Who are you?

o Julie & Gerry Dougan – owners of The Melt Pool

• What does your business do?

o At The Melt Pool, we make candles that are 100% natural. Using soy wax and pure essential oils, we make a range of scents and sizes to suit everyone. We have an e-commerce website where we sell directly to the public and we also have around 30 stockists across the UK. All of our candles are handmade in small batches and we are able to offer our customers luxury candles at very competitive prices.

• Where are you based?

o We are homed based in the West End of Glasgow and we have a workshop that is dedicated to candlemaking. Being home based offers us flexibility around our work commitments and our childcare which is very important as we have a young family.

• How did you get started?

o For the first couple of years, all of our production was carried out in the family kitchen. As the business grew, we needed to expand and as part of a home renovation project, we designed and created our workshop which has made a huge difference to our capacity and approach.

• What is your background

o After working in the timber industry as a Production Manager for 30 years, Gerry now works full-time in the business. Julie still works part-time as an IT Manager and is the candlemaker in the business whilst Gerry manages the business day to day. As managers, many of our skills eg. planning and organising, negotiating and client management are transferable into the business and Julie’s IT background allowed us to build our website which has saved us a small fortune.

• What is your top tip?

o Don’t underestimate how much needs to be done when you are running your own business. As well as making candles, there is ordering to be done, new clients to be found, paperwork to be completed and orders to be delivered to name a few. These tasks take a larger proportion of our time than many might think.

• How long has your business been running?

o We have just recently completed our third year of trading and whilst every year is a challenge, we are very pleased with how we have been able to grow our business during the recession.

• Has anyone helped you get started and how?

o Julie attended a few of the start-up courses on offer from the Business Gateway – these were very useful for learning the basics and also for networking with other people in a similar situation.

• What was your first deal?

• What was your biggest mistake/or what would you do differently?

• Who was/is your mentor/or inspiration?

o We are inspired by other small business owners who handcraft quality products. There are lots of very inspirational small businesses out there who can offer high end products which are made locally, using the very best materials and we would encourage everyone to support small businesses where they can.

• Where do you plan your business to be in five years time?

o We are planning to continue to grow the business by finding additional stockists for our candles. Currently, most of our clients are small gift shops and in the future, we are aiming to take on a few larger clients. The “handmade in Scotland” part of brand is very important to us and we would like to develop overseas opportunities in the US and Canada.

o Most importantly, we need to keep things fresh and interesting for all our customers so new fragrances, new products and a regularly updated website are all important to us.

• Contact Details

o hello@themeltpool.com

o www.themeltpool.com

o www.facebook.com/TheMeltPool

o www.twitter.com/TheMeltPool