AFTER STARTING IN owner’s KITCHEN, DESIGNER CANDLE COMPANY BURNS bRIGHT AS EXPANDING SALES AND STAFF FORCE FIRM TO MOVE INTO LARGER QUARTERS
What you don’t know can hurt you, but sometimes it also can be a tremendous help.
Just ask Mia Chang.
Early last year, the 28-year-old Chino resident was an unemployment statistic, humiliated after being laid off from a series of waitress jobs. Now, after a short roller-coaster ride as an entrepreneur, Chang expects her Heart of Wax candle company to gross $500,000 in sales this year.
All this from a business that started with the sale of homemade candles on a blanket at the Venice Beach boardwalk in March 1999. For the first several months, the candles were made in Chang’s own kitchen.
“I bought a pallet of wax. It was this huge square of wax. It was like 2,000 pounds, and it got delivered to our garage,” said Chang, who founded the business with her boyfriend Damien Melle. “The way we were doing it was just crazy, but somehow we knew it was going to pay off.”
The company has close to 20 employees working out of 6,000 square feet of warehouse space in Ontario.
Among the retail chains selling its signature “chunky” and heart-shaped candles are Urban Outfitters, Coach House Gifts and SkinMarket.
Chang is shooting for $1 million in sales next year. Attribute some of it to beginner’s luck, but those who have worked with the company also point to her deft, designer touch.
“They have a product that was very timely. Candles are very in, and the chunky candles they do were very in,” said Cina Hodges, owner of Showroom 504 at the L.A. Mart, the downtown wholesale mart where the company got its big break last summer. “Not only was their timing right, but what they had to offer was very cute and wonderful.”
Heart of Wax’s products are not your mother’s variety, and certainly not your grandmother’s variety, of candles.
They feature strong scents, ranging from butterscotch to bubble gum to mango, and a rough, handcrafted look. Some designs also brim over the top with wax cutouts in various shapes, colors and words.
Business inspiration
Chang said she was inspired to start making candles early last year after walking into a candle and gift shop in Culver City. The owner told Chang she sold some of her candles at Nordstrom.
“I remember walking out of that shop thinking, ‘If this lady can do that, I can do it one million times better,'” Chang said.
She began browsing the Internet, learning how to make candles, and finally ordered about $100 worth of wax and candle-making supplies. When her order arrived, she melted the wax on her stove and had at it. It took her all day to make three candles, but she was hooked.
“My boyfriend came home from work, and I was like, ‘OK, I want to start a candle company,'” she said.
A few weeks later, Chang took about 100 candles down to Venice Beach and sold all of them, making $600 for her efforts. She went back again the following weekend and within about a month was hooked up with Showroom 504.
That was right before the big July show at the L.A. Mart, where retailers order for the Christmas season. Heart of Wax scored $30,000 worth of orders and Chang was still working out of her house.
“I rushed home, and I was like, ‘Oh my God! What am I going to do?’ I was still making them in a pot. I didn’t even have a wax melter,” Chang recalled.
What she did was borrow money from her retired father, and recruited him, her boyfriend and whoever else she could find to help her make candles for 15 hours a day, three months straight.
She even put an ad in the paper and brought in hired help. That was until the city of Chino got wind of it and warned her that she could not run the business out of her home. She was forced to quickly find one of the two Ontario warehouses the company still rents.
Boyfriend joins firm
Melle, a computer technician, quit his budding consulting career, and started working with Chang full time, minding the books and helping set up the business. Soon, the company had a mini assembly line at the warehouse, with about 20 employees.
“In a million years I would never have thought of doing a candle business,” said Melle. “But what we are really doing is taking a piece of art and replicating it in the warehouse.”
That sentiment is shared by Andrea Bianchi, a buyer for SkinMarket, a Carpenteria-based chain that has an outlet at the Beverly Center and carries Heart of Wax products.
“Their candles are really unique. I really haven’t seen anything like them on the market,” Bianchi said. “We have a bubble gum and a raspberry collection. We target 18 to 25 year olds. We sell a lot of their candles. It’s kind of a fun candle.”
The company employs temporary workers, largely middle-aged Latino women, to make and ship its candles in a seven-step process. When a big order comes in, the company hires more workers and even works double shifts.
It has been far from a smooth ride for Heart of Wax, however. After filling that first $30,000 order, business quieted down abruptly at the end of last year, forcing the company to lay off nearly all of its workers.
But then, through a contact, the company hooked up with a national sales manager, who managed to get it represented at merchandise marts across the country. In October, the company posted record monthly sales of $159,000.
