Michael Collins is not the kind of person you would picture as a chocolatier. In fact, becoming a chocolatier wasn't his first career choice.
"I was a military officer for 22 years," he says. "Chocolate was a hobby. My wife is German, and we both love chocolate."
So when Collins took an early retirement from the military, he and his wife bought a nice home. "It's a Victorian house, and we wanted to do something with it," he says. "Since we're right on a tourist route, and we wanted to open our own business, we decided to make chocolate and ice cream. The location just screamed chocolate.
"We converted the house -- we live upstairs and our store is downstairs. And I pretty much do everything."
By everything, Collins means all of the duties that come with owning a business. His wife helps out, but he still does much of the "purchasing, candy making, selling. But it's a small business; just something fun to do with our time."
He adds that he keeps the business small in keeping with the old-world chocolatier style. "It used to be that all chocolatiers were small local shops. And they sold the best chocolate," he says.
True to that tradition, Collins makes his chocolate creations himself. "We went into this without any machinery," he says. "We made everything by hand in the beginning. But we did eventually buy some machinery because it makes the job easier."
Collins also found that sales slumped off during the summer, so he depends on the ice cream sales to get him through that time. "People just like chocolate better during the winter. It's a comfort food."
Collins, however, is not one to take the easy way out. "I took a one-week chocolate course in Toronto when we started this business," he says. "There were five people in it. But I spent a lot of time reading everything I could find, doing research on the Internet and talking to people.
"Most chefs are not trained in chocolate," he adds.
And for that reason, he thinks that the way he got into the business is a good way to go about it: learn as much as you can, and if possible, work with chocolatiers before striking out on your own.
Karyn Matson is also not one to take the easy way out. "I started small," she says. She worked in another career as her children were growing up. When they were grown, she decided she wanted to open her own business. After careful consideration, she decided to become a chocolatier.
"I have two passions," she said. "One is for children, and then there is my passion for chocolate. I always wanted to own my own business. Chocolate has a personality all its own. It's a fascinating compound and it was just natural for me to want to do something with it."
Matson did a lot of research on her own and learned about being in business before she started. She also took classes to learn more about chocolate and how to make confections with it.
"I'm still learning," she says. "And I think you continue that process throughout any career." But she's taking it slow and building her business by providing chocolates to corporate events and individuals. She also makes chocolate arrangements.
There are, of course, still areas of the business that Matson doesn't like. "I guess you have to be able to realize what you're good at and focus on that," she says.
She knows that she's not good with bookkeeping and numbers, for instance.
"The one thing I do not like and that I'm not good at is with number crunching, so I outsource that....You have to recognize early on what you can't or don't like to do and delegate that to someone else."
Matson isn't likely to delegate making the chocolates -- or running the business. "I'm growing my business slowly so that I can handle it alone. I don't want to bring someone else in because I love doing it all. And next year I plan to open a new storefront, then I'm going to begin pouring molds and making chocolates myself."
But she adds that she'll be using molds that are pre-manufactured. "Specialty molding is a whole different industry."