We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Loree Sandler a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Loree, thanks for joining us today. What do you think it takes to be successful?

I was recently reminiscing about the incredible women I’ve met since founding Let Them Eat Candles. Hardworking entrepreneurs, with delicious, award-winning products, and now shuttered businesses. BatterUp Dough, Chocolate Twist, Chutney Devis, Floured Apron, No Denial Foods, Ready to Roll Dough, Tenth Avenue Tea, Vermont Amber Organic Toffee, Whimsical Candy, Zen of Slow Cooking. There are more, but you get the point. These women dared, as the famous quote goes, to get in that ring. And for that alone, they are each a success. Theodore Roosevelt and Brene Brown would surely agree.

A good friend is in the midst of starting up a children’s museum! As she encounters obstacles she never imagined, she plows ahead, undeterred from her mission. Her background and passion is early childhood education, but her time is now spent on fundraising, zoning, hiring. This is what it means to be a success. Belief in yourself, tenacity, struggle.

If you asked my partner in LTEC, who is also my husband, what it takes to be successful, I suspect his definition would include ROI and market share and dollar signs. And he wouldn’t be wrong. But since I’m the one answering, I’m sticking with entering the ring!

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

Prior to Let Them Eat Candles, I imagined a career, but never specifics. I worked in retail, hospitality, a law firm. I married young, deferred admission to graduate programs in journalism and social work because I was reluctant to commit to a single of my innumerable interests. My husband (Bob) and I converted a two-flat into a single-family home, and I loved the process so much I decided to earn a Master’s in Architecture. Once we had children, I left a design practice to parent – without a thought as to when and how I would reenter the workforce. While I did plenty of volunteer work, and nurtured multiple hobbies, I was far from a career.

While celebrating our youngest son’s 12th birthday, I watched traditional wax candles ruin the cake and wondered why edible candles didn’t exist, and that was ground zero for Let Them Eat Candles. I took classes to learn to work with chocolate, created dozens of prototypes, and after a few years and a few thousand dollars, I finally had a product that was beautiful, delicious, and worthy of a spot on store shelves.

I am proud to have innovated in a product category, and to have built a business all the way from a flicker of an idea.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

After Let Them Eat Candles launched on a website called TheGrommet.com in early 2016, we grew beyond my capacity to make each candle by hand. We partnered with a wonderful company who had the desire and ability to manufacture chocolate candles on state-of-the-art equipment. I thought they would be my forever partner, but in the spring of 2019, their business was sold. The buyer was initially excited about manufacturing Let Them Eat Candles, and it seemed to be a seamless transition.

It was a big summer. We had become a vendor-partner to Nothing Bundt Cakes, and received orders from more than 150 of their franchisees. We also had a first purchase order from a grocery chain with 100 stores. However, our new manufacturing partner was overwhelmed and struggling to keep up with their own business, and rather than fulfill their obligation, they dropped us. It was devastating, and could easily have put us out of business.

Fortunately, by then I had a lot of friends and contacts in the confectionary industry, and ultimately was able to find a new manufacturer. In the interim we had to communicate delays to all the new customers, multiple times. It was a blow to our reputation, and an agonizing couple of months.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

Bob, my husband and business partner, jokingly, lovingly, calls me “Chairman of Sales Prevention.” If a store wants to purchase a large quantity, I suggest they start smaller and see how things go. If someone wants to order in the heat of summer, I suggest they wait for cooler weather.

“Nobody’s holding a gun to their heads! If they want a lot or they want it now, sell it to them!” Bob insists.

It’s not that I’m unlearning how to build and grow a business, I’m just learning to keep my reservations to myself a little more often.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://letthemeatcandles.com
• Instagram: @LetThemEatCandles
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LetThemEatCandles
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/loree-sandler/ and https://www.linkedin.com/company/let-them-eat-candles/

Image Credits
Rose Gorski (candle trio in cake), Tone Stockenstrom (Valentine cupcakes with people)