A year of planning, meetings, and intense
juice making sessions comes to fruition when we open our doors to Smoque: Chicagos first vapor lounge. As we approached our opening, we began to read the buzz building online. Some of the commentary was positive- much was negative. It seemed many people were highly misinformed about electronic cigarettes, and really wanted to share their opinions. It seemed others just wanted small business owners to fail. Add this to the building online panic about the FDAs impending regulations, and it is fair to say we were not getting a lot of positive feedback. We pressed on knowing that what we were doing was actually helping people, and ignored the naysayers. Having had close family members die of lung cancer, we as a team knew the significance of what we were doing with Smoque.
As we flipped the sign from closed to open for the first time, we were unsure how the community would respond to our idea. As our first customers came walking in, we knew right away that we had made the right decision. The welcome we felt from individuals in the community was overwhelming. Neighbor after neighbor walked in welcoming us to the area and telling us how excited they were about what we were offering.
As we began having people taste the
e-liquids we worked so hard to craft, we started to realize that we were really on to something. Review after review came in about how fantastic people thought our
juice tasted. The online buzz began to grow this time in a good way. Novices and pros alike seemed to like the flavors we were making in our lab. Phew, at least we did one thing right. Now, on to the hardware. Oh, the intricacies of dealing with overseas manufacturers. We had been warned by those much wiser and more experienced than us, but of course we had to learn things the hard way. After wading through misinformation and losing quite a bit of money, we realized we had approached this in the wrong fashion. Rather than dealing with one company for all of our products, we decided to deal with only the top manufacturer of each product line we wanted to carry. We began working with companies like Sigelei, Kanger, Vision, and Young June, who produce high quality products and stand behind them. We have found that even though the costs and wait times involved in working with these companies are higher than others, the better quality products are worth both the wait and the additional monies spent.
Fast-forward two months. On a daily basis, people come in to the store wanting to work with us or for us in some capacity. Some of the people have great ideas, some well, not so much. This sharing of ideas has provided for a great synergy in the lounge, and even led to having some of our customers direct and shoot our first video. We've now had our ups and downs with out of country suppliers (mostly downs), and are learning how to navigate the landscape of doing business in other countries. We have learned how integral our staff is to the success of our vapor lounge. Most importantly, we have learned that it is our fantastic customer base that will allow us to thrive. It truly amazes me that when you provide a product or service that you can take pride in, people respond with overwhelming positivity. As far as the FDA allowing small business owners like us to help others live a healthier lifestyle, while generating jobs and keeping the environment cleaner (insert .... joke) at the same time well, that part still remains to be seen.
