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Welcome back everyone. This is Mine the Business.
Small Business success Stories, a podcast brought to you by Intwood, QuickBooks and Ruby Studio from iHeartMedia. I'm Jennie Storrez.
And I'm Austin Hankwooz.
Austin, what do you think of when you think of small business ownership?
Ooh, we're getting right to it. Okay.
What do I think of when I think of small business ownership? I think of working alongside of my favorite partners and employees to build a growing business. I unfortunately think a tax is but I also think about just how easy it can be to start a business, depending on the tools and resources that you choose.
When I think of the earliest stages of someone starting a business, I inctily think of a little kid opening up a lemonade stand. I think for a lot of small business owners, this is the first step that we take into going business for ourselves.
You are absolutely correct. The first business I had was in eighth grade. I lived in Denver, Colorado, and I was snowblowing driveways, charging people fifteen dollars a driveway. It was quite a labor intensive business, and it did last that long, but I made some quick money.
That's quite the hustle.
You know.
One of those things they don't tell us when we're kids is whether we should have registered as an LLC or an ascorp. I know I was not thinking about that. Do you think kids today are looking into patent and copyright law for their lemonade recipe?
I mean, with the AI technology we got today, who knows what the powers that these kids. They're pretty sophisticated now, so I would not be surprised. But I had no idea about any of this stuff when I was starting, and certainly not when I was a kid. Now, even as an adult, I put in a lot of research in studying to learn the steps I needed to take to make my business official and finally get things off the ground.
Absolutely same here and all these options and understanding the best way to get started and launching your business can be so overwhelming for a lot of people. But luckily we are here to help because most of us aren't selling lemonade in the yard anymore. We're dealing with significant amounts of money, regulations, liability, insurance, and so much more. So we've got to know all the paths we can take and understand what is the best thing for our business and our future plans.
And that can be very daunting just to get started right, how overwhelming it is to think about, Oh my gosh, I have to think about to your point, insurance, all these employees, these liabilities, money, regulation compliance, it's pretty daunting. I remember when I first started out Janias, I had countless question and I was so fortunate to have some mentors and people in my corner that I could lean on to help me with that.
Yeah, you know, it's really important to just make sure that you're getting the information that you need in order to navigate this path, because, especially if you're the first person in your circle. To start a business, you don't necessarily have that level of knowledge around you. I know for me, it was a lot of kind of Google and YouTube university trial by fire if you.
Were professor Google is what I call them. We're going to be discussing all that and more today with our guests, Misty and Dennis Acres from the Candle Poor in Tampa, Florida. Misty and Dennis are University of South Florida alums who wanted to start a business that broke through the clutter of technology and are increasing reliance on all things online to bring people together in a physical space. They also wanted to have a product that people could use and
enjoy every day. They found the perfect blend of the two in candle making. They opened The Candle Core in Tampa in twenty nineteen and have been providing unique and enjoyable experiences for customers of all ages ever since. They are Tampa's first pour your own candle experience, and they're
also family owned and operated. From individuals to couples to groups large and small, they have a plethora of products and scents to choose from, and pride themselves in crafting a bond building social experience that leaves you with something beautiful to take home. Missy and Dennis, thank you so much for joining us on this episode of Mind the Business. We're here in the candleploor in Tampa, Florida. It smells amazing, really cool spot.
Yeah, that's half the battle, so custom candle experience. I hope it smells good when you get in here.
So, I unfortunately am someone who is chronically online. I am always on social media, I'm always looking at headline news. I spend too much time on the internet. So when it came to candle making, sort of the opposite of that. What stood out about candle making to you, which which allows people to detach from their devices and sort of the online buzz that we're always pulled into.
Yeah, it's about the experience and that's what we wanted to create with our business. Candles are something that I think most people love and they use and then they reuse and come back. So that was a big part of it, is just being able to have an in person experience vers like what you said is like surfing online and really you know, being able to shop and get everything you need to do at your doorstep. This is something that really brings people together, and we love that.
Talk more about the bringing people together part because I mean, I can't count quickly here, but I'm at least a dozen actual seating arrangements here. So how large these parties? Do people come by themselves sometime? I mean, what is the true customer experience when they walk in the door.
That's a great question. The candlepoor is a custom candle experience. Our goal is to help you create your own scent. So we bring people together. They choose from over one hundred different individual scents to make their own custom scent blend. The experience itself last right around thirty to forty five minutes, and we always reckoned and starting your day with us because once you are done creating your own special candle,
they need two hours to set prep in bag. So that's when you go spend some more time with friends, and you come back and pick it up. I mean, you can come by yourself, that's perfectly fine. Ninety nine point nine percent of what we do is actually not about candles, is about making you feel welcome, enjoying yourself, having a fun experience.
That's amazing. Now to my understanding, this in Hyde Park is your first location. Talk to us about what it was like to open your doors on day one.
Terrifying. Yeah, I mean the thing is you have no idea what to expect. Are people gonna You know, we are both from the area, so I think we had that initial friends and family welcome, everybody's excited, they're proud we do grand opening. But then once that day's over, it's who's coming? Do people know where we are? Our first location was actually on the other side. We were on the second story, no traffic, so we were just kind of like, okay, there would be days that likee
walked through the door. But then what really happened, especially like crediting social media, is people started to come in, they were sharing other people saw it, they were like, oh, my friend just came. So that took off really fast for us, and we're very very blessed that we had that. And then really just our friends and family like gathering together to support us and rallying and coming in and getting the word.
Out was huge.
Well, you all have obviously done a wonderful job. I think you're opening your fourth location.
Now, m m. Yeah, we'll be in Sarasota congratulations.
Yeah, so how did you guys find the money to do this?
We self funded our first location. That was just something like I knew for several years what I wanted to do, so I you know, we were saving for that. But yeah, to start, it was very difficult to present to people and you're trying to like explain it and they're like,
what what are you doing? Even our friends. I had a friend that came up to us like a year after we opened, and she was like, I just remember when you were talking about it, and she was like I just left being like, oh no, the this is never going to work, and I'm like she felt sorry for us, and then she's like, I'm really happy for you. But I knew what it would look like. He knew what it would look like, but until we were open, we didn't really have a lot of backing.
Yeah, I mean sometimes it takes time to make believers out of folks, right.
Exactly, And honestly, what she said that still happens. So if we go to like a networking event and it's like I'm a doctor, i'm a lawyer, I'm an accountant, and I'm like, we are a custom candle experience and They always like, you know how whin the dog looking at you that doesn't really understand you?
And they tilt their head to the left a little bit.
They're always like, do that and you try to explain it and have you really got to get them in here and touch and feel and be part of the environment to really understand what we're doing.
You know what's funny.
I find a common theme in all the folks that we've talked to on this season and just in general, is you don't ask questions to folks who don't have the experience or the exposure to what you're trying to do. Right, You had a lot of nasayers, You got a lot of people saying, are you nuts?
But these are also probably.
People who don't own a business, You've never dabbled in entrepreneurship, or at least of not taking the level of risk that you guys have taken. And so I think this is a good reminder talk to people who are actually in the arena, because they're the ones that are going to set you up for success, versus folks who are kind of just maybe projecting their own fears onto you and are not really going to give you the advice that you need to move forward.
It's a really good point.
Yeah, I have a funny feeling that's going to be a theme of this season, right, leaning in on your trusted advocates and sort of your team members.
Right.
We're just talking to Sharise earlier with episode one, and she was talking about how she had a mentor, right, and so she leans on the mentor for recommendations and other things like that.
So I'm right there worth with you. I think it's very important.
You know, a big reason why I like into a quick book so much is because they simplify the day to day of me tracking my revenue, my bookkeeping, my payroll, all that fun stuff. And so I'm curious, when is it a good time to diiy the patents, the trademarks, the incorporations, the accounting versus sort of offloading that to a trusted partner.
How do you balance that?
It's just knowing your strengths, your weaknesses, a lot of the law stuff. That was an easy one to say, let's offload that one. You know, Yeah, that's literally what it is. You got to understand yourself and you really want to focus on what the business is doing. I know you mentioned into it quick books, and it's going to take care of a lot of things for you.
That's the one thing you want to.
Do is get us much off of your plate so you can focus on how is this going to run? How are my customers going to feel when they're in there, as opposed to do I remember to put that recept in and get that all that in the background and focus on your main business.
Yeah, and that's part of it too, is like I said, stay in your lane. If you're not great at something, just understand you're not. You know, he does all the marketing, and that was something like when we decided to do it together. His photography is beautiful, so when we first started the business, we're posting these professional photos. Hiring is probably the number one thing that's important with any business. It's just making sure that you have the right team
in place. So if you're not good at like judging somebody as far as like you can't read them, and get somebody that can use a recruiter. That's important. But we've always done that in house because it's something that I feel is probably one of my biggest strengths.
I think before the interview, you too were sort of going back and forth where Dennis is more of like the pie and the sky guy and Misty is more of the operationals. Right, So maybe maybe there's like this really cool dichotomy that balances out, you know, the success of this business because you two works so well together.
Yeah, for sure.
I mean a majority of things behind the scenes. So it's making sure the machine is working. And then how do we I guess what I would say that I do is how do I put a little sugar on the machine? I mean everything we do here is a process. Everything is laid out, there's check marks to be made, everything extremely extremely well oiled machine kind of stuff. And how do we take the well oiled machine and give
it a little more personality? And that's it can be probably annoying sometimes, but it's my my trait for sure. And then yeah, as far as entrepreneurship, that's just waking up every day and looking in the mirror and saying, here we go, let's let's get through it and making your list. And like you said, you're learning every day
and sometimes you don't realize you're learning it. Maybe more trial by fire sometimes, but you want to do your best to wake up and understand that you're blessed to a be busy.
That's why we're tired and we're busy.
So you're blessed to be busy, and you're blessed to have a counterpart in the business that really puts their heart and soul in it and is up.
Till the wee hours of the night.
I always tell the staff when you get an email at midnight or one am, it's not because she delayed it on some weird clock system as she's sitting next to me just firing away on our computer, because that's the best time she can work because no one can email her back.
So yeah, and holidays, weekends.
So you just got to get used to that lifestyle, and you got to get used to some of your days are just not going to look the same majority of them all. I think that's why we do this though.
Yeah. Yeah, it's definitely a different breed for sure.
When people go to a school for entrepreneurship, I'm like, maybe just go out and get your teeth kicked in, because that's what it is.
It is.
It's like, how do we get through today? Like the pandemic happened. Obviously, we open in April twenty fift two thousand nineteen. The world changed a little bit after that, but just to navigate the PPP loans and navigate all that so we can just somehow hope to stay open was a day to day taxing on both emotions and mental status and all kinds of things.
But we got through it.
Yeah, like you say, year to year, it's different, and we just really got like that fire with our first year. You're trying to figure out what you're doing, who you hire, who your customers are, how to run your business, and then global pandemic that's never happened in any of our times. So then it's like, okay, now we have to close for five months. So year two was like really weird because we had to like move everything online, so we were doing like virtual candle poor experiences.
That's pretty cool.
It was cool, yeah, and it was neat to see like people really you know, they were just like sending us messages like we hope you survive, you know, and we're just like, oh.
Gosh, like little do they know you're thriving now?
Yeah? And then you know, so year two was like, all right, how do you operate being clothes for five months with our staff. We kept one hundred percent of our staff, which we were extremely proud of to like figure out ways to keep them working. Then at the end of that year, it was like, Okay, we're doing an experience where it's touching and news, but everyone's having to wear a mask. And then the third year we were like, all right, we're kind of back to normal.
So it's been a real challenge, but we've learned a ton. We feel like we can kind of get through anything.
So yeah, I mean, it's so a test of endurance. I think entrepreneurship for sure.
I always say the candlepor is anonymous for change. So we're always trying to get better.
And if you're not getting better, you may not be getting worse, but you're just being stagnant.
I'm curious, was this always the dream?
Did you always have entrepreneurial dreams or what was your previous lives in, you know, corporate entrepreneurial.
Yes, this No. So I was with a company for about ten years that did medical aesthetics. Learned a ton. It was a growing company, and it was something like what I love about it is what I want to do here.
I got that.
Experience there and I really learned franchising, the good, the bad, the ugly, what mistakes that we could potentially make here, and then just trying not to do those things so we don't have to go backwards. The dream, I don't think was Candles, but it was definitely to create something for our employees to hopefully have careers for a long time and then maybe go into business for themselves. That's
a big part of it too. My ultimate dream would be to have an employee that's been with us a couple of years and then they end up opening in a different market and you know, opening their own business and putting them into business, which would be neat.
How about you, Dennis, what was your past life?
I got too many past lives.
One of my past lives was photography, video work, that kind of stuff. I've done, real estate, I've sold flowers. I've done a lot of different things. And when she approached us to say candles, I went, what And then Yeah, once we worked on the business plan and put our minds to it, I just buckled up.
Honestly, Okay, that's it.
I literally was just like, Hey, you think this is a good idea, Okay, let's do it. And I'd like to say, I'm like her chest piece, like where do you need me today?
And where can I help? And let's move forward.
So I think that.
Speaks to the underrated but really valuable asset that it is to have a partner. Maybe they don't see the whole vision, but at least they trust you enough to be like, you know, I think you can make this work. So I appreciate that about y'all.
Coming up on Mind the Business, Small Business success.
Stories higher slow fire Bath is probably the best advice that I've been given that I've used.
We'll be right back. Welcome back to Mind the Business.
So let's talk about what comes next after you start the business. You're tracking inventory, sales, payroll, all the things. How does that work for y'all? How did you set that up? Because you know, obviously we talk about the robustness of into it QuickBooks and being able to manage so many different aspects of your business, whether that is
tracking your money, your expenses, taking care of payroll. The benefit of using a system like into it QuickBooks is that it takes all of these things that we have to individually track and puts them all in one place. So can you talk to us about how you set up your process to be able to make sure everything's flowing so that you don't get lost in the minutia of running the business.
Yeah, into it. QuickBooks was one of the first things we did. I came from an industry that had like we had our own reports, so if I needed to see KPI anything like that, I had to like request through it. They developed it, so it was just a lot different With QuickBooks. It makes it so much easier, especially for a novice business owner because I'm not an accountant, I didn't really know, but you can really get a lot of great information and helpful information even just getting started.
But then once you're operating, you know, are you making money like you don't? You know, it makes it so much nasier. Yes, yes it is. It is very important. But it's shocking how many people don't have, you know, either access to that or it's something that they don't even check.
So it says a lot about the robustness of the system that when I was looking for an account and the first thing and they were like, what are you going to use if it's not into a quickbook case, We're just literally not going to work with you, you know, so it's like the proof is in the putting.
I think for sure.
Yeah, I think what's really cool when people start businesses is kind of just how step by step it can be.
Right.
It goes to, you know, you get your LLC, you open up the business bank account, you get your EI N things like that, Right, So it's like it's a very step by step process. And for a lot of small business owners, part of that process is getting a trademark.
Do you all have a trademark? Yeah?
I was about to say that. That was one of the first things we did to protect the brand. But the fun fact about us is we are the Candle Poor, but we are Wick candlebar doing business as the Candle Poor because wick is too commonly used of a word, so we couldn't TRADEMARKT and that that's why we wanted to do that, so we.
Can actually trademark it and protect it, just like our icon.
I don't know if you can show that on this, but we have that little square that looks like things are pouring into sure and trademarking that and luckily we've only had to use once someone was kind of copying it, so we've only had to use it once where we actually had to like put our trademark into effect.
Well that's great though, because you took these steps beforehand, you were able to protect yourself.
Yeah. We were just told, like, you might come up with a great idea. If you don't protect yourself, someone else can see it and they can literally do every single thing you're doing and run away with your business. So that was important. We had someone that literally almost used our logo exact and was reaching out to like all of our followers and asking them to follow hers. But it was very confusing because people thought it was us,
like the logo looked like ours. She was even trying like to get us to follow and we were like, what the.
Heck, what do you do?
So little things we utilized, the attorneys that we had used that.
Yeah, I felt it was just like you're working every single day and it pops up up and our staff started saying, Hey, someone's like following us and like they want us to like you know that, follow on, follow things you do and get someone's attention.
So she was doing that and it's just frustrating.
It's like you're putting in a ton of money and a ton of time and someone just wants to throw something up and kind of work underneath your brand.
Yeah, I've had the situation too.
I've had to send a couple of seasoned desist letters through my attorney for folks just legit copying your entire content. Or you're trying to start a brand that is so similar to what you're doing that there's clearly going to be some confusion. So it's important to have an attorney. All that's part of your team as an entrepreneur.
They're not cheap, but there's a reason they're good at what they do, and they use an attorney. I would say, not just like when you need them, but to avoid having to use them and need them. So that's a big part.
Of it too.
Something really cool that you mentioned was doing business as can you explain to our listeners what a DBA is?
I mean, I know why we did it because of the trademark issue. It makes filling out paperwork a lot longer sometimes because you got to write all that in.
But a lot of times you'll see that.
When you're looking up businesses, absolutely you can't find them, like why can't I find them?
And because they have that.
Part of it also is like we are going to potentially franchise. You know, our second location is with Candle Bar two, our third location and so on, so everything is also separate. That's something to think about when you're going into business. Is it all going to be under one umbrella or do you plan to have different locations?
Oh, explain that a little bit. So you're saying that you're you have different LLCs for your different locations.
Yes, and you can protect yourself too. If something happened at our Saint Pete location, it's completely separate than what we have here or Oxford Exchange or the warehouse or if you were you know, just the Candle Poor. If a franchise ease coming over, then they're going to have a different name, but they would be doing business as the Candle Poor. So that way it's recognized when they use it that way.
That's very cool.
Yeah, I think that's uh one of those areas of entrepreneurship that a lot of people really don't understand what the point is of taking that step of separating the businesses, but it really is from a legal protecting standpoint, just to make sure that if there is some sort of issue with one site, you're not putting your entire empire
at risk because everything's lumped together. I recently did the DBA thing too, because now I have technically like two different brands, and so it was weird explaining to folks when I was invoicing them, like why is this Delisious Delights but your Jokero dinetto podcast because I have a food media company. And then the personal finance thing. So it just helps clarify to like what entity are we
working with. And as far as the trademarking, it's something that is pricey, right, but it is something that is really essential if you really have a long term vision for your brand. I can't tell you the amount of friends that I've had that have started businesses are two, three, four years in and then they find out that the name they've been operating under has been trademarked by someone else and you literally have to start from scratch. H
That is devastating. Yeah, you know, so just taking the time to understand, like what you're actually investing in, how you can protect your brand, that's an essential part of this and it's something that you should plan for financially.
Yeah, it's a good point. There's people that literally go out and look for that, or they'll like get ahead of you and like get your website before you can. We want the candle Poor. So that was something we had to think about too. What's available that we might have to pay a little bit, but we're not like having to pay thirty thousand dollars because of the name. It's so common and someone just has it to sell it. So that's a really good point.
It's actually a good point.
So when you mentioned the beginning early stages, go on Instagram, So for me, go on every single thing and take as many as you can. Yep, even the different iterations of it. So I believe I've blocked off like candle Poor. We're the candle Poor, but we have that one associated just not using it. So that's a way to protect it. And then you mentioned time about the trademark.
It takes time. Yeah, So if it's something you want to do, that's.
Game plan day one. How do we do this and then start the process. Get help because there's hoops to go through and all kinds of stuff.
I love that.
Tip on snacking up the social media and you know your ur l, you are home or the dot net. You want to get all of them because anything that you leave open is potential liability for someone else to claim it.
Or you come up with a great name, you start doing logos and everything, and then you realize like, oh that's not available, and then you have to start over. So it's it's good to like figure that stuff out first and then build. So we didn't even know our name until it was it was late. We opened in April, and I think it was like January when we finally like were like okay, and then we were like getting running with like logos and things, but everything else was
taken care of. Yeah, it's just important to get all of that taken care of first so you're not going backwards. You don't want to be scrambling and then realize that the website's not available or your logo is copying somebody else.
So like really doing that research and I think getting the legal help before and they guide you rather than like you come up with everything, you waste time because then you realize, oh, you're going to be violating somebody else's you know, trademark, So it is important.
I'm thinking now back at this trademark.
I'm thinking about getting the business bank account, going, applying for the right things. What was the physical process right, so like before you physically were mailed the awesome stamped trademark there, did you have to go to a website?
Did you go inside of an office?
Like?
What did you do? Count? Like do two years? Two years?
Okay, so walk me through that process a little bit more, step by step.
Honestly, we utilized again the patent attorney to do it. So they just asked, you know, us, whatever they needed to get it going. They gave us kind of like okay, these are going to be and they helped with a name too, like these are going to be things that would potentially cause you to get declined or somebody else to protest, because you can do that too, so somebody else can protest, which we've done before with people trying to apply for something that it's too close to what
we're doing or it's so generic. You know. Wick that was a big thing because every candle has a wick in it, so that was like a word that's kind of a buzzword to not get approval. So that's part of it as well.
One of the resources that I love is the into what QuickBooks blog. There's a bunch of information on there on how to start a business. I've actually contributed to the blog and there's a lot of educational tips and information for people who want to start out. So I'm curious, what is the best piece of advice that you've gotten from your business mentors?
Higher, slow, fire fast is probably the best advice that I've been given that I've used from the time that I started what I would say, like my professional career. And it sounds harsh, but it is the most truthful thing. When you meet someone and you're on the fence, don't hire out a desperation. It's not good for anyone. It's not good for your business. A lot of times the wrong person can really taint like your environment or a team.
And if you do make that mistake and you realize somebody is not a good fit, you got to get rid of them because it the more time they are it's really affecting your business negatively. So that's probably the best advice that I've ever been given.
Yeah, and if you stay consistent on that, the team actually starts to respect it, because.
Not only you're holding them to standards.
Now, if the standards aren't met and someone can't stay on the team, they under Okay, serious, Like this is not a joke, and like she said, don't hire out a desperation, because if you hire out a desperation, you end up getting that person in there and six months down the road you're like, oh no. So it sounds like she said, terrible, but you have to you got it, And then that might mean you have to be in
the shop or the business nine to nine again. But you get through it and you hire again, and you cross your fingers and you do a good job.
So, as someone who's starting a business from scratch, there's a lot of surprises that come with entrepreneurship. I've dealt with a handful of them over the last five years myself, and I'm assuming you all have as well. So talk to me now about sort of the surprises that came out of left field that just threw you for a loop.
I think my biggest one was I learned that sales taxes don't go to where they need to go, like you have to physically go to the state and do these sales taxes. So I think we were operating for like three or four months and someone had asked about it and I was like what, And you know, then you have to file with Florida, and I had no idea. So when you're getting sales tax, it's actually going into your account sitting there, and then you pay it either
monthly or quarterly. So that was a big surprise. Insurance is a cost that like, it's expensive and it's really not something that we've had to use, but you have to pay it, and then as you grow, you're paying it employee taxes. There's just stuff that you're just like, oh my gosh, that's a.
Hard lesson Tampa Forth. We did just have a hurricane last year.
Right, and there's obviously natural disasters that you never want to happen that can happen, and that's all over the country, so yeah, you want to prepare for that, but you also hope it doesn't happen.
But yeah, little things like that will sneak up on you.
So I'm curious because this is one of the questions I get a lot from my own business coaching clients. They're like, well, should I start an LLC right away? Do I start operating as a sole proprietor so, like, how did you guys decide on what entity made sense for the business.
We relied on the accountant to kind of guide. We gave him what do we want to be?
What are we now?
And his recommendation was ESCORP So that's where we are now.
So when you're starting an entity, you have compliance requirements with the state paperwork, you have a physical location that has its own compliance requirements. You have digital content that requires compliance. So how have you been maybe surprised by some of these requirements in your own journey?
You really got to be careful from a business building perspective, brick and mortar everything has to be ADA, so when you're designing it, you have to know about how wheelchairs can turn around in certain areas, the distance between doors need to be certain things, So you definitely do that. Definitely take the time to work with a nice architect or someone to help you with that or at least understand it, because that's one of the things that if you don't think about, you'll be two years in and
someone will walk in and that's a big fine. And you mentioned digital there are digital compliance things as well. I highly, highly highly recommend Google just ADA requirements for your website because there is a lot more things you can think about that you're having dream that can go wrong with a website because a lot of times people use websites as placeholders. Please reach out to consultant something about the ada portion of it, because it has to
be accessible for people who are blind color blind. It has to be accessible by navigating your entire website.
With just like I think it's the space bar and the arrow keys.
There's a bunch of little things you need to make sure that you're compliant with or you could have issues down the road, for sure, so much to keep track of.
Yeah, even capacity, like capacity issues where we based on the number of seats that we have and people who can be in the space that required us to add additional restroom. So there's so many things that like if they say this is a space that holds twenty people, then you have to accommodate for those twenty people.
There's just a lot that.
We learned, but definitely again utilizing experts that you're not having to go in after you do a build out and then you're having to spend forty thousand dollars to redo your restrooms or anything like that.
The thing is, these things change too, so it's not a one and done situation, right, So it's important to just really keep your ear to what's going on because you might have to make some additional changes as your business continues to operate.
So the last thing I need to know here, what is your favorite scent? I'm looking behind you. I'm see probably one hundred different scents. You have to have a favorite. I'm sure.
What is it that's so hard?
It changes? I think for me it's more of a nostalgia thing. A tomato leaf. I grew up on a tomato farm, so that like just brings me back to being little on the tomato farm with my dad, the smell, everything, So that's that's mine for sure.
It's amazing. Oh man.
Mine probably evolves with the idea of a vacation because I think we need one. It's called Seaside Villa. It's just very smooth, kind of close your eyes, you're out of here kind of place.
So I like that.
And I like one called black Ood and so if you like a little masking a little smooth, that's one of my favorite ones as well.
Very cool.
And I know you all ship all around the country Dcandlepoor dot com go check it out.
Well, thank you so much for having us here at the Candlepoor you know, I think what you guys are doing is a very novel, incredible concept. There's something very powerful about the sensory experience that when you connect a memory a person with a smell, it's not just about a candle. It really is about remembering someone or a
specific time. So I love that you guys are really creating this experiential thing that people can dive into and do something a little different when you're looking for some fun stuff to do here in Tampa.
Thank you.
Yeah, we appreciate you coming and visiting us.
It's been fun, Denise, I learned a ton during this interview, and good god, it smells good in here. I just I don't want to leave. I know, what were some of your biggest takeaways.
I think it's the idea that when you're starting a business, there are so many things that you can plan for, but then again, there's like so many things that you can't. You know, things like, let me think about what enity I want setting up an accounting system with something like into it quick books. But then you're also just going to be confronted with things that you literally cannot even
anticipate are going to be a thing. And so I think it's just a good reminder that when you're thinking about going down this road as a small business owner, be prepared to you know, play with fire pun intended.
Actually that was a really good one.
I like that.
I'm right there with you.
I think a big takeaway for me was coming back to this idea of the step by step process of starting a business. Right they sort of just followed the playbook,
right Google, how do I start a business? And then it goes into the LLC formation versus the sole proprietorship and understanding the differences there and maybe there's a partnership or maybe it's a S corporation or things like that, and then you know, taking that to the next level with finding the trademark and kind of leaning into Okay, who in my network is a trusted ally that can help me file for this trademark and how do I get that process started? And how long is it going to take for me?
Right?
So, I think just leaning into this idea that starting a business in the beginning can be a very step by step process, which is really encouraging for a lot of small business owners listening right now that are still in the beginning stages. But once you have that business up and running, rocking and rolling, there's a lot to look forward to, like expanding to a fourth location.
Absolutely.
I think this is an amazing episode to kick off our small business starter Kit series. I don't know about you, but I'm ready to make a candle. So that is a wrap for this episode. You can find me on social media at Jociero Dinetto podcast.
And you can find me at Austin Hankwitz. You can follow Into It QuickBooks on all social media at QuickBooks. To get the tools you need to start, run and grow your business, head to QuickBooks dot com today and while you're there, check out the latest QuickBooks blog posts for helpful resources and insights, and you might even see something written by Janie.
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Nothing in this episode constitutes business advice. This podcast is a production of iHeartMedia's Ruby Studio and Into It QuickBooks. Our executive producer is Molly Sosha. Our supervising producer is Nikiah Swinton, and our writer is Eric Leja.
Our head of Push Production is James Foster, and our mixing engineer is Paul Vitulen's of audiography