Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Laurent Fonade. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Hi Laurent, thanks for joining us today. What was it like going from idea to execution? Can you share some of the backstory and some of the major steps or milestones?

With my wife we just sold chocolate stores in summer 2023 and wanted to run an online business so she looked the websites to buy and found one selling scented candles.
As we are very interested in home decoration, we just interviewed the seller and although his business wasn’t worth it, we decided to dig this market and see if we can bring something new for the customers.
We figured out that almost every premium brand was using paraffin instead of vegetable wax, which to us didn’t see to be neither fair nor trendy, and also few of their products were very decorative or premium quality.
So we decided to go for it and we created Pineapple Signature : a premium scented candles brand with 100% soy wax poured in mouth blown glass jars decorated with some talented artists works of art.
We first went to see some white label brands but we were quickly disappointed as the quality they provided to us was not high enough and timing processes (sampling, production..) was far too long.
So i went sourcing a glass factory (in China as only those would accept small MOQs) and a wax supplier (in France).
Many more to tell you… !

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?

As explained previously, we started this business as we found a website to sell and just thought that we loved this product and there was a lot to bring to the market.
So we all premium decorative scented candles made of 100% vegetable wax.
We allow customers that are really into home decoration to customize their interior with fashionable candles.
We also provide them with vegetable wax (less toxic) and worldwide known fragrances from Grasse.
Our candles are really appreciated for their originality, beauty and premium looking.
This is what we are very proud of : the very enthusiastic feedback from our customers and distributors.

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

Well, when you create a product, especially if it’s supposed to be a premium one and with many suppliers involved, this is a nightmare !:)
First of all, you expect a level of quality and it’s always hard to get it from suppliers, whether they cannot achieve it or have less expectations.
But for luxury goods, it has to be perfect…and in the meantime, a perfect product is a product that arrive on the market (too) late, so you have to make a balance.
I received many jars with the logos (on an aluminium sticker) that weren’t horizontally aligned, which made them impossible to sell, so i had to unstick those and stick new ones…myself ! you can imagine i spent hours and nice evenings to do it :)

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

I’m not the first person to say it and many talented entrepreneurs highlighted it :

– listen to your customers and solve problems
– deliver a good product

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.pineapplesignature.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pineapplesignature/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/laurent-fonade-🕯%EF%B8%8F🚀-b544a81/