From a Joke…

The story began two years earlier, when Hart's sister Camryn planned to make some scented candles to sell at a school fair. Being a good younger brother, Hart ‘advised’ her not to sell the boys at school fragrances he personally disliked. At the time, the 13-year-old thought it was simply a joke. Encouraged by his parents and many acquaintances, however, Hart decided to try making candles with scents ‘boys would love.’

With 100 USD saved from delivering newspapers and 200 USD borrowed from his parents, Hart began looking for sources of candles, wax, and fragrant essential oils. He then selected the three most masculine scents for testing. Since then, Hart has experimented and failed countless times with thousands of formulas, but the process also produced some very impressive scents. The first scented candle Hart Main sold, for USD 5, smelled of “Fresh-Cut Grass.” It is also his favorite scent.

Alongside creating new scents, Hart Main worked hard to find packaging for his scented candles consistent with the masculine style he envisioned. So instead of putting products in glass containers as many famous candle brands do, he used discarded soup cans as packaging.

…to a small brand

Every day, scented candles are produced at the Man-Cans brand’s “headquarters,” located in a mid-range business area on the outskirts of Marysville, Ohio, sharing space with two other automobile and motorcycle equipment shops without even a partition.

Hart Main, the founder of this brand, was just 15 years old at the time and sat in a corner checking new orders after reading a sports bulletin. His father, Craig Main, an IT engineer who worked part-time managing the boy’s “factory,” was scrubbing the outside of an old soup can. Nearby, a factory employee named Sandy Dejarnete, also working part-time, was labeling freshly made scented candles while listening to a music chart show on the radio.

Inside Hart-Main's scented candle workshop

Many people believe only those who have known how to write business plans since their school days can start a business, join business communities and read hundreds of biographies of famous entrepreneurs. But it turns out it need not always be so complicated.

After two years in business, Hart Main’s products were sold in large quantities to the renowned gardening solutions company Scott to give to its customers.

Objectively, the scents Hart Main uses are quite familiar, such as bacon, coffee, gunpowder, freshly cut grass and mint… However, the tin-can packaging gives the products a rugged look that men particularly like.

Man-Cans scented candles come in many colors and scents evoking a masculine image

Community spirit

Many economists analyze that although the core of a business's success still rests on product quality, but when a sense of community is added, that success becomes even more assured. Shoe brand Toms and children's knitwear brand Crochet Kids are prime examples of this perspective. Man-Cans also applies that philosophy to its business.

When orders flooded in so quickly that Hart Main's family could not collect enough used cans, they decided to buy soup in bulk and donate it free to restaurants in Ohio and West Virginia. Man-Cans' slogan, “One candle, one meal donated to the community,” resonated with Ohio residents struggling to make a living after the 2010 financial crisis.

The slogan “One candle, one meal” (One candle, one meal) printed on every product

In fact, Hart Main's “business” is merely one of America's tiniest companies, a grain of sand in a desert of countless businesses large and small. Although Man-Cans sold as many as 250,000 products last year, young Hart-Main did not earn as much profit as people often imagine because he spent considerable money on donations. What makes people talk about the brand is the remarkable story of a boy who turned a joke into reality, entered the trap-filled business world with his childhood ideas, and held his ground there.

According to Infonet