Brilliant Idea: The Liquid Death of Candles

Welcome to the Kerner office. I had a friend of the pod back on today, Connor Gross. He's been on at least two episodes so far. I know. Number 43, number 67, and maybe something else I can't remember. Connor's an idea machine and I love his ideas. And I got so much energy from this chat with Conor, we had to split it into two episodes. You'll hear the next one next week. And I promise you the next one's even better than the one you're about to hear, which is awesome. Connor's the guy that I talked to about grill cleaning and programmatic SEO. We talked about two kind of core ideas and then some smaller ideas within them. One in like the time tracking space slash productivity, activity space slash. How can I test to see if employees or future employees work fast? No one really talks about that. Talk about productivity, not being lazy, being smart, working hard. What about working fast? And then we talked about some ideas in the candle space because Connor's dad owns a big candle business in New Jersey. So you're gonna love this one. Come back next week for part two with Connor. Share it with a friend. We'll see you next time.

Literally this week, I get a call from someone. He's like, I think my employees. And I'm not going to say his name at all. So there's no incriminating evidence. I was like. He's like, I think my employee has two jobs. I was like, well, is he doing a good job at work? He's like, yes. I was like, all right, well, why do you think that he's slow to respond? He works remote. I can't find him on LinkedIn anymore. So I also looked him up. I think he just deleted his LinkedIn profile. And then I got really suspicious. So. And keep in mind, I'm not saying my friend is sane. He's definitely a little crazy. But he said, I looked up his house where he lives on payroll. It's a 1.7 million dollar house. Like, I know how much this guy makes. It's not 1.7. And I was like, all right, man. Well, like, first of all, people have trust funds, people have rich spouses, people get inheritance. Like, you know, I wouldn't judge the house situation, but all I will say is that he's not alone. You know, I've had three people within the last probably three months who have told me, and they're all entrepreneurial friends, that they think that their employee has a second job. And, you know, the telltale signs can be pretty easy. Obvious. They're slow to answer things. You know, maybe they screen shared and a suspicious email or Slack popped up. Whatever, they're not on LinkedIn or maybe even worse, they are on LinkedIn but they don't listen to your company on LinkedIn. Like, there's some things there in terms of how to tell and it's definitely. So it's something that people would pay for, but like even like for myself, right? Like, I want to know I'm not going to make my employees download a Chrome extension or Slack extension or whatever to spy on them. Like, I'm just not that type of boss, nor do I care enough at all. But I would want to know. And so, like, what do. This is more of a problem than it is a business. Like, how do you solve that? Like, what does that look like, man.

I'm thinking this is a little awkward to say, but I've had an employee in the past that I hired on upwork. And upwork is very interesting because it will tell you how many open jobs any employee has at any given time. Any person on upwork. Right. And so I have people that I currently employ on upwork that I can see, they have 9, 10, 13 open jobs now, big asterisk. Because a lot of times, like, they're jobs that I opened years ago that I never closed. And technically on their profile it says they still have an open job with me. So. But it doesn't count. But there are ways you can tell, and that's. You can see how many hours they've worked on that job.

Yeah.

So if I see a job, it will say open job with this company since March 2021, you know, 862 hours work. I can do the math and know, wow, this guy's doing 15 hours a week consistently. Huh? He's doing 10 hours a week. Here, he's doing 5. Here, he's doing 5. Oh, that's why he's not answering my emails. Right. But that's just upwork. Right. So upwork solves for that, for upwork, but outside of upwork, where most of the world lives, that is a problem. And so I'm over here thinking, like, to. To install a Chrome extension on someone that you've already hired is like, there's just no going back from that. Like you said. Right. And you said that it's like it would just kill the culture, kill the vibe, just not going to work. But is there a way you could do it tactfully? I'm a fan of like getting ahead of things like for instance, when I hire someone at this point I just tell them like, hey, I don't want to hop on calls ever. Whereas if I tell someone three months into the job, hey, I don't want to hop on calls, it's like, wow, you don't like me? It's like, no, it's not you. But if I tell them that upfront, then they don't take offense because it's just now they know from day one. And so I wonder if there's a world where on day one it's like, hey, this is what we do. You do have to install this chrome extension. It sucks. But this is a low margin business and like we, we wouldn't be in business if it weren't for this. So I hope, you know, hope that's not a problem. And their response to that one throwaway sentence is going to tell you everything you need to know. You might not even ever have to. You might not go through with them or you might go through with them and never even install it because you're. They, they're clearly not worried about it. Right? It could just be like a litmus test on the front end.

No. So I completely agree with all of that. I've also noticed the same thing with the upwork stuff. Random story there that I don't have to go into. But I think that it's probably more of a management solve than it is maybe a product or a solution. Now the only two, because I spent some time trying to prep for this and like the only two solutions I could come up with are so overkill that they wouldn't be good solutions. The first is invent an entire. It sounds really stupid when I say it. Invent an entirely new payroll processor that tells you when one Social Security number is on. Two payroll processors.

I was thinking some sort of a centralized database that companies could refer to.

Well, so that's maybe so. So this is adp. It's gusto, whatever. But like you know, ADP reports a lot of their payroll data to the US government for like census and job bureau data. Now whether or not they would report the number of double payrolls, I don't know. That seems a little bit to micro and exposure focus. The second idea is can you do a glass door for employees? I'm sure that must have already been solved for before, but like, yeah, even in the back of my mind like I have one employee for reference that I'm thinking of just like bad experience. Not going to get into a lot of the specifics but like Ended up letting her go, whole thing there. I would be really, like, I'm not going to reach out when she gets a new job. I hope she gets a new job, whatever. But, like, I would like the new employer to know what happens or if, like, I think that that's fair. And also myself as an employer, like, I would want to know why somebody, if somebody had a bad experience and they're just great on an interview, but then they become problematic. And, you know, I think that that could be an interesting concept. The tough part is, is that, like, probably over biases for bad, but I don't know.

Oh, it's tough.

It's.

It's kind of like. It reminds me of like the. There needs to be a review system for Zillow, for Realtors or for homes. Right. Like, people that went on a walkthrough, they could review. Hey, avoid, you know, don't waste your time. I think a lot of these problems are, like, you have such a selection bias at play where it's like, the worst employees would never opt into it. And so you see, like, all these employees magically have a 4.9 rating, you know, because they're pushing it and it might not even mean they're good. So then it's not even working. I wonder if the bigger issue is more of a management style. Like, I'm just of the firm belief that 80% of employees don't have enough to do. Right. I mean, it's really the 8020 rule, but it's like, just go talk to anyone and be honest with them. I talked to a guy last week that make 350 grand for Amazon, and he's like, I work 12 hours a week, like Max, and my performance reports are amazing and my boss loves me and I keep getting promotions. And like, I think that's a lot more common than people realize.

Yeah, yeah, I completely agree. I think it'll be interesting to see how it shakes out in the next couple years. But maybe, maybe the solution, I think, I think what you got at originally is expectations upfront. Probably also hiring less. Right? Like, that way, yeah, you would know if they're not doing the work. I also do think, like, even our employees right now, like, I don't think they necessarily have a ton to do. It's November right now. Like, we. We're finishing out the year. But yeah, I agree with that. So probably more of a management solution than a true viable business, which I kind of felt like coming in. But I like breaking down the problems when I hear them.

Yeah, well, no, let me take your management solution and turn it into what could be a viable business. I think there needs to be a test. Some, you know, they have like, personality tests, right? Are you INTP or ENFJ or introvert or extrovert or you're blue or red or whatever? There needs to be a test for employers to give to impending employees to take that can gauge and measure how fast they work. Right. That's something I never hear people talk about. You talk about is that are they productive, are they not, are they lazy, are they hard working? But no one talks about how fast you can work, Right. How quickly you can rip through a spreadsheet or rip through an email. Like, you probably have experienced this. I have a friend named Brandon. He's experienced this. Where, you know, Parkinson's law, it's very real thing for those listening, if you don't know what it is, it's like work time expands or contracts to fit whatever you give to it. So if you're in high school and you have four weeks to do your science fair project, you're going to do it in four weeks. If you have to do it tomorrow, you're going to do it by tomorrow. Like, I am such a believer in Parkinson's law. So if I had this standardized test that I could give to employees during the interview process before they're hired, that sent them through, like, it. It gave them like a faux inbox, and it's like, all right, clear the Inbox, hit Inbox 0. Go to this spreadsheet. You know, basic tasks, basic formula. Clear this, solve for this. And it was like you just had a barometer of what is a fast employee and what is a slow employee. Because that way, like, I can hire four of those guys. Yeah. Or I can hire one guy to fill four roles if he's that fast. Because it really is an 8020 rule. I just. Oh, man. Like, it's. It's maddening sometimes when I outsource something and it's like, are you done yet? No, I'm still.

I think that that is one of the best ideas I've heard in a minute solely because I think it's easy to build. And if you aggressively give it out for free, slash, whatever, the referrals that come in from it, assuming that it's like, qualified and good would be great. So, I mean, you know that I'm working on this recruiting business right now and, like, don't have to go into that a ton. All I want to say is that we recently hired us based Customer support roles for a fast growing E commerce business. One of their biggest criteria was type speed. I think I'm like, I think I'm nice on a computer. I think I'm like very, very fast in terms of typing. I took a typing test that they wanted me to administer to all of their candidates and I got like 75 words per minute. They want all of their candidates to be at least 60, which your job is responding to tickets. It's a volume game. That makes sense. It felt a little weird to administer to people after the interview, but I was like, that's fine. We got to the final round with five really good applicants and I think it was like four of the five, or maybe it was three of the five. Scored like 35 words a minute. And I was like, wow. I was like, I wouldn't like, I thought I was fast and at some point it gets marginal and like 60 felt right to me. But like I was like, wow, you can't use a computer. I was like, I didn't like, call me privilege is fine. But like we had you know, typing test stuff in like the 4th, 5th grade. Old hardware PCs, like to your point on, hey, whether or not it's a screening and a criteria to join, like the typing speed, honestly might to your point or learning keyboard shortcuts or. And maybe that's a training when they join or whatever, like, whatever that looks like. I do think that that would be really, really valuable for a lot of new hires.

Yeah. Or dude, even like I used this Mac app. It's called. I think you would like this. It's called Word Counter. I think it's this, this one solo founder built it like a decade ago. He's the only guy and it's the only app that I could find that does this. It's like $20 for a lifetime license and it tracks how many words you type per day across mail messages. Excel, Slack, Chrome, whatever, whatever app individually or in aggregate. And it was shocking for me to realize how many words I'm typing. Yesterday was like my all time high for the last four months. I typed 6,800 words yesterday. Damn, 6,800. But it's like that, that's Parkinson's law. You just take on all these companies and projects and employees and then you just, you, you rip through it so much faster. You're like, I'm not going to put an email signature here. I'm not going to use pleasantries. I'm not going to, I'm not going to add that period. That's a typo. People are going to think I'm dumb. I don't care. I'm going to leave. I'm going to leave all the typos because what do I care that they think I'm dumb? No. I'm going to rip through these emails like it took me 15 years to get there. But if you could see how many words someone in a role where that is correlated to productivity, just you're not taking screenshots, you're not checking in. I think that would, that would give you. That gets you a lot of the way there.

I completely agree. That's cool. I like that a lot. Really like that.

And to your point, this was your idea. Like, you make this free because you want this to become the de facto standard. You want all these companies to start using it. Right. Like introvert and extrovert is household word. Like, I want whatever X, Y or Z household word that's related to this test to become commonplace. Because then, I mean, your monetization angles are endless at that point.

There are a lot of paid ones, right? Like, the paid ones are. Is it predictive IQ or. I don't know, it's there if you look up, like employee personality tests or something like that ahead of time. Predictive index, maybe? It's called there are a lot of paid ones. I do think to your point, can you get a more free version of this and then upsell something else afterwards? Gets more exciting, dude.

Honestly, I would administer this test as an employer as just, like, I wouldn't tell them we're measuring their productivity or their speed. I would just say, like, hey, this is like a. It's a trial run and we're going to pay you for it. Right. We'll pay you whatever your normal rate would be. And it's just so you can kind of get a feel for how we work. And then you give me feedback when you're done on what you thought.

Yeah.

And so it's like, oh, you're getting feedback. It's kind of a trick.

Yeah.

But then at the end of it, you're seeing all these metrics that they don't even know that you're tracking.

You know, 100. 100.

Cool.

I like it.

That's cool. Me too. You could use AI to build that. Like, hey, here's what I'm thinking. What should I. Like, how should I use Zapier? Like, how do I fill a faux inbox? Like, what type of Excel formula should I use? Like, it should be like, kind of skillful but not really?

It's gonna be a little sandbox.

Yeah, it's. Yeah, exactly. That's good.

I like that one.

All right, if you are watching this clip right now, you are watching this on YouTube. And if you are a fan of podcasts, please check out my podcast while you're at it. Because sometimes I have podcasts that aren't on YouTube and sometimes I have YouTubes that aren't on podcasts. So check out the Kerner office on any podcast platform or you can go to tkopod.com also my newsletter will throw that in there. There are no ads. It's weekly. It's different content than my podcast and YouTube newsletter.chrisjkerner.com you'll see the link and we'll see you there.

My dad, all my life, like, I think in 08 he bought this business back when I was 11 and I didn't know what like buying a business was or anything there. Bought a candle manufacturing business in South Jersey, spent the summers scraping wax off glass, selling candles, making cold calls to mom and pop shops, and, you know, now he's owned this business now. What is the math on this? 15 years, something like that. And he probably is going to sell it soon. He's grown the business pretty sizably, all under their own brands. But the entrepreneurial direct to consumer e commerce brain and me is always thinking, damn, how can I launch a bunch of sub candle brands? And to be honest with you, like, his candle brands are not super unique from anyone else. It's just they have his 15 years plus the previous owners. Fifteen years, you know, they got 30 years in the industry of selling the candle, so they've built a little bit of a brand for themselves. But I feel like it would be really fun, fun to launch like the liquid death of candles and start with, I don't know what that looks like, but like the classic candle company candle decor is everything from, oh, fall baked goods, crisp cotton, you know, some kind of like luscious smell and fragrance. Nobody wants their things to smell bad, so I think that's kind of off the table. It's kind of more of a gag gift. But like, can you create really intense branding that can appeal to a different audience and get a lot of headlines? What do you think?

What about like, like a mystery candle where it's not gonna be, it's not gonna be something bad, but it's gonna be something random and you could even, you could even put them in themes like, like a wood shop mystery candle. And it might smell like cedar, it might Smell like pine or sawdust or something. Or just like a man cave theme mystery candle. And it could smell like motor oil or just something. I don't know what it is. This is kind of random, but there's a small percentage of the population that genuinely likes the smell of skunk. Myself included. Like, we drive by a skunk and like my whole family's like, oh, gosh, roll up the windows. And I genuinely love it.

Like, that's okay. So that's weird.

Maybe there's. It is weird, but maybe there's something there.

You know that there's a subreddit for people like you, I'm sure.

Probably.

Yeah. But so, okay, so one thing I can think of is like, drive coffee. I don't know if you know this company, but they do really cool packaging design. So they kind of this weird over, like, intersection of people who love classic cars slash adventure or whatever is the brand. And then people who enjoy their coffee, they sell coffee beans in motor oil cans with like really sexy packaging. That could be cool. But as far as like what you're saying too, the candle market is pretty segmented in terms of like gag gifts, which is like the surprise. I know that there are candle companies that do like hide a diamond ring in one out of every 50,000 candles.

I love that concept.

And then the other side is like the cozy in home. Right. Like, candle sales plummet in the summertime, but they perform really well in the winter, fall time. Obviously. One thing that most people don't know about with the candle industry is that big players like Yankee will often you make candles in two batches. You pour the wax, you let it sit, you adjust the wicks, you then reheat it so that way it's all straight. And then you pour the top layer of wax as well. That way you're not just like dousing a candle wick and wax. That's how the manufacturing works in that second portion of wax. Yankee and a lot of the big guys is where they put all of their fragrance. So when you're at a store and you're smelling it, you're sniffing smells, really fragrance. Because the fragrance is the expensive thing, not the wax here. Right.

You could probably have it's top heavy top.

It's a top heavy candle. Yeah. You could probably have a pretty good marketing campaign. And I've been pushing my dad to do this for a while of just emphasizing the difference and educating the customers on that core difference. I think that that would be really valuable and something that you can kind of like Create an enemy out of which would be nice.

Your dad isn't direct consumer already. He's only doing like wholesale white label stuff.

No, they. They're like a third. A third? A third. It's third. Amazon third. It's probably more like 30% Amazon, 15% direct to consumer and then whatever. The Delta is a 55 wholesale.

Okay. And is he doing anything unique right now or is it just kind of your generic stuff?

Pretty generic. Like, if he's listening to this, which I doubt he is, you know, it's. It's a great candle, It's a great product. You know, I will say. And he's strayed away from this a little bit, but honest and partially because, like, this is also a little saturated. They had a very Christian Catholic emphasis when they bought the business. Since then, it's slightly watered down. They don't lean into that that hard. Like, if you looked at the brand, you wouldn't necessarily know it unless, like you've known it for 20 years. So they, they have moved away from that a little bit. I do think if they went super hard in that category where it's like, hey, every candle has a, like a testament quote at the bottom and you see it after you burn all the wax, maybe there's something there. But honestly, I think above all else, if you're, if you want to call it the liquid death of candles, what did the liquid death do differently? All right, they took a really boring category and they made it pretty extreme, pretty counterculture. And then they also changed the packaging. Almost no water bottles were in aluminum cans prior to this. So when you think of a candle, the first thing that comes to mind is probably some kind of glass packaging or maybe there's some kind of like ceramic looking thing that you can buy on Amazon, some kind of votive jars as well. But, like, for the most part, it's all glass. And so you see the wax. Can you redesign the packaging to make it look like another piece of home decor than your house? Or do you want to have it be designed entirely for one room? Right. You want to sell bathroom candles. Therefore, do you make it white and porcelain like the toilet? Do you want to only sell candles for the outdoors? Do you want to only sell candles to go by, like, your fireplace? Like, pick the vessel that probably has the highest tan and can, like, also stand out and differentiate from the past products? And then I think you just have to go really extreme in the marketing. And so what does that look like? It's. Is it, you know, do you take the Liquid death, like crazy rock star punk culture approach? Probably not. But can you do like. Oh, one of them would be a really good one. And I've actually. Oh, God. I thought about this for a while, you know. 19 crimes. No, 19 crimes is a wine company. If you look up their bottles online, they're awesome. It's like a black and white photo of a prisoner in front of a cell. And they like, if you hover like an app over the. Over the bottle, it like kind of animates it. It's like, I was arrested for this XYZ reasons. And so it's pretty cool. I've always wanted him to do something similar. And if you think about the type of people that are buying candles, it's can also be like the rom com and they really like fiction. And like, can you cross over that world with the candle world at all where there's some kind of story involved or there's characters that you like, really enjoy? You know, something like that.

I wonder if you could take. What about the concept of a refillable candle? And I know there's some weirdness with the wick, but I think you could do it right where you put something on top of the vessel to hold the wick in place. Like, what if he found some popular Shopify stores or even like a home goods or hobby lobby that sells some sort of a decoration or a vase. And like on Shopify, if you put some like a URL suffix, you can sort all of their products by best sellers. Right? Basically just find some sort of a home goods decoration that's already like top 1% bestsellers. Copy the design somehow and then sell a candle inside that with like.