Social Smoke Tobacco was Launched on Feb 19, 2010
Whenever a new product hits the market, there is always a lot of skepticism and doubt. Sometimes, its as if people have to be forced to try a new product. They say change is good, but when change presents itself, it is almost always met with resistance. On February 19, 2010, when we first released our tobacco on Social Smoke.com, we expected to face that same, familiar skepticism. We weren’t particularly worried, but were still prepared for some degree of “negative buzz.” There are some very good brands in the market, and we knew it would take time before we proved that we weren’t just another set of wanna-be’s. We believed in our product, so we mainly focused on being patient, and giving our customers a chance to try it for themselves.
What we weren’t expecting, however, was for John from Chronic Hookah to attack us and our products on two very prominent hookah forums, Hookah Forum and Hookah Pro. Here is the original thread from Hookah Pro, as well as the original thread from Hookah Forum.
Basically, John was attempting to create doubt as to whether we actually made our own tobacco, and implying that we couldn’t compete with one tobacco manufacturer in particular, because that manufacturer was the “Wal-Mart” of the Hookah industry (in mentioning “Wal-Mart” we’re still not sure whether he was comparing size or business style). Regardless, this attack was an attempt to discredit our company and new tobacco line, and to keep people from trying it.
Although we generally always watch what is said on the hookah forums, we almost never get involved. We prefer that the forums remain pure and organic. Our philosophy is that vendors should have very limited roles in forums such as these. In this particular instance, however, we couldn’t stay on the sidelines. Our company’s reputation and products were being attacked by John, who has grown a business by befriending customers on these forums. I’m sure John thought he could use that “friendship capital” to throw a wrench in our tobacco launch. The forum threads tell the story very well, but in short, he bet $1,000 that we couldn’t prove that we manufacture our tobacco ourselves. He further stated that, if proven, he would not only send us a check for $1,000, but also issue a public apology.
We upped John’s challenge to $10,000, and ask that it be sent to us in the form of a check payable to a great charity called The Child Foundation. We then, at our expense, flew three online Hookah personalities to our warehouse to view our products and decide who was indeed correct in this particular debate. We invited Mark R from Hookah Whisperer, Mushrat from Hookah Forum, and Sambooka from Hookah Pro. Within a few hours of their acceptance, the plane tickets were purchased. We were very fortunate to have all three individuals willing and able to make the trip
From left - Mushrat (Adam), Abrahim, Buddy (Sambooka), Mark, and Ali
Everyone arrived at Dallas/Fort Worth airport around 4:30pm on Friday February 26, 2010, and were immediately brought to our warehouse. We gave them a tour of the warehouse, the tobacco manufacturing area, and answered any questions they had for us. After the tour we went into the conference room and begin what eventually became a smoke fest. We took a dinner break, then went to our house and smoked a ridiculous amount of Social Smoke tobacco. We smoked approximately 30 flavors, and are proud to report that our guests smoked to their hearts’ content.
The Social Smoke Smoke Fest
What a night! We showed, without a doubt, that we indeed manufacture our own tobacco from scratch. The visit write-up from these online personalities can be found on Hookah Forum, Hookah Pro, and Hookah Whisperer. More pictures of the event can be found on the Social Smoke Facebook Page.
We’re still waiting for our public apology and the $1,000 check from John. (He wouldn’t match our $10,000 raise). Come on, John, its for a good cause!!
