A quick history of MMCC

I get a few questions I get all the time- How did you get started? How did you become the massive corporate giant that you are? How did you become the human embodiment of twisted steel and sex appeal?

Well, it all started in the seventies. When a man and woman love each other, very, very much, like my parents did, they... Wait. I might be going back a little too far. Let's just talk about the history of Manly Man Candle Company.

A few years ago, in late 2005, I was living in Las Vegas and working for a company that wrote credit card processing software. It was basically a "sausage-fest" as they say in nerd lingo, an almost all male environment. We would do things that men in groups will often do, such as:

1. Play fantasy football

2. Change co-workers computer wallpapers to wildly inappropriate images

3. Engage in horseplay that was very much against the company handbook

4. Have push-up contests

5. Talk about how much we hated our jobs

It's the last one that's important to this story. My best buddy at the company, Brett, and I would often go have lunch together and discuss all things manly. On bad days we would spend most of the time thinking about ways we could start our own business and get the heck out of there. Most of our ideas were complete and utter crap, just dumb ideas to make each other laugh, like NASCAR coffins. Which, now that I think about it, is still a good idea. Feel free to use it.

One day, though, lightning struck. Brett walked into my office and asked if I wanted to take a smoke break. Neither of us smoked, so this was code for "I need to speak to you outside". This usually occurred when one of us was about to go postal, so we headed out the door. He told me the idea.

"You know what you never see? A candle that's not girly. They all smell like flowers or babies or sunshine or crap like that. We should make candles that are scented just for men. We'll call them Man-dles."

I said, "Brett, I don't know if that's the best idea in the world or the absolute worst, but either way, we're doing it."

So we started. We registered www.candles4men.com, which has now expired, researched how to make candles, ordered supplies and started experimenting. After much trial and error we had a few scents perfected, which we took to work and had all of our buddies smell and offer their opinions. We put those five scents on the web store, and the orders just started pouring in. Okay, we sold about three the first year. But that's a story for another post.

Tomorrow's story- Why we're not called Mandles anymore!

Wow, a cliffhanger!