And i risk my own money to save struggling businesses. Were not gonna wake up every morning wondering if we have a job. Were gonna wake up every morning wondering how many jobs we have to do. Its not always pretty. Everythings gonna change. Everything. But i do it to save jobs, and i do it to make money. This. Lets go to work. Is the profit. Five years ago, entrepreneur mark biren started wick[ed], a candlemaking company out of burbank, california. Along with his wife sam, mark has been able to get his candles into wellknown retailers such as Urban Outfitters and l. A. Celebrity hotspot kitson. Mark this one is definitely paid. Sam how do we know its paid . Mark call them. Sam okay. Lemonis but despite its initial success, wick[ed] has experienced a slump in sales and is struggling to keep its doors open. Mark doesnt look like urbans going to be reordering our predripped this season. [ sam groans ] lemonis the candlemaking industry is very competitive, and id never given it serious thought until i saw marks artwork. His knack for design is exactly what a brand needs to stand out on a shelf. With my help, im confident he and sam can get back on track and eventually take these candles nationwide. Im trying to find wick[ed]s manufacturing facility. I see some trash and some empty boxes. I expected some sort of manufacturing setup. I cant find it. I finally find their warehouse because i see this very small sign. Its literally like a 10foot by 10foot box. How do you fulfill Urban Outfitters and all these other retailers out of this place . Sam which one is in here . Lemonis hello . Sam hi mark hey. Lemonis how are you . Im marcus. Youre mark . Okay. Mark nice to meet you. Yeah, im mark. Lemonis how are you . Sam sam. Nice to meet you. Lemonis hey, sam. Nice to meet you. Mark yeah. Lemonis so this is your place. Sam your other home. Mark my other home. Lemonis is this it . Sam this is it. Mark yeah. Why, its not big enough . Lemonis no. Mark too small for you . Lemonis its plenty big. Is it wick[ed] or wicked . Sam wicked. Mark wicked. Yeah, we play on the word wick, and thats why the ed is its own, like, design element. Sam he designed that. Lemonis and who owns the company . Sam both of us. Mark we both do. Sam uhhuh. Mark 50 50, yeah. Lemonis whats the product that started it all . Sam this puppy right here the predrip candle was specifically created for our wedding day. No venue would allow a drip candle, obviously. We scoured the market, and there werent any predripped candles that looked like a drip candle. Mark it still burns like a standard pillar, so you get the aesthetic of a drip candle without the mess. Sam so mark, whos artistic and crafty, said why dont we make them ourselves . Lemonis so is this kind of like a halloween candle . Mark youll have, like, the younger people kind of it could be a little goth and romantic. And then sometimes youll have, like, the older crowd sam who see a shabbychic. Mark yeah. Lemonis its very nichey, though. Sam but i see that as a good thing because it really branded us. People oh, predripped. Mark theres no one on the market that has anything like that. Sam and that was a collection that we built a relationship with Urban Outfitters, and they keep asking us, do you have anything new . And we havent had an order from them in a while. Mark yeah, no, now its been a while. Sam this is the negative space collection, and we wanted it to represent the psyche of tortured artists. Lemonis so, like, what is this one . Mark oscar wilde. Sam that is oscar wilde. He loved music. Lemonis so is every candle that youve developed from some crazy experience . Sam of course. 100 . Mark some kind of experience. Sam yeah. Mark we want everything to have a story. Lemonis i mean, the packagings nice. Sam thank you. Mark thank you. Lemonis its interestinglooking. Lemonis who does the artwork on them . Sam mark. Lemonis i think the artwork is unbelievable. Mark thank you. Sam hes so talented. Lemonis candles are all about the packaging. Mark yeah. Lemonis what does this cost . Mark wholesale is 20. Lemonis and so it retails for 40. Mark yeah. Lemonis i usually like to invest in products that have mass appeal, and this particular product doesnt really hit that mark. Its got kind of a gothic, tortured artist feel to it, and its also missing the price point. It really should be under 30. Now, marks a good artist, but this product looks like hes designing it only for his own taste. What kind of revenue do you do . How much do you make . Sam we havent made a profit yet. Lemonis the company doesnt make any money . Mark yeah, we sam no. Lemonis how have you made a living for the past sam ha mark well, yeah, so lemonis have you made a living . Mark no, ive spent more of my savings. Lemonis but how do you guys pay your bills . Sam i i do tv hosting. Lemonis do you make a lot of money doing that . Sam no, i dont. Mark you would think. Lemonis you want to find people that you can work with that you know are gonna put in all of the effort and all of the time and theyre committed to their business. And the one thing i can say about mark and sam is that they are committed to their company. You know what im gonna do . Im gonna go hang out with some of the employees. So ill catch up with you guys in a little bit, okay . Mark all right, cool. Sam thank you. Lemonis hi, guys. Amanda hi matthew hey, hows it going . Lemonis im marcus. Amanda amanda. Nice to meet you. Lemonis amanda, how are you . Matthew im matthew. Pleasure. Lemonis matthew, how are you . Matthew im doing really well, how are you . Lemonis so, do you guys work here fulltime . Amanda not full time. I mean, ive been friends with them since before this company started, and ive kind of helped whenever they needed me throughout the years. Lemonis wow. Matthew ive married into friendship, so. Which means that i get an opportunity to help them out. Lemonis and so show me what you guys do when you come. Amanda these are open, so you push them down, you take out the silica, we put them in, then we put a love note in each one of these. Lemonis whats the love note . Its a little amanda its lemonis its a little much. I mean, read it just like it says. Matthew my dearest love, your darkest secret can be someone elses desired wish. Lemonis hey, thanks, bro. You gave me a candle for my birthday. Amanda yeah. Lemonis hopefully you dont give this candle to your boss. Amanda kid, or boss, yeah. Lemonis all kidding aside. Amanda yeah. Lemonis . It is nice to have that in there, but it narrows the audience of who you can give it to. Amanda i can definitely see where youre coming from. Lemonis how many can you crank out in a day . Amanda um, thats a hard number. I think it could be done better if we had a more organized process going on. Marks very particular about the way he likes things. Lemonis does he not always do things the right way . Amanda no, mark always does things the right way. He just doesnt trust other people sometimes to do it the right way. Lemonis interesting. The fact that theres no process in place and that mark doesnt really let anybody do anything is not a good first sign for a business thats been around for five years. Im kind of wondering why he isnt outsourcing this part of the process. If this business is going to grow, hes got to acknowledge what hes not good at. He should be focusing on design and creativity and selling. Do you do any wax here . Mark you want me to fill one of these for you . Lemonis yeah, i want to see what it looks like. Sam all right, lets do it. Mark all right. Lemonis okay, so you start with the glass . Mark i put the glass lemonis you glue this thing in . Mark glue that in. Lemonis then you pull the wax off of there. Mark filling my wax. Lemonis is that hot wax . Sam yeah. Mark yeah. All right, so now you need a 475. Lemonis how do you know the proportionates . Mark well, i do about 13 of the wax. Thats how much fragrance is in there. Lemonis why did you choose that . Mark thats kind of standard with our fragrance, so when i get lemonis but why . Mark cause thats a high fragrance for lemonis didnt smell a lot to me. Mark 13 is high. Lemonis but i dont smell that much in here, either. Mark no way. Lemonis no way. Mark yeah, right. I can smell it. Too fragrant is sometimes too much. Lemonis have you ever focus grouped that . Mark no. Lemonis have you ever tested it with your team . Mark no, not at all. Lemonis sam, what would happen if you made them slightly more fragrant . Sam i would love if they were more fragrant. I mean, weve had this conversation, mark and i, many times. Lemonis so she wants it more fragrant, and id like it more fragrant. You want it more fragrant, too . Amanda i think you buy a Scented Candle for the scent, you know . Lemonis so that you smell it. Amanda otherwise, youd buy a scentless candle for the look. Lemonis i was just honestly giving him feedback like a customer. Im smelling the candle. It doesnt smell that strong. Can you make it stronger . No. Okay. Theres a lot of Candle Companies out there. Why dont you just go back to being a great graphic artist . Mark [ sighs ] lemonis whats at stake for you . Mark making my parents proud. I want them to know that i created something. My dads an electrician. He doesnt have, like, a lot of money, but no one would give us a loan and he gave us 20,000, and sam i know. Mark i never thought sam it was really hard for him to accept for both of us. Mark i dont want to take any of that. [ sighs ] lemonis how much money do you have invested in this business . Sam the first year, around 30 grand. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to me, mark was charging things on his personal credit card. I dont like that at all, but mark likes to just do it. Lemonis why are you charging it on your credit card and not telling her . Mark cause we dont always have it in the account, and shes already done so much lemonis but why arent you at least telling her . Mark its just another thing on her plate. So im like, i could do it on my own. Sam its hard, marcus. Lemonis how much do you have on the credit card, really . Mark probably maxed out on one thats 10 grand and i probably have another sam wait, personally . Mark like 6 grand on the other one. Like, 16,000 altogether. Sam how are we supposed to build a life for ourselves if were in debt . Mark ii keep thinking [ sam crying ] thats why i dont like letting it out cause i know, like, itll hurt her. Sam it hurts me more when its this. Like, if we have a baby, like, what am i supposed to do for three months . I have no, like, employee pay, no union, like, nothing. Mark i know. Sam so theres no like, nest egg there, and thats not good. We cant build credit. Like, its not good. How are we supposed to get a house . Like, how are we supposed to do those things if youre 16 grand in credit cards, which i didnt even know about . This is it. Like, this is it. Mark you all right . Give me a hug. Well be good. Im telling you. Dont worry. Lemonis the fact that he is doing what it takes to keep his business open is admirable, but the fact that hes doing it the way hes doing it is questionable. He doesnt seem like a guy that wants to take direction, and when your wife is the only one earning the money and shes the one funding all these things, you need to be honest with her about how your family moneys being spent. Financials. Do you have any financials we can sit down and talk about . Mark yeah. Sam yes. Lemonis okay. Ill meet you in there and well sit down and go over them. Sam okay. Lemonis okay, here we go. 2013 139,000 of revenue and 4,000 loss. Thats a pretty good job. Really good job. Most Companies Lose a lot of money in the first couple years. 2014 you dropped pretty significantly, almost 40 . 93,000. 20,000 loss, right . Sam mmhmm. Mark yeah. Lemonis this is the debt page. Sam this is the uncomfortable part. Lemonis california Franchise Tax 900. Credit card, wells fargo 8,600. Sam mmhmm. Lemonis okay. Plus another 16,000 in credit cards. Mark me, personally . Yeah, but thats not part of the business. Thats just me personally. I would never put that on to the business. Lemonis im not asking you to. I appreciate that. Thats a superadmirable thing, cause most people would get cute. I appreciate you mark how . Lemonis well, they would sam take advantage of him. Lemonis they would take advantage of that situation, and i appreciate you doing that. It says a lot about you. Okay. Then it says eddie biren. Sam thats his dad. Mark thats my dad. Lemonis and you owe him 20,000. Mark yeah. Lemonis so the total debt on the surface is 29,500. How much cash do you have in the bank right now . In the business . Mark like, 600. Sam well, we pay lemonis 600 . Mark yeah. Lemonis so, guys, the way i should really think about this company is its kind of a startup. Right . Mark not really. Lemonis no . Sam i dont think it is. Mark no. Its definitely not a startup. Sam people know our name. Weve been people magazine. Weve been branded. Were definitely a branded candle. Mark we get these huge accounts. Its just sam its just we got to work on the process. Its not. Lemonis come on, guys. The business has no working capital. It has around 30,000 worth of debt and no cash in the bank. It is a startup. What happened that causes you not to trust people . Mark i cant answer that. I cannot lemonis then you can walk away. But, mark, for me to move forward with you, i need to understand it. Mark i dont know. Its easy to love your laxative when that lax loves your body back. 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Which i can use for my w friends here. Thanks, captain obvious. Youre welcome. Roger that, sir. My name isnt roger. Supported by hotels. Com. Am no. Mark its definitely not a startup. Sam people know our name. Lemonis come on, guys. The business has no working capital. It has around 30,000 worth of debt and no cash in the bank. It is a startup. Im not trying to offend you guys. Sam no, yeah. Lemonis and i do see a lot of potential here. So the candle business is sort of a gift home market. You really can attack both sides. And so im kind of excited about it. Mark sweet. Sam thats awesome. Mark were excited that youre excited. Sam thats awesome. Lemonis right. So i want to make an offer. [ mark sighs ] you all right . Mark yes. Sam you need to hold my hand . Mark theyre like clammy. You might not want to hold my hand. Sam oh, they are clammy. Theyre very clammy. Lemonis so id like to offer 200,000 for a third of the business so the three of us can be equal. Mark wow. Lemonis the 200,000 is gonna go towards putting inventory on the shelves, coming up with new designs and ideas, coming up with new packaging, and were gonna pay your dad back. Mark yes. I like it. Sam i like it. I do. That feels right, and it feels fair. Lemonis remember, im 100 in charge. Sam [ sighs ] lemonis normally, i wouldnt offer this much for a startup business thats this small, but in this case, i feel like it has a ton of potential and a ton of needs. Ive also elected to take less equity in this particular business than i normally would, and the reason for that is most startups cant afford to pay big salaries or big bonuses, and so the way that sam and mark are gonna make their ultimate pay day is that theyre gonna have a nice equity offering. Sam thank you so much, marcus. Im so happy. Can we hug . Mark you sure your names not like clark kent or something . Sam [ laughs ] oh, my gosh. Lemonis this business can be solved with three simple steps streamline the design process so that were appealing to the mass market, find a manufacturing partner so that we can take the burden off of mark and he can focus on what hes good at, and then find a distributor or a rep that can get these candles into the marketplace. Sam, going forward, id like you to take over the scent process. Sam cant wait. I love that. Lemonis so do we have a deal . Sam yes. Mark yeah. Sam yay yay mark thank you so much. Sam thank you, marcus. Mark all right. Sam can we have a group hug . Lemonis yes. Sam yes yay mark aww. Lemonis im excited. Mark all right. Sam yay sam hi. Mark hey. Lemonis hey, how are you . Im marcus. Anthony hi. Hi, marcus. Mark this is his store. Lemonis this is one kickass candle store. Sam yeah. Anthony thank you. Lemonis candle delirium is a 10,000squarefoot candle store. It could be the biggest candle store in america. The owner happens to be friends with mark and sam, and so why not go to the person or persons that are telling you what does the consumer really base their candle Purchase Decision on . Lemonis how many different Candle Companies do you rep here . Anthony close to 40. Lemonis 40. Anthony yeah. Lemonis wow. Anthony 35 to 40, depending on the time of the year. Lemonis whats the numberone seller . Anthony voluspas the numberone line. Shes been around forever. Mark those are like, 27. Anthony this is 27. Mark see, thats the goal right there. Anthony this is 100 hours in this big, thick glass in this beautiful box. Thats why this is number one. Lemonis and so you carry their stuff, too . Anthony i do. Lemonis where is their stuff . How many do you sell of these a year . A couple thousand . Anthony yeah, maybe close to 2,000. Lemonis and how many voluspa do you sell a year . Anthony oh, those are in the tens of thousands, but theyre a brand name. Lemonis and so thats really more mainstream. Anthony yeah. I said that from day one. Its nichey. I mean, these are really interestinglooking. Theres nothing like it. Its got a very specific clientele. Like, their other line is very its too sophisticated for most people. Lemonis show me that. Sam ah. Anthony yeah, its esoteric, and people are not that interested, i dont think mark in the stories . Anthony in the stories, yeah. Anthony i told him that before, but but lemonis is that true . He told you that . Mark i dont know if it was in those exact words, but. Anthony the work that went into it is really incredible, but i dont think anybody gives a [bleep] in the end, theyre like, does it smell good . I like it. It looks nice. How much is it . Im out. Mark but if we dont come up with like, the story, we dont get these Design Elements that we could pull from. Sam true. Lemonis but hes hes telling you something. Anthony look at voluspa. The intricacies of that design, and she obviously had inspiration, but she doesnt tell anybody. Mark but we still like coming up with the stories. Thats our inspiration. Thats how we move forward with our design ways. So, yes, we will still do that. Lemonis the guy that owns one of the largest Candle Stores in america, who happens to be his friend, is telling him no one cares about the story, and mark continues to argue with him. Im thinking to myself, buy a vowel, get a clue, open your ears, and listen to what this guys telling you. Mark. Sam mmhmm. Lemonis when people are giving feedback, he hears, but hes not listening. Sam when he hears what he doesnt want to hear, he internalizes it and he closes off. Lemonis okay. Sam he is broken. Lemonis he is . Sam yes. Its gonna make me cry. [ sighs ] mark what are you thinking . Lemonis its very busy. Mark yeah, but thats what differentiates us and its also at an angle right now. Lemonis you just asked me. Im telling you. Its busy. But do you really know what it means . Ound a lot these days. No. The answer is no. 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[ sighs ] lemonis why is he broken . Sam i think hes just been working so hard on all these different collections. Its his life. Its his legacy. And he just wanted them to soar. And now he has to start over. Theres gonna be a process where you have to pick yourself up and keep moving. Lemonis okay. So we have to work on that together. Sam yeah, we do. Yeah. Lemonis mark has trouble processing feedback, but thats gonna be a big problem. When a business starts out, if it has a good idea, it doesnt mean that its gonna be a good idea tomorrow. The importance of feedback is learning how to evolve as a company. For mark, its about growing and evolving as a businessperson, especially knowing how to pick yourself up when you get shot down. So, heres what i want to see you from you. I want to see a new collection, a new brand that you just focus on price, fragrance, packaging. Mark and packaging. Lemonis okay . And you give me a retail price between 27 and 28, like voluspa, and you have to be able to have margins in excess of 50 . You dont have to have the final product. You could just do storyboards. Okay . What im hoping that mark learns in this process is if he can follow direction, were gonna have wild success. But if he continues to rebel and argue and fight all along the way, were gonna end up with no deal. Mark cant wait. Sam mmhmm. Lemonis all right . Sam yeah. Mark its easy. Lemonis okay. Thank you so much. Anthony yes, sir. Lemonis were gonna be back. You know my people process product theory. Sam yeah. Lemonis i feel like i can check the box on the people side. I feel like your process is as janky as it gets. Sam we agree. Lemonis im taking mark and sam to modern candle because mark cant continue to be a oneman band. We have to find a manufacturing partner that can allow us to do real volume and make money. Mark one thing is, i have a little issue with this place right now. Theyve done work for me in the past, and they kind of messed up on some orders of mine. It didnt look like the blend like, something was wrong with it. It just didnt kind of go well. Lemonis yeah. Theres gonna be times in business where youre gonna have relationships with vendors that arent gonna be perfect. Mark yeah. Lemonis and how you deal with that is a big deal. And so maybe we go in with an open mind. Sam okay. Mark all right. Lemonis and we dont maybe, like, lead with mark yeah. Sam open heart, open mind. Okay, mark . Mark all right. Lemonis modern candle is one of the largest candle manufacturers in the united states. They can do everything from source your glass to print your boxes. They are a onestop shop for any Candle Company, and they serve some of the largest brands in the marketplace. Sam hi. Lemonis how are you, sir . Lemonis im marcus. Armik armik. Lemonis nice to meet you. Armik nice to meet you, too. Mark weve met before. Armik oh, yeah. Mark yeah, he used to pour candles for me. Armik mmhmm. Mark but, uh, there were some issues. Lemonis what is mark doing . I just told him two minutes ago not to lead with the disagreement that they had. You know what i think the problem is . He doesnt want to give up control of making candles. He wants to continue to be a oneman band and keep this business in his garage. Mark instead of you doing the two blends it was a blend, remember . It was like a 7525. There was a pom and a soy. You only filled it with the pom. You didnt blend it. Armik this is not the way which we agreed. Based on our papers, we did right. And i had asked him, if you want, you know, just send it back. Send it back. We are gonna correct it. Mark okay, see, i didnt want to get into it. Lemonis stop for a second. Question i have for you is can you accept that there was a difference of opinion . Mark yes. Id love to move forward. Lemonis but are you gonna move forward with a chip on your shoulder . Mark no. Everyone makes mistakes. I get that. Sam best foot forward. Mark im fine. Itll work. Lemonis are you gonna let it go, though . Mark yes, i could let it go. Lemonis cause seriously, its a big deal for me. Mark i can totally let it go. Lemonis and so were gonna resolve it and were gonna move on and try to do business. Sam thats exciting. Wow. Lemonis all right, lets keep going. Lets see something cool. Come on. Sam unbelievable. Lemonis i have to be honest with you. Mark yeah. Lemonis im just gonna give you my honest opinion, okay . Mark please. Lemonis you get a little defensive. Mark yes. Lemonis are you gonna move forward with a chip on your shoulder, as opposed to looking mark no, no, i want it to work out. Just certain things i have questions on, but i still want a winwin for both of us. Lemonis i get the questions. Mark yeah. Lemonis just chill out, okay . Just chill out. Sam this is huge. Mark theres so many candles. Lemonis how many candles can you make in a day . Arvin we probably do 6,000. Lemonis and how many can you make in a day . Mark 400. Thats just me only doing that lemonis thats with you not opening the mail. Sam yes. Mark yeah, yeah. Lemonis thats with you not paying the bills and not designing. Sam right. Lemonis and not selling. Mark oh, yeah. Lemonis this is awesome. Sam this is so cool. Lemonis so, what do you pay for this box printage . Mark 42 cents. Lemonis what do you think you can get this for . Arvin probably 35 cents. Whats your fragrance cost . Mark 26 per pound. Arvin i can probably get that in the 15 dollar range. Lemonis see the value of relationships . Sam yeah. Mark yeah. Lemonis if modern candles does 6,000 candles a day, we know theyre buying a lot of glass, a lot of fragrance, and a lot of paper, and i want to leverage their volume to lower our costs so we have a lower retail price. This is a nobrainer. Okay, so, we would like to move forward with you. Obviously we want the pricing to be right. Arvin right. Lemonis what i can tell you guys is were going places. Were going to get a lot bigger. Mark i cant wait. Sam im so excited. Lemonis okay. Sam thank you, guys. Lemonis thank you very much. Arvin i appreciate it. Lemonis really a pleasure to meet you. Sam thank you so much. Arvin pleasure meeting you. Sam thank you. Lemonis its been a couple of weeks since i tasked mark and sam with coming up with a new collection, and im excited to see what theyve done. I just hope they took my advice to heart and created something with mass appeal. So, let me see the new stuff. Mark all right. Cheers. Lemonis cause this is what im most excited about. Sam my anxietys through the roof. Mark so, wait, before you want to hear the story . Lemonis no, i dont care about the story. Sam there is no story. [ laughs ] mark theres no story to this. Dont worry. Sam but we have an inspiration. Mark all right. What are you thinking . Lemonis its very busy. Its very mark wheres busy . The box itself . Lemonis wheres busy . Where isnbusy . Sam but if look at mark well, i guess sam if you look at voluspa, its busy. Mark wait, yes lemonis it is, but its one continuous pattern. Mark yeah, but thats what differentiates us and its also at an angle right now. Lemonis you just asked me. Mark yes. Lemonis im telling you. Mark yes. Lemonis its busy. Sam what do you like about it . Lemonis i like the floral pattern, but its very feminineskewed. Heres what i would ask you to try. Mark females are the ones that are buying candles more than men. It is somewhat genderspecific. Lemonis mark, you cant argue. The big Candle Companies are a little more genderneutral. I mean, i know that women rule the world, but theyre not the only ones who buy candle. Were gonna make baby steps. A little feedback. Make the change. I. Think hell get there. Mark this i think looks incredible. Ill still stand by it. Lemonis if your business is in trouble and you need my help, log on to. Ah, my poor mouth breather. 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Lemonis and black and white it other than a couple of flowers. Sam ooh. Thats an interesting idea. Lemonis if you pulled this whole thing up and you took it down to 10 color, it would almost disappear, right . And then you just gave me one mark pop. Lemonis id grayshade this, too. Mark i like it, but i dont like how youre saying to bring down the color in that. Lemonis just make it less harsh. Mark i like the black and white. See, thats why i guess we chose just to do it on the sides of the box, so it was like a hint. Lemonis it doesnt feel like a hint to me. I just want it cleaner. Sam cleaner, simpler. Okay. Mark its a lot to edit, editwise. Lemonis can you pull it up . Mark yeah, well. Sam while he pulls it up, can i show you the fragrances . I have allnew fragrances for you. I actually did a whole focus group. 52 people did my focus group. Lemonis great. Sam okay, so this is the first one, which goes with this one right here. Lemonis nice. Sam yeah. And then this is spice fleur. Lemonis nice. Sam and this one is lavendervanille, which is just lavender, vanilla, and a leafy green. Lemonis all very perfumy. Sam oh, cause we need to masculine it a little bit. Lemonis you need something citrusy and something masculine. Sam okay. Lemonis i was very impressed that sam put the research into it and had a focus group, and i like the fact that she was open to sort of dialoguing about it. On the other hand, mark is still arguing with me. So is that it, right there . Mark okay, so this is where it starts from. Lemonis take it down. Mark but lemonis take the color grade down. Sam i love that. Mark did you think about this for a while . Lemonis when i saw it. Mark really . Sam wow. Lemonis you guys, by the way, the name of the company isnt gonna be wick[ed] anymore because its too nichey. Mark all right. Wow. Lemonis id really like to come up with something that has your last name in it. And so i really like biren company. Id like to see that on our order. Mark yeah. Sam biren company . Lemonis im the company. Sam biren co. I love it. Mark i like it. Yeah. Sam i really, really freaking love that. Lemonis so heres the deal. I want you to finish these designs. Mark all right. Lemonis i feel like youre missing one scent. Something thats a little more masculine citrusy, and then you got to get ahold of arvin from modern candle and get boxes printed. I will tell you that if you do not work with arvin and do what you say youre gonna do, i cant do business with you. Clear . Sam deal. Mark yeah. Lemonis i always knew that i wanted mark and sams company to be more than a Candle Company. I wanted it to be a design and scent company. Today, theyre gonna find out why. Im taking them to market ready in chicago. Okay. Mark oh, wow. This looks interesting. Lemonis the kitting that im looking for could be a selfcontained kit or a kit that people can buy individual pieces and create their own collection. Korie okay. Lemonis think about the last time you went a home goods store and you bought a candle. Around that candle was a variety of other products that leverage the same design and the same fragrance, like lotions, soaps, room sprays. Thats called kitting. In an instant, you can go from just selling candles to having multiple products, and it allows you to double or triple your revenue, like that. What are the products that we should be thinking about first . Korie okay, certainly the diffuser because it naturally plays into the fragrance, so that would be number one. Number two would be a bath gel. Sam mmhmm. Korie and certainly theres other options we can consider, but the third would be a lotion. Sam okay. Thats cool. Lemonis you can come to these guys to do just copacking. Sam right. Lemonis thats not what im interested in. Im interested in a relationship with people that are experts. Thats why we went to modern candle because we want to find somebody that does it better than us. Sam yep. Lemonis thats why were here. Market ready is one of the Largest Companies for taking peoples products and expanding them in other areas. Not only do they have the knowhow of bringing a new product to the market, but they have factories all over the country. So as your business grows, you can grow with them without all the rising costs. Man every day in our three blending and filling facilities we make 600,000 to 800,000 pieces. Mark what . Sam wow. This is surreal. Korie aww. Sam i feel like i need to be pinched. Lemonis the way to think about this is that modern candles is gonna make our candles, and this place is gonna make everything that is the kit around it. And they will be your distribution center, as well. Mark wow. All right. Im in another world. Sam wow. This is so crazy. This is mark this is like what we want. Sam marcus, this is like what weve always wanted. Korie aww. Mark amazing. [ cellphone rings ] arvin hey, marcus. Lemonis hey, arvin. How are you, buddy . Arvin good, yourself . Lemonis good. I wanted to check in with you and find out what sort of progress has been made since i was there last . Arvin um, the last spoke to mark, he said hell give me a call, but i have gotten anything yet. Lemonis you guys havent started anything yet . Arvin i called them and asked. I was waiting for mark to come back to me. Lemonis you had to call him. He didnt call you. Arvin yes, exactly. Lemonis okay. When i left, we were making candles at modern candle. Now im finding out that mark didnt even follow up with them. This is [bleep] im gonna see him in a little bit. Ill be in touch later today, okay . Arvin all right. Lemonis thank you, buddy. We had a clear agreement that he was over all of the issues that he had. For me to come back several weeks later, thinking that im gonna see a finished product to find out that he didnt even call the guy, i was not happy. Where were you supposed to go and who were you supposed to work with the last time i left . Mark we were supposed to go over to modern candles. Lemonis and did you . Mark um, well, ive spoken to them. Lemonis you called him . Mark uh, the son called me. Lemonis so he followed up with you. Mark i didnt know what was working and lemonis he called you, you told him youd get back to him. Mark yes. Lemonis you really had no intent of getting back to him. Mark well, i no, no. I felt just awkward. Theres just certain things that happened thats still in my head. Sam thats in his head. Lemonis but if i would have let you off the hook, would you have ever called them again . Mark probably not. Lemonis you basically ignored our agreement. When i walk away from a situation and somebody tells me were going to do this its hard for me, but im gonna be forgiving, get over the past, not hold a grudge. You gave me that impression. Mark mmhmm. Lemonis and so i left there feeling like you had moved on and that we were moving forward. Mark yes. Lemonis if we shake hands and we agree on something and i do my part, spending money sourcing other kitting products that can go along with candles and i think youre doing Something Else, and you dont, it breaks the chain for me. While im trusting you, i didnt feel like you were trusting me. I dont know if he understood how disappointed and angry i was about this situation. He kind of took it lightly. Theres Something Else at the root of why mark is acting like a big, giant pain in the ass. You have a tendency of holding grudges. Sam yes. You do. Youre very stubborn. Mark yeah. Sam and you can get over things, but it takes you too long. Lemonis and does this have to do with you wanting to control things and not trusting people . Is there a trust issue . Mark its trust. Lemonis and walk me through that. What happened that causes you not to trust people . Mark i cant get into that. Lemonis i need to understand it because sam he cant get it. Its deep. Lemonis im sorry. Sam its deep, marcus. Lemonis im sorry. Then you can walk away. Mark i cannot lemonis mark, im telling you, for me to move forward with you, i need to understand it. Mark i dont know. Mark so our new collection, we tried to go with a traditional look with a little modern touch to it. Scott it may be beautiful, but were not gonna see the results in sales that we all are hoping for. The search for relief often leads to this. Introducing drugfree aleve direct therapy. A high intensity tens device that uses technology once only in doctors offices. For deep penetrating relief at the source. New aleve direct therapy. At ally bank, no branches equals great rates. Its a fact. Kind of like bill splitting equals nitpicking. But i only had a salad. It was a buffalo chicken salad. Salad. If legalzoom has your back. S, over the last 10 years weve helped one million Business Owners get started. Visit legalzoom today for the legal help you need to start and run your business. Legalzoom. Legal help is here. You fine but your passengers in your carsmell this. T smells eliminate odors youve gone noseblind to for up to 30 days with the febreze car vent clip break out the febreze, and [inhale exhale mnemonic] breathe happy. Sorry, captain obvious. Dont be. Ive got the hotels. Com app, which makes it simple to book a room for 500. Or 25, but it wont be here. You can stay with me. Thanks. Ive already lost enough today. Clicking around and start saving at hilton. Com book direct. And get the lowest price online m telling you, for me to move forward with you, i need to understand it. What happened that causes you not to trust people . Mark i dont know. Lemonis im sorry that im making you do this, but i need to understand it. Mark i guess my parents got divorced. [ clears throat ] um. And a lot of fighting. Lemonis between them . Mark not my parents. Lemonis another family member. Mark yeah. It was just any time i was trying to do something, it really was, oh, thats not it, you need to do Something Else. Thats not gonna work, do this. Or its just telling me things about my looks or like whats wrong with you . And that still sticks in my head. Lemonis like verbally abusing you . Mark yeah. Lemonis im sorry. Mark i dont know. Its just this overwhelming feeling of just trying to figure, like, at points, like, who i could trust. Lemonis so the fact that other family members were making you feel small or inferior and not knowing who to turn to and who to trust . Am i mark at the end, yeah. Its like, it lays down on me cause i dont ask for it anymore, about when i needed something. Lemonis he really struggles to tell me that hes struggled with trust his whole life. You know, i, uh, i understand. It doesnt make him not working with modern candle okay, but it gives me a perspective on his logic, that hes not a bad guy. He just comes from a very broken place. You took that experience of a bad order and somebody not agreeing with you and you correlated that to the bad experiences youve had growing up. You have to separate business from that stuff. Mark i know. Lemonis and everybody that you do business with deserves a fair chance. Im telling you something it will free you. Mark totally. Lemonis so you are gonna call arvin and say, you know what, brother . Mark sorry, man. Lemonis i didnt do you a solid. I should have called you back. I want a fresh start, and i want it just to be you and me. Can we do that . Mark okay. Lemonis give them a chance. Today im going back to modern candle just to kind of get a Progress Report on when i was gonna see a finished product. I was excited. Mark right now, this box is gonna be like a softer box. Lemonis what happened to your eye . Mark basketball. Lemonis you got elbowed . Mark yes. Arvin its happened to me before, too. Lemonis okay. Mark originally, i wanted to go into where its like a rigid box, where its really nice and hard and it opens up. Sam but thats more expensive. Mark but thats where it gets pricy. Lemonis you cant break 7 in cost cause you want to keystone to the retailer. Mark yeah. Lemonis at 14. And theyre gonna want to keystone to the consumer at 28. Keystone refers to a standard margin of 50 on a product every time it changes hands. Now that we want to retail the candle to the consumer for 28, we know that well have to wholesale it for 14, and that means that our production costs cant exceed 7. Thats our ceiling. Lets look at the glasses. Arvin so, this is one. Mark thats the glass. Lemonis too small. Too small. Mark well, i try to do three different variations, three difference price points. Thats where i was kind of going with that. Lemonis well, but then youre creating too many skus in the early stages of the business. I want you to pick a streamlined number of glasses so that you can get the economy. So if you have five different platforms, youre not having five different glasses because youre not gonna get the volume out of them. Sam ahh. Lemonis and then the second thing is gonna be value and perception. I would bet that the difference in manufacturing this versus this is not very significant. What is this glass gonna cost filled with wax and fragrance on average . Arvin 5. Lemonis whats this gonna cost . Arvin 6. Lemonis the difference in cost is 1. The difference in perceived value mark yes. The customer wants that. Lemonis i feel like im gonna get a lot more. Sam that makes it a lot easier. If we can stick with one glass. Lemonis were gonna have simplicity in manufacturing and simplicity in pricing. Mark cool. Lemonis okay . Mark i like it. Lemonis all right. So well move on from that one. Sam hi. Scott hi. How are you . Lemonis hi, scott. Im marcus. Scott marcus. Its a pleasure to meet you. Lemonis nice to see you. Scott thanks for coming in. Lemonis this is samantha. Sam nice to meet you. Scott sam, nice to meet you. Mark how you doing . Mark. Lemonis this is mark. Scott mark. Its a pleasure. Mark very nice to meet you. Lemonis the harper group is one of the most wellknown product rep groups in new york city, and what they essentially do is they take a Manufacturers Product and they basically distribute or rep it to retailers across the country. And so its a step thats necessary to be able to get in a lot of different storefronts. Are you guys ready . Sam we are ready. Mark come on in. Sam okay. Lemonis this is a big opportunity. I hope mark can keep an open mind during the pitch and not react to criticism. No distributor wants to take on a painintheass partner. Mark so, our new collection is called the flora collection. Scott okay. Mark so from start, you know, we tried to go with a traditional look with a little modern touch to it. We went to we went to, like, that oldschool, we were trying to think of like sam like a vintage. Mark old vintage wallpaper. Scott sure. Mark so, yeah, we almost wanted to, like, bring some vibrance to it but still have that old feel to it, and i feel like this is kind of the route we went. Sam yeah. Scott i think from the packaging standpoint, when we find product that is too focused, it may be beautiful, but were not gonna necessarily see the results in sales that we all are hoping for. Lemonis for exclusives, extras, and business advice, visit. Itsanyone ever haveady occasional constipation, diarrhea, gas or bloating . [ simultaneously ] she does. Help defend against those digestive issues. Take Phillips Colon Health probiotic caps daily with three types of good bacteria. 400 likes . Wow phillips. Be good to your gut. lion its peyton on sunday mornings. peyton you know with directv nfl sunday ticket you can watch your Favorite Team no matter where you live. Like broncos or colts. cashier cool. peyton ah. 18. The old number. Ooh. I have got a coupon for that one. vo get nfl sunday ticket only on directv. And watch live games anywhere. Ssoon, shell be bingestudying. Get back to great. This week sharpie singles now twentyfive cents. Office depot officemax. Gear up for school. Gear up for great. Wont replace the full value of your totaled new car. The guy says you picked the wrong insurance plan. No, i picked the wrong insurance company. With Liberty Mutual new car replacement™, you wont have to worry about replacing your car because youll get the full value back including depreciation. And if you have more than one Liberty Mutual policy, you qualify for a multipolicy discount, saving you money on your car and home coverage. Call for a free quote today. Liberty stands with you™. Liberty mutual insurance. Scott i think from the packaging standpoint, when we find product that is too focused, it may be beautiful, but were not gonna necessarily see the results in sales that we all are hoping for. When we look at trying to sell an overall brand, you know, were not just trying to sell one candle. Mark of course. Scott were trying to sell a collection of candles or were trying to sell different segments for the brand. So having a design such as this that not only is hitting some of the classic feel but also have a little of a modern twinge to it, as well, is gonna give you a broader base of consumers, and thats something we always look for. So very, very well done. Mark all right, so here is the kitting for this. Sam yes. Mark so, i just did two fragrances of the new collection, what it would look like if we started putting it on other products. Scott okay. So you have here a diffuser, it looks like a hand cream, some bath soap, some body lotion, and a mark and like a room spray. Scott a room spray. Uhhuh. Mark yeah, for now. Scott i think it looks good, mark. I think youre pulling together a lot of the design aspects. It allows us, as well, to have a lot more options to go into our retailers. This how you build a brand. Sam so, youre holding the citrus fragrance that trended very high. Scott thats beautiful. Sam its amazing. Lemonis and i feel like the packaging and the scent match up really nicely. Scott that makes a lot of sense. Sam yeah, yeah, i agree. Scott i think thats a very strong collection. I really do. Lemonis what do we need to do to get you to rep this product and get it out into the marketplace . Scott talk to me about some of the price points were talking about here. Mark now its just candles, so it would be 14. Lemonis well, thats wholesaling, so he wants to know scott well look at it at wholesale, figuring a keystone market. Lemonis okay. Okay, great. Scott thats a good number. Mark yeah. Lemonis so, are we in business . Scott were in business. Sam yay lemonis all right. Scott thank you very much. Sam im so excited. Mark thank you so much. Scott its a pleasure, yeah. Absolutely. Sam thank you so much, scott. Scott thank you. We look forward to it. Sam so excited. Lemonis i was impressed with marks performance. He stayed focused, and more importantly, hes trusting the process. I have to be honest. Im very proud of the progress that youve made. Mark its been a long process. Not just me, her, too. Lemonis yeah, im definitely proud of sam, but her road wasnt as bumpy, and i think sam would agree. I feel like youve really become a better listener. Youre taking feedback a lot better. Mark you just pushing me to another level to like, open my eyes and really see the view of other people. Lemonis look, a lot of things have changed at this Candle Company in burbank, california. Weve changed the process for designing and selecting scents, and weve moved the manufacturing to a copacker so that mark can focus on designs. Weve designed a product that has much more mass appeal without all the stories. Were getting into kitting, and weve gotten them into the harper group, one of the bestknown rep groups in the country. When i walked into wick[ed], it was just a startup, but i now feel like were well on our way to being a contender in the candle and home goods industry. Sam youve done the work, mark. Proud of you. Lemonis yeah, so you got us here, brother. Sam yeah. Lemonis did a good job. Sam love you. Lemonis im proud of you. Sam its exciting. Things are falling into place. Mark yeah. Sam yay. Lemonis good job, guys. Sam finally. Ugh. Its all happening. Announcer the following is a paid Program Brought to you by Cancer Treatment centers of america. Cancer. Around 40 of the u. S. Population will be diagnosed with the disease in their lifetime. And yet, its a word no one is ready to hear. They looked at the ct scan, and it came back that it was cancerous. I was just shocked. I couldnt believe it. Its not part of your plan, you know . I think when you have a major diagnosis, it just kind of flips your world upside down. One out of every two men and one out of every three women will be diagnosed with cancer. Its numbers like these that have kept scientists aoc