Daily Inspiration: Meet Gevorg and Janeta

Today we’d like to introduce you to Gevorg and Janeta.

Hi Gevorg and Janeta, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
Our love story: During the beginning of covid times, I, Janeta, was bored and began making TikToks and that is where my fiancé, Gevorg, actually found me! After seeing my videos, he saw we had mutual followers through Instagram and that we’ve been In the same room/event together many times but had never met.

How we actually met for the first time: I lived in San Diego and was supposed to come up to LA to give his sister shoes that she ordered from me, so one day I came up and planned to meet her at the mall and she called me and said she won’t make it but she’ll send her brother to get it. And that is the moment I first met him. I come to find out later on that the whole thing was planned for him to meet me in person for the first time. He didn’t want to send me a Dm or be a typical guy because he knew I wouldn’t respond through that. From there he got my number and we started talking and one thing led to another, started a candle business together and now we’re planning a wedding!!!

There is so much opportunity for growth and we thought it would be a perfect way to grow together and save up money to do our wedding ourselves without relying on our families for all of it. Upon the beginning processes of the business through research and trials and actual candle making, we slowly fell in love and became so passionate about candles. We’re trying to make this our own and stand out individually and as a business. Coming from a traditional Armenian household that had strict rules for education and attending college and going into a high-end profession, We took the biggest risk of our lifes by dropping our education and pursuing a small business which we did not know would succeed or not. We spent 4-5 years after high school pushing and dragging our way through getting our bachelor’s degrees. I, Janeta, did graduate with a bachelor of science in Human Biology from UCSD which I am extremely proud of but upon graduation, I realized that continuing this path was not right for me. I, Gevorg, just got accepted into pharmacy school and came to the realization that it just wasn’t my dream, it was someone else’s. We got engaged about a year later after dating and we pursued the dream of starting our small business. We came up with the idea of making candles because it was such an endless business that can turn into anything.

OUR BUSINESS:
We got engaged in August 2021 and decided we need to do/start something and build a foundation for ourselves for our future so our kids don’t have to face the struggles we did growing up. Our brains began to work, trying to figure out what we can do and what we are passionate about. It was actually Gevorg who came up with the idea of starting a candle business. Something like that would never have crossed Janeta’s mind. He had never seen or heard of anyone making candles so we both honestly don’t know how that idea came to mind. After we decided to give candles a shot, we began our research and the very next day we took a trip down to a local candle supply store and bought our first ever materials. We had an extra room in the house, so we emptied everything out of there and placed one work table and two chairs. We never imagined how fast we would grow out of that one table.

From the day we brought over the materials, we have worked 24/7 and never missed a day to perfect our products. We have saved the very first candle that we ever made. It may not be made correctly or have the best scent but it is so special to us to look at that candle and compare it to how far we have gotten. From August 2021 to January 2022, we were in our trial phases working all day every day and going to school full time. Luckily due to covid classes were all online still. We gave up everything and just put our focus on this. We stopped going out, we barely had time for family, we declined any birthdays or events we were invited to. This was what was most important for us in that moment and every second mattered. Through learning from trial and error and youtube videos we were able to perfect our formulas and pick out our scents for our very first collection. As we were creating the candles, at the same time were talking to many manufacturers to order our custom packaging and jars and more materials which was a huge struggle. We also were building our entire website ourselves, something we both had no knowledge of doing. Anything picture, ad, marketing, designs you see, it was all done by the both of us alone.

One thing we are proud of in this business is that we did everything together and didn’t ask or pay anyone from outside to help us with anything. Formula, finding scents, building websites, marketing, ordering packaging,… the list goes on. It was and still is only managed by the both of us.

How did we name our business? One day we spent the entire day trying to come up with a logo and a business name that would tie it all together and anything we were thinking of was already an active business or it just didn’t feel right. Then one day, Gevorg was like why don’t we just call it Janul. At first, it seemed weird but when we thought about it, it was the most perfect name. Janul is actually Janeta’s nickname all of her life from birth. It’s a name that means something really cute and sweet and positive. We also liked how it didn’t have the word “candles” in the name because it gave us an opportunity to expand our business away from candles too.

Where are we now:
In April 2022, we took a huge risk and opened up our very first location at the Americana at Brand in Glendale, CA. Any bit of money we had saved went straight into the deposit for this location and we had no idea how the business was going to do. On our opening day, we only sold one candle and for that person, we are truly grateful. However, we got a bit discouraged but we still pushed through because it had only just been one day. As some days and weeks went by, we became more recognized and our business started growing incredibly. We weren’t having enough time to stock up on some candles. We saw how great this was going and just recently in August 2022, a year after coming up with our idea, we opened a little boutique at the Westfield Topanga Mall. I would’ve never imagined my name to be written inside one of my favorite malls ever. Currently, we are in the works of hopefully opening up a couple more locations by the end of this year. We only see this business going up from here.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
A smooth road? We believe there is no such thing. Everything comes with its ups and downs, highs and lows. It’s all about your mentality and how you push through these situations. One struggle we faced was time management. When the idea of starting our business came out, we were just a newly engaged couple. We’re sure you can imagine that a newly engaged couple wants to go out, have fun, make memories, travel the world, and even start their wedding planning. We completely gave that all up for our business. We went from going out 1-2 times a week even if it was just for some ice cream, to not going out at all. Probably 1-2 times every month or two. And we decided to hold off on the wedding until we are more stable to do it. We decided to put all our time and energy into starting our little shop so that we can do all that in the future. We wanted to work hard now and live our life to the fullest later. A reason we couldn’t live our life to the fullest now is due to a second struggle we faced, which was our financial situation. To be able to do all those fun things, you also need steady income which we both did not have. We worked part-time jobs which was barely enough to pay the bills. Also, starting a business is not cheap. You do need some type of income to be able to start. We had a little money saved up which we put all of it into the start of Janul. It was a big risk because it was everything we had and it wasn’t even enough. We got engaged in August 2021 and right after we began our candle process. It took about 5-6 months to fully test and finalize our formulas for the different types of candles we were making. Within those six months, a lot of products and materials and money were going to waste because it was very difficult to create the most perfect ratios for our formula. But at the end, we got through and launched our business online end of January 2022.

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
Before either of us started this business, we were full-time students. I, Janeta, recently graduated in June 2021 with my bachelor of science degree in human biology from UCSD. I started applying to PA and nursing schools right after and I was taking extra courses at LAVC to cover all my prerequisites. I, Gevorg, was in my final year at CSUN working towards my bachelor of science in Human Biology. I was applying to pharmacy schools for the 2022 fall semester and volunteering and interning at a pharmacy. Through our trials and the launch of our business, we were both still taking classes and attending school. We both got into some schools for our profession however we decided to decline the offers and focus on our business and go back to school later on. It was going to be very difficult to go to school full time, run a business full time and plan a wedding all at the same time.

Any big plans?
We have many big things we would love to do. We definitely are going to be expanding our business. We have big things planned other than candles also. It all just takes time and requires a positive mindset. Everything will fall into place.

Contact Info:

• Website: janulcandles.com
• Instagram: instagram.com/janulcandles
• Other: tiktok.com/janulcandles