An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis
Focus on your product and your business — not to the exclusion of all else as we each have a life, but when it is time to start working, focus on that exclusively.
As a part of our series called “Making Something From Nothing”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Barbara Bowers.
Barbara Bowers spent most of her early career in EMS, running calls on ambulances and helping the community. In time, she moved off the truck and into billing. When her job was outsourced, she took her career into her own hands and developed Lancaster Wax Co in 2019. Learning everything about wax, candles and running a small business, she grew the business into a six-figure business in just over three years.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dive in, our readers would love to learn a bit more about you. Can you tell us a bit about your “childhood backstory”?
I come from a place of love and trauma. My father was a veteran of Vietnam and was a correctional officer. My mother worked in a local care facility for seniors. He married my mother, they had me, and he passed away from liver failure when I was fourteen. I was left helping my disabled mother while helping support our family and dealing with the trauma of losing my father. I worked all thru High School to help support our family and ended up in the EMS field with the intention to help people.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
To quote a line from the Stone Sour song ‘Xxzyx Rd’: “I’m still too tired to care and I gotta go”. When I first heard this song, my Mother had recently been diagnosed with Bladder Cancer. I was fortunate enough to have an employer at the time that was understanding and willing to let me work 10–12 hour days, so I would be able to have a day off to take her to treatments and appointments. It did not matter how tired I was — I still needed to go. I don’t remember much of the day to day of that year, just the important time I was given with my mother.
Is there a particular book, podcast, or film that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story or explain why it resonated with you so much?
I am fascinated with the occult and true crime. I have found that the podcast ‘Timesuck with Dan Cummins’ fits that bill for me. He provides two hours on a thoroughly researched topic with a dose of sometimes irreverent humor that I find entertaining. I look forward to listening each week.
Ok super. Let’s now shift to the main part of our discussion. There is no shortage of good ideas out there. Many people have good ideas all the time. But people seem to struggle in taking a good idea and translating it into an actual business. Can you share a few ideas from your experience about how to overcome this challenge?
When Covid shut the world down and we were all placed on lock down, my husband came to me with an idea for a specific line to be part of Lancaster Wax Co. He wanted to create candles that were a customization for the RPG niche. He is a huge tabletop role player. Personally, I don’t understand it, but that has to do with my sense of reality derived by so much time in the EMS realm. Essentially, his idea is that they are candles that have a surprise set of gaming dice inside. He also wanted to make wax melts with vintage pewter figurines hidden inside. While I did not see the value in this type of product, he challenged me to trust him. So I indulged him and together we created our ‘Dice Goblin” line. In the end, these products have been a huge hit for us — all because I took a chance and listened to someone who had a different perspective on our core products than I.
Often when people think of a new idea, they dismiss it saying someone else must have thought of it before. How would you recommend that someone go about researching whether or not their idea has already been created?
We did a large amount of market research online, looking at several online selling platforms to see if there was anything similar. We also visited local Makers Markets that would potentially offer these products. Finding none, we knew we were able to create something new.
For the benefit of our readers, can you outline the steps one has to go through, from when they think of the idea, until it finally lands in a customer’s hands? In particular, we’d love to hear about how to file a patent, how to source a good manufacturer, and how to find a retailer to distribute it.
In our case, it was a matter of taking the idea, mocking it up, then test, test and more testing to even see if it was viable. Materials need to be sourced in a cost effective way. Once we had a valid, cost effective product, we then performed research verify trademark status on the name we chose for the business as well as filing for those trademarks. At the same time, we set up our website and reached out to various probable vendors in the local area for distribution.
What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me When I First Started Leading My Company” and why?
Focus on your product and your business — not to the exclusion of all else as we each have a life, but when it is time to start working, focus on that exclusively.
Edit. Edit again. Pause. Edit again with fresh eyes.
I am my toughest competitor.
Get comfortable saying No — both to yourself and customers
It is going to be okay.
Let’s imagine that a reader reading this interview has an idea for a product that they would like to invent. What are the first few steps that you would recommend that they take?
I would definitely recommend market research — not only on internet selling platforms, but also at the local level — make sure that your product will stand out among all the similar products.
There are many invention development consultants. Would you recommend that a person with a new idea hire such a consultant, or should they try to strike out on their own?
I have found that our business coach, Kyle Slaymaker, is a fountain of knowledge. Admittedly — I spent the first three years of the business trying to figure it out as I went along and I was quite successful at doing so. Kyle provides focus, marketing strategy and business contacts.
What are your thoughts about bootstrapping vs looking for venture capital? What is the best way to decide if you should do either one?
Since I bootstrapped from the beginning — that’s what I suggest doing. I started out with a $35 candle making class and developed it into a six figure business. Every step I took was a result of turning the profits I made into the next order and expanding with the profits. We started business as online only, then expanding to maker shows, then into stockists, then into wholesale. Bootstrapping adds a level of ownership and accomplishment from doing it all yourself.
Ok. We are nearly done. Here are our final questions. How have you used your success to make the world a better place?
Outside of making the world smell better, we have partnered with other small businesses to create a product that provides a donation for charitable organizations. Every year we do a Pride line and the profits go to the local LGBTQ support organization. We are currently providing a candle for our local Make A Wish for their yearly Truck Convoy drive around Central Pennsylvania.
You are an inspiration to a great many people. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.
Just be kind. Take the time each day, to tell someone that you appreciate something about them or their products.
We are very blessed that some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US, with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them.
Robert Irvine — while I am not in the restaurant business — I do take a lot of business advice from everything that Mr. Irvine makes available.
Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.
Thank you for having me!
Making Something From Nothing: Barbara Bowers Of Lancaster Wax On How To Go From Idea To Launch was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
