I had no aspirations of starting a candle company or any company at all, but I went to this program and there was a grant given to me by the Veale Foundation through Polaris Career Center. It was $500 to start a cutting board company. Instead, I realized I had no woodworking skills and that would probably not do well. I decided to make candles, beeswax candles to be specific because I’m a big fan of bees. Bees are important for food, flowers, and everything. I used the grant to start making candles and at first, I had no clue what I was doing but eventually I was able to perfect the recipe and I’m starting to expand.

When I started out, I had no clue what I was doing. I took a pot of water and a bowl, and I put the wax into the bowl and melted it. Then, I put the wax in a jar that I got from Dollar Tree. Those didn’t turn out the greatest, but it sprung me forward because I did do one thing correctly. I put a lot of essential oils into the candle, and I stuck with that. People were like, ‘Wow, these smell amazing. Do you have any more?’ That’s where it clicked, because people liked the smell. They didn’t even care if the candle wasn’t burning great because they just liked smelling it.

Communication is a big one obviously. I worked at a sandwich shop and that was my only interaction with random people from the street coming in and trying to tell them things. Now, we have the Young Entrepreneur Market through Young Entrepreneur Institute and I’m going up to people selling candles. That really helps with my communication skills. It’s also helped me with selling, and I’ve been complimented a few times on my salesmanship so I’m glad that’s working out. I’m still working on not worrying too much. I put myself in the shoes of the person buying my candles and if I were spending $10 on a candle, I would want it to be amazing. I haven’t gotten any complaints so far.

One of the main issues I’ve overcome is finding a space to make my candles and perfect my recipe. I went through probably 20 prototypes before I finally got a good product and I’m still tweaking it to this day. It was a process. During that time, I was making them in my kitchen and wax gets everywhere so it would take me about an hour and a half to clean. I have my own spot now but in the beginning of my business, I would spend around 6 hours a day just making candles, experimenting with each prototype, and then cleaning up my mess. It kind of made it a challenge but I’m glad I stuck with it because it’s working out pretty well now.

I would say if you truly have a passion for something, it might not be that you have a passion for your specific product or service. What I mean by that is, I like bees, so I decided to go with something that related to bees. You have to find something you truly enjoy or else you will no longer feel like you want to keep doing it. It feels more like a job that you’re not going to get paid to do for the first few months.

Currently, I’m a junior in high school so I still have a year of school to do my own thing and have a lot of free time. The main goal is to keep expanding. I went from selling five candles in a month to doing multiple events and selling over 50 candles at each. I have a whole sheet of what I’m going to do by the end of the year. I want to have a website that I’m selling candles from. I would like to sell at one market through Young Entrepreneur Institute or another farmers’ market and be in at least two stores in the area. My long-term career goal is managing a business.  I’m probably going to stick with this for the foreseeable future.

I’m going to go to college. I’m looking at Miami State University or University of Pennsylvania. They have good business colleges where I can work on my financial literacy. One of the things I was looking for is if I was able to have my melters on campus or in my dorm room. Or is there a spot nearby that I can afford to rent out and make candles from there. College is something I want to do and something I’m working toward. I would also like to expand my business because I would like to pay for my own tuition with profits from my business. That would be amazing.

I think they can be good for a few reasons. You’re going to learn something that you can use. Another thing is networking. I’ve met multiple people at events and one person is helping me get my own table at a farmer’s market. Networking is a very big reason that I would recommend attending these programs.

For more information on this business, find their page on Instagram @SweetwickCandlez