How a DIYer Created a Global Candle Brand

0:00You're in luck. This episode was shot on video, which means you can watch it on YouTube. That's right. We are bringing you brand new video episodes on Shopify Masters YouTube channel every Tuesday. Check it out and enjoy. A lot of our product expansions came from an account saying, can you make this for us? And I said, sure.

0:25Hey, I'm Benjamin Gottlieb. Welcome to Shopify Masters. This program is for entrepreneurs just like you who want to start or build a business. And today I want to focus on the former, getting started. The spirit of PF is it's all about DIY, whether that's teaching myself to run a business or actually coming to creating the products. My guest, Kristen Pumphrey, got her start making handmade candles in her apartment. It's so dangerous in a way because you actually have more power than you think. West Elm, they wanted our candles, right? Now her brand, PF Candle, sits on the shelves of some of the biggest retailers around.

1:00Kristen, welcome to Shopify Masters. Thank you so much for having me. You're so welcome. We're so happy to have you. Take us back to the beginning. How did you get started making candles? Well, I learned to make candles when I was 12. Like I was a latchkey kid and I grew up going to craft classes after school and I loved it. It had so much freedom for me. And I stole my sister's candle making kit that she'd used for home ec. And when I was in college, I would just make candles for fun, right? For people's family, stuff like that. This is when Etsy was really starting to take off. It had just been founded like 2006-ish.

1:33And I wanted to make and sell things. So it naturally felt, oh, I'll make and sell candles. But I made and sold a lot of other stuff to begin with as well. It was not just candles. It was like hollow book saves and pins, buttons, essentially pillows that were shaped like states. Like I sold so many things. So it may seem in retrospect, like PF was this straight line of success, but I totally had that period of feeling stuck for honestly five years before we had our big break. So you were a maker at heart. You crafted a lot of things. It wasn't just candles. Yeah. I just, I love to make things.

2:08And my entire goal with PF was to make a living selling things by, they made by hand. So let's now go back to the beginning, the origins of PF Candle, when you started to make products that would become what's sitting on our table right here. How did you learn how to specifically make something like that? To make a product like that now, that goes through so many hours of testing and perfection. But in the beginning, making some - It didn't start there. No, no, it didn't start there. And we still will tweak the formula. For me, I'm like, you know, the target's always moving. You may get a new type of cotton that can go into the wick.

2:40But I really just thought about what I could make. And you're sort of a scientist in the sense that you're always trying to make it better. With crafting, there might always be a way that you can glue something or using different size wicks. but a lot of the candles I first made, people were not burning because they were shaped molded candles, which are so popular today. I have to bring that back, but they were shaped like owls. I use these vintage molds I found on eBay and people say, I love these candles. I'm never going to burn it. It's perfect. I'm like, no, please burn it. Like I'm a small business.

3:11I need you to come back again. So that was where I got the idea to do the container candles. These container candles, I mean, this looks like something that you would find at a craft fair, at a farmer's market. And that's where you really got started was kind of selling them there. How did you maintain this look while you've continued to keep growing as a business? We just have never changed that original packaging. I used to hand stamp those labels. So it has evolved a little bit. I would use a stamp and I would stamp it. And this is truly the spirit of PF is it's all about DIY, whether that's teaching myself to run a business or actually coming to creating the products.

3:46But I didn't know how to design. I didn't know how to use Illustrator or Photoshop. I had to teach myself. So that first label was a hand stamp until I was like, I can't, I can't do this. And my shipping guy who was also a designer, he took pity upon me and he turned it into a font that we now use. And we have the signature PF font that was based on my original stamp. It's not just the signature font. You also have signature smells. And one of them that I really like that Los Angeles candle is I think so hilarious because, I mean, how do you describe what LA smells like? It's so complex. How do you encapsulate the smell of a place that is so wacky, zany, diverse as Los Angeles?

4:30You're not just capturing what it actually smells like. You're capturing the feeling of it. We're working on a scent right now inspired by a redwood grove. Redwoods actually don't have a scent. So I'm right in that place still. But we actually pulled our team. We said, what does Los Angeles smell like. And we really kind of pulled out the best things because there was also, you know, smog, asphalt, not so good stuff in there. We pulled out the best notes and wanted to capture something that felt bright and vibrant and alive. To me, there's this big lime aspect and jasmine, kind of like those night blooming florals to Los Angeles that, oh, it's so special to me.

5:06I totally agree. So again, let's say we are starting a candle business from scratch today. What would you say are the first things that someone should do? Okay. Well, don't try to be PF Candle. You have to do your own thing because PF already exists. All the candle brands that you admire already exist, right? And you have to figure out what is my kind of niche in the market and what's not being fulfilled, right? For us, that was born out of wanting to create a unisex candle. So Tom, who's, he's now my husband and business partner, he was my grumpy craft fair boyfriend when we first started out, right?

5:44Like he helped me load into shows. He worked the booth and he'd be at all these craft fairs and he'd say, you know, there's not like a lot of stuff for guys here. You know, there's not a lot of stuff for me to shop. So I kind of got this idea when I was developing the look of the container candle to create something that was unisex. And that actually created our niche in the market. A lot of our scents are unisex, the look of it itself. and because of that, we were able to have this large male customer base. When we started, I think it was probably 5%, 10 % and now we're up to 30%. So again, you took advantage of an opportunity you saw there.

6:18Yeah, it was pretty intuitive where I was like, oh, I'm going to kind of listen to this guy who's helping me load in and saw this little niche in the market. And now a lot of candles are much more unisex geared and like it's a very accepted. It's not just like candles for women only. It's really accepted now mainstream. But when we first started this line in 2012, it was not that way. So just to recap, you would make sure you're very clear about who this candle is for, right? You would also not be PF Candle. You would be your own brand. But any other advice? I mean, just to get started, you start just making this in your house.

6:52I mean, how would you go about it? We've scaled our business from a kitchen stovetop to we now have a factory where we make all our products. So we're completely vertically integrated. That means that we can be really, really obsessive about the details and the quality, but it also means that you know the ins and outs of the product like no one else. So if you're selling a craft good in particular, you get to be the person that knows everything about the process. And if you start hiring people, you can teach them and then really deepen your skills there. So I can't recommend highly enough, no matter how small you are, creating those SOPs for how you create your product.

7:27Like if you were to pass that off to somebody and they could take it and then create candles or create whatever the product is, they could essentially run it. That's going to make you so strong. As I mentioned earlier, another one of the big keys to your early days of success was going to these craft fairs, going to these farmers markets. Do you still recommend that for someone who would be trying to start a candle business today? That's so hard to say because I think that the economy has changed so much. And I know that those shows in particular have gotten extremely expensive for small entrepreneurs.

7:58I mean, when I started out, I wasn't even doing a full booth. I was sharing half a booth with a friend and it was like 250 bucks, you know, so that felt like something I could take on. But I also had craft fairs that cost a hundred dollars and I made no money. We're just sitting there all day, like ho hum. But the amazing thing about craft fairs is you're put in front of thousands of people who are your audience. When do you ever get that chance? It's amazing. So I think that there's still hope for them. You just got to be sort of really particular about the costs and making sure they get covered.

8:31Not just putting yourself in front of all those customers, but they're high intent customers, right? I mean, they're coming to a craft fair to buy something, presumably. That's so true. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Your first big break really came in retail from West Elm, if I'm not mistaken, right? You had to hand pour 4 ,000 candles at your apartment in a month. I mean, that is nuts. Yeah, I think we're making 100 candles a day at that point. So it was, the math didn't add up. I mean, what did you learn from that experience? Oh man, so that was right when Tom came on board the business too. We got married, went on our honeymoon, came back, and we secured that PO from West Elm.

9:08So what I learned from that business was really about how to work with my spouse. And that allowed me to, I think, grow to where we are today. We were in the super, super high stress zone, and that was not healthy for anyone involved. just coming in, you're working 12 hours to try and get all those candles done. I think looking back, I felt a sense of urgency and I felt a sense of, I may never get this chance again. It's so dangerous in a way because you actually have more power than you think. West Elm, they wanted our candles, right? They wanted that. They marked, they merchandised for us. They had a place for us.

9:42And I thought, oh, if I mess this order up, I'm just never going to get a break again. I know now that that's not true. But at the time, I was really operating out of fear of losing it. But I will say, rising to the challenge allowed us to get a large amount of money that we then funded the business with. And that's when we incorporated into an S-Corp. So I don't regret it. It was a force function to kind of elevate a lot of things. Yeah, absolutely. Am I right in saying you sat there and you and Tom and you guys just filled those candles yourself? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Tom was the, I mean, we had other orders too, because I was still fulfilling for making for craft fairs and for our small stockists, so our independent accounts.

10:20So Tom was basically pouring the candles all day long, and he managed to scale the operations to getting it 300 poured by pitcher. And that's what we do. I would label, he would pour. And this is at such an interesting time, I think, for you because you had recently moved to LA or it had been a few years. Before that, you had come off a layoff, lost a job. And I remember you telling me that you were struggling really to find any sort of employment. And we're almost forced into entrepreneurship, much like, honestly, much like the entrepreneurs of maybe our grandparents' generation, who the only way to support their families was to be entrepreneurial.

10:58Yeah. My great grandpa immigrated here from Poland in the 1910s. He came and fought in World War I. That's how he got citizenship. And he was in that position too. He came over, he was a farmer in Poland, right? He came here and he had to basically build up doing sort of like, he was doing bricklaying, like just all these different types of jobs, but he ended up starting a jewelry store. And then that was passed down to my great uncle. And that was the jewelry store that allowed him to kind of build a life here for his family. I think it's that same, well, I guess I got to do what's in front of me because I don't see what else is working.

11:33And I just kind of kept at it. I just didn't give up. How did you find that courage to do that? Because a lot of folks, again, back to this idea of getting started, a lot of folks would be discouraged by that. Oh, just being so young and so dumb. You know, like I was 22. So the weight of the world was not yet on my shoulders. I was just expressing this to Tom recently that the fear of failure now in an odd way has risen for me now that it wasn't there. The older I get. Yeah. Because I have so much more to lose now. I have a kid. we have a life that we've built together. And not only that, we have 63 employees.

12:10So if we were to lose our business now, that's so much scarier. And I think at the time, I just, the world was my oyster, you know, it's great. I wish I had that again. Wish we could go back in time. No, but it's, it's, it's great to hear that you, you didn't even think about what could happen or what could go wrong. You just went for it a hundred percent. And that is, I think that's what it takes really to be successful. You know, when it comes to success, Shopify is also immensely interested in what happens with our merchants, how they succeed on our platform. Where does Shopify fit into your entrepreneurial story?

12:43Shopify allows us to have this omni-channel approach because we have our.com, but we also sell to three stores. And we have a wholesale account with Shopify. So we can really easily utilize the platform to toggle between the different shops, recognize trends across there. But the greatest thing about it is as we were opening these brick and mortar doors, we utilize Shopify data to understand where our customers actually live. Sometimes when you get demographic info from other platforms, it might be basically filtered through a VPN. So you go, wow, I have so many customers in Ashland, Virginia.

13:16I'm like, wait, that's not real. Yeah. So we noticed that we had a big customer base in Brooklyn and I used to live there. So I said, let's open a store in Brooklyn. And what we watched is that Brooklyn was our number four location and it has now grown to number two, which it ousted San Francisco, which has been our number two location since inception of PF. A lot of people actually think we're San Francisco based. I don't correct them because San Francisco doesn't like LA. So I have to just keep that very low key for them. But that was really amazing to watch is that opening the brick and mortar store allowed us to grow our base in general.

13:53And without the data that we saw using Shopify, I don't think we would have had the guts to go and open it. So you actually use the data from sales to determine where you were going to open your next store. That's right. Yeah. And that's something that you only really think would work using a platform like ours. Yeah, I definitely think Shopify just makes it so easy to understand your customer more. And this is my year of the customer. I'm just trying to understand their wants and their needs, where they are, so that I can meet them where they are, not try to take these wild guesses at what they like and where they want to shop.

14:27You know, we've been talking a lot on this program about on the channel sales, meeting your customers where they are, which it sounds like you're also thinking about in addition to centering around your customer in general. and this idea of the retail space being somewhat of a marketing play as well. Totally. I mean, definitely the margins are quite thin in retail. If you make your own product, it helps you out, but it can be really challenging to find a location. Rent is so, so high. So we had searched for four months to find a rent that was gonna work for us and took a space I don't think a lot of larger companies would have taken a shot at.

15:01We took a space that was a white box. We knew that it was gonna be easy to move in. Again, we're DIY. why we're scrappy. We used old fixtures. We knew how to get that up and running. And we opened that store for not a lot of money in the scheme of things. And that - In Brooklyn, no less. In Brooklyn. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We were so lucky that we had a guy who worked for us in Los Angeles at our store in Los Angeles. He had moved to New York the year previous and he applied for the manager. I said, get him in there. He knows the company. We know him. So it was a really great way to basically build on our network of things that we already knew and start from there.

15:36Speaking of building on your network, your marketing as well has been rather integral to your success. I'm just curious when it comes to starting out in marketing, obviously you need to make your product and have a good product, but you have to get it in front of customers as well. Any advice for entrepreneurs who are maybe sitting on a great product, but struggling with the marketing aspect? If you're just starting out, you have the best tool in your hands that is free. It's just worth your time. Your time's not free. But when you're just starting out, it's your most valuable asset, right? You have social media.

16:07That's how I started is on Instagram. I was just posting pictures of Tom pouring candles. You know, here he is pouring candles. And I think people really connected because it was clear what we were. We were just two people, like young couple starting out trying to run a business, right? And I saw so many young companies really grow their basically visibility, especially on TikTok too. But they would just create these incredible bases. Like we didn't have a lot of followers on TikTok and I'd be in all these candle companies that had hundreds of thousands of followers and they were really just building in public.

16:41And I think building in public is an incredible way to get people to root for you and sort of be there with your story and be there for you. So organic content versus paying for ads. The thing with ads is we didn't start out with ads. I don't think we ran ads until probably 2015, maybe 2016. Last of several years after you started. Oh, yeah. We really didn't do paid ads. So we did a lot of organic social. We had an email newsletter. And email newsletter is still one of our – Hopefully on email. Oh, it's incredible. And we've been really getting into kind of setting to segments this year and really targeting people that are interested in purchasing versus just doing broad sends.

17:16But the paid advertising, it can be a bottomless pit that you just sink your money into. And you think, I'm just going to throw that money in there. But the attribution can be really murky and it can be hard to figure out. When you're just starting out, you got to be at that top of funnel. You got to be in the visibility area and just getting people aware of your brand. And it seems like you'd also recommend kind of that BTS behind the scenes. Oh, yeah. That's something that you can give that no one else can give, right? No one else can show behind the scenes. Only you can show that. Let's move on if we can to how you've evolved as a brand over the years.

17:47I mean, this is not just candles anymore. This is kind of encapsulating the sense, the essence of places. You have fragrances, you have incense. Tell me about how you've diversified your offerings and why that was important for you guys. Yeah, we do reed diffusers, incense, and room sprays. And we have three different lines now. The classic line, which is the brown jar, it's what we're known for. There's an alchemy line that's really nature-based scents. And then there's a new line, which is our premium offering. We really just try to identify a need in the market first. So a lot of our product expansions came from an account saying, can you make this for us?

18:25CB2, I think, was the one that said, can you make diffusers for us? Oh, they came to you and asked you for it? Yeah. And I said, sure. Yeah, we'll do it. We always just, yeah. Had you done it before? No, we just did it. We just figured it out. And Incense, I think that was Urban Outfitters that asked us to make Incense. And now Incense is such a fast-growing product segment for us. People are obsessed. There's a big incense movement happening right now. There's incredible things I'm really curious about basically innovating in the way that we develop incense. There's paper incense, rope incense, loose.

18:54I could go on. I'm not going to go on incense so much. We don't have the time. No, please. But it's really just sort of identifying where your customers. And our new line that we developed, the premium line, Hi-Fi, what we noticed is that we had this kind of fall off of customers who were graduating from PF. PF is people's first fancy candle, right? They found us in Urban Outfitters. They kind of grew up with us. But if they're still burning candles later on in life, they might want something a little bit more bougie. They might want something at that higher price point, kind of in that luxury market.

19:26So we sort of identified that fall off there and designed this new premium line to meet that customer. And how's that been going? Oh, it's great. The response has been so wonderful. I was actually the most surprised that our existing customers really responded well to it. our existing wholesale stockists, people on Shopify. So we're really pleased. You brought up Incense. And in this series here, we're talking to entrepreneurs on Shopify all across Los Angeles. And part of that is an interview we did with Danny Nogueira of Grin 27. And you have a collaboration with him about Incense. I mean, how did that come about?

20:00Okay. This is very organic. Danny met Tom on a bike ride because they're both in the cycling community here in LA. And he's like, oh, you own PF. I love PF. Like I burn PF right before I go out every single time. And then Tom came home with a bike ride. He goes, oh, I met this guy. He wants to do a collab. I'm like, who is this? So we checked the brand out and he's just such a chill dude. But what really resonated with me is that he's incredible at community building. He does incredible community events. His creative and his marketing is super, super cool, but he's a small team. I think he's just a one man team.

20:36So we just had come off doing this huge collaboration with Peanuts. That's like a huge company. And then we're working on this small thing. He's like, I can't do that many units. So I said, I got you. I'm going to blend this myself. So I was getting back in the development lab, which was so fun for me. And we just made 250 units. It was super, super small. So it sold out, of course. And the point though, was to expand for us within the sort of outdoor community, because I think they're really interested in quality products. They're really interested in independently owned and operated companies.

21:08And for Danny, he wanted something. I mean, I think he really wanted it for himself, right? Like he's, I want it for my meditation. I want it for my pre-ride ritual or post-ride ritual. So it was so fun. Well, it's so interesting though, to think about a athletic wear company for cyclists and a candle company collaborating on a product. And I wonder if what there is to learn from something like that? I mean, is that just kismet or luck? I mean, how would you identify an opportunity like that? That was not from, ooh, let's target in this. That was truly from making connections with people and just diving into our community.

21:44Our mantra is do cool shit. And it's basically just our North star of when we want to do something fun, because it reminds us that as we grow the company, we still want to make space for just cool shit that might not drive revenue, but it's going to drive community and it's going to just speak to who we are. So that was what drove me here is just, that's really cool to do this small batch incense. This is like a small company who I really respect and they're kind of coming up in this cycling space. Do you think brands get caught up in that sometimes just only targeting bottom line, not looking for this?

22:14Oh yeah. A hundred percent. I came up in the girl boss era, right? I was not a girl boss, but that was very much my era. And I feel that all the people I kind of came up with, I came up with my craft community. that's very different than the people who were looking for VC backing to exit the company. The product they were doing and the thing they were building, the product that they were doing, it wasn't about what they were selling. What they were selling was the company, right? And what I'm trying to do is build something sustainable and build a company that can last. So focusing a little bit more on how the product makes sense versus the bottom line.