Uniquely Small Biz S2 Ep. 1 Transcript: Tiny Kitchen Candle Co.

Carolyn: Welcome back to Season Two of Uniquely Small Biz by Selective Insurance, a podcast for small business owners to share their inspiring stories. I'm Carolyn McArdle and we are so excited to be bringing you another insightful conversation with small businesses owners who are as unique as their venture. Today, I'm speaking with Regina and Dom Pasqualone, owners of Tiny Kitchen Candle Company - a women-owned home fragrance company based out of New Jersey. We'll talk about how Regina pivoted from being an educator to running a candle empire, and what she does to stay inspired. Wake up and smell the candles. This is Uniquely Small Biz.

Carolyn: Okay. So it is Tiny Kitchen Candle Company is the name of your company, Regina and Dom. Tell me this story, Regina, behind the name, Tiny Kitchen Candle Company, because I know there's definitely a story behind that. 

Regina: Well, we have a tiny kitchen and that is where I started making the candles. I was an English teacher and I kind of like the alliteration there, so Tiny Kitchen Candle Co., I loved how it sounded and that's just kind of how it came to be. 

Carolyn: You literally were an English teacher. You loved candles. You started making them in your kitchen and that's just how it was born. 

Regina: Pretty much. 

Carolyn: Wow. So why did you give up teaching? I mean, teaching is such a, I would think just a passion. Was that hard for you to walk away from that? 

Regina: I mean, it was, I think it was time. I think it was time for me to make the exit. You know, teaching is very rewarding, but it's also really, really difficult, especially with COVID. It just got to be too much. And I wanted to have more time with my son and my family, and really time to kind of take care of myself a little bit, because when you're a teacher and you're a mom and you're doing all these things, it's really hard to find the time. So yeah, I started making the candles and here we are. 

Carolyn: Yeah. I think a lot of people during the pandemic had that moment of, “Do I love a hundred percent what I'm doing? Is this my forever plan as far as a career?” I know a lot of people who turned sort of their, for lack of a better term, side hustle into their new career. There's no time like the present to just do what I really actually love doing in life. And in your case, bonus that you get to be home with your husband more and your kids, which is awesome. 

Regina: For sure. 

Carolyn: Why did you decide to go into business together? And Dom, I'm going to ask you, I'm going to put you on the hot seat and it better be good. 

Dom: I'll try. 

Carolyn: Okay. So why did you go in as husband and wife? That's risky sometimes.

Dom: I guess so, but I feel like we just, Regina was kind of kicking around the idea and I came home one day from work once with a little bit of inspiration as well for the candles and a couple of other things. And she was like, “You know, I think we've got to give it a shot” and I'm like, let's just do it. Let's go for it. See what happens. And she kind of handles all the creative, all of the making of the candles, all of the reaching out to the stores, doing a lot of the marketing, running the Instagram accounts and Facebook accounts, et cetera. And I'm kind of the guy in the background. Helps with the design of the labels, some of the shipping, kind of setting up all of the backend, I'd like to say of the business and trying to make sure that I'm doing everything I can for her to make her job as easy as possible. 

Regina: So he does all the spreadsheets. Cause I don't do spreadsheets.

Carolyn: Thank goodness. Right. The toughest job of them all. Do you guys find that when you're home, because okay, you're working together now, you're working at home, you're always together. Do you find that it's easy for you to separate business from family time? Is there a shutdown or a stop down where you just have to let things go for the day and be a family again and put the business on the back burner for a minute?

Regina: I feel like from the time my son gets home to school to like the end of dinner. So that's about like two and a half hours. We're good at not talking about business, but other than that, because it's so new, we're spending so much time, really dedicating so much time to growing the business. So it's been a challenge for sure. There's certain days where I'm just like, can we just, go in another room and lock yourself in there and we can pretend we're not in the house. Sick. 

Carolyn: That's only natural, that has to be just natural though. That's just part of it. Yeah. So what makes you guys unique? What makes Tiny Kitchen Candle Company unique? What differentiates you?

Regina: I think the thing that makes us stand out the most is the fact that we use a wooden wick. We use crackling wooden wicks, which you don't really see very often. I really tried my best to create kind of like a whole sensory experience with the candle right down to the glass, to the vessel that I use. So we use Amber Glass jars and they kind of omit a really nice soft glow. And then you have that, you know, the sound of the crackling wooden wick, and, you know, I do my best to curate and create really, I blend so many of the fragrances myself. So these are fragrances that you're not going to find anywhere else. And so far it's been working out really well. You know, custom fragrances are the ones that sell the best. So it's been good.

Carolyn: How did you get into this in the first place? Where's this passion from, for candles specifically? 

Regina: Well, I mean, I always like candles. When I was pregnant, there was this creativity thing going on in my brain and I just wanted to make stuff. And I played around, I made some soy candles, just strictly soy and they were okay. You know, I had some family members and friends test them out, but I really wanted to create something that, you know, smelled really great, looked really beautiful and kind of fulfilled this creative void that I was feeling.

Carolyn: I feel like candles could be, they’re almost - listening to you talk about it when you're talking about blends and the scents that you won't smell anywhere else - it's almost like it's a science, which is crazy. 

Regina: Oh it is a science.

Carolyn: It is. I mean, it really is. And so to hear you talk about it in this way, you know, I go into a shop and I'm like, “Hey, cool. That candle smells like lavender, I’ll take it!”

Regina: Right, right. 

Carolyn: But when you talk about all the different things that go into it and different wicks and different glass and different oils or different scents, it makes you realize there's a lot to this. 

Regina: Yeah, there definitely is. I didn't realize that at first. So it was a bit of a challenge. There's a lot of calculations that I have to do. As I stated before, I'm not really into calculations.

Carolyn: That's where Dom comes in. 

Regina: Yeah right that's where Dom comes in haha. But I figured it out and I have fun with it.

Carolyn: Do you guys have, I would imagine, Dom, do you have candles all over the house?

Dom: So, yes. And it depends on what time of year we're in. Right now the candles in the house are very low, but when she's researching and testing, they're all over the place. We're giving them out to people, our parents, her sisters, whoever my brother, his wife. They're all getting them tested, tested, tested, let us know how it is. Does it smell good? Does it have the right power behind it? Is it filling the room? Is it giving you a headache? Is it, you know, all the, of this whole litany of stuff we like to go through with everybody beyond just our own tests that we're doing in our house, because you got to smell it in other places to make sure it smells good everywhere, not just in your house, or also interesting is when she's got everything going, it's incredibly hard to smell anything in our house because there's so many different scents going on. A lot of fragrance overload sometimes.

Carolyn: Yeah, I would imagine that's a good point. First of all, bet your house smells incredible. 

Regina: Everybody walks in and says that.

Carolyn: You probably don't even smell it. 

Dom: We don't. 

Carolyn: I'm sure. I'm sure. You know, when you walk into your own house, even if you don't have candles, you don't smell anything. People come over and they're like, “I smell this, I smell it”. I can only imagine how good your house smells. 

Regina: Yeah. Yeah. So we've been told. Yeah, it's a good thing. 

Carolyn: What a fun gig for your family members, by the way, I mean, even though they all know they're getting candles for Christmas, birthdays, anniversaries, like what a great gift to receive.

Regina: Yeah. And it just so happens that, you know, my sister-in-laws on both sides, they love candles. They're obsessed with candles to begin with. You know, I have this like kind of built in community of testers. It's like, “Oh, you're making a new candle. I'll test it out for you!” So it’s been working out for us.

Dom: It's fun. Sometimes they even come up with code names for the candles. We have one candle that they were calling Sexy Man in the testing phase. “Ooh, this smells like a sexy man.” And everybody started calling it Sexy Man for like a month, like “When’s Sexy Man going to come out?” And we're like, “We don't know, and we're not calling it that.”

Carolyn: Yeah. Please stop saying that out loud and don't tell anybody that's the name of our candle. That's really funny. Do you find that on your busiest days, your stressful days, that you - it's weird because you say you don't really smell your candles, but do you use your candles for therapy? I mean, I light candles every night in my house just to kind of calm me down, you know, shut down the day. Do you find that you use your own product as sort of therapy? 

Regina: Absolutely. You know, there's certain candles that we have that were really developed to help, you know, relax you or kind of give you some clarity, you know, particularly one of our candles, it's a black tea candle. I know that if I'm, you know, practicing yoga or meditating, I always have a black tea candle going. I've actually had people, you know, come to me and say, “Oh my goodness, this candle makes me feel so relaxed”. And I'm like, Well, I've achieved my goal. I'm so happy about that, but yeah, for sure, for sure. I definitely still use them and they helped me to calm down. 

Carolyn: You know, we kind of joked about big, Sexy Man candle, which I've never said those words in a sentence together. But what are some of the names? Do you guys have any unique names for your candles or do you just label like ‘lavender’? 

Regina: No. So all of our candles, they're complex. So there's many layers of scent notes in them. So it's not just a singular note, like lavender or vanilla, but like Sexy Man, for example, we actually ended up calling that candle Roam, because a lot of the scent notes that we included kind of reminded us of places that you might travel to. And so we thought Roam, you know, to roam around and kind of travel would be an appropriate name for that. We do have a candle that's one of our best sellers called Prohibition. And when you burn Prohibition, it takes you right back to that time period. You know, you're kind of sitting in a dark back room of like, I don’t know…

Dom: I always said it reminds me of a back room of a casino where the big ballers would be hanging out, smoking cigars, big puffy leather couches, big hats on, silly tuxedos. Even before that, like Boardwalk Empire, everybody's sneaking around. I don't know why, but it's real smoky and there’s some fidelity. 

Carolyn: Dirty money and fun.

Dom: Yeah. Yeah, sure yes.

Carolyn: I love though that you have these visuals for your candles. That’s so awesome. I want to smell Roam now. You know, I want to smell these to see if I get that same vibe from the candles. I think that's so neat. Do you ever have people that come back to you and say, you know what this one smells like to me or they try and name, especially family members since they have no filter, usually that they're trying to name the candles for you.

Regina: Yeah. I think we have.

Dom: Yeah, it's so funny. We have people coming back and be like, “I smell this, I smell that”. And then some people would be like, you know, “I smell, whatever, orange in this candle”. And we're like orange isn't even in the candle, but everybody smells things completely differently, especially when we're face-to-face with our customers and they're going, and they're smelling, you know, all 10 fragrances that we have and they start describing it. And it's like, never heard anybody say that before, or it's right on, you know, right on the same thing that we're going for. It's crazy the way that everybody smells things a little differently. 

Carolyn: It reminds me a little bit of wine tasting. How, when you taste a wine and you're like, I get vanilla in this. Well, I get berry. Well, I get blah, blah, blah. So I guess the same could be said for candles. Dom, how do you guys source the material for Tiny Kitchen Candle Company? 

Dom: So the beginning we strictly, we're just looking at very, very small quantities and Amazon was our best friend at that point. You know, we were buying 12 packs of jars at that point, four or five packs at a time. She was getting waxes from this one company that we use. And the wicks come from there as well. Fragrances was all on her. She was the one that was doing all the fragrances. We use a handful of different companies to source that stuff from. And then over time we learned where, you know, the bulk places were for the jars, for the tops. Most of the companies for the waxes and the fragrances had to have stayed the same. And then the same thing with labels, we started off with one label company and we've kind of transitioned away for a different look and feel to another label company. And then you know, things just kind of grow and grow and grow. And we learn a lot as we go. Right now, I think we're in a nice sweet spot where we kind of figured out, you know, we know where we are as far as the amount of stuff that we need and we know where we can get it. The biggest challenge we have is getting jars right now because of the way everything is with shipping, everything’s taking forever to come off ships. Who's got the jars who doesn't have the jars? What are the prices of the jars? Actually the lids are the same thing. So I've actually been trying to go out to the actual manufacturers instead of the distributors and seeing, you know, what kind of volume we have to buy from them in order to, for them to sell it to us. So it's been very challenging getting jars. So when we do find them, we buy a ton at a time. We’ve got pallets come into the house, same thing with tops. And last year we ran into a problem on our labels because we couldn't get the actual label paper in. So the company was making labels with just regular paper with like sticky on the back of it. Some of them worked well, some of them didn't. So we learn, you know, kind of every step of the way you’re learning.

Carolyn: Do your neighbors know what you guys do for a living, because I can picture pallets coming up to your house. And they're like, what is happening next door at the Pasqualone house? 

Regina: Yeah, they do. They do; our one neighbor is one of our best customers. She thinks it’s the most wonderful thing. She'll text me, “I need a couple of candles”, you know, so we just drop it off. But, they've been good. They've been really, really understanding. Our delivery guys are great. They help us get the pallets up the driveway and into the garage quickly and efficiently. So we're lucky we have really nice neighbors. 

Carolyn: Yeah. I know that you're in Whole Foods, which is exciting. Huge. I mean, you've got the product now. It's in the garage. The pallets are here. You're in Whole Foods. First of all, how did you land Whole Foods? That's a big, big deal. 

Regina: So I got an email one day from a buyer. And to be honest with you, I thought it was spam. I was like, this isn't real. What is this? But it was very real. They just so happened to be shopping in one of the local shops that carries our candles and thought that it was a great product and asked us if we would be interested in participating in their local buyer program. So of course I said yes. That's really it, we sent them samples, they loved it. The whole team did. And you know, fast forward three or four months and we were, you know, making our first shipments to the stores. 

Carolyn: That is fantastic. I mean, did you guys have a celebratory dinner? Did you like, what?

Regina: Yeah. Oh, we did. It was exciting.

Dom: It was very exciting. It was wild. The fall was a wild time here. We were so busy. She was making candles nonstop just 'cause they had put in a really nice order for us and it was like, whoa, this is real now, you know, like it's not just a couple here and there. Yeah. It was very cool.

Carolyn: You guys are obviously in Whole Foods Market, which is awesome. Huge, great, wonderful. But you have to do some other sort of advertising. So do you rely solely on a lot of people use Facebook or Instagram? Do you rely on social media for the majority of your marketing? 

Regina: I would say yes, I think social media does the work for us in that sense. That's our big push for marketing, 

Dom: Definitely a big push. And also now that we are in Whole Foods, somebody told us, I forget who it is now, but where we heard from somewhere that you can let the people who stock your products, be your advertising for you. So we can say someone, “Hey, we're now in Whole Foods”. And all of a sudden it's like, everybody knows. Everybody knows they carry quality products, so it's like, oh, that's a light bulb. Maybe that for them to, you know, go “Hey, this is a good product. We'll take a look at it” kind of thing. So we're not out there. We're not putting together marketing campaigns, frankly. We haven't looked into it. And we really haven't been, I think, ready, quote unquote, for that yet, but we're doing just fine on the track we're on. And a lot of it's through social media, randomly just kind of reaching out to stores. We'll send emails out. We got a very large online retailer recently that I had just emailed them back in like March. Like, “Hey, we have a great product”. I think it’ll fit with what you're doing here. They got back to us in November and they ordered a ton of candles from us. So it's pretty cool.

Carolyn: That's so great. You guys, that's so fun. 

Regina: Thank you. 

Carolyn: I mean, the fact that you haven't had to turn to advertising yet through social media platforms, you're really word of mouth at this point, is such a compliment to your product. That's so awesome. Congratulations. 

Dom: Just running Facebook ads and it's not anything huge and that's all through our website. So it hasn't been any major pushes, or we haven't had to hire any external marketing companies or anything to help us out with that yet.

Carolyn: Good for you. That's when you know you're doing something right. You know?

Regina: Thank you. 

Carolyn: That's fantastic. So what's next? Tell me what's next for Tiny Kitchen Candle Company. 

Regina: Oh, my goodness. What's next? 

Carolyn: What do you plan? What do you think about when you think about the future? Where do you want to be? 

Regina: Oh, I, I think about this a lot. Short term, there's a lot of, you know, design ideas and fragrance ideas that I have that I want to get out there very soon. I'm going to be offering sip and pour workshops where people can actually come and make their candles and I'll walk them through the whole candle making process and they can, you know, sip their drink and have a nice night out with friends, just sip and pour a candle. Yeah, I would love, you know, I want this to grow. I want this to grow and that's the bottom line and you know, it's one day at a time, one step at a time. I'm not a business person. So I'm learning as I go. We're learning as we go, but luck has certainly been on our side. And I think the fact that we're working really hard at this, you know, that's kind of helped our luck out too.

Carolyn: And I love the idea of the sip and pour, because then you get a group of probably women who are going to come in and there's going to be however many of them, they're probably going to buy the product. They're going to tell their friends. And there you go with a word of mouth again. It's just a fun night.

Regina: Yeah. Yeah. 

Carolyn: Well, gosh, congratulations. It was so nice talking to you guys. I can't wait to go check out your social media platforms. 

Regina: Thank you so much. 

Carolyn: Yeah. I'm really happy for you. Your story is really interesting. You didn't follow the typical model of a new business owner in the sense that you know, with the advertising and the marketing team, you guys are kind of just feeling your way through and you're having success. And these are the stories I love, right. Because you're doing it on your own and you're trusting your gut and it's working. So congratulations. Fantastic. 

Regina: Thank you. Thank you so much. 

Carolyn: Yeah. Thanks for being on with us today. 

Carolyn: Joining me now to discuss some considerations for running a home-based business from an insurance perspective is Director of Small Business Portfolio and Underwriting Management at Selective Insurance, Kim Merrick.

Carolyn: All right, Kim, my first question for you, what do you think in your opinion, entrepreneurs like Regina need to think about from an insurance perspective as they are just kind of getting started. 

Kim: Absolutely. So before I dive in, I must say I truly loved hearing their story of how she got started when Regina was pregnant and looking for creativity, you know, her outlet. And that's actually how a lot of small businesses start, maybe not being pregnant, but a lot of them start with their side hustle or their passion that eventually everyone says “Ah, this could be a business”. So once you get to that point, you've teed up, you know, what do they need to start thinking about from an insurance perspective, and when? So my answer to that is when you start making money from it. So when you start relying on it from a source of income and you want to be able to grow this business, it's important to protect it. So for instance, what happens if your computer got hacked and you have your personal information from your customers on there, or unfortunately you're going to your first trade show and you end up transporting your products and you get into an accident? What happens? You need to be able to get back on your feet. So I do suggest opting with a Business Owner's Policy or a General Liability with some cyber insurance is definitely the best place to start. 

Carolyn: Yeah, I think that's so simple yet so powerful. It's like once you start making money, you're going to need some sort of coverage. So don't wait because you certainly don't want to get caught in a situation where, oh, I should've could've would've and then you're dead in the water. Let's say your computer is hacked and you've got customer information on there. Or you get into an accident on the way to your first trade show, heaven forbid, you've got equipment and goods, you would have to have coverage for that as well. I mean, there are all kinds of aspects. This is why you guys are the experts when it comes to getting coverage.

Kim: Yeah absolutely. Yeah your homeowners is not going to be covering your business risk. So it's absolutely important to be able to get that specific insurance that's designed for your business.

Carolyn: Okay. So Regina was mentioning some sort of next steps that when it comes to growing Tiny Kitchen Candle Company, like she had the idea of sip and pour events. So how does she need to think differently about her business insurance as her company starts to grow? 

Kim: Absolutely. And it's great that she's exploring new ways to expand her business, especially being able to have an experience with her customers, which is definitely an exciting opportunity. Now with that said, it does create new risks that she does want to make sure that she absolutely protects. So consider these, you know, is she going to the customer's place or their home, or are they coming to hers? And she, you know, there was just an ice storm and she needs to worry about did she clear all of the ice off of her steps, right, from a liability perspective, or who's going to be serving the stuff that guests are sipping on? Is it the guests that are bringing their own or is she going to be supplying? Because obviously there's types of risks that come along with that as well. And also, where is she going to be processing payments? Because I assume that they're going to be buying products after that. So is she potentially going to be on an unsecured network? You know, there's certain things she needs to think about when she's protecting her business. All of that probably sounds way overwhelming. And that's why, just like she had a support system to tell her if there is, you know, a new scent that actually is resonating with somebody, there is independent insurance agents that you can go to, to ask the questions of what type of risks do I need to be concerned about as I'm expanding their business. They're there to be able to help you understand, is this something that I need to protect? And those are the ones that help take that overwhelming experience out. So you can focus on your passion. 

Carolyn: It's crazy. When you think about those little things, like people coming to your house and slipping on ice as they're walking up your steps or heaven forbid they get burned while lighting a candle. I mean, that would never happen, but you know what I'm saying? It's those things that we don't think about where it's so important that they think about everything all the way through. So thank you for touching on that. I never would have caught that. When a small business partners, like in their case with a bigger store, like Whole Foods Market, do business owners need to think differently about their risks and coverage when they're partnering with these bigger stores?

Kim: Absolutely. So the big box stores, you know, like Whole Foods, they've grown by protecting their brand and their business. So along the way, they're certainly going to pass that responsibility to you as well. And they'll be looking to you to have specific types of insurance, whether it's product liability, and it's going to be tailored to your specific type of product. And they're going to want certain limits as far as how much insurance you have. And then they're going to ask to be put on your policy as an additional insured. And again, you're probably thinking, “Oh, all that insurance jargon”, but that's why you have your partners like the independent agents to be able to help you get through those questions as well.

Carolyn: Yeah. When you're a new business owner and you're just starting out, you're focusing, I would imagine number one on the product and number two on marketing and they know insurance is important, but I think a lot of small business owners and startups, they don't know where to start. They don't, at no fault of their own there are all these little things that you know about that they're not thinking about. And so that's why it's great that we have you guys. 

Kim: And they could definitely think about, you know, as you expand your business to not only do you need to think about how you're working with the Whole Foods partners you need to also think inward to how is that going to impact my business? Are you going to be hiring employees now? And do you need to think about all of the, you know, the workers' compensation that goes along with that, or do you need to think about, well, what happens if they have issues on their supply chain? So I know that Regina and Dom talked about how they have stockpiled of some of the jars and the lids and their garage to be able to overcome some of those challenges. And there are some insurance opportunities that may cover issues like that as well. But you need to think of all facets. Are you going to be getting a new truck to deliver your candles? And what about the extra inventory that's now going to be on site in between deliveries? Do you need to increase your limits just in case of fire or a flood or something like that's happened? Which of course we hope never happens to a small business owner, any business owner, but things do happen and you want to be able to be protected. 

Carolyn: How often should you be reviewing your insurance coverage? I mean, especially for a company like theirs, they're growing so quickly. Is it an annual thing? Is it a monthly, like, what do you recommend?

Kim: It’s a great question. And I would say as often as your business is changing and growing, especially as you know, you're building that business out, you are exposing yourself to new type of risks that you may not realize you're entering into. So obviously insurance is not something you think of as you're expanding that you're focused on growing, but it is absolutely important to add it onto your checklist as you're adding a new distribution partner or a new product. Put insurance down there to be able to say, you know, call my agent to understand what type of risks am I getting into, because you just want to make sure that you're protected before anything like that happens. And we, again, hope nothing happens. So, you know, very similar Regina and Dom are focused on how do they overcome supply chain issue is by stockpiling that material. Insurance is kind of the same thing you're preparing for that rainy day that you hope will never happen. So it's just important to review obviously your growing business model, because we can find tailored insurance coverages that are designed specifically for your business for you, especially Regina and Dom, to focus on, you know, pouring their efforts into their passion. That's something that they'll be able to continue to focus on.

Carolyn: Well, I can tell you firsthand their product is incredible. Just from a personal standpoint. After I talked to them, they were so convincing that I went online and ordered one candle.

Kim: Me too! 

Carolyn: You did?

Kim: I did.

Carolyn: Do you know what one you got?

Kim: Yes. I actually got two.

Carolyn: I got Snowed In. That's a good one. What'd you get?

Kim: I ended up getting Aurora. I like a floral scent, so I got that one. And then I got the Sap and Citrus one, so I'm very excited. 

Carolyn: Okay. That's my next order because I talked my friend Holly into ordering and she ordered that one and loves it. She also got Prohibition and she loves that as well. So I mean, Regina and Dom, if you're listening, you have like three new customers already, but I just, you know, I don't know about you, but I love supporting the small businesses. And their story I thought was so great when I spoke with them. And they're just such nice people. Those are the people I like to support. So I picture them, like in their garage making our candles. I think about it. Funny, we're fans. We're fans. Well Kim, thank you so much for your time. Really appreciate it.

Kim: Thank you. Thanks for having me.