early on things looked promising, the bliss living brand caught on with some of the retailers. but the profits didn t follow. i did everything like i did for candles, from design to sampling and seeing the customers in the trade shows. our volume has always been a problem. it was a different industry. and mei didn t anticipate the profit mor begins were different. if you are at certain scale, you are just about to break even. or you re not even able to make a profit. mei new the brand was popular so she focused on changing production. that s when she went to see alana of new york based jewel branding and licensing. mei approached her with a new strategy. she not only wanted to find licensing partners for her bedding business but wanted to expand the brand to other products. we represent designers and design based brands to extend
their brands, their trade marks, design elements into a variety of consumer products. alana intervoosed mei to hugh. his company could produce big quantities at profitable price points. focuses on the creative and the design area and elry does the execution side of it. with elry handling bed. we wanted to be everything that you want for home. from maybe one day back in bathroom accessories to paint, carpet. and that means finding licensing partners in each of these categories. who can source the supplies and navigate each of the industry requirements. i wouldn t know where to start and what the nuances of that business is. mei made big changes to her company. now she focuses on licensing and that has meant restructuring.
we don t need sales team. we don t need a design team, a product team, we don t need sourcing and quality control. distribution. as promising as this new direction seems, alana warns it comes with its special risk. one of the hardest things we find with a licenseor you need to trust, that s one of the hardest. mei must trust me that we ll be able to execute the production, sourcing, shipping, billing her product. and i pay her a fee for that privilege. the new licensing model gives the bulk of the profits to manufacturers like hugh. mei only get as fraction as a fee. however, as the license owner mei can rework the designs into additional products each one generating additional license fees. we want to hit home textiles, rugs, wall decor, home decor, luggage or whatever the category, stationary. if you knew then what you