Light shines on 'amazing' product

Manatee County entrepreneur Ruth Brown jokes that she's “an instant overnight success that took six years.”

Her latest stick-with-it triumph could be her most lucrative yet: Brown, through her firm, Jaxx Marketing, landed a spot in four area Walmarts to sell The Amazing Candle, a novelty birthday product. The candle, when lit, bursts into multiple mini-candles and plays “Happy Birthday to You.” It comes in a variety of colors and styles, including rainbow, soccer and football.

Featured on CNN and The Food Network, the product, is sold online and in at least 100 independent retailers nationwide. Brown says the company has sold more than 30,000 candles, which, at around $10 each, makes it a viable small business. “We are picking up new accounts daily,” Brown tells Coffee Talk. “It's been phenomenal. But Walmart can literally make our company explode.”

Jaxx Marketing is a family business. It includes Brown's husband, Stan Brown, and their three adult daughters on a part-time basis. One daughter, Candice McElyea, does some marketing and public relations. McElyea is the founder of 360 Degrees PR, a Sarasota-based firm with clients in homebuilding, construction, technology and other industries.

Ruth and Stan Brown discovered a version of The Amazing Candle on a trip to China. But they decided it wasn't made safely enough for sale in the United States. The couple, behind a few other consumer products, eventually designed their own version. At first they brought the candles to restaurants for family birthday celebrations. Then a crowd, mesmerized, gathered when the candles were lit. Says Brown.
“We were like, 'wow, we have something here.'”

Momentum for The Amazing Candle has picked up in the past year. Brown read about a Walmart program that empowers individual store or district managers to make store-specific inventory decisions, so she went to the one closest to her house to check it out. The manager there thought it would be good seller, so she stocked it. Brown has since been granted a Walmart national vendor license, a process that lasted six months. She hopes to go national with Walmart someday soon.

“This has just kept growing and growing,” Brown says. “As we grow we become more confident.”