We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Sophie and Chloe Warren a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Sophie and Chloe, thanks for joining us today. What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?

We first started Sweet Bee Sisters in 2009 when we were just 5 and 7 years old. At that time, our parents started beekeeping as a hobby and had beeswax leftover after their first honey harvest. They didn’t want to just throw it away so our mom started looking for ways we could use it. Now you have to understand that our mom is a person who never stops moving and never stops having crazy ideas. One of her crazy ideas was having her three young daughters use the beeswax in a way that would make them money. During her research, she found that one of the main uses for beeswax is in cosmetics, specifically lip balm. So of course, we bought all the other supplies and ingredients to make peppermint lip balm. Also, during that time, we heard about a marketplace for young people, ages 6-21, to sell their products and services at the Young American’s Center for Financial Education. We all thought “What’s the harm in at least trying to sell these lip balms?”. After the marketplace was over, we had grossed over $400 in sales and paid the seed money of $200 back to our parents immediately. That left us with $200 to spend however we liked. And let me tell you, that $200 made us feel like royalty. As children, we finally had some “fun money” which was more than enough motivation for us to keep the business going. For the first few years, we only sold our products at the one children’s marketplace, once a year.

We honestly didn’t think of it as business but rather a hobby, until we had some news publicity that started bringing in orders. I can remember the exact time and place where we first heard that we were on the front page of a major news corporation. We were on a family vacation, camping in the Great Sand Dunes National Park when my dad got a text message from a friend, through spotty service, saying that he had read about us earlier that morning. We honestly had no idea what he was talking about. There had been no interviews, emails, or communication with us about printing an article, but there it was. After that, we decided to capitalize on the news articles and start expanding our product line and our outreach and we have continued to grow ever since that.
-Chloe Warren

Sophie and Chloe, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

Over the next few years, we grew Sweet Bee Sisters to the point where we had eight flavors of lip balm, and six other products. After winning an Ernst and Young award, and being highlighted by Hulu, we decided to take our business to the next level by entering the promotional product industry. We made the decision to private label our products as promotional items for other companies. Our first client was Snooze A.M. Eatery. After receiving a positive response from Snooze, we partnered with several other businesses: Westmont College, Courtesy Acura, the University of Denver, etc. and we are continuing to find new partnerships every day. We love being able to provide other companies with quality products that both increase their marketing platform and encourage the growth of other young entrepreneurs like us.

We strive to provide our customers with natural, beeswax based products, while promoting young entrepreneurship, and beekeeping.
-Sophie Warren

Can you tell us the story behind how you met your business partner?

I met my business partner at a very young age. My older sister has always been in my life. She is a built-in best friend, partner in crime, and now business partner. Growing up, we were homeschooled, so we were around each other a lot! That helped us grow very close. We complement each other very well because we know one another’s strengths and weaknesses. Over the years we have also figured out how to work well together. Each of us have unofficially outlined jobs that highlight our strengths. I can now admit that as a five-year-old, I let my sister do most of the work, while taking an equal share of the profits. Now, the roles are slightly reversed. With Chloe being a freshman in college, she has needed to prioritize her business degree more, and the physical business less. This is a good thing! I have taken over most of our production and selling, while Chloe primarily does our communication and emails. However, we both love business and are hoping to continue making a difference in the world through business. I always want to be my own boss because I don’t always take instructions from others well. I have found that owning my own business is exactly what I want to do and where I am meant to be in life.

Chloe still doesn’t know if being an entrepreneur and business owner is exactly what she wants to do for the rest of her life, but she does know she wants to be in business. She loves to travel and would love to either work in a business that allows her to travel or start one that will allow her to make a difference in third world countries. She is passionate about teaching entrepreneurship skills to under-privileged people, whether that be kids or people in under-developed countries. She has a passion for changing the economic status of third world countries by teaching the occupants how to start their own businesses and pull themselves out of poverty.
Business is ingrained in our blood and there is no doubt we will be doing it for the rest of our lives.
-Sophie Warren

Okay – so how did you figure out the manufacturing part? Did you have prior experience?

Since we started our business, we have done all the manufacturing ourselves. Starting out, we had no idea how to do any of the production. Let’s just say that YouTube was very helpful. Initially, we also used a recipe we found online. Over the years we have concocted our own lip balm formula.

Manufacturing does not only mean making the products themselves, but packaging too. For the first 8 years of operation, we used return shipping labels as our lip balm labels. The thought of ordering real lip balm labels seemed daunting and overwhelming, so we stuck with our unprofessional labels. In 2017 we decided to take our business to the next level. It was time to revamp our labels. We looked around for graphic designers and label producers for a few months before we found resources that could fulfill our needs. We found a label producer and graphic designer in Denver that we were excited to work with. Over the years, these relationships have become incredibly valuable. We have never regretted the decision to change our labels.

We have loved manufacturing the products ourselves because it gives us a bigger sense of pride in our work. We love knowing that we made the products we sell with our own hands. However, we also have had many people and partners that have helped us every step of the way and we could not be where we are today without them.
-Sophie Warren

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.sweetbeesisters.com/
• Instagram: sweetbeesisters