Meet Stacey Fish and PJ Carroll of Lit Up Candle in Decatur

Today we’d like to introduce you to Stacey Fish and PJ Carroll.

Stacey and PJ, please share your story with us. 
Lit Up Candle Co. was founded by two beer lovers with a candle-making problem on a mission to promote sustainability.

When we started dating in 2014, PJ wanted to learn and share one of my hobbies and surprised me with a new bottle cutter which was much better than the pre-owned one I had been using with packaging straight out of the 60’s or 70’s. What started as our shared hobby quickly grew into something more.

Unfortunately, around that same time the Atlanta area stopped recycling glass and started taking it to the landfill; fortunately, two kindred entrepreneurial spirits decided to see if there was a market for high-quality soy candles made in upcycled bottles. It took us over a month to create 80 candles for our first event, the Acworth Beer & Wine Fest, where we were pleasantly surprised by the response. Not only that, we realized all the bottles from the beer festival were being thrown in the trash and we recognized the opportunity to save our livers and work with local events and businesses and collect their empties to give them a new life as a candle.

After a handful of events we decided to remove the original beer labels and brand our candles in order to brew Lit Up Candle Co. into the business we visualized it could become. And on September 21, 2015, we officially organized Lit Up LLC.

In 2016, we stayed focused on doing more local events. In 2017, we began expanding our brand awareness by doing larger local festivals and retail events outside our local market, traveling as far west as Colorado and as far north as New York. We also began exhibiting at trade shows and grew our retailers by more than 1000%.

We are currently carried in almost 150 retailers nationwide and internationally.

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
When we first started out, Lit Up was a side project on top of our day jobs; only being able to dedicate our nights and weekends didn’t really afford us the time we really needed to build the business how we wanted. At first, our family and friends thought our “candle company” was just “a cute hobby” but we had much bigger plans. We knew if we really wanted to brew Lit Up into a sustainable business we would have to dedicate far more time to it.

In May 2017 we decided to take a risk step away from our day jobs to give our business our full focus and started expanding our presence at trade shows. We started the 2017 Summer trade show season with 10 local stockists, by Fall we had jumped to 90 stores across the country, and as of today, we’ve grown to almost 150 retailers including a few international retailers in Canada and Hong Kong. The fast growth we experienced in that short time definitely came with its challenges.

That Fall, we had to quickly figure out how to scale-up production in order to meet our new demand. We went from producing 500 to 3500 candles a week and are able to easily expand for future growth. No one ever prepares you for all of the things that can go wrong.: we experienced losing power during Irma, equipment failure, supplier issues and only having 24 hours in a day, which kept us working around the clock to get orders out.

That season, we also had to work through surprising new issues with soy wax due to the manufacturers changing their formulas (without any warning, of course). Around that same time, the fragrance industry started experiencing some major issues with supply due to fires in foreign factories; our perfumer ensured us they had enough supply to get through the reconstruction of these facilities, and luckily we haven’t had any issues.

What we’ve learned is you always have to be ready to deal with next the challenge, because they never stop coming. Running a business is constant troubleshooting and being able to adapt to anything and everything that’s thrown at you.

Lit Up Candle Co. – what should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
When we first got started, we were inspired by other candle companies that were upcycling wine bottles; we noticed most of the candles made in upcycled wine bottles were wine-inspired fragrances and typically on the sweet side. At that time, we didn’t see anybody using beer bottles and saw an opportunity to really focus on fragrances and develop a selection that would appeal to a broad audience. So, we set out to make the best-smelling, best-quality soy candles using upcycled beer bottles.

What sets us apart: our fragrances, the strength of our fragrances, our packaging and our mission to promote sustainability.

OUR SOY CANDLES:
All of our candles are made with 100% all-natural soy wax, hand-poured in small batches and blended with the maximum ratio of fully-concentrated fragrance oil (almost double the recommended amount), to make the best smelling, long burning candles. We use a hemp wick because hemp is more sustainable than cotton and burns hotter to improve the fragrance throw.

8 OZ. BEER BOTTLE CANDLES:
Each beer bottle candle is handcrafted using upcycled beer bottles collected from local events and businesses. After cleaning the labels off, we use a 4-step cold-working process to repurpose the beer bottles into usable, upcycled containers for our candles: first we use a wet saw to hand-cut the glass then we use the lapidary wheel to grind away any imperfections or chipping, pre-polish the now smooth edge and lastly polish it to add shine back onto the glass. (Estimated Burn Time: Up to 60 hours)

Unlike some other companies that upcycle glass bottles, we take pride in providing a cut edge that’s smooth to the touch and doesn’t require a warning label about potentially cutting yourself.

6 OZ. TRAVEL TIN CANDLES:
Our eco-friendly tins are sustainable, 100% recyclable and reusable. These are perfect for those on-the-go who want to take their favorite fragrance along with them. Candles are a great way to make a hotel room feel more homey. (Estimated Burn Time: Up to 40 hours)

What is “success” or “successful” for you?
Of course, we track various business metrics measure our success, such as sales, web traffic, followers and engagement. However, those KPIs don’t singularly define our success. When someone comes to our booth and tells us they love all our fragrances – we know we’re doing something right.

With every candle sold, we’re keeping glass out of the landfills. We’re helping educate the masses about sustainability and the difference between soy wax and paraffin wax. We thrive off of all the connections we make with people.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://litupcandleco.com/
• Phone: 320-438-5481 (GET-LIT1)
• Email: [email protected]
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/litupcandleco/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LitUpCandleCo/
• Other: https://www.pinterest.com/lituppins/

Image Credit:
RSVP ATL

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