When people learn that Emberwood & Hearth is a two-person operation, they usually ask some version of: "How do you split it?" The answer is less clean than the question implies, but there is a structure to it.
Where It Started
The split began with what each of us was actually better at, which made it less of a decision and more of an acknowledgment. Steve came from a woodworking background, a hobbyist who built up real production skills and then turned them toward something more deliberate. The shop, the cutting, the material decisions, the finishing, that territory was already his. Everything else we took on together from the start: the candles, the scents, the look and feel of the collection. In the beginning, that line was clear enough that we didn't need to negotiate it.
How It Works Now
The cleanest version of the split is: Steve does all the woodwork, and everything else is shared. But even that is too simple.
The woodwork side covers choosing the wood, cutting and shaping every piece, sanding, finishing, and checking each one before it leaves the bench. See A Day in the Shop for what this looks like in practice.
The shared side covers everything else: scent development, the look of the brand, the website, the markets, and the customer relationships. We decide together how the objects look side by side, what the brand sounds like, and which direction a new scent brief points.
Candle production is shared too. Two sets of judgment on a pour catch more than one. We pour every candle ourselves, and that's a deliberate choice about what quality at this scale actually requires.
What the Split Requires
Splitting a business between two people requires two things that sound simple and aren't: genuine trust in the other person's domain expertise, and consistent communication about the decisions that cross from one domain into the other.
The trust part is easier when the domains are distinct. If Steve makes a call on how a new board cuts and finishes, Daniela trusts it. The shared work runs on the same trust: when one of us has a strong read on a scent or a page, the other takes it seriously. The expertise is real on both sides and both of us know it.
The communication part is the ongoing work. Pricing crosses both domains. Product launches cross both. Market selection crosses both. These require actual conversations rather than assumptions, and the conversations get better the longer we've been doing this.
The Part That Doesn't Split
The part that doesn't divide neatly is the vision for what this is supposed to be: the aesthetic standard, the values, the kind of customer we're building for. That's shared. When we're evaluating a new product or a new scent or a new decision about where to sell, we're doing it from the same sense of what Emberwood & Hearth is.
That shared vision is what makes the split work. The individual domains are sustainable because they're oriented toward the same end. See The Principles We Built the Brand On.
Browse the candle collection or our woodworks.