regoing to be able to get readily
available from multiplesuppliers, so that you're going
to be confident that if you gothrough this entire testing
phase you're starting to sellcandles and then, all of a
sudden, that wax supplier nolonger carries that wax, that
you're going to be able to findit somewhere else and you're not
going to have to restart thetesting phase for your entire
brand.
That would be very, very timeconsuming, which is going to
(03:50):
cost you a lot of money, and sothat would be for us would be
incredibly scary.
So, depending on the directionyou want to go with your brand,
so with us, we had our niche andour target audience figured out
, and I would recommend that youwould as well.
Well, if you want to be seriousabout this being a business,
you've got to have what is yourniche going to be and what is
your target audience going to be.
(04:10):
In other episodes and othervideos that I have on YouTube,
you can check out where I talkabout that.
I also talk about that a lotinside of our group.
Once you have that figured out,you know who you're making your
candle for.
That will help you decideeverything that you buy for your
business.
That's going to help you decidewhat wax, what kind of oils,
what scents.
It's going to help you withyour branding.
Everything about your candlebusiness is going to go back to
(04:35):
whatever niche that you aregoing to be in and then who your
target audience is.
So get that figured out first.
So when you do have thatfigured out, decide on one wax.
So for us we decided on justdoing a soy wax for our candles.
We found that it was a popularamongst our target audience, so
we went with a soy and we wentwith one that is readily
available across lots ofdifferent suppliers.
So we went with the GoldenBranch 464.
It's going to have somedownsides to it, just like
(04:57):
everything is going to have itsupsides and downsides.
It's not going to have thescent throw necessarily.
That some of the other waxes,like the virgin coconut soy or
some of the ones that have someparaffin in them, are definitely
going to give a better hotthrow.
But we wanted to have soy.
That's what our customerswanted.
So we went with the 464 becauseit is readily available from
(05:18):
many suppliers and it'saffordable.
It's one of the least expensivewaxes out there that is still
of a high quality.
So for getting started with that.
That's going to cost you rightnow $30 for 10 pounds.
That's going to be plenty to goahead and get started with your
testing phase.
I would get 10 pounds of that.
That's going to be $30.
You're going to want to get asampler pack of wicks.
(05:39):
You want to get a variety ofwicks.
For us, we love CD wicks.
I just priced them out.
You can get 12 wicks for $2,less than $2.
So if you do that and you wantto get several different sizes,
we always recommend going with avessel.
That is going to be somethingthat will last you through a lot
of the testing.
You're going to go through alot of testing, so I recommend
(06:02):
getting a smaller vessel.
I'm going back to the wicks.
You're going to want to get avariety of sizes.
So when you find a vessel,knowing what the diameter of
that vessel is will determineyour starting point for your
wicks.
Most every place will have awick guide.
Now, this is just a startingpoint.
It does not mean that the sizeof wick that they recommend is
(06:26):
going to be the right wick.
Anyone that's gone through ourcandle making course or our
candle making bootcamp knowsthat we always test three
candles at a time.
We're going to have arecommended size.
We're going to go one up andone down, and so you're going to
want to have a variety of wick.
You can't force a wick to work.
That's going to make for adangerous candle.
So you got to go through.
(06:47):
You're going to have to test avariety of sizes to make sure
that you got the right fit.
So buy a variety of sizes.
Start with four or fivedifferent sizes so that once
you're making candles and yourealize that, oh, this wick is
too big, oh, I don't have anymore wicks, make sure that you
have them on stock, on hand withyou, so that you aren't going
and having to buy, wait anotherfive days for it to arrive,
(07:08):
spending all the shipping costs,because that's one of the most
expensive aspects of supplies isthe shipping.
So go ahead and get a varietyof those, especially because
they're only $2 for a pack of 12.
So I budget $10 for that.
That's going to get you fivedifferent sizes of wicks and
that's going to be 12 of each,so really affordable to do that.
That's going to get you fivedifferent sizes of wicks and
that's going to be 12 of each,so really affordable to do that.
Now the next thing you're goingto need is a wick sticker.
(07:28):
It is what connects the wick tothe bottom of the vessel.
So those, you can get a hundredof those for five bucks, so
really affordable.
Go ahead and get that.
I know some people talk aboutusing hot glue guns or gorilla
glue.
All of that, that's allnonsense.
Youilla Glue all of that,that's all nonsense.
You don't need any of that.
Just get Wix stickers.
(07:49):
You get 100 of those four orfive bucks Super affordable.
They're very easy.
Here's a tip for you when peoplemention that Wix stickers don't
work, that whenever they pourthe wax into the vessel and it
popped off, that's because ofone of two things.
That's because they poured thatwax way too hot and it loosened
up the adhesive on the bottom,or they did not push down that
(08:13):
wick sticker to the bottom ofthe vessel enough, so hot wax
got underneath it and then itloosened it up.
So one of those two things.
There are some vessels,especially some ceramic vessels,
that don't have a flat bottom,where there's a little bit of a
curve to it.
Just make sure that you'repushing down all the way on
those and then you're pouringwhere the wax isn't too hot
because it's going to.
(08:34):
It's just like when we take ourheat gun to remove stickers off
the side it's because it's hotand it loosens the adhesive.
Same thing is happening if youpour really hot wax into a
vessel it's going to loosen thatup.
So if, for some reason, yourwick stickers aren't working,
it's one of those two things.
We have made tens of thousandsof candles and we use these wick
(08:54):
stickers and we've had ahandful We've probably had 10 or
20 where the wick sticker haspopped off.
The majority of those is goingto be on those curved ceramic
type of vessels and all you haveto do is you just have to push
down on it a little bit harder,making sure that you're pushing
down on all the sides, ratherthan using one of those like
wick setters, like kind of thoselike straw looking things,
(09:16):
because that's only puttingpressure on the middle of the
wick.
Just push it down on all sideswith your fingers and you're
going to be just fine.
Okay, so the next thing thatyou're going to need is
fragrance oil.
That's the fun stuff.
That's the stuff that gives thecandle the scent.
Of course, that's what we enjoybuying and that's usually where
we end up spending too muchmoney is on fragrance oil.
Now, in the show notes below, Ihave a free checklist as all of
(09:37):
the supplies and tools that weuse to run our candle businesses
with.
So you are welcome to downloadthat, and it has a list of the
suppliers that we trust.
But any reputable supplier outthere is going to have some
fragrance oils to buy.
This is what I recommend,though you are going to find
fragrance oils from $20 to $80out there.
When you're first starting,you're going through the testing
phase.
The quality of those oils arenot going to vary to warrant the
(10:02):
cost.
So I would recommend, whenyou're first starting going
through this testing phase,finding oils that you can find
for a pound, for 16 ounces, for$25 or less, because we're going
to be going through quite a bitduring the testing phase.
We want to learn the ins andouts of candle making, what's
right, what's wrong, all of thetroubleshooting that we're going
(10:23):
to have to do.
Do all of that with some lessexpensive oils.
Then, when you're ready in thenext phase of building out our
business, we can then startbuying the higher demanded oils
that you're thinking is going toalign with that target customer
of yours.
So again, there are plenty ofoils out there from almost all
(10:47):
the suppliers for $25 or less.
I was just checking and therewas a few oils.
In fact, I just saw a like aclean cotton type of scent, just
a fresh linen scent to testwith, and it was like 22.50 for
a pound.
So that's what I'd recommend issaving money on the fragrance
oils, cause if you start to goout and buy 50, 60, 70, $80 even
fragrance oils to start yourbrand with, you're going to go
(11:10):
through a lot of money quick.
So let's just start with thefragrance oil that's 25 bucks or
less, so that we can test withit, learn the ins and outs and
kind of the nuances of candlemaking, and then we can go on to
splurging in other areas in thefuture.
So the next thing is going to beyour jar testing, so picking a
vessel.
Now, there's lots of vesselsout there, just like fragrance
oil.
There's so many differentvessels out there.
(11:32):
For those students that havegone through our can of making
course or our bootcamp, we juststart with a nine ounce glass
jar with a lid on it and it isgoing to make a seven ounce
candle.
So why do we do that Well, whenwe're first starting out, we
are going to want to save onsupplies, because if we're
starting off with making a large14, 15 ounce candle, you are
(11:56):
going to go through double thesupplies of making a seven ounce
candle.
This seven ounce candle size hasalso brought us six figures
worth of sales.
So you do not need to have alarger candle just to make more
sales.
Sure, you can charge more moneyfor it, but you're also going
to have a much higher cost ofgood.
(12:17):
So when we're first startingout, I recommend keeping it
small.
If you want to go somethinglarger than a seven ounce candle
, then what our classic line ofcandles are?
It's a 10 ounce candle and it isin a simple straight sided
glass as well.
And the thing with these isthey're going to be very
inexpensive.
So for the seven ounce pourwhich is in a nine ounce
(12:40):
threaded jar, we're looking at65 cents.
If you want to add the lid,that's another 45 cents, so it's
going to be a dollar 10.
If you want to add the lid,that's another 45 cents, so it's
going to be a dollar 10.
If you want to go with that 10ounce Libby jar that we use for
our classic candles they'regoing to be a dollar 20 a piece.
So you can actually go out toour website, garza and beaconcom
, and you can see all thevessels that we use.
We do have some nice higher endvessels that we sell that we
(13:03):
absolutely love, but you'regoing to see, the majority of
our vessels aren't what we areputting our money into.
We're putting our money intoour labeling, into some of our
branding and other aspects ofour business.
We're also in the business ofselling candles and supporting
ourselves, and we have a team ofover 10 now.
We're looking to maximize everysingle candle opportunity and
(13:25):
so we are going to make surethat we have our cost of goods
dialed in.
For a 10-ounce candle, 10-ounceLibby jar candle, this is going
to cost us about $5.50 to make.
That's everything Wax, wick,fragrance, oil, vessel, label,
lid, everything.
We're going to get this about$5.50.
(13:47):
We're selling this for $26.
So we are getting over 5X forour cost of goods on this and
that's what we need to do to bea sustainable business.
If you want more informationabout how to price your candles,
check out episode four of thepodcast or on YouTube, where I
explain in much more detailwhere we get our pricing from
(14:09):
and what is reality for mostpeople if they're wanting to do
this long-term.
So just something to keep inmind there.
Okay, so, whatever direction youdecide to go with your vessels,
I would keep it super simple.
To start, buy a couple dozen ofthem.
They're going to be around $1,$1.20 a piece to buy, so if
you're going to buy 24 of them,we're going to look at at least
$25 for that.
The next thing that we're goingto need to have is going to be
(14:30):
some must-have tools.
There are some things that youdo not need to go out and buy
right away.
For instance, you do not needto go out and buy a wax melter
right away.
You can do the double boilermethod, which is going to be
have a pouring pitcher and usingyour stovetop and a larger pot
of water to do that.
You can look up the doubleboiler method, and that's how we
(14:51):
got started.
That's actually what comes withthe instructions if you buy a
candle making kit, because mostpeople aren't going to have a
wax melter readily available.
So there are going to be sometools that you do need to have,
though, and one of those I justmentioned is a pouring pitcher.
You're going to need to have apouring pitcher to pour with, so
you're not using the utensilsand things out of your kitchen.
(15:13):
You're going to want to haveone that is dedicated for candle
making.
Those are going to cost rightnow $10 online.
You can get them on Amazon oryou can get them from the
majority of suppliers are goingto have them.
You do not need to spend morethan $10 to buy a pouring
pitcher.
The next thing you're going toneed to do is get a thermometer,
something to test thetemperature of that wax, not
only when you heat that wax, butalso the temperature of when
(15:34):
you are mixing your oil withthat wax and then when you are
pouring that wax into yourvessel.
So there's three differenttimes while you're making
candles that you need to testtemperatures.
We do not recommend the trendyinfrared thermometers, the ones
(15:54):
that kind of have a trigger onthem and you can just point at
your wax, or you can point themanywhere and it's going to give
you a reading.
We do not recommend thosebecause those are only giving
you a surface level temperature.
It is not going to give you areading.
We do not recommend thosebecause those are only giving
you a surface level temperatureit is not going to give you.
When you have your wax in apitcher or in a melter and you
use that thermometer, it is onlygiving you a surface level
(16:18):
reading on that.
What we recommend is somethingthat's going to have a probe
that's going to go into the wax,and so what I recommend is a
meat thermometer.
They're just about four or fiveinches tall and then it has a
probe that folds out on it andyou're going to get these for
less than $10.
So $8, $9, $10 are digital.
I do not recommend the candythermometer.
(16:38):
You'll actually get one withsome of the can of making kits
that are on the market.
They're going to come with someof the can of making kits that
are on the market.
They're going to come with oneof these glass long, almost like
a vial looking thermometerwhere you've got to like turn it
just right to get the readingbecause of the mercury going up
the numbers there.
I don't recommend those.
They're really hard to read andalso they're glass.
So I you know we're movingquick because we want to get the
(17:00):
temperatures mixed at the righttime.
We want to be very precise withthat and having this glass
thermometer that could break andgo into.
You know what I'm making.
It's just not realistic.
Also, your candle space is goingto get messy.
Ours become a disaster sometime.
That thing rolls off, falls onthe floor.
I knock it, then I'm cleaningup glass.
Just not worth it.
Go and spend, you know, $8,eight, nine, $10 to get you a
(17:24):
digital meat thermometer.
That's what I recommend.
Again, all of these that we useare on that supply list that
you can grab in the show notes.
It will show you everythingthat we use and we can.
We consistently update it.
So anytime there's an update,we put it right there on that.
So that could help you as well.
Now, also, another startup costin the testing phase that you're
going to want to start lookinginto is going to be your labels.
(17:45):
So you're going to have tospend money to put labels on
your candles.
Now, this is if you're usingone of these clear jars that
I've recommended, becausethey're only $1, $1.20.
If you're going to use one ofthose type of jars, you're going
to need to put labels on them.
So that is going to be a cost.
Now what I recommend is goingto Online a cost.
(18:06):
Now what I recommend is doingis going to online labelscom.
They're fantastic.
Avery is also has some greatlabels as well.
Look at the cost of both.
We like online labels becausethey actually have a software
called I think it's calledMaestro is what it is and when
you make a purchase from them,you get access to the software
for a year.
Now, it's not necessarily itmight have some design elements
to it, but we actually use Canvato design ours.
But what it has is somefantastic print settings to
(18:26):
where you can set it, to whereyou're only printing a certain
amount of labels on a sheet.
It's very handy.
We also use it for all of ourwarning stickers.
So all the warning stickersthat we have on the bottom of
our candles.
We have those printed directlyout of that software.
It makes it very easy.
All of our warning labels onthe bottom will have, like, the
(18:46):
name of our candle, so they'reall unique per candle on there,
and so what we'll do is havethem all and it's all saved out
there in that software.
So that's why we recommend them.
It's super handy.
Also, their prices are great soand you can buy different
amounts of labels at a time, soyou do not have to buy a massive
pack.
Obviously, the more you buy,the less expensive it's going to
(19:07):
be, but you can just buy a fewsheets of each different size
that you're thinking about.
A little tip for you is whenyou have your vessel regardless
of which vessel you're going topick is tape you just use a
piece of paper and scissors andcut out um, on just regular
paper, some some different sizesto see what you're thinking
(19:28):
might be the right size.
And just use normal tape,scotch tape and tape it onto
your vessel and see, hey, doesthat look right?
Does it not look right?
Let me try a little smaller.
Before you go and buy a lot ofdifferent sizes of labels.
Or if you're thinking, oh, Ithink this is going to be a two
and a half by three inch labeland I see the online labels or
(19:50):
whomever has those, let me cut asheet of paper and see that way
.
When you receive these labels,you don't realize, oh, that's
going to be too big, right?
So go ahead and print out somelabels.
After you design them andbefore you spend money on labels
, go ahead and measure just tomake sure it's going to look
right on your vessel, becausewe've spent a lot of money on
(20:11):
vessel label sizes that we endedup not using.
They weren't the right thing.
So keep in mind you're going tohave to budget for labels.
So I would just getting started.
For these couple dozen candlesthat we're going to make, I
would budget at least $25 forlabels.
Most likely that started.
For these couple dozen candlesthat we're going to make, I
would budget at least $25 forlabels.
Most likely that's going to beabout $20 for the labels and $5
or so for shipping on there,depending on where you're
(20:31):
getting them from.
Also, look for discounts.
There's always usually adiscount when you first sign up
with a lot of these differentsuppliers and with the labels
for sure.
So keep that in mind as well.
Back to the labels.
That in mind as well.
Back to the labels.
If you decide you don't want touse one of these $1, $1.20
vessels and you decide to spendmore money on a nicer, high-end
(20:52):
vessel, totally fine, it's yourprerogative to do that.
But then you can save money bynot having to put a label on it.
When we have a really nicelooking vessel, we're not
putting anything on it.
We are not taking away from thevessel selling itself.
So if you're going to spend acouple of dollars more on a
vessel, then save money by notputting a label on it.
(21:13):
Of course, you're going to wantto put a warning sticker on the
bottom of any of the productsthat you sell, but you're not
going to need one of theexpensive labels to go on the
front of your candle.
Speaking of warning labels, youare going to need to put
warning labels on the bottom.
Now you're in the testing phase.
This is just you making candlesfor yourself.
You're not, but it needs to goout to the public, so you're not
(21:33):
going to need to put that onthere for now.
But whenever you do get to thepoint of needing to put warning
labels onto your candles, if youprint these yourself you buy
them from online labels orwhomever online print them
yourself they end up being likethree cents, very inexpensive
because you're going to get like30 of these per sheet of labels
.
You print those out.
(21:53):
They're like three cents apiece is what it comes to, so
real, inexpensive to do that.
So this first phase, thistesting phase of all of these
things.
Now there are other tools youcan get.
You can get spatulas to stirwith spoons to stir with other
things.
You can get some wick centeringtools.
But there's a lot of things youcan use around your house that
(22:14):
will get you by when you'refirst starting.
So that's why, when you buythese candle making kits, they
don't come with all that stuff,because there's ways of doing
what you need to do with whatyou have within your house,
right?
Different types of clips.
Chip clip works fantastic forcentering wick, especially when
you're starting.
Even now in our stores, whenwe're making things that have a
(22:36):
large vessel, we will use aminiature chip clip.
It's like six inches long.
You buy a variety pack of themon Amazon.
Again, these are on the supplylist that we have and that works
just fine.
We're totally just fine.
So you do not need to startspending money on all of that
stuff.
I know people will spend a lotof money on a Wix centering tool
, which is to get your Wixperfectly centered in the middle
(22:58):
.
Just eyeball, it go really slowand you're going to get to it
reality.
Those, those things seem niceand they seem like it's going to
work to help you out, but whenyou start to scale it's it's not
a reality.
Anyone that's making largevolumes of candles they're not
spending time loading up thiswick centering tool and then and
(23:19):
then you know punching it inand then going on to the next
one.
Also, those wick centeringtools, cause they cost 55, $75.
Inside of our inner circle wehave office hours every week.
We were actually looking at oneof those last week and we could
, when someone was like, oh, Ihave this extra one for sale.
We had some discussing about itand we were looking at how
expensive they are.
Nowadays they're not going towork for every vessel, so keep
(23:41):
that in mind.
I don't think it's a goodinvestment.
Now, if you have the money tosplurge, you want to have fun
with it, try it.
We did the same thing.
We bought one, we used it for acouple of days and now it just
sits in a drawer.
So it didn't work for all ofour different vessel sizes,
because every opening is gonnabe a little different and it
only fit for a certain amount.
So I wouldn't spend money onthat right, um, just keep that
(24:01):
in mind.
So there's other.
There's a lot of other toolsout there that you can buy, but
just to get started in thistesting phase, we are looking at
a total of about 175 to $250 toget these things.
So that's going to be 10 poundsof wax, uh, a variety of wicks.
That's going to cost you aboutanother uh $10 there.
You're going to need wickstickers.
You're going to need afragrance oil.
(24:21):
Um, pick something that'spopular, that's not going to go
away, but something that's goingto be less than $25 for a pound
.
That's what I would do wheneverI got started and, in fact,
those oils that we used we'restill using in a lot of our
candles today.
One of them, in fact, is one ofour best sellers and it's what
we teach inside of our candlemaking course.
It's that same oil.
We still use it today.
(24:41):
You're going to buy that forless than $25.
We have made six figures off ofselling that candle, so you do
not need to go high in on pricesto get a quality oil.
So just keep that in mind.
The other thing is the vessels.
So your vessels are going tocost you at least 25 bucks.
You're going to want to get acouple dozen of them.
They're going to be around $1,$1.10 a piece on that, depending
(25:04):
on where you're getting thesefrom, and there's going to be
some shipping involved.
You're going to need toprobably spend a little bit more
.
You're going to reach thathigher end towards that $2.50.
That's why I have that range of$1.75 to $2.50, just on getting
some quality products togetherso that you can test.
Okay.
So the next phase of buildingout your candle brand that we're
going to have to spend somemoney on is going to be your
(25:26):
website, your platform, yourlegal essentials.
Those are all the businessthings that need to happen
before you can actually startselling this to the public.
So let's go through a few ofthese.
First of all, you're going todecide what platform do I want
to sell on?
Do I want to be on Shopify?
Do I want to be on Etsy?
What direction do I want to beon Shopify?
(25:47):
Do I want to be on Etsy?
What direction do I want to go?
Where is that customer that isour target audience, where are
they going to be at?
So with Shopify, it's going tocost you about $39 a month.
That's what it is right now Inthe show notes.
We do have a link to Shopify.
We do have an affiliate codethat you can actually get your
first month, I believe, for adollar.
Sometimes they will run it towhere you're going to get three
months for a dollar.
So look into that and then youcan go out and build your
(26:10):
website out, get a feel for itand see if it's going to be a
good fit for you, and then youcan always cancel if need be, if
it's not going to be a fit foryou.
But If you're going to scaleyour brand outside of just
selling to people that you knowor trying to sell through
Facebook or Instagram, you'regoing to need to have a
dedicated website.
When you start pricing outwebsites and you're looking at,
(26:32):
say, shopify versus Square orWix or Squarespace, shopify is
going to be more expensive butit's going to have everything
that you need together.
If you go and build a site outon Wix, you're then going to
have to buy plugins for it tokind of upgrade it.
When you buy a Wix website Iknow this, I have one for my
(26:53):
other, one of my otherbusinesses is it ends up costing
me over that $39 because you'regoing to get a very basic
website and then you're going tohave to add these other things.
If you wanted to do this, yougot to add another $5.
If you want to do this, you'regoing to add another $10.
Also, it's just not made fore-commerce like Shopify is.
Shopify is the gold standardwhen it comes to that.
(27:14):
I don't like some of the feesinvolved with it, but it is
where you have to be.
It's what you got to do.
It's what I recommend anyone dothose that have gone through my
Shopify workshop but weactually help you build out your
site completely inside of ourinner circle.
So if that's something you werethinking about doing or
thinking about joining our innercircle, I would recommend doing
(27:35):
it sooner than later.
If you're going to want to helphave help building out your
website, we have a three partworkshop on building a Shopify
store.
That's helped a lot of people,so I just wanted to drop that in
there.
Now you can go the route ofdoing, say, etsy when you first
start, totally fine If you wantto just get your candles out
there and then you can send yourown traffic to it.
(27:56):
If you have people that are, oh, I don't want to buy a candle
from you, how can I buy thiscandle from you?
Go and throw things out on Etsyif you'd like.
Now, etsy does take atransaction fee, but when you're
up and running a business,you're going to realize that
those fees that Etsy arecharging are minimal compared to
the fees that you are going tohave to spend on your business
(28:19):
in the longterm, right.
So when Etsy is going to takeup to 15% of a fee, well, that's
better than wholesale prices,that's better than consignment
prices.
That's better than when I haveto run a sale on my website of
25, 35% off for Black Friday,things like that.
So Etsy is bringing you traffic.
So Etsy is bringing youcustomers that you're not
(28:42):
spending money to going out andgetting right, because if you're
just selling candles elsewhere,you're marketing.
You're in charge of all thatmarketing to get people to your
Shopify store.
So keep that in mind.
Now, the Etsy fee is 20 centsfor a listing, 20 cents for six
months, right.
So it's very, very minimal.
There is that transaction feeif a sale happens, but I don't
(29:05):
think about that.
You want to think about it, butI don't think about that as a
reason to not be on Etsy Again.
You have to have your pricingdialed in.
Check out episode four for moredetails that I go into about
pricing for different platforms.
Also, I have a YouTube videoout on our channel about Shopify
versus Etsy and the pros andcons there, so that might be
(29:25):
beneficial to you as well, or dowhat we did when we first
started and be on both.
Be on Etsy so that you aregetting traffic looking at your
website and getting sales comingthat way through your Etsy
website and getting those salesfrom their customers, and then
start building out your ownShopify store so that whatever
(29:47):
traffic you have and people thatwant to buy from you directly,
you're personally sending themthere.
So that's what I would do.
So the next expense is going tobe your domain name.
So that's going to run youabout $15 to $20.
So you go out to Squarespace orGoDaddy wherever you're going
to get that.
The prices aren't going to varymuch at all for the exact same
domain.
So for ours I think we'respending like $14 a year for our
(30:09):
domain.
Your domain is just yourwebsite hosting place, like
garcinetbeaconcom orcandlebusinessprocom.
Those are my domains, but youstill have to, of course, build
out a website onto them.
But that's going to reservethat website for you.
Just a quick tip for you youwant to have a com.
(30:33):
You do not want to have a shopnet or any of those other dot
net, um or any of those other umendings on your URL.
You want to have acom If you'rewanting to have a um Garza and
beaconcom, but someone else hasalready taken it and it shows
that, oh, I can getnet, cause,that's available.
(30:55):
You don't want to do that.
You don't because 90% of us, ifwe know a website or what we're
looking for a website if I wantto look up Macy's, or I want to
look up Amazon, or I want tolook up Garza and Beacon, if I
want to look up any website, Iam always going to type in the
name that I assume it is andthen com right, if you don't
(31:16):
have a com, you are going tolose out on significant traffic
to that, so keep that in mind.
You are going to lose out onsignificant traffic to that, so
keep that in mind.
I would easily change the nameof what I want my site to be
versus going with a net or shopor any of those other extensions
.
So you gotta have a com.
Just take it from me.
That's what you want to do.
(31:38):
So the next step is getting yourlegal setup.
So this is registering yourentity.
You're gonna need to registeryour entity with your state and
also with the IRS.
So the next step is gettingyour legal setup.
So this is registering yourentity.
You're going to need toregister your entity with your
state and also with the IRS.
So with the IRS that's free.
So once you register with yourstate, you are going to spend
$25 to $100.
To do that.
You're going to go to theSecretary of State's website for
your state.
They're going to have a feeinvolved with that.
(31:59):
Generally, when we polled ourInner Circle members, they said
it was between $25 and $100,depending on where you're living
at.
I believe for us we'veregistered in Indiana whenever
we were in our testing phase,and then here in Michigan where
we live now, and I don't thinkwe spent more than $50.
It might have been $75, butagain, less than $100.
But I do think there are acouple of states that do go up
(32:21):
to like $125, $150.
Keep that in mind, check thatout Again.
You're just going to go to yourSecretary of State's website to
do that.
They should actually haveeither a business entity section
or a small business sectionAlso.
Inside of that small businesssection there's probably going
(32:43):
to be some really good tips andtricks for getting a small
business up and running.
A lot of the Secretary ofStates will even have a section
of grants that they know aboutthat they're publishing for you
to take a look at.
So once you are registered withyour state, you're going to want
to register with the IRS.
You're also going to want tomake sure that in your state you
are getting a reseller licenseor a license to remit sales tax.
(33:04):
So it's going to be called alittle bit different depending
on what state you're in.
So there's usually going to betwo steps.
You're going to register yourbusiness, but then you're also
going to get a permit or alicense from the state to
collect and remit sales tax, sothat you are able to collect
sales tax whenever you'reselling your candles.
(33:24):
And then the remit part is thatyou have to turn around and
give that money to the IRS.
Seems complicated.
They'll walk you through it.
It's really easy.
Sometimes those are going to befree.
There might be a little bit ofa charge for that, but they're
only going to give that to youonce you have registered your
business.
So it's kind of two steps there.
So that's going to cost youabout a hundred dollars to get
all of this done, possiblydepending on the state that
(33:45):
you're in.
The next thing that you're goingto need is business insurance.
So business insurance is whatis going to protect your
business when you start sellingthese to the public.
Now, if you're in your testingphase, you're just making
candles at home, you do not needbusiness insurance.
I know business insurance isvery controversial in the candle
space.
If you're just testing candles,you do not need insurance.
(34:08):
So what's going to happen is,if I'm doing something in my
house and I start a fire, I'mnot selling it.
I'm not doing this as abusiness.
I'm not registered yet.
I am just.
This is a hobby for me.
I'm making some candles aroundhere, I burn my house down for
whatever reason.
My homeowner's insurance, myrenter's insurance that is what
is where the liability is goingto go.
(34:28):
Now, of course, you got to makesure that you're covered to be
doing things like that inside ofyour house.
But these are just hobbies.
We're not a business yet.
Once you become a business andyou're doing your candle making
as a business, you're going towant to get business insurance.
Now it's going to cost you 50bucks a month.
When we first started, I thinkwe found it for like 35.
I don't know if it's still thatinexpensive.
(34:49):
I know now I see people talkingabout it.
It's costing them 40, 50 bucks,so I would just plan for $50 on
that.
Do you need insurance legally?
No, you don't legally needinsurance to make and sell
candles, but I highly, highly,highly recommend it.
(35:14):
So it's just going to removethat liability from you so that
someone isn't suing you or yourbusiness and taking everything
from you if there's an issue.
Now, the chances of there beingan issue, of course, is going
to be very slim.
It's even slimmer for thosethat use extra precautions in
their making phase.
But I don't mess with it, Idon't think about it, I just pay
it every month and I highlyrecommend that you would do the
(35:36):
same there.
So just get that out of the way.
I would definitely recommendhaving business insurance when
you decide to make this into abusiness and start selling this
to people, and make sure thatyour insurance is going to cover
the manufacturing and theselling of the product as well.
Let's recap this so for yourbusiness to get off the ground,
we're going to need to eitherhave Shopify or Etsy.
(35:57):
I recommend Shopify, so I'mgoing to build that in.
That's $39 a month after you gothrough that free period that
you can get by clicking the linkin the show notes below the
domain name.
That's going to be up to $20there.
So now we're looking at $60.
Your legal setup that's goingto be up to another $100 for
that maybe a little bit higherfor a couple of states there.
(36:18):
And then we're going to belooking at your business
insurance.
So we're coming in right at$200 to set up your business,
just to make sure that you're onthe up and up and you're also
ready to go, because you'regoing to need that Shopify
website to start makingtransactions with right.
So that's why I want to includethat as an expense for you to
take a look at.
So that is phase two of settingthis up.
(36:40):
So now let's move on to phasethree.
Okay, here we are going to nowbuild out our inventory for
whenever we're going to launch.
So this is when we've decidedokay, through my testing phase.
Yes, this is the sense I wantto go with.
Yes, this is the wax I'm goingto go with.
This is the vessel I'm going togo with.
You have set up your businesseither on Shopify or on Etsy.
(37:02):
With.
You have set up your businesseither on Shopify or on Etsy,
you've got your domain name,you've got your insurance, you
have registered your entity oryour LLC, and now you want to
turn this into a business whereyou are ready to start making
candles that you're going to beselling to someone.
There's going to be atransaction involved.
So now, how many candles do youreally need to start with?
(37:24):
We get asked this all the timehow many cents do I need to have
?
When we first started we had 10different cents.
I would highly, highlyrecommend you do not need to
start with 10 different cents.
I would would do six scents atthe most, six at the most.
You can even just do four orfive, but six is going to give
(37:48):
you a nice variety.
We always say I think ourbreakdown that we recommend
inside of the inner circle istwo citrus, a spa-like, a
masculine, a floral that ispopular.
Let me preface that.
Don't go with a lilac.
We started with a lilac type ofcandle.
It did horrible for us.
Go with that lavender,something that people are going
(38:10):
to enjoy, that people like, andthen that sixth candle is one of
those.
That is something that'sfamiliar to a lot of people.
That will bring you in sales.
It might not be your number one, but it's going to bring you
sales, for that will bring youin sales.
It might not be your number onebut it's going to bring you
sales For us.
It's our peace of mind candlethat's going to be that
eucalyptus verbanum mint scent.
That's a scent that everyoneknows that scent.
Most people like that scent andit's a go-to for a lot of
(38:32):
people.
They're just going to grab thatwhen they're not sure what
candle to buy.
They know that type of blend.
So that's what I'd recommendsix cents You're going to need
to have.
What I would recommend it wouldbe six of each of those.
So we got to make 36 candles tostart our business with.
I would recommend six becauseit makes it easy when we're
(38:53):
pouring our batches of candles.
Six is what fit in our largepouring pitcher.
We do six candles at a time.
That's how we make our candles.
So that's what I recommend justfor keeping it simple, is doing
that you have to only make onebatch of each of your candle
scents and you're ready to go.
You're going to be making 36candles.
Now, pricing this out, the costof goods on 36 candles is going
(39:20):
to be $150 to $200.
Now it's going to go up alittle bit and I'll talk about
that in just a moment.
But plan on your cost of goodsbeing about $150 to $200.
If you're not sure how tocalculate cost of goods, we love
using Inventora.
I have a link to that in theshow notes below as well.
(39:40):
They have a free version andthen it goes into paid versions
as you add in more products.
The way it works there's otheralternatives out there as well
but the way it works is you willput all of the products that
are needed into their softwareand it calculates how much you
are going to need to spend orhow much it's going to cost to
(40:02):
put that together.
So I'm going to put my wax, mywick, my oil, my vessels, my
labels, my warning stickers, mylids, everything into the
software and how much each ofthose costs, including shipping,
to get those supplies.
You're going to put all of thatin there and then you're going
to build out basically a recipe.
You're going to say, hey, I'mgoing to make this piece of mine
candle.
And then you're going to buildout basically a recipe.
(40:23):
You're going to say, hey, I'mgoing to make this piece of mine
candle.
Okay, what's going to?
It's going to take this much ofthat oil, this much of that oil
, this, this vessel, this wick,this wax and it's going to
calculate it all for you.
That's your cost of goods.
You do not need to go and spendmoney doing that.
You can actually just use aspreadsheet.
You can do this using a Googledoc or an Excel spreadsheet and
calculate it all out that way.
(40:43):
So you do not need to spendmoney on that.
But I did want to show you orexplain to you what we use, and
we use it from day one.
We've had to upgrade our planover and over again.
Just because of the more thingsyou put into it, the cost goes
up.
So just keep that in mind aswell.
(41:04):
But we've been using itliterally since day one.
So there's other options outthere and I'll have the link to
what we use at inventory belowif you need to Packaging and
shipping.
So don't overbuy this.
When you first start out, get avariety of boxes that you're
going to need.
For us it is the six by six bysix box is what we will send a
(41:24):
single candle in.
That is kind of our standardthat we use.
If you're going to have candlesand other products as well,
you're going to want to haveregardless, you're going to want
to have a variety of sizes.
So we have six by six by six,we have eight by eight by six.
That is a little bit larger.
(41:45):
That is going to hold.
If you're going to have like anine ounce jar, that's going to
hold a couple of those in itjust fine.
In fact you can actually uselike a 10 ounce candle in there
as well and you go corner tocorner and those work great.
So if you're buying two candles, then the eight by eight by six
works great.
And then we have a 10 by 10 bysix.
So we do have some larger ones12 by 12 by eights and things
(42:06):
like that.
But when you're first startingout, getting up to that 10 by 10
by six is going to be just fine.
That's going to a 10 by 10 bysix.
For us will hold five candles.
So we're not really going toget many more orders larger than
five candles when we're firststarting out.
So not really going to get manymore orders larger than five
candles when we're firststarting out.
So I don't want you to go andspend a lot of money on a
massive variety of boxes.
(42:27):
So keep that in mind.
But you are going to have tofactor that in.
You're going to need to havethe tape that is going to seal
your boxes with.
The boxes themselves are goingto cost some money.
You're going to need somebubble wrap to go around those.
A little tip for you when itcomes to bubble wrap.
Bubble wrap to go around those.
Um little tip for you when itcomes to bubble wrap.
(42:49):
Look at Staples' website.
Staples is where we get ourbubble wrap from.
They will do often buy two, getone free on their bubble wrap,
and so we buy these really bigrolls that they're perforated
every 12 inches so we can justtear it off, right, so we're not
having to cut anything.
It's very, very easy.
Uh, staples will have a sale onthose all the time, so don't
buy them whenever they're fullprice.
They're like $30 for a roll.
So whenever it's buy two, getone free, you're saving 30 bucks
(43:10):
and then you're going to haveplenty.
Each of those rolls, I think,has a hundred of the sheets
there.
It might actually be more thanthat, it might be 300.
Just take a look at it and see.
But they always run buy two,get one free, like every other
week.
So it seems like it.
At least that's the only timewe'll ever buy it because of
that.
Keep that in mind.
They also sell just regularboxes.
You can buy boxes in bulkonline from places like Uline
(43:32):
and other places, but you'repaying a lot for shipping of
those as well.
So you're going to have tospend a little bit more if you
want to go local and buy themfrom Staples and places like
that, but if you only need a fewof them when you're first
starting, that might be the wayto go, versus buying from Uline
or somewhere online that youhave to buy in bulk for it to
make it worthwhile.
(43:53):
So, putting all this togethersix of six different scents,
that's 36 candles.
That's what we're going tostart with.
Right?
That's going to be enough forwax, wicks, fragrance oils, jars
, labels All of that stufftogether is going to cost.
Your cost of goods is going tobe about $150.
But because you're having tobuy all of those different
(44:15):
fragrances, right, you're notonly buying enough just for six
candles.
So your cost of goods on thatmight only be 150 to $200, but
what you're going to have tospend to get that is going to be
more than that, cause you'regonna have some leftover
supplies, right?
Also, when it comes to your wax, you're going to buy.
Now, when you do this, you'regoing to buy a large box of wax.
(44:36):
If you're going to use like thefour, six, four that we use,
you're going to buy that as a 45pound box.
Now right, but it doesn't take45 pounds to make these 36
candles.
In fact, for these 36 candles,if you're going to start with a
seven ounce candle, you're usingless than half of that, but you
want to buy it at that size forsaving, right, so that your
(44:58):
cost of goods is down as low aspossible.
So, even though it's your costof goods to make these 36
candles is going to be 150 to$200, you're going to be
spending between three, 50 and$500 to get all of that stuff.
So keep that in mind.
I don't want you to think thatit's only going to be those cost
of goods.
You're going to have to buy allof the stuff and you're not
(45:20):
going to necessarily use all ofit up front.
Now, since even you might betempted to go ahead and just
make more instead of six, let mejust go to make 12.
Here's the thing you may findthat two or three of your
candles are going to sell likecrazy and a couple of them
aren't going to sell very well.
(45:40):
So instead of having 12 of thiscandle just sitting there at no
one's buying and then now youhave to go out and buy more wax
and more vessels and more labelsand everything else to
replenish what you sold through,if you make only six of
everything, then as you start tosell through those you'll know
(46:01):
what is becoming hot sellers foryou and then you can buy more
for just that right.
Because what we had done is wehad built out a ton of inventory
.
I think we made like 30 ofeverything.
When we first started.
We went way in too deep andthen no one wanted this heavy
lilac.
It was called Spring Blossom Isthat the name of the candle?
(46:22):
It's probably very valuable outthere because it's very limited
edition.
If you ever find one at yourlocal thrift store that someone
has decided to give away becausethey didn't want it or like it,
it came from us Let me know ifyou find one of those.
So that candle, nobody wantedit and we were just sitting on
all of that inventory of itforever.
(46:43):
I would have much rather haveused that vessel and that wax,
the oil I can't do anything withit because I already have it,
but all of the rest of that.
I would have saved a lot ofmoney if I wouldn't have made so
many of that candle.
So just something to keep inmind there.
All right, so let's talk aboutwhat other business expense that
you might want to invest inCanva Pro.
(47:04):
So we use Canva for designingour labels that we do internally
.
Now we have a graphic designerthat we have used to create a
lot of our labels.
We also like to hire localartists to do things like our
location based type of candles.
We'll hire someone to do that,but we will make some of our
labels ourselves.
We do that just in Canva.
(47:25):
Regular Canva will get youpretty far, but we upgrade to
Canva pro.
I think on the annual plan Ithink it comes to like $100 or
so.
So it's like $10 a month.
So really affordable for allthe things that it does.
We are inside of Canva likeevery single day.
We are making our labels inCanva, we are making our flyers
(47:47):
in Canva, we are making oursocial media stuff in Canva, so
that is an easy investment forus.
To upgrade for 10 or maybe 12bucks a month for that, the
inventory software for your costof goods.
I discussed that already.
That might be an additionalexpense for you.
Bookkeeping tools All right, sowe use QuickBooks.
I hate QuickBooks.
Okay, that's because I am notan accountant.
(48:08):
I'm not a bookkeeper.
If you are a bookkeeper or youare an accountant, that's like
the gold standard.
They use it, they love it.
It's easy for them becausethat's how their mind works.
For me, my mind doesn't workthat way.
There's a lot of things thatthe terms seem to be like for
two different things, and thenI'm writing checks for things
that I shouldn't have.
It's a mess.
There are other opportunitiesout there.
(48:34):
Wave is a new one that ispretty affordable.
Quickbooks is expensive too.
I think so for us, because wehave payroll and things.
That's a little different.
We're spending almost $200 amonth, but that's because we
have people on payroll thatwe're paying through there and
that cost per employee.
But just for QuickBooks BasicsOnline it's 45, 50 bucks a month
.
So keep that in mind.
I think there are lessexpensive options out there.
Or, if you're just starting out,just use a spreadsheet.
(48:57):
You can get pretty far withjust a spreadsheet, so just have
a spreadsheet open.
You can create a column thatsays date, a column that says
expenses and then a column thatsays income, and you can do your
accounting that way.
That is just fine to get you by.
Just make sure that you'resaving all of your receipts and
you're tracking all of yourexpenses for where your money
going in, money going out.
I always recommend, once youhave your entity set up and you
(49:20):
have your EIN, go ahead and geta business credit card so that
you know every expense you'retracking on.
You have a credit card now thatyou know every single line item
and so you don't forget stuff,because this is the thing.
You're going to run to Staplesand get this, and then you're
going to run to the post officeand spend money on that.
You're going to start makingall of these different
transactions and you're going tostart forgetting what you're
(49:41):
spending money on, and thenyou're not going to have that
deduction at the end of the year.
So, getting a business creditcard or one of the other things
that you're definitely going toneed to do we can talk about
this in another video or inanother episode and that's going
to be to just open up abusiness checking account
Because you're going to want tokeep your personal money and the
money for your business that'scoming in when you're making
(50:03):
sales, you're going to want tokeep that separate, and so just
going and opening up a businesschecking account is going to
help with that.
So any of the money that comesin, whether you're making sales
out of markets, whether you'remaking sales on Etsy, on Shopify
, however you're making anysales, you're going to want to
put all of that money into abusiness checking account for
tracking reasons.
(50:23):
So that's what you're going toneed to do is get some kind of
accounting set up, but again,you can just do it for free
instead of spending money onQuickBooks or Wave or any of
those other things.
And then let's see here whatelse do we need?
Oh, when it comes to yourbranding.
So your branding, yourphotography, your marketing if
you're going to need to hirethat out, I would recommend
finding someone online on awebsite like 99designs.
So we've actually used99designs for a couple of
(50:46):
different logos that we've done.
Chad has a personal projectthat he was working on and so he
went out there and basically,you spend $99 and you're and you
give an idea out to the world,to the website, and you're gonna
have all these differentgraphic designers trying to like
win your bid of $99.
And so they're all going to besubmitting you different logos.
(51:07):
And then you can go back andyou can say, hey, can you make
some adjustments to this andthat?
And then you can go back andyou can say, hey, can you make
some adjustments to this andthat?
And then you end up picking oneof them and they get the $99
and you have a logo.
But they're really really goodat what they do.
Upwork is another one that youcan hire freelancers.
I've used Fiverr in the past.
Actually, I hired someone to dosome social media assets for us
(51:27):
at the very, very beginning andthey were good.
But I've also had some.
It's hit and miss right.
So make sure you're reading thefine print, make sure that
you're actually seeing someexamples of the work people have
done.
I had our Garcin Beacon logothat has like the lighthouse and
the word mark on it.
We had hired someone originallyon Fiverr and the design that
(51:48):
they had come back with isactually worse than like the
design that I submitted to them,that I had created, like they
had like the free version ofCanva, like years ago when there
wasn't a lot of excitement toit.
Um, and that's like what theytraded on.
They weren't an actual graphicdesigner, I think, and um, so I
was disappointed in that, um,but you know you also you get
(52:11):
what you pay for too.
So that was probably $15, $20,$30 there, right?
So I would recommend 99designs,upwork.
These type of freelance websitesare really good, so check those
out.
You're going to be able to getpretty far with creating just
your own labels those that havegone through our candle making
course they actually get.
We give them six labeltemplates that we created that
(52:32):
they can just adjust with theirown logos and names and colors
to use.
But you can make your ownlabels inside of Canva, so you
do not need to hire someone forthat.
I would hire someone for yourlogo to make sure that that
looks really good, but then youcan go and build out all of your
branding inside of Canva.
You can select your brandcolors.
You can go really far withbranding nowadays inside there,
(52:55):
so that's really helpful andsaves a lot of money.
The other thing that peoplespend a lot of money on is
photography.
Now, the best thing to do toshoot photos today, right here,
use your phone.
Use your phone.
Doesn't matter if it's iPhone,doesn't matter if it's Android
any phone out there in themarket now that camera on the
(53:15):
back of it is fantastic.
So what you need to do and thereason why we don't like the
photos that come from these iswe don't have the settings right
.
So go out to YouTube.
Or if you're watching this onYouTube, then just go up to the
search bar.
After you are done here, type inproduct photography for iPhone
(53:38):
or product photography forAndroid.
Whatever operating system andphone you're using, make sure
that you type in productphotography.
If you just type in photography, it's going to give you
landscape wedding.
It's going to give you takingpictures of people and scenery
right.
(53:58):
Make sure you search forproduct photography and then
type in whatever phone that youhave.
It will give you some fantastictips, tricks.
That's what I'd recommend.
I also would recommend possiblygetting a light box to take
product photography in.
That's what we do now.
If you go to our website, you'regoing to see all of our candles
.
Our photography is very clean.
(54:18):
It's very consistent, it's onbrand.
For us, they're not lifestyleimages.
They're not a candle in aliving room or a candle on a
mantle or a candle in an office.
They are just of the candle andwe get those done.
We take those inside of a lightbox, but it's very, very
consistent on how we do ourphotography.
(54:40):
We're actually doing a workshop.
Depending on whenever you'rewatching this or listening to
this, we have a workshop insideof the Inner Circle on
photography that we go throughhow we do it and I'm going to
give some more tips there onwhat we do, but you can do so
much of it with just your phone.
Now, if you want a professionalto do it for you, instead of
(55:03):
spending hundreds or thousandsof dollars for a photographer,
find someone that will barterwith you.
There are a lot of Facebookgroups.
In fact, this is what we didwhen we first started.
We went to these free Facebookgroups on Facebook and there's a
(55:23):
free photography I'm trying tothink of the name of it.
It's like free photography forproduct, and what they do is you
give them the product andthey're going to give you
photography of it in exchange.
So that is one way of barteringyour candle product for their
services.
They usually will have a it'slike the value per picture right
(55:46):
, and so it'll be like $35 or$50, depending on the
photographer and then you haveto give them that much in
product.
So find one that aligns withthe cost of your candle.
If this is a $26 candle andthat is what their their
photography fee is roughlyaround that means they'll do it
for an even exchange.
So you're going to just send itto them if you don't have
(56:07):
someone local.
So keep that in mind.
But you can also reach out tolocal photographers and see if
they'll barter with you as well.
All right, so now we need to addall this up and you might be
surprised.
This seems like we have to do alot of things to get this brand
off the ground, right.
So in the testing phase we wereat that $175 to $250 range.
Again, this is testing.
(56:28):
One oil, one wax, one vessel,right, so we are not overdoing
it and getting a ton ofdifferent things when we first
start, and that's where many ofus start to spend and waste a
lot of money.
If you have the money to spendit, fantastic, go out and buy
all kinds of different waxes ifyou want to go through all that.
(56:49):
But what I recommend if you wantto go from today to selling
candles in a month, you need tobe focused and have the blinders
on.
Don't listen to all the noise.
Do not chase the seasonalscents that the suppliers come
out with, because the nextseason you're going to have to
go and get new oils.
Start with something that isvery evergreen, meaning you can
(57:09):
sell it at any time of the year.
Start with one oil.
Make sure you enjoy this wholeprocess.
If you don't even enjoy it,then you're going to spend this
$250 and then you're going to bedone Making sure that you enjoy
candle making, that youunderstand the testing phase and
go through all of that.
Again, I highly recommend thatyou come and hang out with us
inside of our Candle BusinessPro.
We actually have our candlemaking course that you can
(57:38):
always uh take as well, um,where we we stick with one wax,
one wick, uh, one oil, and getyou through that.
Then, in our course, weactually then give you, like,
all the recipes that we use, abig variety of what we use in
our shops, um, but so that's,you know, 250 on the high end of
getting all of this stufftogether and getting you through
that testing phase.
That's going to be at least twodozen candles that you're going
to be able to do there.
Then, when we're going to lookat your website or the platforms
that you're going to want tosell, on getting your business
(58:00):
set up with your secretary ofstate or the IRS.
We're going to be spendingabout another $200 to do all of
that.
And then it's going to be yourlaunch and this is where we're
going to spend the most money.
We're going to be spending, youknow, $150 or $200 for your
cost of goods, but remember,it's going to cost more money
because you're going to haveleftover supply but you've got
to buy in those sizes so thatyou can get the cost of each
(58:21):
good down as low as possible,and that's going to cost you
between, you know, $300 and $500.
So, on the high end, that $500plus that $200 and that 250.
So we're right at a thousanddollars there.
There's going to be some ofthose other expenses.
You're going to probably wantto get Canva Pro.
You're going to want toprobably get that software there
, and then there's going to beother little things.
(58:43):
You're going to want toprobably spend a little bit of
money to get a logo made.
You know a hundred dollarsthere.
So for us, when we started ourcandle business, the money that
we put into our candle businessbefore we made a dollar, out was
just over $1,200.
So this math actually comes outto being right at that as well.
(59:04):
We went very slim, very narrow,very lean with building out our
brand, so it's absolutelypossible.
Then, when you start to getmoney coming in, you get a
little bit of money you're notpaying yourself.
Paying yourself is going to bedown the road.
What happens when you get moremoney in?
You're going to put that rightback into your business.
(59:25):
So the first thing that I woulddo would stock up on what's
working and stop focusing onwhat's not working.
But don't go and buy more oils.
You don't need more oils.
You're going to buy more toreplace that.
But remember, every time youbuy a new oil, you got to go
back to that testing phase.
You got to go through all thattesting again on that oil,
because every oil is going toburn differently.
(59:46):
So you have to go and startspending money on testing that.
Stick with what you've got.
But now buy your things in alarger bulk.
Buy more vessels at a time.
Buy more wax at a time.
Buy more oils at a time.
Buy bigger bags of your wicksthat you are no works for those
vessels and stock up on thatstuff and then just keep going
(01:00:07):
and doing this over and over andover again.
You do not need to fall intowhatever the next seasonal item
is.
When we go and sell at marketsfor fall and for winter, we
always have our year roundscents and they always do really
well at those markets.
So sure, we're going to sellfall candles, we're going to
(01:00:28):
sell some Christmas candles andsome winter candles out of
markets, you know, just like wedo on our website and also in
our stores.
But our staple candles we callthem our classics, like they
don't go away.
They still bring us the mostrevenue year after year after
year.
So just keep that in mind.
Don't worry about chasing afterwhatever season you're in.
Get a foundation together ofsome really, really good candles
(01:00:52):
and use that as the launch padfor your candle business.
I hope this has been helpful foryou.
Breaking down some of the mass,some of the numbers.
How much have you spent on yourcandle business?
So, in the comments or the shownotes below, let me know.
Also, if you want to come,follow us over on Instagram at
candle business pro.
Send us a direct message.
(01:01:12):
I want to know, I want to hearwhat some people have spent and
put it in the comments underthis episode.
I would love to hear from you.
Thank you so much for tuning in.
Have a fantastic day.
We'll talk soon.
People ask me all the time how much does it really
cost to start a candle business?
Not just some number that theyfound online or possibly in a
Facebook group, but an actual,real world breakdown from
someone who's done it.
In this episode, I'm going towalk you through the startup
costs that I recommend andsharing where I think that you
can save and where you shouldn'tcut corners.
I'm Sebastian Garza, theco-founder of GarzaNet Beacon
(00:34):
Candle Company, a now milliondollar candle brand, and the
founder of Candle Business Pro.
Now, when we help students plantheir candle business budget,
we see most people are going tostart strong around that $1,500
mark.
Now that includes testing,branding, inventory and the
actual business entity setup.
You can absolutely do thatleaner or you can go bigger, but
(00:57):
that's a really solid groundNow for us.
We went lean when we started,with our costs coming in at just
about $1,200.
Now that's from testing tohaving an initial product
stocked and ready to go.
I want to break it down for youso that you can decide where to
(01:19):
spend more money, possibly alittle bit less, depending on
where your business needs lie.
Okay, so I'm going to breakthis up into three different
phases of building out yourcandle brand and what the cost
associated with that is going tobe.
So the first one is going to bethe testing phase.
Now this is the most importantinvestment.
This is the most critical stepin building out a candle
business.
So a lot of us get into candlemaking and we think it's going
to be rather easy.
(01:39):
It's very low entry gettinginto candle making.
You can buy a kit for less than$100 online and you get it.
You're excited, you startputting those candles together
and they're a disaster.
If you have been with us sincethe beginning, in episode one of
the Cannabis is Pro podcast, weactually talk about those first
(01:59):
candles, how they turned out.
So go listen to that if youhaven't already.
In fact, that's part one ofthree of how we got started, so
you can go and check that out ifyou would like.
But you're going to receivethat it's going to be a disaster
, but you have to keep going Ifyou want to turn this into a
brand.
Obviously you wouldn't be ableto just turn around and start
selling what you made from thatcandle making kit.
(02:21):
It's just not something that isgoing to be a reality.
That is just to have fun with,play around with and see if you
actually like candle making,Because one thing that I always
tell our students inside ofCandle Business Pro inner circle
is you have to love doing this.
If you don't love making candles, if you're just doing it as a
business, I would go and findsomething else.
I would go and find somethingelse that you really enjoy doing
(02:42):
and turning that into abusiness.
If you're wanting to be anentrepreneur, self-employed and
grow something, make sure it'sgoing to be something that you
love to do.
A lot of people will startmaking candles, realize that
they don't like the mathinvolved, they don't like the
science involved and they wantto go and do something else.
Go and make cookies or go andgo and sell a crochet.
(03:04):
Whatever you want to do, justmake sure that you enjoy it.
So let's talk about this testingphase and some of the costs
that are going to be associatedwith it.
So first off is going to be thewaxes right, so we got to get
some wax together.
So one thing I would definitelyrecommend start with one wax.
I know a lot of us when wefirst start, there's a lot of
noise out there.
Do I try this wax or this wax?
(03:27):
Go with the wax that you'regoing to be able to get readily
available from multiplesuppliers, so that you're going
to be confident that if you gothrough this entire testing
phase you're starting to sellcandles and then, all of a
sudden, that wax supplier nolonger carries that wax, that
you're going to be able to findit somewhere else and you're not
going to have to restart thetesting phase for your entire
brand.
That would be very, very timeconsuming, which is going to
(03:50):
cost you a lot of money, and sothat would be for us would be
incredibly scary.
So, depending on the directionyou want to go with your brand,
so with us, we had our niche andour target audience figured out
, and I would recommend that youwould as well.
Well, if you want to be seriousabout this being a business,
you've got to have what is yourniche going to be and what is
your target audience going to be.
(04:10):
In other episodes and othervideos that I have on YouTube,
you can check out where I talkabout that.
I also talk about that a lotinside of our group.
Once you have that figured out,you know who you're making your
candle for.
That will help you decideeverything that you buy for your
business.
That's going to help you decidewhat wax, what kind of oils,
what scents.
It's going to help you withyour branding.
Everything about your candlebusiness is going to go back to
(04:35):
whatever niche that you aregoing to be in and then who your
target audience is.
So get that figured out first.
So when you do have thatfigured out, decide on one wax.
So for us we decided on justdoing a soy wax for our candles.
We found that it was a popularamongst our target audience, so
we went with a soy and we wentwith one that is readily
available across lots ofdifferent suppliers.
So we went with the GoldenBranch 464.
It's going to have somedownsides to it, just like
(04:57):
everything is going to have itsupsides and downsides.
It's not going to have thescent throw necessarily.
That some of the other waxes,like the virgin coconut soy or
some of the ones that have someparaffin in them, are definitely
going to give a better hotthrow.
But we wanted to have soy.
That's what our customerswanted.
So we went with the 464 becauseit is readily available from
(05:18):
many suppliers and it'saffordable.
It's one of the least expensivewaxes out there that is still
of a high quality.
So for getting started with that.
That's going to cost you rightnow $30 for 10 pounds.
That's going to be plenty to goahead and get started with your
testing phase.
I would get 10 pounds of that.
That's going to be $30.
You're going to want to get asampler pack of wicks.
(05:39):
You want to get a variety ofwicks.
For us, we love CD wicks.
I just priced them out.
You can get 12 wicks for $2,less than $2.
So if you do that and you wantto get several different sizes,
we always recommend going with avessel.
That is going to be somethingthat will last you through a lot
of the testing.
You're going to go through alot of testing, so I recommend
(06:02):
getting a smaller vessel.
I'm going back to the wicks.
You're going to want to get avariety of sizes.
So when you find a vessel,knowing what the diameter of
that vessel is will determineyour starting point for your
wicks.
Most every place will have awick guide.
Now, this is just a startingpoint.
It does not mean that the sizeof wick that they recommend is
(06:26):
going to be the right wick.
Anyone that's gone through ourcandle making course or our
candle making bootcamp knowsthat we always test three
candles at a time.
We're going to have arecommended size.
We're going to go one up andone down, and so you're going to
want to have a variety of wick.
You can't force a wick to work.
That's going to make for adangerous candle.
So you got to go through.
(06:47):
You're going to have to test avariety of sizes to make sure
that you got the right fit.
So buy a variety of sizes.
Start with four or fivedifferent sizes so that once
you're making candles and yourealize that, oh, this wick is
too big, oh, I don't have anymore wicks, make sure that you
have them on stock, on hand withyou, so that you aren't going
and having to buy, wait anotherfive days for it to arrive,
(07:08):
spending all the shipping costs,because that's one of the most
expensive aspects of supplies isthe shipping.
So go ahead and get a varietyof those, especially because
they're only $2 for a pack of 12.
So I budget $10 for that.
That's going to get you fivedifferent sizes of wicks and
that's going to be 12 of each,so really affordable to do that.
That's going to get you fivedifferent sizes of wicks and
that's going to be 12 of each,so really affordable to do that.
Now the next thing you're goingto need is a wick sticker.
(07:28):
It is what connects the wick tothe bottom of the vessel.
So those, you can get a hundredof those for five bucks, so
really affordable.
Go ahead and get that.
I know some people talk aboutusing hot glue guns or gorilla
glue.
All of that, that's allnonsense.
Youilla Glue all of that,that's all nonsense.
You don't need any of that.
Just get Wix stickers.
(07:49):
You get 100 of those four orfive bucks Super affordable.
They're very easy.
Here's a tip for you when peoplemention that Wix stickers don't
work, that whenever they pourthe wax into the vessel and it
popped off, that's because ofone of two things.
That's because they poured thatwax way too hot and it loosened
up the adhesive on the bottom,or they did not push down that
(08:13):
wick sticker to the bottom ofthe vessel enough, so hot wax
got underneath it and then itloosened it up.
So one of those two things.
There are some vessels,especially some ceramic vessels,
that don't have a flat bottom,where there's a little bit of a
curve to it.
Just make sure that you'repushing down all the way on
those and then you're pouringwhere the wax isn't too hot
because it's going to.
(08:34):
It's just like when we take ourheat gun to remove stickers off
the side it's because it's hotand it loosens the adhesive.
Same thing is happening if youpour really hot wax into a
vessel it's going to loosen thatup.
So if, for some reason, yourwick stickers aren't working,
it's one of those two things.
We have made tens of thousandsof candles and we use these wick
(08:54):
stickers and we've had ahandful We've probably had 10 or
20 where the wick sticker haspopped off.
The majority of those is goingto be on those curved ceramic
type of vessels and all you haveto do is you just have to push
down on it a little bit harder,making sure that you're pushing
down on all the sides, ratherthan using one of those like
wick setters, like kind of thoselike straw looking things,
(09:16):
because that's only puttingpressure on the middle of the
wick.
Just push it down on all sideswith your fingers and you're
going to be just fine.
Okay, so the next thing thatyou're going to need is
fragrance oil.
That's the fun stuff.
That's the stuff that gives thecandle the scent.
Of course, that's what we enjoybuying and that's usually where
we end up spending too muchmoney is on fragrance oil.
Now, in the show notes below, Ihave a free checklist as all of
(09:37):
the supplies and tools that weuse to run our candle businesses
with.
So you are welcome to downloadthat, and it has a list of the
suppliers that we trust.
But any reputable supplier outthere is going to have some
fragrance oils to buy.
This is what I recommend,though you are going to find
fragrance oils from $20 to $80out there.
When you're first starting,you're going through the testing
phase.
The quality of those oils arenot going to vary to warrant the
(10:02):
cost.
So I would recommend, whenyou're first starting going
through this testing phase,finding oils that you can find
for a pound, for 16 ounces, for$25 or less, because we're going
to be going through quite a bitduring the testing phase.
We want to learn the ins andouts of candle making, what's
right, what's wrong, all of thetroubleshooting that we're going
(10:23):
to have to do.
Do all of that with some lessexpensive oils.
Then, when you're ready in thenext phase of building out our
business, we can then startbuying the higher demanded oils
that you're thinking is going toalign with that target customer
of yours.
So again, there are plenty ofoils out there from almost all
(10:47):
the suppliers for $25 or less.
I was just checking and therewas a few oils.
In fact, I just saw a like aclean cotton type of scent, just
a fresh linen scent to testwith, and it was like 22.50 for
a pound.
So that's what I'd recommend issaving money on the fragrance
oils, cause if you start to goout and buy 50, 60, 70, $80 even
fragrance oils to start yourbrand with, you're going to go
(11:10):
through a lot of money quick.
So let's just start with thefragrance oil that's 25 bucks or
less, so that we can test withit, learn the ins and outs and
kind of the nuances of candlemaking, and then we can go on to
splurging in other areas in thefuture.
So the next thing is going to beyour jar testing, so picking a
vessel.
Now, there's lots of vesselsout there, just like fragrance
oil.
There's so many differentvessels out there.
(11:32):
For those students that havegone through our can of making
course or our bootcamp, we juststart with a nine ounce glass
jar with a lid on it and it isgoing to make a seven ounce
candle.
So why do we do that Well, whenwe're first starting out, we
are going to want to save onsupplies, because if we're
starting off with making a large14, 15 ounce candle, you are
(11:56):
going to go through double thesupplies of making a seven ounce
candle.
This seven ounce candle size hasalso brought us six figures
worth of sales.
So you do not need to have alarger candle just to make more
sales.
Sure, you can charge more moneyfor it, but you're also going
to have a much higher cost ofgood.
(12:17):
So when we're first startingout, I recommend keeping it
small.
If you want to go somethinglarger than a seven ounce candle
, then what our classic line ofcandles are?
It's a 10 ounce candle and it isin a simple straight sided
glass as well.
And the thing with these isthey're going to be very
inexpensive.
So for the seven ounce pourwhich is in a nine ounce
(12:40):
threaded jar, we're looking at65 cents.
If you want to add the lid,that's another 45 cents, so it's
going to be a dollar 10.
If you want to add the lid,that's another 45 cents, so it's
going to be a dollar 10.
If you want to go with that 10ounce Libby jar that we use for
our classic candles they'regoing to be a dollar 20 a piece.
So you can actually go out toour website, garza and beaconcom
, and you can see all thevessels that we use.
We do have some nice higher endvessels that we sell that we
(13:03):
absolutely love, but you'regoing to see, the majority of
our vessels aren't what we areputting our money into.
We're putting our money intoour labeling, into some of our
branding and other aspects ofour business.
We're also in the business ofselling candles and supporting
ourselves, and we have a team ofover 10 now.
We're looking to maximize everysingle candle opportunity and
(13:25):
so we are going to make surethat we have our cost of goods
dialed in.
For a 10-ounce candle, 10-ounceLibby jar candle, this is going
to cost us about $5.50 to make.
That's everything Wax, wick,fragrance, oil, vessel, label,
lid, everything.
We're going to get this about$5.50.
(13:47):
We're selling this for $26.
So we are getting over 5X forour cost of goods on this and
that's what we need to do to bea sustainable business.
If you want more informationabout how to price your candles,
check out episode four of thepodcast or on YouTube, where I
explain in much more detailwhere we get our pricing from
(14:09):
and what is reality for mostpeople if they're wanting to do
this long-term.
So just something to keep inmind there.
Okay, so, whatever direction youdecide to go with your vessels,
I would keep it super simple.
To start, buy a couple dozen ofthem.
They're going to be around $1,$1.20 a piece to buy, so if
you're going to buy 24 of them,we're going to look at at least
$25 for that.
The next thing that we're goingto need to have is going to be
(14:30):
some must-have tools.
There are some things that youdo not need to go out and buy
right away.
For instance, you do not needto go out and buy a wax melter
right away.
You can do the double boilermethod, which is going to be
have a pouring pitcher and usingyour stovetop and a larger pot
of water to do that.
You can look up the doubleboiler method, and that's how we
(14:51):
got started.
That's actually what comes withthe instructions if you buy a
candle making kit, because mostpeople aren't going to have a
wax melter readily available.
So there are going to be sometools that you do need to have,
though, and one of those I justmentioned is a pouring pitcher.
You're going to need to have apouring pitcher to pour with, so
you're not using the utensilsand things out of your kitchen.
(15:13):
You're going to want to haveone that is dedicated for candle
making.
Those are going to cost rightnow $10 online.
You can get them on Amazon oryou can get them from the
majority of suppliers are goingto have them.
You do not need to spend morethan $10 to buy a pouring
pitcher.
The next thing you're going toneed to do is get a thermometer,
something to test thetemperature of that wax, not
only when you heat that wax, butalso the temperature of when
(15:34):
you are mixing your oil withthat wax and then when you are
pouring that wax into yourvessel.
So there's three differenttimes while you're making
candles that you need to testtemperatures.
We do not recommend the trendyinfrared thermometers, the ones
(15:54):
that kind of have a trigger onthem and you can just point at
your wax, or you can point themanywhere and it's going to give
you a reading.
We do not recommend thosebecause those are only giving
you a surface level temperature.
It is not going to give you areading.
We do not recommend thosebecause those are only giving
you a surface level temperatureit is not going to give you.
When you have your wax in apitcher or in a melter and you
use that thermometer, it is onlygiving you a surface level
(16:18):
reading on that.
What we recommend is somethingthat's going to have a probe
that's going to go into the wax,and so what I recommend is a
meat thermometer.
They're just about four or fiveinches tall and then it has a
probe that folds out on it andyou're going to get these for
less than $10.
So $8, $9, $10 are digital.
I do not recommend the candythermometer.
(16:38):
You'll actually get one withsome of the can of making kits
that are on the market.
They're going to come with someof the can of making kits that
are on the market.
They're going to come with oneof these glass long, almost like
a vial looking thermometerwhere you've got to like turn it
just right to get the readingbecause of the mercury going up
the numbers there.
I don't recommend those.
They're really hard to read andalso they're glass.
So I you know we're movingquick because we want to get the
(17:00):
temperatures mixed at the righttime.
We want to be very precise withthat and having this glass
thermometer that could break andgo into.
You know what I'm making.
It's just not realistic.
Also, your candle space is goingto get messy.
Ours become a disaster sometime.
That thing rolls off, falls onthe floor.
I knock it, then I'm cleaningup glass.
Just not worth it.
Go and spend, you know, $8,eight, nine, $10 to get you a
(17:24):
digital meat thermometer.
That's what I recommend.
Again, all of these that we useare on that supply list that
you can grab in the show notes.
It will show you everythingthat we use and we can.
We consistently update it.
So anytime there's an update,we put it right there on that.
So that could help you as well.
Now, also, another startup costin the testing phase that you're
going to want to start lookinginto is going to be your labels.
(17:45):
So you're going to have tospend money to put labels on
your candles.
Now, this is if you're usingone of these clear jars that
I've recommended, becausethey're only $1, $1.20.
If you're going to use one ofthose type of jars, you're going
to need to put labels on them.
So that is going to be a cost.
Now what I recommend is goingto Online a cost.
(18:06):
Now what I recommend is doingis going to online labelscom.
They're fantastic.
Avery is also has some greatlabels as well.
Look at the cost of both.
We like online labels becausethey actually have a software
called I think it's calledMaestro is what it is and when
you make a purchase from them,you get access to the software
for a year.
Now, it's not necessarily itmight have some design elements
to it, but we actually use Canvato design ours.
But what it has is somefantastic print settings to
(18:26):
where you can set it, to whereyou're only printing a certain
amount of labels on a sheet.
It's very handy.
We also use it for all of ourwarning stickers.
So all the warning stickersthat we have on the bottom of
our candles.
We have those printed directlyout of that software.
It makes it very easy.
All of our warning labels onthe bottom will have, like, the
(18:46):
name of our candle, so they'reall unique per candle on there,
and so what we'll do is havethem all and it's all saved out
there in that software.
So that's why we recommend them.
It's super handy.
Also, their prices are great soand you can buy different
amounts of labels at a time, soyou do not have to buy a massive
pack.
Obviously, the more you buy,the less expensive it's going to
(19:07):
be, but you can just buy a fewsheets of each different size
that you're thinking about.
A little tip for you is whenyou have your vessel regardless
of which vessel you're going topick is tape you just use a
piece of paper and scissors andcut out um, on just regular
paper, some some different sizesto see what you're thinking
(19:28):
might be the right size.
And just use normal tape,scotch tape and tape it onto
your vessel and see, hey, doesthat look right?
Does it not look right?
Let me try a little smaller.
Before you go and buy a lot ofdifferent sizes of labels.
Or if you're thinking, oh, Ithink this is going to be a two
and a half by three inch labeland I see the online labels or
(19:50):
whomever has those, let me cut asheet of paper and see that way
.
When you receive these labels,you don't realize, oh, that's
going to be too big, right?
So go ahead and print out somelabels.
After you design them andbefore you spend money on labels
, go ahead and measure just tomake sure it's going to look
right on your vessel, becausewe've spent a lot of money on
(20:11):
vessel label sizes that we endedup not using.
They weren't the right thing.
So keep in mind you're going tohave to budget for labels.
So I would just getting started.
For these couple dozen candlesthat we're going to make, I
would budget at least $25 forlabels.
Most likely that started.
For these couple dozen candlesthat we're going to make, I
would budget at least $25 forlabels.
Most likely that's going to beabout $20 for the labels and $5
or so for shipping on there,depending on where you're
(20:31):
getting them from.
Also, look for discounts.
There's always usually adiscount when you first sign up
with a lot of these differentsuppliers and with the labels
for sure.
So keep that in mind as well.
Back to the labels.
That in mind as well.
Back to the labels.
If you decide you don't want touse one of these $1, $1.20
vessels and you decide to spendmore money on a nicer, high-end
(20:52):
vessel, totally fine, it's yourprerogative to do that.
But then you can save money bynot having to put a label on it.
When we have a really nicelooking vessel, we're not
putting anything on it.
We are not taking away from thevessel selling itself.
So if you're going to spend acouple of dollars more on a
vessel, then save money by notputting a label on it.
(21:13):
Of course, you're going to wantto put a warning sticker on the
bottom of any of the productsthat you sell, but you're not
going to need one of theexpensive labels to go on the
front of your candle.
Speaking of warning labels, youare going to need to put
warning labels on the bottom.
Now you're in the testing phase.
This is just you making candlesfor yourself.
You're not, but it needs to goout to the public, so you're not
(21:33):
going to need to put that onthere for now.
But whenever you do get to thepoint of needing to put warning
labels onto your candles, if youprint these yourself you buy
them from online labels orwhomever online print them
yourself they end up being likethree cents, very inexpensive
because you're going to get like30 of these per sheet of labels
.
You print those out.
(21:53):
They're like three cents apiece is what it comes to, so
real, inexpensive to do that.
So this first phase, thistesting phase of all of these
things.
Now there are other tools youcan get.
You can get spatulas to stirwith spoons to stir with other
things.
You can get some wick centeringtools.
But there's a lot of things youcan use around your house that
(22:14):
will get you by when you'refirst starting.
So that's why, when you buythese candle making kits, they
don't come with all that stuff,because there's ways of doing
what you need to do with whatyou have within your house,
right?
Different types of clips.
Chip clip works fantastic forcentering wick, especially when
you're starting.
Even now in our stores, whenwe're making things that have a
(22:36):
large vessel, we will use aminiature chip clip.
It's like six inches long.
You buy a variety pack of themon Amazon.
Again, these are on the supplylist that we have and that works
just fine.
We're totally just fine.
So you do not need to startspending money on all of that
stuff.
I know people will spend a lotof money on a Wix centering tool
, which is to get your Wixperfectly centered in the middle
(22:58):
.
Just eyeball, it go really slowand you're going to get to it
reality.
Those, those things seem niceand they seem like it's going to
work to help you out, but whenyou start to scale it's it's not
a reality.
Anyone that's making largevolumes of candles they're not
spending time loading up thiswick centering tool and then and
(23:19):
then you know punching it inand then going on to the next
one.
Also, those wick centeringtools, cause they cost 55, $75.
Inside of our inner circle wehave office hours every week.
We were actually looking at oneof those last week and we could
, when someone was like, oh, Ihave this extra one for sale.
We had some discussing about itand we were looking at how
expensive they are.
Nowadays they're not going towork for every vessel, so keep
(23:41):
that in mind.
I don't think it's a goodinvestment.
Now, if you have the money tosplurge, you want to have fun
with it, try it.
We did the same thing.
We bought one, we used it for acouple of days and now it just
sits in a drawer.
So it didn't work for all ofour different vessel sizes,
because every opening is gonnabe a little different and it
only fit for a certain amount.
So I wouldn't spend money onthat right, um, just keep that
(24:01):
in mind.
So there's other.
There's a lot of other toolsout there that you can buy, but
just to get started in thistesting phase, we are looking at
a total of about 175 to $250 toget these things.
So that's going to be 10 poundsof wax, uh, a variety of wicks.
That's going to cost you aboutanother uh $10 there.
You're going to need wickstickers.
You're going to need afragrance oil.
(24:21):
Um, pick something that'spopular, that's not going to go
away, but something that's goingto be less than $25 for a pound
.
That's what I would do wheneverI got started and, in fact,
those oils that we used we'restill using in a lot of our
candles today.
One of them, in fact, is one ofour best sellers and it's what
we teach inside of our candlemaking course.
It's that same oil.
We still use it today.
(24:41):
You're going to buy that forless than $25.
We have made six figures off ofselling that candle, so you do
not need to go high in on pricesto get a quality oil.
So just keep that in mind.
The other thing is the vessels.
So your vessels are going tocost you at least 25 bucks.
You're going to want to get acouple dozen of them.
They're going to be around $1,$1.10 a piece on that, depending
(25:04):
on where you're getting thesefrom, and there's going to be
some shipping involved.
You're going to need toprobably spend a little bit more
.
You're going to reach thathigher end towards that $2.50.
That's why I have that range of$1.75 to $2.50, just on getting
some quality products togetherso that you can test.
Okay.
So the next phase of buildingout your candle brand that we're
going to have to spend somemoney on is going to be your
(25:26):
website, your platform, yourlegal essentials.
Those are all the businessthings that need to happen
before you can actually startselling this to the public.
So let's go through a few ofthese.
First of all, you're going todecide what platform do I want
to sell on?
Do I want to be on Shopify?
Do I want to be on Etsy?
What direction do I want to beon Shopify?
(25:47):
Do I want to be on Etsy?
What direction do I want to go?
Where is that customer that isour target audience, where are
they going to be at?
So with Shopify, it's going tocost you about $39 a month.
That's what it is right now Inthe show notes.
We do have a link to Shopify.
We do have an affiliate codethat you can actually get your
first month, I believe, for adollar.
Sometimes they will run it towhere you're going to get three
months for a dollar.
So look into that and then youcan go out and build your
(26:10):
website out, get a feel for itand see if it's going to be a
good fit for you, and then youcan always cancel if need be, if
it's not going to be a fit foryou.
But If you're going to scaleyour brand outside of just
selling to people that you knowor trying to sell through
Facebook or Instagram, you'regoing to need to have a
dedicated website.
When you start pricing outwebsites and you're looking at,
(26:32):
say, shopify versus Square orWix or Squarespace, shopify is
going to be more expensive butit's going to have everything
that you need together.
If you go and build a site outon Wix, you're then going to
have to buy plugins for it tokind of upgrade it.
When you buy a Wix website Iknow this, I have one for my
(26:53):
other, one of my otherbusinesses is it ends up costing
me over that $39 because you'regoing to get a very basic
website and then you're going tohave to add these other things.
If you wanted to do this, yougot to add another $5.
If you want to do this, you'regoing to add another $10.
Also, it's just not made fore-commerce like Shopify is.
Shopify is the gold standardwhen it comes to that.
(27:14):
I don't like some of the feesinvolved with it, but it is
where you have to be.
It's what you got to do.
It's what I recommend anyone dothose that have gone through my
Shopify workshop but weactually help you build out your
site completely inside of ourinner circle.
So if that's something you werethinking about doing or
thinking about joining our innercircle, I would recommend doing
(27:35):
it sooner than later.
If you're going to want to helphave help building out your
website, we have a three partworkshop on building a Shopify
store.
That's helped a lot of people,so I just wanted to drop that in
there.
Now you can go the route ofdoing, say, etsy when you first
start, totally fine If you wantto just get your candles out
there and then you can send yourown traffic to it.
(27:56):
If you have people that are, oh, I don't want to buy a candle
from you, how can I buy thiscandle from you?
Go and throw things out on Etsyif you'd like.
Now, etsy does take atransaction fee, but when you're
up and running a business,you're going to realize that
those fees that Etsy arecharging are minimal compared to
the fees that you are going tohave to spend on your business
(28:19):
in the longterm, right.
So when Etsy is going to takeup to 15% of a fee, well, that's
better than wholesale prices,that's better than consignment
prices.
That's better than when I haveto run a sale on my website of
25, 35% off for Black Friday,things like that.
So Etsy is bringing you traffic.
So Etsy is bringing youcustomers that you're not
(28:42):
spending money to going out andgetting right, because if you're
just selling candles elsewhere,you're marketing.
You're in charge of all thatmarketing to get people to your
Shopify store.
So keep that in mind.
Now, the Etsy fee is 20 centsfor a listing, 20 cents for six
months, right.
So it's very, very minimal.
There is that transaction feeif a sale happens, but I don't
(29:05):
think about that.
You want to think about it, butI don't think about that as a
reason to not be on Etsy Again.
You have to have your pricingdialed in.
Check out episode four for moredetails that I go into about
pricing for different platforms.
Also, I have a YouTube videoout on our channel about Shopify
versus Etsy and the pros andcons there, so that might be
(29:25):
beneficial to you as well, or dowhat we did when we first
started and be on both.
Be on Etsy so that you aregetting traffic looking at your
website and getting sales comingthat way through your Etsy
website and getting those salesfrom their customers, and then
start building out your ownShopify store so that whatever
(29:47):
traffic you have and people thatwant to buy from you directly,
you're personally sending themthere.
So that's what I would do.
So the next expense is going tobe your domain name.
So that's going to run youabout $15 to $20.
So you go out to Squarespace orGoDaddy wherever you're going
to get that.
The prices aren't going to varymuch at all for the exact same
domain.
So for ours I think we'respending like $14 a year for our
(30:09):
domain.
Your domain is just yourwebsite hosting place, like
garcinetbeaconcom orcandlebusinessprocom.
Those are my domains, but youstill have to, of course, build
out a website onto them.
But that's going to reservethat website for you.
Just a quick tip for you youwant to have a com.
(30:33):
You do not want to have a shopnet or any of those other dot
net, um or any of those other umendings on your URL.
You want to have acom If you'rewanting to have a um Garza and
beaconcom, but someone else hasalready taken it and it shows
that, oh, I can getnet, cause,that's available.
(30:55):
You don't want to do that.
You don't because 90% of us, ifwe know a website or what we're
looking for a website if I wantto look up Macy's, or I want to
look up Amazon, or I want tolook up Garza and Beacon, if I
want to look up any website, Iam always going to type in the
name that I assume it is andthen com right, if you don't
(31:16):
have a com, you are going tolose out on significant traffic
to that, so keep that in mind.
You are going to lose out onsignificant traffic to that, so
keep that in mind.
I would easily change the nameof what I want my site to be
versus going with a net or shopor any of those other extensions
.
So you gotta have a com.
Just take it from me.
That's what you want to do.
(31:38):
So the next step is getting yourlegal setup.
So this is registering yourentity.
You're gonna need to registeryour entity with your state and
also with the IRS.
So the next step is gettingyour legal setup.
So this is registering yourentity.
You're going to need toregister your entity with your
state and also with the IRS.
So with the IRS that's free.
So once you register with yourstate, you are going to spend
$25 to $100.
To do that.
You're going to go to theSecretary of State's website for
your state.
They're going to have a feeinvolved with that.
(31:59):
Generally, when we polled ourInner Circle members, they said
it was between $25 and $100,depending on where you're living
at.
I believe for us we'veregistered in Indiana whenever
we were in our testing phase,and then here in Michigan where
we live now, and I don't thinkwe spent more than $50.
It might have been $75, butagain, less than $100.
But I do think there are acouple of states that do go up
(32:21):
to like $125, $150.
Keep that in mind, check thatout Again.
You're just going to go to yourSecretary of State's website to
do that.
They should actually haveeither a business entity section
or a small business sectionAlso.
Inside of that small businesssection there's probably going
(32:43):
to be some really good tips andtricks for getting a small
business up and running.
A lot of the Secretary ofStates will even have a section
of grants that they know aboutthat they're publishing for you
to take a look at.
So once you are registered withyour state, you're going to want
to register with the IRS.
You're also going to want tomake sure that in your state you
are getting a reseller licenseor a license to remit sales tax.
(33:04):
So it's going to be called alittle bit different depending
on what state you're in.
So there's usually going to betwo steps.
You're going to register yourbusiness, but then you're also
going to get a permit or alicense from the state to
collect and remit sales tax, sothat you are able to collect
sales tax whenever you'reselling your candles.
(33:24):
And then the remit part is thatyou have to turn around and
give that money to the IRS.
Seems complicated.
They'll walk you through it.
It's really easy.
Sometimes those are going to befree.
There might be a little bit ofa charge for that, but they're
only going to give that to youonce you have registered your
business.
So it's kind of two steps there.
So that's going to cost youabout a hundred dollars to get
all of this done, possiblydepending on the state that
(33:45):
you're in.
The next thing that you're goingto need is business insurance.
So business insurance is whatis going to protect your
business when you start sellingthese to the public.
Now, if you're in your testingphase, you're just making
candles at home, you do not needbusiness insurance.
I know business insurance isvery controversial in the candle
space.
If you're just testing candles,you do not need insurance.
(34:08):
So what's going to happen is,if I'm doing something in my
house and I start a fire, I'mnot selling it.
I'm not doing this as abusiness.
I'm not registered yet.
I am just.
This is a hobby for me.
I'm making some candles aroundhere, I burn my house down for
whatever reason.
My homeowner's insurance, myrenter's insurance that is what
is where the liability is goingto go.
(34:28):
Now, of course, you got to makesure that you're covered to be
doing things like that inside ofyour house.
But these are just hobbies.
We're not a business yet.
Once you become a business andyou're doing your candle making
as a business, you're going towant to get business insurance.
Now it's going to cost you 50bucks a month.
When we first started, I thinkwe found it for like 35.
I don't know if it's still thatinexpensive.
(34:49):
I know now I see people talkingabout it.
It's costing them 40, 50 bucks,so I would just plan for $50 on
that.
Do you need insurance legally?
No, you don't legally needinsurance to make and sell
candles, but I highly, highly,highly recommend it.
(35:14):
So it's just going to removethat liability from you so that
someone isn't suing you or yourbusiness and taking everything
from you if there's an issue.
Now, the chances of there beingan issue, of course, is going
to be very slim.
It's even slimmer for thosethat use extra precautions in
their making phase.
But I don't mess with it, Idon't think about it, I just pay
it every month and I highlyrecommend that you would do the
(35:36):
same there.
So just get that out of the way.
I would definitely recommendhaving business insurance when
you decide to make this into abusiness and start selling this
to people, and make sure thatyour insurance is going to cover
the manufacturing and theselling of the product as well.
Let's recap this so for yourbusiness to get off the ground,
we're going to need to eitherhave Shopify or Etsy.
(35:57):
I recommend Shopify, so I'mgoing to build that in.
That's $39 a month after you gothrough that free period that
you can get by clicking the linkin the show notes below the
domain name.
That's going to be up to $20there.
So now we're looking at $60.
Your legal setup that's goingto be up to another $100 for
that maybe a little bit higherfor a couple of states there.
(36:18):
And then we're going to belooking at your business
insurance.
So we're coming in right at$200 to set up your business,
just to make sure that you're onthe up and up and you're also
ready to go, because you'regoing to need that Shopify
website to start makingtransactions with right.
So that's why I want to includethat as an expense for you to
take a look at.
So that is phase two of settingthis up.
(36:40):
So now let's move on to phasethree.
Okay, here we are going to nowbuild out our inventory for
whenever we're going to launch.
So this is when we've decidedokay, through my testing phase.
Yes, this is the sense I wantto go with.
Yes, this is the wax I'm goingto go with.
This is the vessel I'm going togo with.
You have set up your businesseither on Shopify or on Etsy.
(37:02):
With.
You have set up your businesseither on Shopify or on Etsy,
you've got your domain name,you've got your insurance, you
have registered your entity oryour LLC, and now you want to
turn this into a business whereyou are ready to start making
candles that you're going to beselling to someone.
There's going to be atransaction involved.
So now, how many candles do youreally need to start with?
(37:24):
We get asked this all the timehow many cents do I need to have
?
When we first started we had 10different cents.
I would highly, highlyrecommend you do not need to
start with 10 different cents.
I would would do six scents atthe most, six at the most.
You can even just do four orfive, but six is going to give
(37:48):
you a nice variety.
We always say I think ourbreakdown that we recommend
inside of the inner circle istwo citrus, a spa-like, a
masculine, a floral that ispopular.
Let me preface that.
Don't go with a lilac.
We started with a lilac type ofcandle.
It did horrible for us.
Go with that lavender,something that people are going
(38:10):
to enjoy, that people like, andthen that sixth candle is one of
those.
That is something that'sfamiliar to a lot of people.
That will bring you in sales.
It might not be your number one, but it's going to bring you
sales, for that will bring youin sales.
It might not be your number onebut it's going to bring you
sales For us.
It's our peace of mind candlethat's going to be that
eucalyptus verbanum mint scent.
That's a scent that everyoneknows that scent.
Most people like that scent andit's a go-to for a lot of
(38:32):
people.
They're just going to grab thatwhen they're not sure what
candle to buy.
They know that type of blend.
So that's what I'd recommendsix cents You're going to need
to have.
What I would recommend it wouldbe six of each of those.
So we got to make 36 candles tostart our business with.
I would recommend six becauseit makes it easy when we're
(38:53):
pouring our batches of candles.
Six is what fit in our largepouring pitcher.
We do six candles at a time.
That's how we make our candles.
So that's what I recommend justfor keeping it simple, is doing
that you have to only make onebatch of each of your candle
scents and you're ready to go.
You're going to be making 36candles.
Now, pricing this out, the costof goods on 36 candles is going
(39:20):
to be $150 to $200.
Now it's going to go up alittle bit and I'll talk about
that in just a moment.
But plan on your cost of goodsbeing about $150 to $200.
If you're not sure how tocalculate cost of goods, we love
using Inventora.
I have a link to that in theshow notes below as well.
(39:40):
They have a free version andthen it goes into paid versions
as you add in more products.
The way it works there's otheralternatives out there as well
but the way it works is you willput all of the products that
are needed into their softwareand it calculates how much you
are going to need to spend orhow much it's going to cost to
(40:02):
put that together.
So I'm going to put my wax, mywick, my oil, my vessels, my
labels, my warning stickers, mylids, everything into the
software and how much each ofthose costs, including shipping,
to get those supplies.
You're going to put all of thatin there and then you're going
to build out basically a recipe.
You're going to say, hey, I'mgoing to make this piece of mine
candle.
And then you're going to buildout basically a recipe.
(40:23):
You're going to say, hey, I'mgoing to make this piece of mine
candle.
Okay, what's going to?
It's going to take this much ofthat oil, this much of that oil
, this, this vessel, this wick,this wax and it's going to
calculate it all for you.
That's your cost of goods.
You do not need to go and spendmoney doing that.
You can actually just use aspreadsheet.
You can do this using a Googledoc or an Excel spreadsheet and
calculate it all out that way.
(40:43):
So you do not need to spendmoney on that.
But I did want to show you orexplain to you what we use, and
we use it from day one.
We've had to upgrade our planover and over again.
Just because of the more thingsyou put into it, the cost goes
up.
So just keep that in mind aswell.
(41:04):
But we've been using itliterally since day one.
So there's other options outthere and I'll have the link to
what we use at inventory belowif you need to Packaging and
shipping.
So don't overbuy this.
When you first start out, get avariety of boxes that you're
going to need.
For us it is the six by six bysix box is what we will send a
(41:24):
single candle in.
That is kind of our standardthat we use.
If you're going to have candlesand other products as well,
you're going to want to haveregardless, you're going to want
to have a variety of sizes.
So we have six by six by six,we have eight by eight by six.
That is a little bit larger.
(41:45):
That is going to hold.
If you're going to have like anine ounce jar, that's going to
hold a couple of those in itjust fine.
In fact you can actually uselike a 10 ounce candle in there
as well and you go corner tocorner and those work great.
So if you're buying two candles, then the eight by eight by six
works great.
And then we have a 10 by 10 bysix.
So we do have some larger ones12 by 12 by eights and things
(42:06):
like that.
But when you're first startingout, getting up to that 10 by 10
by six is going to be just fine.
That's going to a 10 by 10 bysix.
For us will hold five candles.
So we're not really going toget many more orders larger than
five candles when we're firststarting out.
So not really going to get manymore orders larger than five
candles when we're firststarting out.
So I don't want you to go andspend a lot of money on a
massive variety of boxes.
(42:27):
So keep that in mind.
But you are going to have tofactor that in.
You're going to need to havethe tape that is going to seal
your boxes with.
The boxes themselves are goingto cost some money.
You're going to need somebubble wrap to go around those.
A little tip for you when itcomes to bubble wrap.
Bubble wrap to go around those.
Um little tip for you when itcomes to bubble wrap.
(42:49):
Look at Staples' website.
Staples is where we get ourbubble wrap from.
They will do often buy two, getone free on their bubble wrap,
and so we buy these really bigrolls that they're perforated
every 12 inches so we can justtear it off, right, so we're not
having to cut anything.
It's very, very easy.
Uh, staples will have a sale onthose all the time, so don't
buy them whenever they're fullprice.
They're like $30 for a roll.
So whenever it's buy two, getone free, you're saving 30 bucks
(43:10):
and then you're going to haveplenty.
Each of those rolls, I think,has a hundred of the sheets
there.
It might actually be more thanthat, it might be 300.
Just take a look at it and see.
But they always run buy two,get one free, like every other
week.
So it seems like it.
At least that's the only timewe'll ever buy it because of
that.
Keep that in mind.
They also sell just regularboxes.
You can buy boxes in bulkonline from places like Uline
(43:32):
and other places, but you'repaying a lot for shipping of
those as well.
So you're going to have tospend a little bit more if you
want to go local and buy themfrom Staples and places like
that, but if you only need a fewof them when you're first
starting, that might be the wayto go, versus buying from Uline
or somewhere online that youhave to buy in bulk for it to
make it worthwhile.
(43:53):
So, putting all this togethersix of six different scents,
that's 36 candles.
That's what we're going tostart with.
Right?
That's going to be enough forwax, wicks, fragrance oils, jars
, labels All of that stufftogether is going to cost.
Your cost of goods is going tobe about $150.
But because you're having tobuy all of those different
(44:15):
fragrances, right, you're notonly buying enough just for six
candles.
So your cost of goods on thatmight only be 150 to $200, but
what you're going to have tospend to get that is going to be
more than that, cause you'regonna have some leftover
supplies, right?
Also, when it comes to your wax, you're going to buy.
Now, when you do this, you'regoing to buy a large box of wax.
(44:36):
If you're going to use like thefour, six, four that we use,
you're going to buy that as a 45pound box.
Now right, but it doesn't take45 pounds to make these 36
candles.
In fact, for these 36 candles,if you're going to start with a
seven ounce candle, you're usingless than half of that, but you
want to buy it at that size forsaving, right, so that your
(44:58):
cost of goods is down as low aspossible.
So, even though it's your costof goods to make these 36
candles is going to be 150 to$200, you're going to be
spending between three, 50 and$500 to get all of that stuff.
So keep that in mind.
I don't want you to think thatit's only going to be those cost
of goods.
You're going to have to buy allof the stuff and you're not
(45:20):
going to necessarily use all ofit up front.
Now, since even you might betempted to go ahead and just
make more instead of six, let mejust go to make 12.
Here's the thing you may findthat two or three of your
candles are going to sell likecrazy and a couple of them
aren't going to sell very well.
(45:40):
So instead of having 12 of thiscandle just sitting there at no
one's buying and then now youhave to go out and buy more wax
and more vessels and more labelsand everything else to
replenish what you sold through,if you make only six of
everything, then as you start tosell through those you'll know
(46:01):
what is becoming hot sellers foryou and then you can buy more
for just that right.
Because what we had done is wehad built out a ton of inventory
.
I think we made like 30 ofeverything.
When we first started.
We went way in too deep andthen no one wanted this heavy
lilac.
It was called Spring Blossom Isthat the name of the candle?
(46:22):
It's probably very valuable outthere because it's very limited
edition.
If you ever find one at yourlocal thrift store that someone
has decided to give away becausethey didn't want it or like it,
it came from us Let me know ifyou find one of those.
So that candle, nobody wantedit and we were just sitting on
all of that inventory of itforever.
(46:43):
I would have much rather haveused that vessel and that wax,
the oil I can't do anything withit because I already have it,
but all of the rest of that.
I would have saved a lot ofmoney if I wouldn't have made so
many of that candle.
So just something to keep inmind there.
All right, so let's talk aboutwhat other business expense that
you might want to invest inCanva Pro.
(47:04):
So we use Canva for designingour labels that we do internally
.
Now we have a graphic designerthat we have used to create a
lot of our labels.
We also like to hire localartists to do things like our
location based type of candles.
We'll hire someone to do that,but we will make some of our
labels ourselves.
We do that just in Canva.
(47:25):
Regular Canva will get youpretty far, but we upgrade to
Canva pro.
I think on the annual plan Ithink it comes to like $100 or
so.
So it's like $10 a month.
So really affordable for allthe things that it does.
We are inside of Canva likeevery single day.
We are making our labels inCanva, we are making our flyers
(47:47):
in Canva, we are making oursocial media stuff in Canva, so
that is an easy investment forus.
To upgrade for 10 or maybe 12bucks a month for that, the
inventory software for your costof goods.
I discussed that already.
That might be an additionalexpense for you.
Bookkeeping tools All right, sowe use QuickBooks.
I hate QuickBooks.
Okay, that's because I am notan accountant.
(48:08):
I'm not a bookkeeper.
If you are a bookkeeper or youare an accountant, that's like
the gold standard.
They use it, they love it.
It's easy for them becausethat's how their mind works.
For me, my mind doesn't workthat way.
There's a lot of things thatthe terms seem to be like for
two different things, and thenI'm writing checks for things
that I shouldn't have.
It's a mess.
There are other opportunitiesout there.
(48:34):
Wave is a new one that ispretty affordable.
Quickbooks is expensive too.
I think so for us, because wehave payroll and things.
That's a little different.
We're spending almost $200 amonth, but that's because we
have people on payroll thatwe're paying through there and
that cost per employee.
But just for QuickBooks BasicsOnline it's 45, 50 bucks a month
.
So keep that in mind.
I think there are lessexpensive options out there.
Or, if you're just starting out,just use a spreadsheet.
(48:57):
You can get pretty far withjust a spreadsheet, so just have
a spreadsheet open.
You can create a column thatsays date, a column that says
expenses and then a column thatsays income, and you can do your
accounting that way.
That is just fine to get you by.
Just make sure that you'resaving all of your receipts and
you're tracking all of yourexpenses for where your money
going in, money going out.
I always recommend, once youhave your entity set up and you
(49:20):
have your EIN, go ahead and geta business credit card so that
you know every expense you'retracking on.
You have a credit card now thatyou know every single line item
and so you don't forget stuff,because this is the thing.
You're going to run to Staplesand get this, and then you're
going to run to the post officeand spend money on that.
You're going to start makingall of these different
transactions and you're going tostart forgetting what you're
(49:41):
spending money on, and thenyou're not going to have that
deduction at the end of the year.
So, getting a business creditcard or one of the other things
that you're definitely going toneed to do we can talk about
this in another video or inanother episode and that's going
to be to just open up abusiness checking account
Because you're going to want tokeep your personal money and the
money for your business that'scoming in when you're making
(50:03):
sales, you're going to want tokeep that separate, and so just
going and opening up a businesschecking account is going to
help with that.
So any of the money that comesin, whether you're making sales
out of markets, whether you'remaking sales on Etsy, on Shopify
, however you're making anysales, you're going to want to
put all of that money into abusiness checking account for
tracking reasons.
(50:23):
So that's what you're going toneed to do is get some kind of
accounting set up, but again,you can just do it for free
instead of spending money onQuickBooks or Wave or any of
those other things.
And then let's see here whatelse do we need?
Oh, when it comes to yourbranding.
So your branding, yourphotography, your marketing if
you're going to need to hirethat out, I would recommend
finding someone online on awebsite like 99designs.
So we've actually used99designs for a couple of
(50:46):
different logos that we've done.
Chad has a personal projectthat he was working on and so he
went out there and basically,you spend $99 and you're and you
give an idea out to the world,to the website, and you're gonna
have all these differentgraphic designers trying to like
win your bid of $99.
And so they're all going to besubmitting you different logos.
(51:07):
And then you can go back andyou can say, hey, can you make
some adjustments to this andthat?
And then you can go back andyou can say, hey, can you make
some adjustments to this andthat?
And then you end up picking oneof them and they get the $99
and you have a logo.
But they're really really goodat what they do.
Upwork is another one that youcan hire freelancers.
I've used Fiverr in the past.
Actually, I hired someone to dosome social media assets for us
(51:27):
at the very, very beginning andthey were good.
But I've also had some.
It's hit and miss right.
So make sure you're reading thefine print, make sure that
you're actually seeing someexamples of the work people have
done.
I had our Garcin Beacon logothat has like the lighthouse and
the word mark on it.
We had hired someone originallyon Fiverr and the design that
(51:48):
they had come back with isactually worse than like the
design that I submitted to them,that I had created, like they
had like the free version ofCanva, like years ago when there
wasn't a lot of excitement toit.
Um, and that's like what theytraded on.
They weren't an actual graphicdesigner, I think, and um, so I
was disappointed in that, um,but you know you also you get
(52:11):
what you pay for too.
So that was probably $15, $20,$30 there, right?
So I would recommend 99designs,upwork.
These type of freelance websitesare really good, so check those
out.
You're going to be able to getpretty far with creating just
your own labels those that havegone through our candle making
course they actually get.
We give them six labeltemplates that we created that
(52:32):
they can just adjust with theirown logos and names and colors
to use.
But you can make your ownlabels inside of Canva, so you
do not need to hire someone forthat.
I would hire someone for yourlogo to make sure that that
looks really good, but then youcan go and build out all of your
branding inside of Canva.
You can select your brandcolors.
You can go really far withbranding nowadays inside there,
(52:55):
so that's really helpful andsaves a lot of money.
The other thing that peoplespend a lot of money on is
photography.
Now, the best thing to do toshoot photos today, right here,
use your phone.
Use your phone.
Doesn't matter if it's iPhone,doesn't matter if it's Android
any phone out there in themarket now that camera on the
(53:15):
back of it is fantastic.
So what you need to do and thereason why we don't like the
photos that come from these iswe don't have the settings right
.
So go out to YouTube.
Or if you're watching this onYouTube, then just go up to the
search bar.
After you are done here, type inproduct photography for iPhone
(53:38):
or product photography forAndroid.
Whatever operating system andphone you're using, make sure
that you type in productphotography.
If you just type in photography, it's going to give you
landscape wedding.
It's going to give you takingpictures of people and scenery
right.
(53:58):
Make sure you search forproduct photography and then
type in whatever phone that youhave.
It will give you some fantastictips, tricks.
That's what I'd recommend.
I also would recommend possiblygetting a light box to take
product photography in.
That's what we do now.
If you go to our website, you'regoing to see all of our candles
.
Our photography is very clean.
(54:18):
It's very consistent, it's onbrand.
For us, they're not lifestyleimages.
They're not a candle in aliving room or a candle on a
mantle or a candle in an office.
They are just of the candle andwe get those done.
We take those inside of a lightbox, but it's very, very
consistent on how we do ourphotography.
(54:40):
We're actually doing a workshop.
Depending on whenever you'rewatching this or listening to
this, we have a workshop insideof the Inner Circle on
photography that we go throughhow we do it and I'm going to
give some more tips there onwhat we do, but you can do so
much of it with just your phone.
Now, if you want a professionalto do it for you, instead of
(55:03):
spending hundreds or thousandsof dollars for a photographer,
find someone that will barterwith you.
There are a lot of Facebookgroups.
In fact, this is what we didwhen we first started.
We went to these free Facebookgroups on Facebook and there's a
(55:23):
free photography I'm trying tothink of the name of it.
It's like free photography forproduct, and what they do is you
give them the product andthey're going to give you
photography of it in exchange.
So that is one way of barteringyour candle product for their
services.
They usually will have a it'slike the value per picture right
(55:46):
, and so it'll be like $35 or$50, depending on the
photographer and then you haveto give them that much in
product.
So find one that aligns withthe cost of your candle.
If this is a $26 candle andthat is what their their
photography fee is roughlyaround that means they'll do it
for an even exchange.
So you're going to just send itto them if you don't have
(56:07):
someone local.
So keep that in mind.
But you can also reach out tolocal photographers and see if
they'll barter with you as well.
All right, so now we need to addall this up and you might be
surprised.
This seems like we have to do alot of things to get this brand
off the ground, right.
So in the testing phase we wereat that $175 to $250 range.
Again, this is testing.
(56:28):
One oil, one wax, one vessel,right, so we are not overdoing
it and getting a ton ofdifferent things when we first
start, and that's where many ofus start to spend and waste a
lot of money.
If you have the money to spendit, fantastic, go out and buy
all kinds of different waxes ifyou want to go through all that.
(56:49):
But what I recommend if you wantto go from today to selling
candles in a month, you need tobe focused and have the blinders
on.
Don't listen to all the noise.
Do not chase the seasonalscents that the suppliers come
out with, because the nextseason you're going to have to
go and get new oils.
Start with something that isvery evergreen, meaning you can
(57:09):
sell it at any time of the year.
Start with one oil.
Make sure you enjoy this wholeprocess.
If you don't even enjoy it,then you're going to spend this
$250 and then you're going to bedone Making sure that you enjoy
candle making, that youunderstand the testing phase and
go through all of that.
Again, I highly recommend thatyou come and hang out with us
inside of our Candle BusinessPro.
We actually have our candlemaking course that you can
(57:38):
always uh take as well, um,where we we stick with one wax,
one wick, uh, one oil, and getyou through that.
Then, in our course, weactually then give you, like,
all the recipes that we use, abig variety of what we use in
our shops, um, but so that's,you know, 250 on the high end of
getting all of this stufftogether and getting you through
that testing phase.
That's going to be at least twodozen candles that you're going
to be able to do there.
Then, when we're going to lookat your website or the platforms
that you're going to want tosell, on getting your business
(58:00):
set up with your secretary ofstate or the IRS.
We're going to be spendingabout another $200 to do all of
that.
And then it's going to be yourlaunch and this is where we're
going to spend the most money.
We're going to be spending, youknow, $150 or $200 for your
cost of goods, but remember,it's going to cost more money
because you're going to haveleftover supply but you've got
to buy in those sizes so thatyou can get the cost of each
(58:21):
good down as low as possible,and that's going to cost you
between, you know, $300 and $500.
So, on the high end, that $500plus that $200 and that 250.
So we're right at a thousanddollars there.
There's going to be some ofthose other expenses.
You're going to probably wantto get Canva Pro.
You're going to want toprobably get that software there
, and then there's going to beother little things.
(58:43):
You're going to want toprobably spend a little bit of
money to get a logo made.
You know a hundred dollarsthere.
So for us, when we started ourcandle business, the money that
we put into our candle businessbefore we made a dollar, out was
just over $1,200.
So this math actually comes outto being right at that as well.
(59:04):
We went very slim, very narrow,very lean with building out our
brand, so it's absolutelypossible.
Then, when you start to getmoney coming in, you get a
little bit of money you're notpaying yourself.
Paying yourself is going to bedown the road.
What happens when you get moremoney in?
You're going to put that rightback into your business.
(59:25):
So the first thing that I woulddo would stock up on what's
working and stop focusing onwhat's not working.
But don't go and buy more oils.
You don't need more oils.
You're going to buy more toreplace that.
But remember, every time youbuy a new oil, you got to go
back to that testing phase.
You got to go through all thattesting again on that oil,
because every oil is going toburn differently.
(59:46):
So you have to go and startspending money on testing that.
Stick with what you've got.
But now buy your things in alarger bulk.
Buy more vessels at a time.
Buy more wax at a time.
Buy more oils at a time.
Buy bigger bags of your wicksthat you are no works for those
vessels and stock up on thatstuff and then just keep going
(01:00:07):
and doing this over and over andover again.
You do not need to fall intowhatever the next seasonal item
is.
When we go and sell at marketsfor fall and for winter, we
always have our year roundscents and they always do really
well at those markets.
So sure, we're going to sellfall candles, we're going to
(01:00:28):
sell some Christmas candles andsome winter candles out of
markets, you know, just like wedo on our website and also in
our stores.
But our staple candles we callthem our classics, like they
don't go away.
They still bring us the mostrevenue year after year after
year.
So just keep that in mind.
Don't worry about chasing afterwhatever season you're in.
Get a foundation together ofsome really, really good candles
(01:00:52):
and use that as the launch padfor your candle business.
I hope this has been helpful foryou.
Breaking down some of the mass,some of the numbers.
How much have you spent on yourcandle business?
So, in the comments or the shownotes below, let me know.
Also, if you want to come,follow us over on Instagram at
candle business pro.
Send us a direct message.
(01:01:12):
I want to know, I want to hearwhat some people have spent and
put it in the comments underthis episode.
I would love to hear from you.
Thank you so much for tuning in.
Have a fantastic day.
We'll talk soon.
Popular Podcasts
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.