Most direct-to-consumer advice points one way: raise money, buy ads, grow as fast as you possibly can. David Bronkie built Siblings on the opposite bet. The refillable candle brand he cofounded with his sister, Eva, can be found on shelves at Credo Beauty and Nordstrom, and has grown for six years without a dollar of venture capital. He calls it “the 10-year overnight success story,” and he’s specific about why slow, self-funded growth fits both his bank account and his brand. Here, David shares how he treats retention as the whole business, earns awareness without leaning on Meta, and prices a premium product against the right competition.
On refusing to chase hypergrowth:
We look at what we’re trying to build over the long term, and we see a world-class brand that’s around for many, many years. We’re thinking more like a Patagonia or an Aesop. Those brands didn’t happen overnight.
You can force fast growth now, and there are some incredible stories around that. But one, we don’t have play money. We don’t have VC money. And two, it’s category-dependent. Some products lend themselves to quick, fast growth. Ours doesn’t.
We’re an analog product, when you think about it. We’re really about people slowing down—you get to make the candle, and then you get to burn it. At no stage is this about fast living. So slow growth is baked into the essence of the brand. These are candles for slower living.
That’s how I think about the brand-building side too. It’s the 10-year overnight success story, maybe the 20-year. We just have to keep stacking. Would I love to pour gasoline on the fire with fun money? Sure. That’s just not realistic for us right now.
On treating retention as the whole business:
For us, retention is everything. Those loyal customers are what keep the lights on, and they’re what let us keep growing. It’s the number one priority—all day, we’re thinking about how to make sure customers feel good about the product and the experience and want to come back.
And it’s the little things. Most of our subscribers stick around because of the little details we keep adding. We’re constantly asking: What can we do to make the customer look forward to the next one? What can we do to surprise them a little with what’s coming next? That’s been a game changer for our retention, especially on the subscription side.
On why rotating fragrances drive the most repeat purchases:
The biggest retention driver we’ve found is changing the fragrances. Our subscribers are always looking for something new, so bringing out unique scents they can look forward to is what keeps them around.
And we get to have fun with it. We have a summer scent out right now called Midsummer Pickles—it literally smells like fermented pickles, but in the best way possible. When you’re constantly creating something that’s genuinely new and a little unexpected, people don’t want to miss what’s next.
On the seasonal box and the surprise gifts that keep subscribers around:
Most people gravitate toward our seasonal box, which is a quarterly subscription. You get three candles every quarter, and they align with the season we’re in. We’ve added a candle-a-month option, but quarterly is what works best.
The reason is that your home changes with the weather. You spend different parts of your day in different parts of the house, depending on the season, so we get to nail new scents for summer, then fall, winter, and spring. That’s something we really take into account.
Then we layer in the little details. We’ll work with artists on the art for a bag, or add a small gift into a subscription. We’re doing one with a journaling company, Intelligent Change, the folks behind the Five Minute Journal. It’s the same mentality: You’re making a candle, you have to let the wax set, so why not journal for a bit? Those are the things customers aren’t expecting but get to look forward to, and it makes them want to stick around through all the cycles.
On getting early awareness without spending on Meta:
Getting awareness is the hardest thing, and we’re still working through it every day. Meta might be the first place you think, “Oh, I’ll just start spending here.” But there are a lot of other options.
Media publications need stories to talk about. Content creators need things to talk about. So build those relationships—they turn into eyeballs, into customers who hear about you and see you, and a lot of that can happen organically. It’s not always pay-to-play. What you need is a story that’s strong and shareable, and then you reach out a lot and find the people who need something new to share.
From there, if your product is genuinely good, those early customers refer it. They tell someone else. That’s what gets the wheels turning, and those loyal customers stack. Later you can run the current playbook and start spending on ads, but I don’t think it’s necessary in the early days, especially if you’re playing the long game.
One thing I’ll admit: We’ve been late to get influencers, and we’re investing in that now. But we’ve found more success with smaller, micro-audiences that are more engaged. With fragrance especially, it’s so subjective that you want to hear it from a friend—“This scent is so good“—not from someone you know is just peddling the next trend.
On pricing a $34 refill against $80 to $100 luxury candles:
People say our product isn’t cheap, and my answer is: It depends on what you’re comparing it to. That’s the thing most people overlook.
Yes, it’s expensive next to the toxic candle at your local big-box store that has cheap fragrances, low fragrance loads, paraffin wax, and is made overseas. But we’re in a completely different bucket than that. Compared to the right candle, ours looks like an incredible value.
What we compare against is the $80 or $90 luxury candle. A six-ounce Diptyque is $80-plus. Le Labo, Nest—all $60, $70, $80, or more. Jo Malone is over $100. We have the same level of luxury fragrance, built by master perfumers, with the cleanest ingredients we could find. Our coconut and soy wax has no paraffin, it throws the scent farther, and it burns longer.
So when you look at $34 against $80 or $90, that’s a great deal. It is premium positioning—we’re premium against luxury, not expensive against big-box. The disconnect is that it’s a refill, so you do have to make the candle. It’s easy, but it’s a little different, and that’s the part we’re always educating people on.
Hear David’s full conversation on Shopify Masters for how collaborations became some of their bestselling scents, the microwaves he set on fire while hunting for a manufacturer, and what it’s really like building a company with his sister across two time zones.
