We were lucky to catch up with Brittany Baca recently and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Brittany, thanks for joining us today. So, naming is such a challenge. How did you come up with the name of your brand?
My little shop is located on Elm Avenue, right in the heart of our downtown. My aim with the store was to “collect” together products that I love and share them with others. Another piece of this business that’s still in the works, but was a huge factor in naming it, is the studios upstairs. For almost ten years my husband and I have been renovating and restoring our 117 year old building whenever we can find the time and money. As best as we can tell the upstairs portion of the building had been vacant for over 50 years and the previous owner had all but gutted it. It’s been a lot of work, but every time we go up there we feel so inspired by the building itself and cannot wait to see it fully functional. We’ve been gradually repairing the 8 rooms and long hallway with the goal of having 4-5 rentable studio spaces for local artists/creatives that will share a restroom, a coffee/breakroom, and a meeting room. I would love to see our downtown thriving and I think providing this space for artists and makers in our community will go a long way towards accomplishing that.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
I was born and raised in Rocky Ford, Colorado, where I still live and am now raising my children. My husband Evan and I opened a coffee shop downtown a little over 10 years ago and have loved being a part of the local business community. About three years ago I started playing with the idea of making my own coffee shop themed candles to sell there after struggling to find a candle that smelled like authentic espresso or real, freshly baked blueberry muffins. After an entire year of thinking about it, and another year of researching, experimenting, testing and testing again, I launched my first line of three coffee shop themed, and three Colorado themed candle scents and sold out in a little over a week. Ever since I have been constantly testing new scent ideas and expanding my candle business.
In February of 2022 I opened my own retail shop where I could sell my candles and other things I make alongside several other products from local makers and grew to include items from small, mom-owned or family-owned businesses from Colorado and a few neighboring states.
The candles that I make are all inspired by some sort of memory of mine, or something I love about my home state. For example, one of my bestselling candles is a lilac scent that I make because of the lilac bushes I loved so much as a kid that grew in my Grandma’s backyard. They would grow so tall that they’d pass the roof of the house and create an almost tunnel over the back porch steps and I loved to play there as a child and smell the beautiful purple blooms in the spring. One of my favorite parts of living in SouthEast Colorado is the sunflowers that grow like weeds and bloom every July – September all along the fields and roads, they are everywhere we go in that season, and they just make me smile every time.
But, of course, anyone who’s met me knows that my favorite candle I have ever made smells like coffee beans.
We’d really appreciate if you could talk to us about how you figured out the manufacturing process.
I spent a lot of time thinking and dreaming and researching how to make candles before I ever worked up the courage to start actually making. I did look around at several other companies who manufacture candles that would allow me to choose my own scents and add my own labels, but I had this idea in my mind of what my finished product should look and feel like and I just couldn’t accomplish this without doing it myself. It’s been a long journey figuring all of this out, but a fun one. There is so much that goes into making a candle that I had never thought about before doing the research and even more that I’ve learned after getting started. Every single candle I make has had to go through a long testing process to find out exactly which of the many, many available types/widths/thicknesses of wick will be the right one for that exact combination of wax and fragrance in each size and type of jar to get a clean, even burn all the way down. It’s as simple as melting wax, adding fragrance, and pouring into a jar – but at the same time there’s so much more to it than that. So many things along the way have a direct effect on the end product from the temperature you mix the oils in, to the temperature you pour into the jars at, and the amount of fragrance added. More fragrance doesn’t automatically equal a stronger candle, at some point too much can even be a fire hazard. Since I make something that people literally take home and light on fire, it’s so especially important to me that they are manufactured properly.
What’s been the best source of new clients for you?
In every business I have owned, which is five, my best source of new clients or customers has always been my current clients/customers. Word of mouth is the best form of advertising I’ve ever come across, better than anything you could ever pay for. When someone comes into my shop and enjoys the experience they had there, they tell their friends all about it. When someone purchases one of my candles and experiences the beauty and warmth it adds to their home, they tell their friends all about it. Every now and then someone will tell me they came in because they saw me on Instagram, etc. but way more often than not they say something like, “My boss has been burning your candle in the office and I love it so much I need a few of my own!” or, “My sister was here last week and she said it was the cutest and I needed to come see!” In some circumstances this starts with your own friends and family, I mean your first customers have to come from somewhere, but when you deliver a product your customers love and come back for in my experience it spreads from there without ever needing to pay money for ads.
Contact Info:
- Website: elmavenuecollective.com
- Instagram: @elmavenuecollective
- Facebook: Facebook.com/ElmAvenueCollective