Interview by Mercedes Arnold

Maine Vibes Mag: Can you introduce yourself, your pronouns, and your business?

Hannah Martin: My name is Hannah Martin, pronouns are she/her, and I own Near & Native Candles, we're a home fragrance company based in Westbrook, Maine.

MVM: Can you talk about how Near & Native was formed?

HM: I've always been a creative person and made things out of nothing. Even when I was very small I would sit around and craft. One time I made a pair of sandals out of a piece of cardboard and an old towel, I really thought it was couture fashion. Then I started sewing and got really into making functional objects from a young age and later ended up in a career in apparel and fashion and made things professionally for big companies for many years. I also did product development and buying for those big companies. 

When we moved to Maine, Near & Native was born. We bought a house and I had a need for a lightly-scented candle. I couldn’t find anything that was at a mid-price point that wasn’t heavily scented and had simple packaging. I started playing around with making my own home fragrance. I developed a very small line, it was eight scents in the beginning. I was already selling jewerly to some local stores in the Portland area so I started offering my candles and they started selling. One stored turned into five, turned into 10, and it led us to the 60 locations around the country today.

In 2020 we eventually decided to pivot and put all of our eggs in one basket and do home fragrance, so I retired the jewelry area of our business. I love home fragrance and developing something that others have in their home that's consumable and reusable. 

MVM: When you were developing your candles, were you thinking it was going to be refillable? 

HM: Not at first. The refill program was again, a solution to a problem. I had a lot of vessels from other brands and didn’t know what to do with them. When I started making the line and launching it, it kind of happened organically. I started filling my old vessels and empty candles for my friends and family and thought it could be an important piece of the brand. It’s really our differentiator to what sets Near & Native apart from other candle brands. Last year we refilled 4000 vessels. It keeps them out of landfills, keeps beautiful things in circulation in your home and it’s a good way to continue having beautiful vessels front and center in your house. I'm very proud of that piece. We partnered with three stores in Portland where you can drop off your vessels, and you can also drop them off here [in Westbrook].

MVM: Was jewelry making what you were doing prior to your move to Maine? 

HM: Yeah. I was living in San Francisco at the time. I knew I wanted to phase out of the corporate side of my career, but I didn't know what I wanted to do. I was taking silversmith classes and exploring a few different hobbies. I launched the company in a loose way there. We quit our jobs and moved here, so I didn't have a job and thought I might as well go into this full force with my time while I find a “real job.” I had a small line of delicate jewelry and was doing that on the side while I was pursuing something more full-time here. Once we launched the home fragrance line, that started taking off. When I started treating it less like a hobby and more like a business, that’s when things changed. The momentum started and it was less fun and more serious. I decided to do that full-time. 

MVM: So with that decision to do it full-time, you shifted your energy to your business and things changed?

HM: Once I started taking it really seriously, other people started taking it really seriously. I had lookbooks, line sheets, and the brand story, I cleaned up the website, and I really leveraged all of my skills as a buyer and product developer. I can't tell you how many brands I've sat in front of as a buyer and looked through their line sheets, lookbooks, or their product lines and picked from them. Now I was on the other side, so I knew what buyers wanted to see. I knew what my personal ethos was around sustainability and clean fragrance and good ingredients, that was all part of my brand story. I think putting some more seriousness behind the brand in 2018 is when things took off. 

MVM: What prompted the move from San Francisco to Maine? 

HM: It was a lifestyle change. We had been in San Francisco for seven years. We wanted to get back to the East Coast. My husband and I met in Philadelphia, he grew up coming to Maine, we have lots of friends here, and had our honeymoon here in Maine. We were thinking we wanted to start a family and live in a place that was adjacent to the outdoor activities we like to do. We also had a dream of homeownership and having a better work/life balance and quality of life, so we decided to land here. I love it here, it will be four years in November. 

MVM: I read an article with you in which you mentioned an interview that didn’t go well. That experience seemed like it shifted you towards your candle business. How did you take a point of friction and turn it into something positive?

HM: Once I sat down and started processing that shitty interview, I had to ask myself, what was that moment trying to tell me? Not to get too woo-woo, but things happen for a reason in your life and I think you need to open your eyes and really ask yourself, what was that trying to teach me? Where was that pointing me? Is it pushing me down that path, or is it pushing me down a different path? That experience was certainly pushing me away from going back into the corporate environment. I had a really good thing in my back pocket, which was Near & Native. I think it was that giant neon sign that was like, you need to do it! And I went all in.

MVM: Isn’t it wild how that can happen? 

HM: It was not a good fit for them or for me. It was one of those, you go into your car in the parking lot and cry and you ask yourself, what was that? I should have never been in that room, I was not a good fit for that role. Now that I’m a business owner, I can see that it taught me radical accountability. What was my piece, my role in that negative experience? What could I have done to maybe give that a better outcome? Outside of that, I’m so glad I had that experience because it pushed me very far away from that path. 

MVM: Self-reflection is a big piece of learning and then growing from those moments. It also teaches you a lot about yourself and how you move throughout the world. 

HM: Yeah, I think it’s so important to talk about failures. There is this a very ‘Instagram Perfect’ outlook or energy these days, especially around female founders and entrepreneurship that is completely unrealistic. No one talks about the failures, you can learn a lot from those moments and how you pull yourself out of them. 

MVM: I agree, there is a lot of value in talking about the failures. 

HM: Yeah, inevitably, when you talk about these things, there's always someone in the room who is like, Oh, my God, that's something like that happened to me or they feel encouraged to share vulnerabilities the conversation does open up like that. 

MVM: Absolutely, when I first started as a business owner, I felt isolated but the more I found other people to talk to, the more supported I felt. Speaking of, you’ve grown your team from you to now having a team of people. What was that team-building process like for you? How did you know you needed to hire people?

HM: The first year of my business I was very insular, I was in my basement and had very little help. I made my first hire in 2018 and it was motherhood that pushed me into hiring someone to help me. My business was growing very quickly and I had a one-month-old so I hired my first part-time employee. It was very scary because you don’t have guaranteed income so it’s not a steady paycheck. I felt a lot of responsibility to keep that person employed. Luckily, business was growing quickly. Between 2020 and 2021 we tripled our business, and a lot of that had to do with wholesale orders. In 2021 I hired two full-time people which was very scary, but we had moved into our studio space and had more room to grow our team. 

It’s a lot of responsibility to employ others, but it’s really exciting when you think about how much more value you can add to your company and customer base with a bigger team. Increasing the size of my team allowed me to elevate and work on sales and collaborations and the creative side of the business. I’m grateful for my team, they are the engine that keeps the studio humming every day. They have allowed me to spend time at home with my son, without them I would not be able to do that. 

MVM: It almost seems like the next step to elevate your business, you have to rely on others to help to continue to grow. 

HM: If your business is growing, you kind of need to make that next step, or else you're going to burn out, you’re going to be fatigued, and you're not going to love it anymore. 

MVM: Would you mind talking about your leadership style?

HM: In my previous role as a buyer, I managed a six, all-women team. I do have some familiarity with managing other people, and I, of course, use some of those skills. There are a few things I wanted to do differently. Being a small business owner versus like managing people on the corporate side, I did not like the micromanagement of corporate leadership style, that's something that I wanted to release being a business owner. Everyone is a subject matter expert in their own area or department. Being able to have multiple employees, we have a shipping and logistics area, we have a wholesale and refill employee, and everyone becomes a subject matter expert. You can be hands-off and they can make autonomous decisions when I’m not here, and that’s how I wanted to set it up. 

MVM: What's been your biggest hill to climb as an entrepreneur and then I would also love to hear some of your wins.

HM: The largest obstacle is first establishing a business and getting the boilerplate foundational pieces nailed down, there's no handbook for that. Once the business was up and running, luckily, we had some initial success out of the gate. I think scaling the business quickly enough was our biggest obstacle, especially in 2020. Oddly enough, when a lot of our store partners shut down because of the pandemic, it funneled a lot of business to our website, people were really galvanized to support local and that helped a lot. There were supply chain shortages though, so it was a difficult time to meet the market. To be honest, there were a few times I wanted to throw in the towel because I didn't know how to navigate those challenges, it was all new to me. There is no handbook of how to pull yourself out of that, and I had so much invested in this that it was very challenging. Also, running a business that carries inventory and ensuring that we maintain the same level of quality as we continue to scale from small to medium, that's very important to me.

I don't want to grow for the sake of growing. I want to make sure that we continue to offer a very high level of service customer service and a tangible product that elevates someone's life and is a quality piece that they want to get give us a gift or have in their home, that's a very big deal to me. As we continue to grow, I want to make sure we don't lose sight of that, just to scale.

MVM: Yeah, you see that with a lot of larger companies, quality and service go down as demand goes up. So, what are some of your wins!? 

HM: Employing other women is a win. That's something I wanted to do from the very beginning. For a long time, I wasn't able to employ anybody, and then being able to hire women and create jobs for me is a big-time win. Our partnership with L.L.Bean is certainly something I'm very grateful and proud of. Third, all the other female business owners that I’ve had the chance to work with and collaborate with. It’s inspiring to meet all these people who do all different things. There are so many extremely talented women business owners concentrated in this area. Part of the reason I started my business is seeing firsthand the number of people in my friends circle that have their own businesses. 

MVM: What lights you up outside of your business? 

HM: Anytime I talk about my son, he’s three and is the love of my life. Hanging out with my son and husband, we do a lot of beach time and my husband and I will go surfing when we can. I’m dipping my toe into interior design, that lights me up. 

MVM: Do you want to mention any other women, BIPOC, or LGBTQ+-owned businesses? 

HM: Yardie Ting in Portland, number one. Family Platter. Plant Office, John. Beauty Coven, here in Westbrook. 

MVM: Do you have any last words or pieces of advice that you want to pass on?

HM: Maybe I'm speaking to entrepreneurs reading the article, but one thing I've been thinking a lot about lately is, they don't teach entrepreneurship in school and the biggest obstacle I faced was not knowing how to navigate payroll, licensing, and digital marketing. Colleges want you to be a worker, not an entrepreneur. All the things that go along with owning a business, you have to figure out on your own. If I were to speak to anyone in the entrepreneurial community I’d say, get super comfortable in asking other business owners for advice, you’re not alone in this. There are many people, like myself, that want to help others. Send a quick email or jump on a quick phone call. There are others who have spent hours on that same problem and can give you the answer. 

MVM: Yes, I love that! It’s so true. Do you want to say anything about motherhood? 

HM: My business is almost like I have a second child. The amount of time that I devote to this business is beyond a full-time job, almost like motherhood. I have a lot of amazing support, which I'm so grateful for, my husband and caregivers that are with my son every day. I think an important piece is to hold your boundaries if you're a business owner and a mother. Say no to certain things when you don't want to give all your energy and love to one or the other. Saying no to something when it doesn't feel quite right or if it cuts into your sacred time of being with your family, there's nothing more important than home and your family.

Thank you, Hannah!

Thank you, Hannah, for taking the time to talk with Maine Vibes Magazine!

Web: https://shopnearandnative.com

Instagram: @near_and_native

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