Building a Brand
From the beginning, we've been out to make a better candle than what's available on the market. We are very particular with our standards - clean appearance (packaging, branding and wax), clean ingredients (soy wax, fine fragrance, cotton wick, glass container), clean burning (low soot, low smoke, controlled flame, great fragrance). With this, we want fragrance - bold, bright, beautiful fragrance - to come through with no smoky or chemical smells. Does clean and fragrant sound good to you? It does to us!
All great brands begin with great products, and great products begin with great ingredients. We've put a lot of research, development and funding into our business to make great home fragrance products. We are confident our candles, room fragrances and bath products are better than the competition, from the quality of the ingredients and finished product, to the amount of care put into packaging, and level of customer service provided.
The ACDC Inspiration and Influencers
This biggest influence on our journey has been from travel - trips to Europe, Asia and South America have enabled us to gain an understanding of different cultures and ideas, shared through new friendships, foods and experiences. Our fragrances are mostly inspired by the sights and smells of Italy, Spain, France, Hong Kong, Ireland, Vietnam and Thailand.
We receive a lot of input from our friends and listen to their advice and wisdom. From customer care to business advice, we are always listening and always learning.
Spending time in outdoors lends influence from the smells, sights and sounds of our herb garden - soft sage, lovely lavender, brilliant rosemary and fresh mint leaves full of bees, hummingbirds (and the occasional cute critter.)
The clean design work of Dieter Rams has been an overarching influence on our product and packaging designs. He was the head designer at Braun for many years and his work is known for having an intuitive 'design language' using lack of ornamentation, useful visual cues, and elegant proportions. His work had a huge influence on Steve Jobs & Jonny Ives at Apple with many of his designs re-interpreted in the physical and functional designs of Ipods and Iphones.
The personality that we're building is fun, informative, elegant, and a little sassy. Our 'A Circle' logo is a combination of two things: first, a cleaned up 'anarchy' symbol from punk rock and second, a rising star. We would like to be seen as fresh, bold and accessible.
You Can't Grow Without Failure
We fail all the time. Our story is one of failing forward... Investing in the wrong mix of products and having to pivot into a smaller investment which grew to the bigger part of the business. Designing the wrong packaging, and having to repackage into something fresh, new and original. Selecting the wrong vendors and having to learn to do it ourselves. Overthinking by naming the product and company incorrectly, leading us to a more transparent and straightforward approach. Starting big then growing small, instead of starting small and growing bigger.
Over the course of the past 6 years, we have had two key vendors drop us due to our volume being too small for their sales goals. In both cases, we learned to 'do it yourself', buying the equipment and learning the expertise necessary to not just get the job done, but to improve upon the process itself. Not only did this teach us how to make things, but it also taught us not to rely on others to do what you can do yourself.
Learning by Doing
Our failures have all be great learning experiences - what to do and what not to do. What we've learned is that its better to try and not succeed than to not try at all. We've learned who are our friends, who are our supporters, and who actively worked against us. We've learned that you can always find a way to do something right, whether making an unhappy customer delighted, or building a website. It takes tenacity, guts, research and deep caring to overcome challenges. My personal mantra is to always listen, learn and teach - and I do this everyday
We hope our customers are delighted with ACDC Co products, from the unboxing experience to the unique scents, to the actual ingredients used. We work hard for joy, happiness and delight to be the outcome of any purchase.
#acdcco #homefragrance #smallbusiness #startsmall #buysmall #businessinsights
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