We’re looking forward to introducing you to Josh Rosenberger, Zach Rosenberger, Amelia Gallagher, Jay Holton n/a. Check out our conversation below.
Hi Josh Rosenberger, Zach Rosenberger, Amelia Gallagher, Jay Holton, thank you so much for taking time out of your busy day to share your story, experiences and insights with our readers. Let’s jump right in with an interesting one: What do you think others are secretly struggling with—but never say?
We think people often struggle with understanding their personality and figuring out how to truly be themselves.
This is true in personal lives and also within a business setting where sometimes it seems to be easier to “fit in” vs being truly authentic. What makes the world something worth walking out into is being your true authentic self and crossing paths with authentic people and businesses.
One of the biggest things we pride ourselves on is starting and running our business as ourselves and pouring all of our personality and identities into the business. We are always unapologetically ourselves. We find that when we are ourselves, especially out in public at events, we attract more customers and more conversation.
Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
Howdy! We are Chandlr – we are a family owned business + 1. We have Josh, Zach, Amelia (the siblings) and Jay (friend of the family). We create unique candles with our Chandlr Wax which is a sand consistency. We pride ourselves on creating very bold, layered scents that do not fit within the cookie cutter candle market that we know of today.
In addition to crafting absurdly good candles, we also handle all of our own production, software, branding and marketing in-house. What makes us unique is that we all come from different backgrounds and careers and use those skills we learned there in our business to produce quality products.
Okay, so here’s a deep one: Who taught you the most about work?
For all of us here at Chandlr our moms taught us the most about work, why it is important, and how to develop a strong work ethic to keep going no matter what is fighting against you. For the siblings, Josh, Zach and Amelia – we never knew of a time where our mom worked less than 2 jobs while being a single mom and going to school for nursing. If that wasn’t enough, she was also attending all school events and taking us on adventures whenever she could. She worked her whole life up until 2 years ago, full-time with the state and countless other jobs just to get to where she needed to be and support her children. She retired and then joined in collaboration with us here at Chandlr with her Moonlit Weaves business making chunky blankets and stuffys up until she passed this August.
For Jay, his mom worked in the Military for 15 years while also getting her undergrad and masters all before the age of 40. This taught him that determination and community are more than anything. This has led Jay to never accept defeat and always strive to do more due to the opportunities given to him to succeed.
This is why most of us here work a full time job outside of all the work we do with Chandlr.
What fear has held you back the most in your life?
Amelia: Fear of choosing the wrong thing. In some aspects of life, I held back myself and decisions based on decision paralysis.
Zach: Failure has been a fear in my life – when you experience true failure you are faced with the decisions to not ever try again and also not let anyone down. In most aspects in life I maintained instead of facing failure.
Jay: Acceptance. It is very easy to go day by day trying to be accepted vs just being who you are and being unapologetically yourself through and through.
Josh: I’ll also choose failure – throughout my career in civil service/EMS oftentimes failure can lead to serious consequences. That type of pattern and learned behavior can creep up on you and push you into a position to not take risks to avoid complete failure.
I think our readers would appreciate hearing more about your values and what you think matters in life and career, etc. So our next question is along those lines. What are the biggest lies your industry tells itself?
We believe that the biggest lie is that the candle industry is inviting – unfortunately through many forums, community events, and even on websites candle makers often portray themselves as inviting and welcoming but when you have something they want it can get scary. Even at events where we are representing ourselves and our brand, other candle makers will stop by and see you as a threat vs as friendly competition or way to spark creative thoughts or conversation.
In most cases we do not see ourselves as fitting in to the industry standards for candle makers even though that is exactly what we make. We are just different, no bullsh*t, and just ourselves and when we try to have conversations with those people, it is the opposite of inviting. But that just tells us we are doing something right.
Okay, we’ve made it essentially to the end. One last question before you go. What do you understand deeply that most people don’t?
One thing we’ve found is that many people want the business but they don’t want to put in the work – we understand, which may be because of our learned work ethic, that we have to put in as much work into our business (if not more) that we do at our regular jobs. We want our business to grow out of the “small category” and we have big goals and milestones set for ourselves – we cannot live in a “small” mindset when setting the foundation for our business today.
Our daily lives usually involve working out regular 9-5s and then hopping into meetings, producing, and attending events for Chandlr until we can’t stand anymore and then we rinse and repeat the next day.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://chandlr.co
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/chandlrco
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/107540861
- Twitter: https://x.com/@chandlrco
- Facebook: https://facebook.com/chandlrtx
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@Chandlrco/videos
Image Credits
All images were taken by us at our local events.
