We were lucky to catch up with Tami Mayhew recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Tami, thanks for joining us today. Naming anything – including a business – is so hard. Right? What’s the story behind how you came up with the name of your brand?

My husband and I have a piece of property on a Mill Pond in Valentine, NE. When I was trying to figure out a name for my company in 2019, I had to create it within 4 hours. I had posted on social media, “Would anyone like to try my candles?” I started receiving orders quickly and couldn’t keep everything straight so decided to create a website. I ended up creating my website and name within those 4 hours. It was pretty hectic, but I did it! My logo and labels were made within 24 hours. Things have evolved since then, but I still remember sitting at my computer and working as frantically as possible. The name has now kind of stuck. I even get called the “Mill Pond Candle Lady.” I don’t mind at all, Eventually, we are planning on building a house on that property. Hopefully with a candle workshop!

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I am a wife and mother and have always worked the typical 9-5 job. I have dabbled in small business for the last 10 years going back to beauty school at 40 to become a makeup artist, and then having my own makeup artist business. I have experimented with MLMs, but nothing ever stuck. I have always had hobbies and for the most part, lived a healthy lifestyle exercising and eating healthy. Back at the beginning of 2019, I decided that I would start changing our cleaning supplies and products that had chemicals in them to more natural and sustainable products. After switching almost just about everything, I decided to tackle my love of candles and home fragrances. Those were a little hard to change because fragrance has chemicals as well as most mainstream candles. I first tried mainstream soy candles and discovered quickly that they were expensive and didn’t provide the amount of scent if any at all. After researching for about six months, My husband gave me a nudge that I needed a new hobby. That was when I collected everything to make a candle. I tried making a soy candle in a mason jar and the very first candles did precisely what I would want as a customer. Provide a lasting clean scent that was cleaner burning through the very end of the candle, without a lot of waste, had a non-toxic fragrance being used, yet was sustainable. I almost couldn’t believe that I struck gold on the first try. Most have multiple issues including wick and percentage issues with ingredients. It all just came kind of naturally to me, and I enjoyed making them. I started experimenting with other scents and then also my first candles were very decorative on the outside of the vessel with special decor. Some friends and family still have those “OG” candles that were created just for them that have very special meaning. I couldn’t keep up with the decor look due to orders and time constraints. I was also just giving those first candles away because I had so many. Eventually family and friends wanted to buy them and that led to the creation of the website, name, and logo that is known today. It has been such an amazing ride. I have a hand full of women that are my “ride or dies.” I have one I call the “designer” and the other I call my “publicist”, they have been with me since day one, and it wouldn’t be possible without them. I am most proud of I haven’t stopped evolving my product line and my ability to create custom scents. We have quite a few custom scents that are super popular due to friends and customers requesting a particular scent. I have created multiple custom product lines for wholesalers in the San Diego area that have become favorites in their boutiques. Then have our favorites within our line that are requested each season. Our gift boxes that have four scents in them are very popular and allow new customers to try 4 scents for a reasonable price. As we grow I am continually perfecting the recipe on our candles. We have a proprietary soy-coconut blend that burns very long and is fragrant. I am continually researching and trying products and learning how to be more sustainable. I am very particular about scents and fragrances. I want the scent you receive when you smell our candles to be the scent you receive when burning the candles. They need to be true to scent and not have an underlying chemical scent. This fall and holiday season we released new box scents along with favorites and also have rebranded for a more transitional look for all homes. I have created reed diffusers, linen sprays, and body products as well. I am really excited for the new season and look forward to meeting my customers old and new at all the shows and markets we are doing. We have a busy schedule this fall and it should be fun.

Let’s talk M&A – we’d love to hear your about your experience with buying businesses

My husband and I decided to buy a motel in Valentine, NE in the summer of 2021. We own the Trade Windows Motel and Lodge which is in the top 10% of hotels in the world for Trip Advisor and we just had our 1 year anniversary as owners. We purchased it from a family small business owner who in return wanted the business to stay as a family-owned business. I was very hesitant, but my husband has a very extensive business background running a Lumber Company locally that was also started as a family business. So we dove in head-on. We refinanced our current home which had equity and received a loan from the local banker in the town of Valentine, NE. We also had to use our savings at first to put the cash down on the business. This was all going on while I was creating my own small business for candles. Due to that, we were purchasing a business in a very small town and in the state of Nebraska, the laws for purchasing a company were less stringent than purchasing in California. We still had to put together a business plan for the local bank to get the funds to buy the business. We also had to secure the down payment, which we were using our own home equity which is risky. Applying for the insurance, as a first-time business owner with liability insurance on a hotel, was very expensive. We had to file for an LLC and get the business appraised. After 3 months we were finally owners of the property, and we were able to have a very smooth transition due to the previous owners training our family on how to run the hotel and then also allowing communication through the transition so it didn’t skip a beat. My husband, brother in law, and niece have made sure everything stays “up to par” by running the daily operations flawlessly. We did have our challenges though. Previous contracts with vendors were upheld even though we wanted to change to a more cost-effective vendor, with unexpected expenses such as a water heater going out and supply chain issues on supplies and food were also a challenge we experienced in 2021. When you can’t get the option for your free breakfast you get pretty creative. We have had outages of no water and electricity that have had to be dealt with. We have been remodeling and upgrading the experience for our customers with new communal spaces outdoors. We are owners that are out of state and our family runs the business for us so that has challenges in itself. But I would have to say for never running a hotel we have done very well and have won awards from quite a few hotel companies so that always helps us to keep going even though running a small business definitely has its challenges. When you receive star reviews from our customers, it truly makes you happy that they enjoyed their stay as much as we try and make it as comfortable as possible for them.

How did you put together the initial capital you needed to start your business?

We put together the capital for the purchase of our hotel through our savings account and the equity of our home. Although we own the small business we are still working jobs and then I have the candle. We are still working because we consider the hotel an investment business for starting other small businesses. We are currently in the process of starting another business in that same small town of Valentine and using the revenue from the hotel to do another start-up. We are hoping these businesses secure us financially for retirement. Even though we have 401k’s we still wanted to have other income generated and then also to hand down something to our son,

Contact Info:

• Website: www.millpondcandles.com
• Instagram: @millpondcandles
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/millpondcandles

Image Credits
Jordan Hedrick Photography for only the one of me in the pink shirt. Everything else is my own photography.