A Time to Celebrate
It's officially ONE YEAR since we launched S+S, and we are experiencing all the feels over here. There’s just something about that one-year mark. It feels similar to the emotions tied to our one-year wedding anniversary, the girls’ first birthdays and other major milestones. We are overjoyed with how far our humble passion project has come. We've walked through so many highs this year and plenty of lows as new business owners, but every experience has challenged us to learn, grow and adapt. To any new small business owners who have recently joined the fam, you’ll appreciate this. We saw this quote the other day that said,
“If you want to start a successful business, you don’t. You start a business and make it successful.”
We couldn’t agree more. It’s all about hard work and dedication. And on top of that — the name of the game is pivot. When you’re a small biz owner, you wear a million hats, and when something doesn’t go according to plan, it’s easy to want to throw in the towel (or, in our case, the candle). Throughout the past year, we’ve had countless moments of meltdown and many times we questioned everything. But at the same time, we had endless breakthroughs. One of the greatest (and toughest) lessons we learned this year is that good and hard can, and often do, co-exist. We learned as passionate creators how to build a company that can adapt when the going gets complicated. We also had to regularly take a step back to keep our vision clear. To nurture our “WHY”. And at some point, we realized that balancing a budding business with raising two little ones requires settling into a certain pace — at times, we felt challenged by the pressures that came with big launches, looming deadlines and surprise mishaps. But through it all, we learned that pressure just produces more pressure. The stress can keep you from enjoying the journey you’re on, if you let it. So if you’re in this same small business flow, our advice to you would be this:
Pause. Take a deep breath. And try to be as flexible as possible in whatever comes your way, without compromising the core values of who you are as an individual and as a company.
So keeping in mind all of these wonderful lessons we’ve picked up along what’s been one of the craziest, most beautiful rides of our lives yet, we’ve been reflecting on what we want to carry on with us and what we want to leave behind in year one.
The three essentials we are taking with us into year two are:
1.) Content is still king. We enjoy the art of creating and producing beautiful and intentional content. The type of content that resonates and fuels our message and mission around cultivating a good life. And it seems So that is definitely something we are excited to amp up in this next year!
2.) Candles are our sweet spot. As much as we loved launching a variety of goods in the shop this past year — we are going to pour our time and attention into our S+S candles. There’s something about the way smell ties so strongly to memories that gets us so excited!
3.) S+S Goods is getting a refresh. We are refreshing our website homepage and tweaking some of our branding elements as our S+S vision is becoming even more crisp and refined. We’ll share more on this soon!
We want to end this by simply saying . . . THANK YOU. Thank you for believing in our small but mighty team and for non-stop supporting us. We are so grateful for each and every member of the S+S family, and we want you to know that we wouldn't have made it this far in walking out our dream without you.
P.S. Be on the lookout for some exciting things on the horizon this month in honor of our anniversary. We've got giveaways, special savings, collabs and so much more in store! Make sure to subscribe to our newsletter for special updates that we only share here, and don't forget to follow us on
Instagram.
We can't wait to share what’s in store for this next season and where God takes us in year two! One thing’s for sure — we love that we get to cultivate good with you each and every day!
With Love, Stevie & Sazan
