And i risk my own money to save struggling businesses. Were not gonna wake up every morning wondering if we have a job. Were gonna wake up every morning wondering how many jobs we have to do. Its not always pretty. Everythings gonna change. Everything. But i do it to save jobs, and i do it to make money. This. Lets go to work. Is the profit. Five years ago, entrepreneur mark biren started wick[ed], a candlemaking company out of burbank, california. Along with his wife sam, mark has been able to get his candles into wellknown retailers such as Urban Outfitters and l. A. Celebrity hotspot kitson. Mark this one is definitely paid. Sam how do we know its paid . Mark call them. Sam okay. Lemonis but despite its initial success, wick[ed] has experienced a slump in sales and is struggling to keep its doors open. Mark doesnt look like urbans going to be reordering our predripped this season. [ sam groans ] lemonis the candlemaking industry is very competitive, and id never given it serious thought until i saw marks artwork. His knack for design is exactly what a brand needs to stand out on a shelf. With my help, im confident he and sam can get back on track and eventually take these candles nationwide. Im trying to find wick[ed]s manufacturing facility. I see some trash and some empty boxes. I expected some sort of manufacturing setup. I cant find it. I finally find their warehouse because i see this very small sign. Its literally like a 10foot by 10foot box. How do you fulfill Urban Outfitters and all these other retailers out of this place . Sam which one is in here . Lemonis hello . Sam hi mark hey. Lemonis how are you . Im marcus. Youre mark . Okay. Mark nice to meet you. Yeah, im mark. Lemonis how are you . Sam sam. Nice to meet you. Lemonis hey, sam. Nice to meet you. Mark yeah. Lemonis so this is your place. Sam your other home. Mark my other home. Lemonis is this it . Sam this is it. Mark yeah. Why, its not big enough . Lemonis no. Mark too small for you . Lemonis its plenty big. Is it wick[ed] or wicked . Sam wicked. Mark wicked. Yeah, we play on the word wick, and thats why the ed is its own, like, design element. Sam he designed that. Lemonis and who owns the company . Sam both of us. Mark we both do. Sam uhhuh. Mark 50 50, yeah. Lemonis whats the product that started it all . Sam this puppy right here the predrip candle was specifically created for our wedding day. No venue would allow a drip candle, obviously. We scoured the market, and there werent any predripped candles that looked like a drip candle. Mark it still burns like a standard pillar, so you get the aesthetic of a drip candle without the mess. Sam so mark, whos artistic and crafty, said why dont we make them ourselves . Lemonis so is this kind of like a halloween candle . Mark youll have, like, the younger people kind of it could be a little goth and romantic. And then sometimes youll have, like, the older crowd sam who see a shabbychic. Mark yeah. Lemonis its very nichey, though. Sam but i see that as a good thing because it really branded us. People oh, predripped. Mark theres no one on the market that has anything like that. Sam and that was a collection that we built a relationship with Urban Outfitters, and they keep asking us, do you have anything new . And we havent had an order from them in a while. Mark yeah, no, now its been a while. Sam this is the negative space collection, and we wanted it to represent the psyche of tortured artists. Lemonis so, like, what is this one . Mark oscar wilde. Sam that is oscar wilde. He loved music. Lemonis so is every candle that youve developed from some crazy experience . Sam of course. 100 . Mark some kind of experience. Sam yeah. Mark we want everything to have a story. Lemonis i mean, the packagings nice. Sam thank you. Mark thank you. Lemonis its interestinglooking. Lemonis who does the artwork on them . Sam mark. Lemonis i think the artwork is unbelievable. Mark thank you. Sam hes so talented. Lemonis candles are all about the packaging. Mark yeah. Lemonis what does this cost . Mark wholesale is 20. Lemonis and so it retails for 40. Mark yeah. Lemonis i usually like to invest in products that have mass appeal, and this particular product doesnt really hit that mark. Its got kind of a gothic, tortured artist feel to it, and its also missing the price point. It really should be under 30. Now, marks a good artist, but this product looks like hes designing it only for his own taste. What kind of revenue do you do . How much do you make . Sam we havent made a profit yet. Lemonis the company doesnt make any money . Mark yeah, we sam no. Lemonis how have you made a living for the past sam ha mark well, yeah, so lemonis have you made a living . Mark no, ive spent more of my savings. Lemonis but how do you guys pay your bills . Sam i i do tv hosting. Lemonis do you make a lot of money doing that . Sam no, i dont. Mark you would think. Lemonis you want to find people that you can work with that you know are gonna put in all of the effort and all of the time and theyre committed to their business. And the one thing i can say about mark and sam is that they are committed to their company. You know what im gonna do . Im gonna go hang out with some of the employees. So ill catch up with you guys in a little bit, okay . Mark all right, cool. Sam thank you. Lemonis hi, guys. Amanda hi matthew hey, hows it going . Lemonis im marcus. Amanda amanda. Nice to meet you. Lemonis amanda, how are you . Matthew im matthew. Pleasure. Lemonis matthew, how are you . Matthew im doing really well, how are you . Lemonis so, do you guys work here fulltime . Amanda not full time. I mean, ive been friends with them since before this company started, and ive kind of helped whenever they needed me throughout the years. Lemonis wow. Matthew ive married into friendship, so. Which means that i get an opportunity to help them out. Lemonis and so show me what you guys do when you come. Amanda these are open, so you push them down, you take out the silica, we put them in, then we put a love note in each one of these. Lemonis whats the love note . Its a little amanda its lemonis its a little much. I mean, read it just like it says. Matthew my dearest love, your darkest secret can be someone elses desired wish. Lemonis hey, thanks, bro. You gave me a candle for my birthday. Amanda yeah. Lemonis hopefully you dont give this candle to your boss. Amanda kid, or boss, yeah. Lemonis all kidding aside. Amanda yeah. Lemonis . It is nice to have that in there, but it narrows the audience of who you can give it to. Amanda i can definitely see where youre coming from. Lemonis how many can you crank out in a day . Amanda um, thats a hard number. I think it could be done better if we had a more organized process going on. Marks very particular about the way he likes things. Lemonis does he not always do things the right way . Amanda no, mark always does things the right way. He just doesnt trust other people sometimes to do it the right way. Lemonis interesting. The fact that theres no process in place and that mark doesnt really let anybody do anything is not a good first sign for a business thats been around for five years. Im kind of wondering why he isnt outsourcing this part of the process. If this business is going to grow, hes got to acknowledge what hes not good at. He should be focusing on design and creativity and selling. Do you do any wax here . Mark you want me to fill one of these for you . Lemonis yeah, i want to see what it looks like. Sam all right, lets do it. Mark all right. Lemonis okay, so you start with the glass . Mark i put the glass lemonis you glue this thing in . Mark glue that in. Lemonis then you pull the wax off of there. Mark filling my wax. Lemonis is that hot wax . Sam yeah. Mark yeah. All right, so now you need a 475. Lemonis how do you know the proportionates . Mark well, i do about 13 of the wax. Thats how much fragrance is in there. Lemonis why did you choose that . Mark thats kind of standard with our fragrance, so when i get lemonis but why . Mark cause thats a high fragrance for lemonis didnt smell a lot to me. Mark 13 is high. Lemonis but i dont smell that much in here, either. Mark no way. Lemonis no way. Mark yeah, right. I can smell it. Too fragrant is sometimes too much. Lemonis have you ever focus grouped that . Mark no. Lemonis have you ever tested it with your team . Mark no, not at all. Lemonis sam, what would happen if you made them slightly more fragrant . Sam i would love if they were more fragrant. I mean, weve had this conversation, mark and i, many times. Lemonis so she wants it more fragrant, and id like it more fragrant. You want it more fragrant, too . Amanda i think you buy a Scented Candle for the scent, you know . Lemonis so that you smell it. Amanda otherwise, youd buy a scentless candle for the look. Lemonis i was just honestly giving him feedback like a customer. Im smelling the candle. It doesnt smell that strong. Can you make it stronger . No. Okay. Theres a lot of Candle Companies out there. Why dont you just go back to being a great graphic artist . Mark [ sighs ] lemonis whats at stake for you . Mark making my parents proud. I want them to know that i created something. My dads an electrician. He doesnt have, like, a lot of money, but no one would give us a loan and he gave us 20,000, and sam i know. Mark i never thought sam it was really hard for him to accept for both of us. Mark i dont want to take any of that. [ sighs ] lemonis how much money do you have invested in this business . Sam the first year, around 30 grand. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to me, mark was charging things on his personal credit card. I dont like that at all, but mark likes to just do it. Lemonis why are you charging it on your credit card and not telling her . Mark cause we dont always have it in the account, and shes already done so much lemonis but why arent you at least telling her . Mark its just another thing on her plate. So im like, i could do it on my own. Sam its hard, marcus. Lemonis how much do you have on the credit card, really . Mark probably maxed out on one thats 10 grand and i probably have another sam wait, personally . Mark like 6 grand on the other one. Like, 16,000 altogether. Sam how are we supposed to build a life for ourselves if were in debt . Mark ii keep thinking [ sam crying ] thats why i dont like letting it out cause i know, like, itll hurt her. Sam it hurts me more when its this. Like, if we have a baby, like, what am i supposed to do for three months . I have no, like, employee pay, no union, like, nothing. Mark i know. Sam so theres no like, nest egg there, and thats not good. We cant build credit. Like, its not good. How are we supposed to get a house . Like, how are we supposed to do those things if youre 16 grand in credit cards, which i didnt even know about . This is it. Like, this is it. Mark you all right . Give me a hug. Well be good. Im telling you. Dont worry. Lemonis the fact that he is doing what it takes to keep his business open is admirable, but the fact that hes doing it the way hes doing it is questionable. He doesnt seem like a guy that wants to take direction, and when your wife is the only one earning the money and shes the one funding all these things, you need to be honest with her about how your family moneys being spent. Financials. Do you have any financials we can sit down and talk about . Mark yeah. Sam yes. Lemonis okay. Ill meet you in there and well sit down and go over them. Sam okay. Lemonis okay, here we go. 2013 139,000 of revenue and 4,000 loss. Thats a pretty good job. Really good job. Most Companies Lose a lot of money in the first couple years. 2014 you dropped pretty significantly, almost 40 . 93,000. 20,000 loss, right . Sam mmhmm. Mark yeah. Lemonis this is the debt page. Sam this is the uncomfortable part. Lemonis california Franchise Tax 900. Credit card, wells fargo 8,600. Sam mmhmm. Lemonis okay. Plus another 16,000 in credit cards. Mark me, personally . Yeah, but thats not part of the business. Thats just me personally. I would never put that on to the business. Lemonis im not asking you to. I appreciate that. Thats a superadmirable thing, cause most people would get cute. I appreciate you mark how . Lemonis well, they would sam take advantage of him. Lemonis they would take advantage of that situation, and i appreciate you doing that. It says a lot about you. Okay. Then it says eddie biren. Sam thats his dad. Mark thats my dad. Lemonis and you owe him 20,000. Mark yeah. Lemonis so the total debt on the surface is 29,500. How much cash do you have in the bank right now . In the business . Mark like, 600. Sam well, we pay lemonis 600 . Mark yeah. Lemonis so, guys, the way i should really think about this company is its kind of a startup. Right . Mark not really. Lemonis no . Sam i dont think it is. Mark no. Its definitely not a startup. Sam people know our name. Weve been people magazine. Weve been branded. Were definitely a branded candle. Mark we get these huge accounts. Its just sam its just we got to work on the process. Its not. Lemonis come on, guys. The business has no working capital. It has around 30,000 worth of debt and no cash in the bank. It is a startup. What happened that causes you not to trust people . Mark i cant answer that. I cannot lemonis then you can walk away. But, mark, for me to move forward with you, i need to understand it. Mark i dont know. Its easy to love your laxative when that lax loves your body back. 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Which i can use for my w friends here. Thanks, captain obvious. Youre welcome. Roger that, sir. My name isnt roger. Supported by hotels. Com. Am no. Mark its definitely not a startup. Sam people know our name. Lemonis come on, guys. The business has no working capital. It has around 30,000 worth of debt and no cash in the bank. It is a startup. Im not trying to offend you guys. Sam no, yeah. Lemonis and i do see a lot of potential here. So the candle business is sort of a gift home market. You really can attack both sides. And so im kind of excited about it. Mark sweet. Sam thats awesome. Mark were excited that youre excited. Sam thats awesome. Lemonis right. So i want to make an offer. [ mark sighs ] you all right . Mark yes. Sam you need to hold my hand . Mark theyre like clammy. You might not want to hold my hand. Sam oh, they are clammy. Theyre very clammy. Lemonis so id like to offer 200,000 for a third of the business so the three of us can be equal. Mark wow. Lemonis the 200,000 is gonna go towards putting inventory on the shelves, coming up with new designs and ideas, coming up with new packaging, and were gonna pay your dad back. Mark yes. I like it. Sam i like it. I do. That feels right, and it feels fair. Lemonis remember, im 100 in charge. Sam [ sighs ] lemonis normally, i wouldnt offer this much for a startup business thats this small, but in this case, i feel like it has a ton of potential and a ton of needs. Ive also elected to take less equity in this particular business than i normally would, and the reason for that is most startups cant afford to pay big salaries or big bonuses, and so the way that sam and mark are gonna make their ultimate pay day is that theyre gonna have a nice equity offering. Sam thank you so much, marcus. Im so happy. Can we hug . Mark you sure your names not like clark kent or something . Sam [ laughs ] oh, my gosh. Lemonis this business can be solved with three simple steps streamline the design process so that were appealing to the mass market, find a manufacturing partner so that we can take the burden off of mark and he can focus on what hes good at, and then find a distributor or a rep that can get these candles into the marketplace. Sam, going forward, id like you to take over the scent process. Sam cant wait. I love that. Lemonis so do we have a deal . Sam yes. Mark yeah. Sam yay yay mark thank you so much. Sam thank you, marcus. Mark all right. Sam can we have a group hug . Lemonis yes. Sam yes yay mark aww. Lemonis im excited. Mark all right. Sam yay sam hi. Mark hey. Lemonis hey, how are you . Im marcus. Anthony hi. Hi, marcus. Mark this is his store. Lemonis this is one kickass candle store. Sam yeah. Anthony thank you. Lemonis candle delirium is a 10,000squarefoot candle store. It could be the biggest candle store in america. The owner happens to be friends with mark and sam, and so why not go to the person or persons that are telling you what does the consumer really base their candle Purchase Decision on . Lemonis how many different Candle Companies do you rep here . Anthony close to 40. Lemonis 40. Anthony yeah. Lemonis wow. Anthony 35 to 40, depending on the time of the year. Lemonis whats the numberone seller . Anthony voluspas the numberone line. Shes been around forever. Mark those are like, 27. Anthony this is 27. Mark see, thats the goal right there. Anthony this is 100 hours in this big, thick glass in this beautiful box. Thats why this is number one. Lemonis and so you carry their stuff, too . Anthony i do. Lemonis where is their stuff . How many do you sell of these a year . A couple thousand . Anthony yeah, maybe close to 2,000. Lemonis and how many voluspa do you sell a year . Anthony oh, those are in the tens of thousands, but theyre a brand name. Lemonis and so thats really more mainstream. Anthony yeah. I said that from day one. Its nichey. I mean, these are really interestinglooking. Theres nothing like it. Its got a very specific clientele. Like, their other line is very its too sophisticated for most people. Lemonis show me that. Sam ah. Anthony yeah, its esoteric, and people are not that interested, i dont think mark in the stories . Anthony in the stories, yeah. Anthony i told him that before, but but lemonis is that true . He told you that . Mark i dont know if it was in those exact words, but. Anthony the work that went into it is really incredible, but i dont think anybody gives a [bleep] in the end, theyre like, does it smell good . I like it. It looks nice. How much is it . Im out. Mark but if we dont come up with like, the story, we dont get these Design Elements that we could pull from. Sam true. Lemonis but hes hes telling you something. Anthony look at voluspa. The intricacies of that design, and she obviously had inspiration, but she doesnt tell anybody. Mark but we still like coming up with the stories. Thats our ins