Starting his career as a candle maker in 2011, Richard “Hart” Main, pictured above in 2016, grew the Man Cans company to assist soup kitchens. However, life caught up to him, and he decided to take a step back from the company in 2016. The company is now operated by the Beaver Creek Candle Company in Lisbon and still donates its proceeds to charities for those in need.
(Photo submitted)
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A man can only run a company for so long before his life catches up to him.
In 2011, when he was 13 years old, Richard “Hart” Main started Man Cans out of his family home in Marysville, a business that made soup cans into candles and donated the soup and proceeds to charity. His story was featured in several Marysville Journal-Tribune articles.
According to an article by the Times-Reporter in New Philadelphia, by the year 2015, Man Cans had donated around 100,000 cans of soup and $35,000 to 25 soup kitchens among four states.
But now the business is past him. He reached a point where he couldn’t do it anymore, and his parents were supportive of his decision.
“They kind of saw that I was pretty burnt out on it,” Main said. “I kind of figured it was coming at some point because I knew it wasn’t something I wanted to do for the rest of my life.”
Main was most involved with his company when he was a freshman and sophomore in high school. Nearly every day, he’d go to school, attend cross country practice and make candles with his parents, putting more than 40 hours of work into it each week.
When his family moved to New Philadelphia in 2013, Man Cans partnered with Beaver Creek Candle Company to assist with production. With some of the responsibilities now being taken care of by Beaver Creek, he did customer service work for the company by answering phone calls and emails, as well as balancing the financial books.
Being in a new high school in an unfamiliar setting, as well as his work experience changing, it didn’t feel like the same work he did in Marysville anymore.
“I knew it was part of running a business and I was obviously aware of that, but doing that full time was… more difficult in finding a lot of enjoyment in running it,” Main said.
Main talked to other former child business leaders and he learned he wasn’t alone.
He found others like him also went through the struggle of balancing their lives with work and still trying to find enjoyment in it as they got older.
Around the time he was a freshman at Kent State University, he knew as much as he wanted to continue working with Man Cans, he couldn’t do it anymore.
“I kind of realized, during the holiday season of 2015, that was just too much to deal with while still in school,” Main said. “I was getting phone calls in my classes and I was spending more time answering emails for work than I was working on assignments.”
His parents agreed that moving the company to Beaver Creek was a good idea after considering their options.
“All the signs pointed toward that being the best opportunity to move Man Cans, as it had the most effect on the community and could help the most people,” Main said.
Control of the company shifted to Beaver Creek in 2016 during his sophomore year. However, he will still help the company out if it needs someone to speak to the media.
Today, he’s a senior in college, and he has other plans for his life. As an economics and criminal justice major, he’s looking to attend law school and become a trial lawyer. Eventually, he’d like to be an appeals court-level judge.
Though occasionally, he will have a yearning to get back into entrepreneurship. He gets ideas on other business ideas to start, but he has to shake it out of him because he knows he doesn’t have time for it right now.
“I know I’d like to work for myself one day,” Main said. “That’s something I want to be able to do again, hopefully in the professional career field.”
Main still considers Marysville to “always be where I’m from and it’ll always be that way.”
Beaver Creek continues to donate a portion of its proceeds to the same soup kitchens Man Cans helped in the past, as well as expand its reach to other places in need.