Today I met a fellow business owner in the checkout aisle at the grocery store. We’ve never formally met before, but we knew of one another. And, as always, the conversation led to the closure of my store last April. It made me realize that I’ve never really addressed this subject publically, and quite frankly I’ve felt like a broken record repeating the same story on a P2P basis this past year. Clearly the economy played a part in this whole thing, but the true reason might surprise you.
Simply put, I didn’t like it. I’ve always had this little daydream of having a shop to sell my candles; getting up early every morning, ordering a hot coffee from the cafe next door, waving hello to my fellow shopkeepers as I made my way to my own little shop. It’s a very romantic notion, yes? Yet somewhere along the way, and I believe it was in the days before my grand opening, something had occurred to me: “Now what?” And what I was asking myself was, “what am I to do the next 5+ years - play shop keep in this 600s/f space?” I remember the sinking feeling of that realization, but quickly ignored it, and busied myself with the tasks at hand.
Most people, (well probably everyone) cringed when they saw the “Coming Soon!” signs posted on the windows, and placed their bets on how long until I folded. What most people saw as a bad business move, I saw as an opportunity. Here was a chance for a very small sole proprietorship, with practically no capital, and I got my foot in the door of the highly sought after retail space of downtown Walnut Creek. I figured if I found a space that was small enough and not outrageously priced, I might be able to pull it off.
At the 6-month point I began discussions with my partner on whether or not I should keep the shop at the end of my 1 year lease or give it up. Sales were good, and I was making enough to cover the costs of doing business. My partner’s argument for keeping the business was that people would think I failed, and I? Well frankly, I really didn’t care what anyone thought.
What I ended up learning was that it takes an insurmountable amount of energy to run a business, a retail store and manufacture your own product all by yourself. I was the store employee, the store manager, the janitor, the sales rep, marketing manager, accountant, research & development department, store merchandiser, product buyer, web designer etc. etc. etc.
And let’s not forget the core of the whole business, after I spent the whole day doing the above at the shop, I would come home to my “studio” and spend countless hours working late into the night, hand pouring and packaging each and every candle one at a time. In addition, Sundays were spent selling my candles at the Walnut Creek Farmers Market, and between the months of September and May, I was often running a booth at major art and wine festivals in the Bay Area. Also, I had no time to spend with my partner and my beloved “buddies (our two dogs)” and the house was falling apart.
Yes, had the economy been better, I could have hired someone to sit in the shop while I busied myself with candle making and procuring new business contacts. Having to do all of this on my own took the fun out of it, and the joy I used to take in the methodical candle making process became extra grueling work I had to do at home. I also found I had no time to spend refining my product or coming up with new combinations. All my resources, financially, emotionally and physically were soaked up by 1601 North Main Street.
So in the end, the decision was simple: keep the resource consuming shop and become stagnant and irrelevant, or close the shop and pour 100% of my focus back into what I love doing: and that is making fabulous candles and wrapping them in a recognizable and well respected brand that is Whitehall Candle Company.
