The Ice N Fire Story

The Ice N Fire Story

๐‘ป๐’‰๐’† ๐’Š๐’…๐’†๐’‚ ๐’‡๐’๐’“ ๐‘ฐ๐’„๐’† ๐‘ต ๐’‡๐’Š๐’“๐’† ๐’„๐’‚๐’Ž๐’† ๐’‡๐’“๐’๐’Ž ๐’‚ ๐’—๐’‚๐’๐’†๐’๐’•๐’Š๐’๐’†โ€™๐’” ๐’ˆ๐’Š๐’‡๐’• ๐’“๐’†๐’’๐’–๐’†๐’”๐’• ๐’‡๐’“๐’๐’Ž ๐’Ž๐’š ๐’˜๐’Š๐’‡๐’† ๐‘ฑ๐’†๐’”๐’”๐’Š๐’„๐’‚.

In early January 2016 my wife had mentioned to me that if I was looking for something to ๐ ๐ž๐ญ ๐ก๐ž๐ซ ๐Ÿ๐จ๐ซ ๐•๐š๐ฅ๐ž๐ง๐ญ๐ข๐ง๐žโ€™๐ฌ ๐ƒ๐š๐ฒ ๐ง๐ž๐ฑ๐ญ ๐ฆ๐จ๐ง๐ญ๐ก ๐ญ๐ก๐š๐ญ ๐ฌ๐ก๐ž ๐ก๐š๐ ๐ฌ๐ž๐ž๐ง ๐ญ๐ก๐ž๐ฌ๐ž โ€œ๐‘๐ข๐ง๐  ๐ข๐ง ๐‚๐š๐ง๐๐ฅ๐žโ€ ๐ญ๐ก๐ข๐ง๐ ๐ฌ on Facebook and she would really like to give one a try. I had no idea what she was talking about but as most men do I said okay and filed it away in my brain for later.

As January rolled on I was working on my computer one night (as usual) and I thought I better consider ordering that valentineโ€™s gift in case shipping takes some time. I found the company that she was referring to and was blown away that there was an 8-10 week delay on shipping posted on their website! I was floored! How can a candle have that long of a shipping delay and who waits that long for something like this?

After some research, I found that there were many companies in the USA offering these products but as per typical fashion, Canada was late to the party. There was basically only one company in Canada that had been open for a couple of years and had a huge following on Facebook. I believed I could improve on many things that they did as well I wanted to make our own candles which I knew they didnโ€™t.

I told Jessica I really donโ€™t see her getting one of these for Valentineโ€™s day but if she could help design the candles and get them made I could put the company and website together to sell them. From what I had seen there were a few things I believed we could do better than what was currently available.

As well Jessica wanted to set us apart by using a square votive and adding some color to our collection. We also wanted to make sure our candles were made of the highest quality ingredients using only 100% soy wax. I knew this would raise the costs a bit but would provide a better finished product to our consumers and set us apart from our competition. That night was when I came up with the name and registered the domain.

Over the next few weeks, we figured out production, shipping and all the other starting details. ๐™’๐™š ๐™Ÿ๐™ช๐™จ๐™ฉ ๐™ฉ๐™๐™ค๐™ช๐™œ๐™๐™ฉ ๐™ค๐™› ๐™ž๐™ฉ ๐™–๐™จ ๐™– ๐™๐™ค๐™ข๐™š-๐™—๐™–๐™จ๐™š๐™™ ๐™—๐™ช๐™จ๐™ž๐™ฃ๐™š๐™จ๐™จ ๐™ž๐™ฃ ๐™ค๐™ช๐™ง ๐™—๐™–๐™จ๐™š๐™ข๐™š๐™ฃ๐™ฉ ๐™ฌ๐™ž๐™ฉ๐™ ๐™ฉ๐™๐™š ๐™๐™ค๐™ฅ๐™š๐™จ ๐™ข๐™–๐™ฎ๐™—๐™š ๐™ž๐™ฉ ๐™˜๐™ค๐™ช๐™ก๐™™ ๐™œ๐™ง๐™ค๐™ฌ ๐™›๐™ง๐™ค๐™ข ๐™ฉ๐™๐™š๐™ง๐™š.

I planned to launch the website near the end of February but wanted to generate interest with a pre-launch on Facebook. ๐€๐ญ ๐ญ๐ก๐ข๐ฌ ๐ฉ๐จ๐ข๐ง๐ญ ๐ฆ๐จ๐ฌ๐ญ ๐จ๐Ÿ ๐จ๐ฎ๐ซ ๐Ÿ๐ซ๐ข๐ž๐ง๐๐ฌ ๐š๐ง๐ ๐Ÿ๐š๐ฆ๐ข๐ฅ๐ฒ ๐ญ๐ก๐จ๐ฎ๐ ๐ก๐ญ ๐ข๐ญ ๐ฐ๐š๐ฌ ๐š๐ง ๐ข๐ง๐ญ๐ž๐ซ๐ž๐ฌ๐ญ๐ข๐ง๐  ๐ข๐๐ž๐š ๐›๐ฎ๐ญ ๐ค๐ข๐ง๐ ๐จ๐Ÿ ๐œ๐ซ๐š๐ณ๐ฒ!

I started the Ice N Fire Facebook Fan Page about 10 days prior to opening and started a contest post in hopes to go viral. By launch day February 19th we had about 100 candles ready to go and already had 1000 followers on our fan page!

Not knowing what to expect I opened the website at midnight and our first sale came in about 20 minutes later. By the end of our first full day, we already had about 20 orders come in! By the end of that week we had a stack of over 100 orders backorder.

We were not set up for this type of demand. My wife had set up 4 crock pots for the 4 different scents and she could only pour about 12 candles per scent at a time. We were getting backordered fast! ๐ฝ๐‘’๐‘ ๐‘ ๐‘–๐‘๐‘Ž ๐‘ค๐‘Ž๐‘  ๐‘ค๐‘œ๐‘Ÿ๐‘˜๐‘–๐‘›๐‘” ๐‘ข๐‘ ๐‘ข๐‘Ž๐‘™๐‘™๐‘ฆ ๐‘ก๐‘–๐‘™๐‘™ ๐‘Ž๐‘๐‘œ๐‘ข๐‘ก 1 ๐‘œ๐‘Ÿ 2 ๐ด๐‘€ ๐‘๐‘œ๐‘ข๐‘Ÿ๐‘–๐‘›๐‘” ๐‘Ž๐‘›๐‘‘ ๐ผ ๐‘ค๐‘Ž๐‘  โ„Ž๐‘Ž๐‘›๐‘‘๐‘™๐‘–๐‘›๐‘” ๐‘กโ„Ž๐‘’ ๐‘ค๐‘’๐‘๐‘ ๐‘–๐‘ก๐‘’, ๐‘๐‘ข๐‘ ๐‘ก๐‘œ๐‘š๐‘’๐‘Ÿ ๐‘ ๐‘’๐‘Ÿ๐‘ฃ๐‘–๐‘๐‘’ ๐‘Ž๐‘›๐‘‘ ๐‘Ž๐‘›๐‘ฆ๐‘กโ„Ž๐‘–๐‘›๐‘” ๐‘’๐‘™๐‘ ๐‘’ ๐ผ ๐‘๐‘œ๐‘ข๐‘™๐‘‘ โ„Ž๐‘’๐‘™๐‘ ๐‘ค๐‘–๐‘กโ„Ž.

Over the next few weeks I juggled some big changes. We sourced some bigger production equipment and found our first 1000 square foot warehouse.

๐‘Š๐‘’ ๐‘š๐‘œ๐‘ฃ๐‘’๐‘‘ ๐‘–๐‘› ๐‘€๐‘Ž๐‘Ÿ๐‘โ„Ž 15๐‘กโ„Ž ๐‘Ž๐‘›๐‘‘ ๐ผ โ„Ž๐‘–๐‘Ÿ๐‘’๐‘‘ ๐‘œ๐‘ข๐‘Ÿ ๐‘“๐‘–๐‘Ÿ๐‘ ๐‘ก ๐‘’๐‘š๐‘๐‘™๐‘œ๐‘ฆ๐‘’๐‘’, ๐‘œ๐‘ข๐‘Ÿ ๐‘๐‘Ž๐‘๐‘ฆ๐‘ ๐‘–๐‘ก๐‘ก๐‘’๐‘Ÿ!

At this point, we were a few hundred orders behind but with the bigger equipment, more space and an employee we were able to get caught up quickly. I wanted to always pride ourselves on shipping orders as fast as we can (same day if possible) and giving our customers the best customer service possible.

For the future, we are continuing to grow our product skuโ€™s as fast as possible. As all our growth has been organic with no outside funding this can be challenging but we see a bright future. We will continue to increase our core wax and body care products but by expanding into essential oils with our Ice E Oil brand and many different diffusers it will give us the ability to offer more choices to our customers. We plan to continue to expand on our product line as well as bring some of our key consultants together into one venue to celebrate the growth and plan for the future!

This is our story
Sincerely
Steve & Jessica Malin
www.icenfire.ca