When Savannah Kuntz, a Coast Guard lieutenant, started Even Keel Candle Co. in October 2020, she focused on sustainably sourced and ethically made hand-poured vegan soy candles.
Tiana Coates
Tiana Coates is an entrepreneur and owner of Winding Wick Candles based in Garland, Texas.
In 2020, Coates made over $70,000 from selling her online candle-making business course, including $40,000 in just one month.
Here s how she developed, produced, and marketed the course, as told to freelance writer Kaila Yu.
I always wanted the freedom of running my own business. Ten years before becoming an entrepreneur, I worked at the desk as a pharmacy technician. In my free time I would always tinker with business ideas: dropshipping, selling items on Shopify, hand-making trinkets, but none of them ever panned out.
In a spark of inspiration, I came up with the idea of hand-making candles. It made perfect sense, I loved candles and would buy them every week for my home. I had zero experience so I started researching on online forums, blogs, and YouTube. The candle-making process seemed straightforward on the tutorials that I watched, b
and so when we re passing laws that appear that maybe a large corporation, they can hire a new accountant, a new tax person, a small business it can be success or failure. so we always have to keep in consideration what we do up here affects a lot of small businesses. because when it comes to small business it is not one size fits all. we thank you so much for stopping by and chatting with us. we hope to see you again next year. thank you very much. thank you. nine years ago we met a woman, may she, an impressive entrepreneur who built a large candle business doing it all herself. we kept in touch with her and i wanted to revisit her story to chronicle her next chapter because now she s doing something brand new. she s growing a lifestyle brand and working with licensers to help her build it. it s a very different kind of structure with what could be very different kinds of rewards.
but this until recently, her company designed, manufactured, and marketed bedding on its own. at a much smaller scale. now she hopes to benefit from eleri s big scale operation. our volume has always been a problem because we only deliver to relatively premium market. and we can t really meet the need of their demand. when i first met mei nearly a decade ago, she had leveraged to start a candle business which she started from her garage. four years later, she took a big risk with that candle business when she moved much of her production out of china and built her own factory here in america. her gamble paid off. with its manufacturing capacity of more than 2400 candles an hour. i think this is okay right now. but that s not okay. that sooting is excessive.