In today's episode we interview Founder and CEO of Literie Candles, Erica Werber. Literie was originally launched as a pandemic hobby and love letter to NYC. With help sampling scent profiles with her kids as they were learning remotely and with an order of 2000 candles, founder Erica Werber thought she would just sell the candles mostly to friends, and then return to her normal career. Cut to the end of 2021 and Literie sold over 10,000 candles in just the nine months after launching and is stocked in retailers like Macy’s, Neighborhood Goods, and more. In this episode we chat with Erica about topics such as the importance of hiring a great PR team for product launches, building lean teams when first launching a brand, as well as how Erica grew her brand with various partnership opportunities. Literie has had some iconic partnerships with different brands such as Juniors Cheesecake and Sivan Remedies. Her most recent collaboration was just announced with Bravo's The Real Housewives featuring scents such as "go to sleep" and "flipping tables".
In today's episode we interview Founder and CEO of Literie Candles, Erica Werber. Literie was originally launched as a pandemic hobby and love letter to NYC. With help sampling scent profiles with her kids as they were learning remotely and with an order of 2000 candles, founder Erica Werber thought she would just sell the candles mostly to friends, and then return to her normal career. Cut to the end of 2021 and Literie sold over 10,000 candles in just the nine months after launching and is stocked in retailers like Macy’s, Neighborhood Goods, and more.
In this episode we chat with Erica about topics such as the importance of hiring a great PR team for product launches, building lean teams when first launching a brand, as well as how Erica grew her brand with various partnership opportunities. Literie has had some iconic partnerships with different brands such as Juniors Cheesecake and Sivan Remedies. Her most recent collaboration was just announced with Bravo's The Real Housewives featuring scents such as "go to sleep" and "flipping tables".
DTC growth show Hey guys, welcome to the DC growth Show presented by banknotes minted by hashtag paid where we talk all things ecommerce and DTC. My name is Sophia and today I get to speak with Erica Weber, who's the founder and CEO of literary candles. For those who don't know literally began with bottling the sense of the best parts of New York City, from the Great Lawn of Central Park to Midtown is ubiquitous roasted not carts with sin, as the most closely linked sense to memory literally creates candles that allow you to reminisce no matter where you are. Not only that, but literally just launch a collection with Bravo's Real Housewives featuring sense like money can't buy you class flipping tables and go to sleep. So those are extremely iconic sense if I do say so myself. And I'm excited that they just launched that collab. But nonetheless, let's dive right in. Because this was one of my favorite episodes.
So your brand literally has seen explosive growth since launching in March 2021, in your first nine months, literally sold over 10,000 candles and found its way onto shelves and retailers like neighborhood goods and Macy's. And now while you know the candlemaking niche has grown massively over the last decade, and we're many might see a highly saturated market, you saw an opportunity to like one create a business from scratch, to in your words, a love letter to New York City in three, you know, bringing joy to 1000s while they were in lockdown. So your candles have been featured in Forbes over daily Architectural Digest, and you're just getting started. Could you please share with us? You know, like what inspired you to be an entrepreneur? And why iconic New York sense?
Absolutely. So I never aspired to be an entrepreneur. I never saw that in my grand plan for my life. But COVID coincided with my 40th birthday. And I think, you know, we hit these milestone ages. And we think, you know, what have I done with my life? What am I doing? And I had this idea for these candles for probably four or five years before I actually watched it. And I just thought, Okay, I'm going into my 40th year, this city that I love New York City is seeing this mass exodus, there's crime, there's, the streets are dirty, there's only negative stories coming out. So how do we combine this cute idea that I have for candles do something where I just wanted to put like my name on the map and say I put something out there. And I tried this. And you know, the hardest part I think of starting any kind of business is just taking that first leap and making that first investment and making that decision, you're, you're going to do this, you're going to take a step forward, if it doesn't work, it's going to be okay, at least you could say, you tried. And so I think it took me five years to get up the courage to do it. And then this, you know, combination of COVID, and this midlife crisis of mine came together and I thought, Okay, I just need to do something different and crazy. And, and let's go for it. And, you know, it worked. Which was unexpected, I think I went into this, thinking, if I sell just one candle to someone that is not a family member or a friend, then this will be a success. That's all I cared about that one person that had no relation to me, would think this is a good idea to abide by it. And I think just the timing of when we launched. And the kind of messaging we put out there about, you know, small female founded business. You know, what it was inspired by it just really resonated with a lot of people. And the, the timing altogether just worked out great.
Well, I was gonna say over 10,000 candles in the first nine months is more than just one person. So that's incredibly impressive. I actually had a follow up question to that. Because when you launch, you really just hit the ground running. And there's just all these amazing things like the features and Forbes and Oprah and Architectural Digest. How were you able to, I guess, accomplish that, like, were you? Did you have, were you able to have I guess, like people in your network that you need to connect you to people? Like how are you so successful in being featured in these big publications. So
I have a public relations background. That's really how I started my career. And I knew because this this was going to be such a story that I needed a PR team. And I hired a very small team. I just figured let them blast it out. I'll pay them just to you know, have access to their media lists, and they'll send out this announcement. And, you know, let's see what happens from there. or we had decided we were ready to launch the product. I think it was March 21 of 2021. And we realized was very close to April Fool's Day. And really to get the attention of press, you need something super interesting. You need a hook. It can't just be okay. Like, here's the new candle Bran. So as we were doing photography for our first collection, we decided to create a candle called Summer in the subway. All of our candles, obviously, are New York City scents that are supposed to be the good sense of New York City like Central Park and the flower market and a soft serve ice cream from the corner truck. And we thought, okay, well, let's, you know, let's make this candle and the notes of it was hot trash, I believe. And like, Yeah, this is our new candle. And I think, you know, that's what most of the media picked up on. It was very funny. You know, actually, a few people thought it was a real candle that they wanted to purchase. But I think it was just one of those April Fool's jokes that worked. People on social media kept saving it and sharing it. And then of course, you know, there's always going to be a local news channel or reporter that wants to write something about, you know, a good April Fool's joke. And so, really, the bang started there, although we had launched 10 days earlier, we had also connected that candle to a charitable component. And so you know, if you purchase the candle, we made a donation to a local New York charity that provided shelter for the homeless. And I think just the combination of all of that it made a great story. And so it took off from that point, I think that's what put us on the map, a hot trash scented candle.
So are you ever gonna make that candle? I'll purchase it? Oh, yeah,
we know. So we will make it because I actually don't want to be the person that has to test that scent. But people actually asked us for the label, and we printed labels and sent them to whoever at the time had asked for them, because they wanted it as like a conversation starter, I guess, on their coffee table. So we did do, so I can definitely get you one of those. If you thought,
yeah. Wow, that's awesome. I was gonna say so first starting out, because I mean, brands are always wondering, what should they invest in what certain channels so you suggest, like starting out to hire like a good PR agency?
Absolutely. I think especially, you know, we're talking about a product launch. Yeah, you have to get that initial word out. Somehow you have to get traffic to your website. And yes, you can, you know, go the advertising route. But I think PR is just so much more immediate. And, you know, the, the advice I've given to other startups, when it comes to PR is there has to be something, even if it's just one product out of your entire line, there has to be something special or unique. About one product, maybe it's some kind of crazy price point, or it's made with something super unique. Or it tells a funny story like a hot trash candle. But there's just got to be It can't just be here's our collection, I think there has to be a little more depth to you know, what you're selling what you're talking about, or maybe it is just about a story behind why you decided to launch that specific brand. But yeah, the publicists are there to tell that story. And that's not so easy to get across in advertising all the time.
Yeah. And I guess speaking on channels, there's so many different avenues. Founders can choose to launch their businesses. I mean, we've spoken to hundreds of founders and marketers in the past year, and essentially heard it all. So from watching parties, trade shows and social media, you name it, how do you choose where to launch and which marketing channel to focus on in your first year business?
So we've really, I think, once we saw how well our PR team was doing, we really just relied on them. We did not do advertising until around six months in. We really just relied on that word of mouth. And, you know, we started building up our email lists and just kind of relied on that but it you know, after six months, the sales kind of stagnate and we decided, okay, like we're, you know, we still have inventory to sell. We have to we're either going to do this or we're not. You know what maybe I failed to mention is or what I did mention in the beginning of the podcast is I never thought I'd be an entrepreneur. I really looked at this as a hobby. You know, our initial investment was 2000 candles, and I just wanted to sell those. I figured it'll take me a year just to sell the 2000 But that idea, you know, changed over pretty quickly. So once we knew we had to place a reorder, and that people were really interested in this, it was like, Okay, well, then let's make a real business here, and let's invest in it properly. And so after about six months, we hired a advertising team that just focused on social media advertising. So it was just Instagram and Facebook. And what I liked about advertising that way is that people through the ads could comment on the posts. So it would look like a regular post in your feed. And that's not something you're gonna get through an ad, using, you know, Google's platform, you're just going to answer just going to pop up, but you can't interact with them. And people had so many comments about the different scents and people were making suggestions about sense that just focusing on the social ads was the best route. And now we're, you know, almost 18 months into this business, and we still only do social advertising.
Oh, do you combine like if somebody suggests a certain scent? Do you guys take that and combine and actually create the scent that people ask you for? Sometimes?
I mean, maybe, you know, we've definitely gotten some good suggestions. Some are actually I would say most aren't, you know, people that people have good ideas, but I think the follow through on the thought process isn't there. So they'll say, why don't you have a taxi candle? Which of course that makes sense for New York City, you should have a candle that's about an a cab, but like, what is that smelling? Like, because most taxis I go into are not smelling great. So people have these ideas for great New York moments that 100% should be candles, but the same profile that I think a customer would like to have in their home just isn't there. Some people have recommended a pastrami sandwich. Or, you know, someone said, like the Fulton Fish Market, and I feel like that had to be a joke. Yeah, maybe we're the steps. Like, yeah, like the Statue of Liberty is great. But again, like, what are we like, what is this? What does that smell? And that's the first thing I ask people. What does that make
sense for for maybe one of those like art exhibitions? Or like the product experiences where you can walk through some places, but maybe not burning in your house for 12 to 14 hours?
Definitely day?
Yeah. And so you've mentioned to us like, really, so in your first year, you've you had a PR team, you had an advertising team, I was hoping that you could expand a little bit more on that, because it sounds like a still like a quite unique route to take for your first year of launch. So in your opinion, like at the end of the day, who do you really need on your side to make your first year successful.
So first and foremost, a designer and you know, I was lucky in that our product designer is also a graphic designer. So I had this one person, not only designing the product, but then she was able to manage all of our photo shoots. She manages creating all of our emails, all of our social media posts. So it's someone on the design side that can wear a lot of hats. You know, we're really lean team. I think in the beginning, having a small team is important because your message is is going to be communicated better to the world when there are less people trying to tell your story. So you know, yes, we had our PR team, we had our graphic designer who came before the PR team. And then it was a web developer, you know, you have this website, I am not an expert in that at all, I was able to build out our Shopify site. But as things you know, were really starting to grow. You need someone with more knowledge to take over that, you know, customer experience and the current experience. And so again, it was just an individual person, she was freelance. I feel like most of the people that I've worked with in this business have been just small, individual people who have a side hustle. And that's worked out great. And they believed in the product, they resonated with it, they make purchases on their own with the product. And so I think it's important to find people who like what you're selling, and use what you're selling. In my marketing career, I've always found that it was always hard to work on a brand where you know, it just I could never imagine doing marketing for like men's shirts, you know, I don't wear them. I I can't relate to that. So you know, make sure if you're starting a candle business, find people on your team that light candles on because that's important.
Yeah, for sure. pivoting back to like a leadership perspective. Obviously, you guys had a really successful first year launch. And like you're, obviously there's expansion on their high horizon, what guidelines? Can you share with other founders looking to determine their degree of involvement in their business? And what responsibilities? Should they focus on for success? successful year? Two? Should they be at just as involved in year one? So they started to, you know, have less involvement? Like, what's your take on that?
Yeah, I mean, I was involved with every aspect of this business for the first year, without a doubt. You know, even when there were things that I recognized, I was not an expert on and called people for for help, I still, you know, if my web designer was going to have a call with our advertising team, I was still going to be in that call at because I wanted to learn about what they were doing, what are the strategies as the year went on certain things I, you know, stepped away from like, now, when are my graphic designer, my web developer, I have a call I, I don't need to be and on that, you know, I trust both of them tremendously to put out something to our audience that that is going to work. But I think it's important as the leader of a brand, as a CEO, as a founder to understand everything that's going on in your business. And as we continue to grow, there will 100% be things that I'll be happy to leave aside. But no, I, you know, look, if mistakes are made, they're going to be on me, if there's trouble, you know, I don't want to suddenly find out like, oh, a coupon code wasn't working three days into you know, a sale because someone forgot to do something, you know, I want to check off those items on the list from the beginning and still be a part of that every sale is still so important to this business. Literally every single one. That I just want to be there to make sure mistakes aren't happening.
Yeah, okay. So since your launch, literally has made huge headway with even more iconic like partnerships with like New York City's very own Junior's restaurants, and even the US Open. You know, like, when did you know it was time to iterate on your original concept? And like, what was the incentive to iterate when you already really had this winning strategy with these, like iconic New York cents?
Yeah. So you know, there was always the question, and almost pressure about how do you grow this business? Like, we had started with five cents? And it was like, Okay, well, you know, every couple of months, you're gonna have to launch, you know, another two or three of them. And it's a lot of pressure thinking about, Okay, what I'm constantly thinking, what else in the city smells good? What are we missing? And it was like, Okay, well, what are the events happening in the city? What are the other iconic moments happening in the city that we could connect to as well? Um, so the truth is, you know, juniors actually had approached us they had seen an article in The New York Post, about the brand and I, they've done a lot of CO branding stuff, I believe they have a Monopoly board, and they have their own coffee mugs. And I guess they had always wanted to do a candle, but it's not so easy to actually find someone who's willing to produce a small amount, you know, a limited edition item for you and design, the packaging, and all of that. So when they reached out, it was like, yes, absolutely. Like, this is an easy sense to come up with a strawberry cheesecake, everyone's gonna love that. And then, you know, obviously, we were able to figure out that packaging really quickly with their branding guidelines, and it was just a no brainer. And things like that, you know, don't cost not that they don't cost us anything. But you know, you have a brand like juniors that's going to purchase stock outright for their own store. So you're immediately making a profit on this, the investment on our side, is really just our design time. And, you know, my web developers time setting up, you know, product pages, when it came to the US Open, that was really just me playing tennis and thinking, oh, like the US Open happens in Queens, like we need to branch out of Manhattan a little bit. So like, what could I do there? And I constantly use LinkedIn as like a Google search. And I went on to LinkedIn and I typed in. I think I typed in merchandising US Open and the proper person popped up. I think I did like three different email trials like first name, dot last name, whatever it was, I got a response in An hour from them. Wow, that they had always wanted to try and make candles but they just couldn't find a partner and like, okay, and, you know, timing wise, I believe this was spring, we knew we had to move quickly, the design process was really fast and smooth. And then what's it like? Um, you know, a lot of these partnerships have just been kind of meant to be, I guess. And I think there is so much around candle partnerships, especially, you know, when the juniors mom was released, I believe Shake Shack released a candle. Around that time, there are other Campbell's Soup launched a candle in January, there are lots of food brands that are you know, launching candles. I think for a lot of brands, that candle is a nice extension, Chipotle just released a candle also. I'm not sure what that one smells like. But it's you know, and it's an inexpensive way for the customer to just buy into the brand more. And it's, you know, the right now, the US Open is currently happening and it's selling really well. It's a good thing to have in your home, you know, instead of a keychain or a hat, not everyone's a hat person. So the candles doing well.
How did you go about approaching that sponsorship? Like? Obviously, you emailed them, but is there a certain method that you approached it just because I'm thinking for other brands, if they wanted to go about, you know, having a potential sponsorship with a brand, and they don't know how to approach you know, reach out? What was your strategy? You know,
I think our strategy has always been to tell the story of the brand first, just open with that. And, you know, make it quick, no one's reading a super long email, this is who I am, this is my brand. You know, we connect experiences in New York City to cent. And it would be fun to make a candle together. And really, that was a we have a partnership coming up with Bravo. We're making candles for The Real Housewives franchises, which is really exciting. And again, back to LinkedIn, I posted an article about the brand, my LinkedIn profile, and it just happened to get into the feed of the person who handles licensing for NBC Universal. You know, I don't think I would have ever thought of that on my own, or would have had the guts to actually reach out to NBC to do something on this tiny brand, like they're not going to they're going to work with big brands are not going to work with me. And even, you know, a conglomerate, as big as NBC Universal actually wanted to work with, you know, these, these catchy words like small business and female founded and actually wanted to go that route. And they've been a pleasure to work with, they've been easy and almost almost like working with another small brand, which is not what you would have expected. But yeah, it's um, they've all been good experiences. And they've all just fierce. I mean, my advice is just be yourself in these emails. Yeah. Yeah, that's,
that's incredible. And so so I feel like what I'm hearing a lot of is like, you really been able to find a lot of success by like, leveraging, like digital storytellers, like, you know, taking taking a really like a could such like a personal story of like, what people experiences of like walking around New York City, and being able to connect that to people like, you know, across like North America, and on the other on the other side of like, the business of really taking that first step, like taking that leap of faith of you don't know what people are looking for, and that, you know, like bigger businesses absolutely might jump on, on on, you know, an opportunity like this, but you have to knock at the door. And you have to ask first. And so what I really love to kind of peer into your kind of a, into your world, like what is the real costs of partnerships like this, though, because I think so many of us it's tough, like we, we, we tried to drop the courage to be able to ask for it. But then when we get there, it's you're swimming in this kind of unknown? How have these partnerships kind of impacted, like, your budget and stuff of what you set aside for in your innovation pipeline? Or is there anything that you had to forego when pursuing one partnership over another
short so you know, I'll use the US Open as an example. You know, honestly, we did not make a lot of money on that. I knew that going into it just the way they have to the way first of all, they wanted to price the candle. But even if I was going to lose money on that, I would have done it just because of the exposure. So As much as the costs involved with with doing something that might be high, you have to think about the exposure involved, there are, you know, hundreds of 1000s of people going to the sporting event over a two week period that are going to see my company's name. At as you know, the candles right now we're sitting at all these cash registers. And so as they're checking out, they're gonna see my brand name, that's priceless. We were able to make a little bit of money on this. I was able to convince my manufacturer to reduce their pricing for this run as well. And you know, that that's advice for any new brand. And something I've learned over the last 18 months is just ask, you know, if they say no, okay, great, but I was like, you know, what, let me, let me see if they're willing to take a cut. And then okay, we can make a couple of dollars on this. And it worked. They were like, Yeah, you're a good customer. I think as manufacturer, this was a great opportunity for them, as well, you know, to add that to their portfolio. So they were excited. And I'm so you know, the US Open, we did not make a lot of money. But we the first of all, the amount of people that have been purchasing the candle and then posting it to their stories, which then we can reshare on our stories have been tremendous. That's been really exciting to see. So that alone right there, you know, you can't pay for that. And then, you know, when you think about a juniors, they were going to purchase a good amount of candles at a wholesale costs. So, you know, I was thrilled with that partnership, we, we made a lot of money on that. And again, when it comes to the design side of things, yes, it's a lot of time for my designer, but again, you know, we're making up for that, in the sales that we do. And however many candles we ended up purchasing under the juniors label, you know, our retail partners, were so excited about that as well. So we were able to sell a lot of candles to our, you know, individual stores that way. So my long winded answer is just you know, regardless of what this is going to costs, the CO branding opportunity, the CO branding, exposure opportunity should make up for that. And you have to take that into account.
Okay, so strategy takeaways, I'm hearing, as you know, like, heavy investment, big focus on that brand awareness and that brand recall in your first year, that is really how you kind of set yourself up to look as you would like, look ahead, what's the focus then for this coming year.
So the focus is to build on those brand partnerships. It's a great way we realized for us to expand without putting on that pressure of coming up with new, you know, City Focus candles, but we can be selective now. I don't necessarily have to say yes to these brands that I'm not going to make our I'm only going to make a little bit of money on especially, you know, now that Bravo is part of the mix, the floodgates have opened. And so yeah, we can pick and, you know, we're lucky, we can pick and choose. And I think, doing these partnerships that you know, maybe weren't as lucrative in the beginning, got her name out there, brought these other opportunities to our doorstep. And now, where a year ago, I would have said yes to anything, we get to pick and choose. And that's really exciting.
Yeah, I was gonna ask what partnership would be maybe, because obviously, you'll probably now get approached with different people asking you to sponsor or asking to partner for a launch, like what would be not a great partnership? Like how do you know how to pick and choose between them?
Yeah, and if I can tack on a little bit to that is, you know, like, Are you considering that in like your growth plan? Or is it lead with the partnership first, and then growth comes second?
It's kind of happening at the same time. But back to the other question about how to pick a partner. I think the hardest thing about being a female entrepreneur is just stating what you want and what you need. I think in the beginning, I was a little bit timid when someone said no, I want to do it, this would be like Okay, sure. Now that I've done this enough, you know, we lay out our parameters for what we need. And if someone's trying to change pricing on me or not purchase at a you know, a stock amount that that I need them to then the no we're we're not gonna I don't I don't want to have time for this, I don't have time to not make money on something anymore. So if you see value in us and you want to partner with us, then these are, these are our parameters. You know, I definitely have brands, really great brands coming at me saying, Oh, we want to do a limited edition, and we want to make 150 of them. It's like, I'd love to work with you. But that's not how our minimums work. So, you know, I'm sorry. And I think sometimes they're shocked by like, how, how could you say no, but no, we need you to order two 3000 candles to make this happen. We just Yeah, we don't have time for people who aren't willing to meet us where we need to be to keep our business going.
And so now do you have a plan of like, of how many like partnerships and stuff that you need stuff in your year two or year three to to achieve the level of growth that you're that you're seeking?
Yeah, I think, you know, based on our team size, we found that, you know, partnering with around four brands a years is what we can do right now, I think, or I hope our team will grow in 2023. And we can do a lot more of that. I think, because we've seen so much success. My goal is to hire you know, a business development person who will really seek out a lot of those partnerships and can handle the day to day on those. Because they are really a great way to make money, especially because our design process is so seamless now to like the boxes, the box, our partners get to add or you know, change the fonts or the colors or the designs. But we've we've really nailed down, you know, what that process looks like? And so as long as a brand is willing to meet our parameters, then, you know, we're happy to work with them. I think to go back to your question earlier about how much you want to be involved or how much I want to be involved with things. I think it's just, you know, giving up the day to day of the back and forth emails and having someone else manage those initial conversations.
That's fabulous. Fabulous really like a so much exciting stuff, like coming down the innovation pipeline and stuff with like NBC stuff, like your, you know, these new partnerships that are coming, you know, you're too we're so so excited. You know, where can our listeners follow you on your journey and keep up with like, what's coming out next?
Yeah, so I think the best part to see our day to day Funny enough, we got super involved with Tik Tok which was very challenging for me, I think at my age, but I've, I've learned how to do it. And we make some really fun, you know, experience or experiential videos there. We did a whole thing about going to the US Open we actually now do a lot of cooking videos where we connect our candles to like, you know, what candle would you light if you were cooking a certain meal. So we're doing some fun stuff there that like you typically wouldn't have thought of in a marketing plan. And I think it allows people to really see the joyful side of the brand and they get to see a lot of me and my thought process and I think people relate to brands a lot more when you can see the founders and who's working on them and what their day to day. Life looks like you realize this is okay. This is like a real person who's running a business and you there really isn't another platform. You can do that on. So tick tock is a super fun way to follow us and then obviously, Instagram right now our handles literally candle and yeah, that's it