I'm with Lucas and this is Black Tach Green Money. Black Tatt is an artist, entertainer, entrepreneur, and founder of Black Smoke, the world's number one leader and no nicotine, no tobacco hooka products.
That are actually made from fruit.
In recent months, he's had more than a couple million dollar days where his products have generated more than one million dollars in sales and completely selling out online within twenty four hours. As Black about the growth and whoka and vaping in our community and why his approach with no nicotine or tobacco involved is so important.
We all have alls with the pleasures in different ways.
So I mean, even when it comes as simple as eating food, like we probably shouldn't be eating for chops, we shouldn't be.
Eating fried chicken, but we're going to do it, you know what I'm saying.
And sometimes when you feel like I should be eating that bad fried chicken instead, I'm going to salteed and skill it with some butter, and maybe that's a little healthier than you know, eating.
The fried chicken.
So the same thing I wanted to do a hoh hookahs becoming such a big thing in our community. I found myself a victim of it as well, Like you know, want to be down on the ecstatic, on the vibe, going out with friends and you get the drink when you're sitting there. It's almost like we all are hooked on this oral fixation. We just need to be doing something.
And I never.
Smoked before in my life. I had never smoked a cigarette. I had never smoked marijuana, nothing like that of that sort. But I found myself smoking hookah and realize I was smoking. I was exposing myself to so much nicotine and tobacco. It was just like I was just the same person that I was condemning from smoking packs of cigarettes.
I became that.
So I wanted to figure out a way that not only for myself, but for other people.
How could we, you know, have our guilty.
Pleasures, do the things that we love to do, but expose ourselves to less harm less toxins, less chemicals. Found myself getting headaches, stomach aches, feeling nauseous because I was smoking so much nicotine and tobacco.
And that's when I realized it's a way that I could continue doing.
This, but just not doing it in such a worst way possible, And That's when I feel like my importance to the community of offering something that literally didn't exist, something that we couldn't get anywhere else. I knew it was away, like everything was not here before. Everything had to be like innovative, you know what I'm saying. So even though I had got so many no's and so many people felt like it was so crazy. What you
mean fruit or a hookah, That's not possible. But you also use fruit to put your nicotine in tobaccos, cheat you inside of people stuff it with grapefruit, with oranges, with pineapples, and they still put the far on in the still put the codes on top. So I feel like fruit was already incorporated and you still burning the fruit some kind of way. So I knew it was a way to intercept the two and do it in a better perspective.
So you mentioned a couple other things in our community that may not be the best for us, but you saw hookah as a business opportunity for you. Why hookah versus any of the other things that you could have done.
The reason why it is hookah, because I said this to all entrepreneurs was important. It's best to do something that you already loved to do. That's where that passion comes from. Because when if you chase something just because of the money, yes it be good, yes it feels good, but.
It doesn't last long term.
I had never created no other business because I was very selective of what I wanted to do. Because whatever I wanted to do and whatever I started doing, I wanted to be do it from the.
Start to finish, know the ends, and I was about it and really be passionate about it. Because when the money comes, it feels good.
But when the money stoles down at a stop, would you still care about doing this particular thing or you would you try to hop on next wagon with the next dollar attached to it.
And that was never mean. I didn't want it to be me.
So huku was something I did every day, all day. It was part of my regular life anyway, with my friends and with my holis. It was things I had knowledge about that I know what I was looking for. I knew what tastes good, I know how it made me feel. I knew another alternative I was looking for when I was affected by the original you know, nigotine
and tobacco. So it was all things that I also as an entrepreneur, was also able to eliminate myself as an entrepreneur and all so see the different faces of it as a consumer, so I knew the ends and I was about so that's why it made the most.
Sense for me.
And so you mentioned this or fixation. So sometimes it's just the action of smoking that satisfies the desire to smoke in it's because yours doesn't have nicotine. You know, there's there's more to it. So can you talk about what that is?
Yes, it don't have nicotine, it don't have tobacco, tobacco, So it's really more so like that artifixation. A lot of people just thinking that they so addicted to that cigarette, is so addicted to that hookah, that that nicotine, that tobacco, because they tell themselves or I need that.
What do what do black smoke do for you? I'm not gonna feel none're not gonna get high older, I can't smoke that. I need my nicotine, my tobacco.
It's not the nicotine and tobacco that that got you hooked to that at at the beginning. It was that or fixation, and when you got so accustomed to the artifixation. Now you have probably became addicted to that nicotine, that tobacco from trying to, you know, fix that urage of that artifixation. So much so when you really think about it,
like it's literally the organization with which plays apart. That's why when people will literally say, oh, my nerves bad, they got in the argument that somebody being upset, I need a cigarette right now because my nerves bad. It's not the niggatior tobagg of calm you down least your mind, making you feel like that organization something that is happening, but nothing is really happening.
It's so oftentimes the solutions of problems are all around us, and so we just have to reframe the way we look at things. And opportunities can be all around you. And so if I think of problems as opportunities and so if you just open your eyes, there's business opportunities all around you. The smoking is, to your point, is often is correlated to the relaxation, and you found a way to do it with fruit.
Can you talk about how we.
Can reframe ourselves for problems solving by working to with a different lens on the world around us.
Yeah, like pretty much when you're really thinking about it, everything that you see around you, everything that you probably think of your regular day to day life that probably be so.
Normal to you. It always feels from something.
It always comes from something, So there is always an opportunity. There is always a business venture, a business idea that can come from anything. Like, for instance, you could sit there and be having a regular day and just go outside and stop stop stepping mud on your shoe, and by the time you came home, your shoe is hard. It's hard to get the ball.
To the mud up.
Brin brom Broom. Literally you could come up with a shoe cleaning that's literally just for mud saying. It's like it's so easy to just do with everything that's around you. Like, uh, I've had a cousin that's not not too long ago, was telling me about how he came to my refrigerator and literally try to make a drink and by me not using my ice and my ice maker, the ice is kind of me when.
It comes to get the ice out. If it was all hard and stuff together.
He was like, you need to do something, You need to something with the individual ice cues and it.
Come out like like sonic ice like the small cues.
I said, why don't you create a fielter, create a frigerator that has ice.
Come out like that? He said, nobody got no sonic.
Refrigerator And I said, no, not against the only one brings in the ice. How about to bread refrigerator? And you too looking at me like I was crazy.
I see. I guess my idea is a way too to advance with you right now. You're not day, You're not ready. I love that, But you're right.
The problems are all around us there for opportunities are all around us if we just take a different look at the things that are around us. So, your products have been extremely viral on social media, and I want to know how you're able to achieve, Like what tactics have you used to ensure that your posts go viral?
Yeah, so this is my thing. That's why I tell people like I understand. Please don't get me wrong.
Well I'm not.
I'm not acting like money isn't important, Like it's our weblive it, it's our well of surviving.
Money is as important. I give it our lovelihood.
But the biggest thing is to create an artist, build a structure, build a foundation and build a family, like like be able to connect with your audience, build, build, build this magnitude of this understanding with them. So then when you have that, when you have that connection first and these people that's that's looking to you, admire you, like inspire by you, connect with you like you talk back,
you respond back, you you you. You always include them and let them know the importance of who they are to you. That feeds they soul. What also feeds your business. A lot of people just get on here and don't connect with their audience and but take their business and just post a flyer up post to.
Self like restocking this friud to restock.
Nobody wants to feel like they're just looked at as a dollar. Nobody wants to feel like That's just like if you was in a relationship with your spots, only come to you when they have a problem. Okay, other than when I solve your problem financially, What else do you think of me?
What else do we have in common? Like I'm not a shit of daddy. You know, you're not my Pam. So it's the same thing with your consumers.
It's okay that you have people that's poetry is okay that you value that is support you by outside of them support you, supporting you.
And buying from you. What else is there? Y'all share?
So I share more of a connection with my audists. I share more of relatable things us talking about us really getting to know each other. Like they really feel like they have watched me elevate and they feel like they played a big part in my success, which they have. They feel like they have watched my kids grow up. They call them their nephew and you know, they sons and stuff like that. So when you build that structure, first,
the money is going to flow. But when you just chasing the money, you limit to yourself the access of what all comes with it.
You know.
So what I hear you saying is, you know, social media can't be used as a one way conversation, like you just post and you have to engage in the comments, you know, and engage on other people's posts and et cetera.
Yes, yes you have to, because like it's such a worldwide thing, like everybody is totally different, Like it's not one world, it's not one community. You can't post one thing and touch everybody, like everybody has a different way of life or different way of things. It's something that I post that may have flurred two hundred thousand people probably have made fifty thousand people like I don't like that or that's weird. So you have to touch things
that that can relate to as everybody. You probably would never relate to everybody, but at least try to relate to as many people as you can. And you can't post the social media just from your legs because not everybody also think like you. Now everybody understands your perspective, so you gotta sometimes take yourself out of the box, like I wouldn't normally like this, but somebody out here may you know, may do, so you really can't think
about it that. I was also telling a person like that about a business mention that they was working on. It was getting my opinion on it, and they was talking about different flavors and stuff like that of this alcohol beverage and it was like, no, because I hate blueberry, No because I don't.
I don't like pineapple. I said, that's what you hate, that's what you like with that.
Millions of people in the world that love blueberry, that love pineapple, So are you going to be the one buying all exactly you're consumers. It was matters if the people that's buying for you, that you expected to support. You see, this is my favorite flavor, You're gonna not sell it because you see I don't like it.
That doesn't make any sense.
You know, when you sell humongous things like you've had one million dollar a day, two million dollar days, you're not always stocked I imagine with a million dollars worth of product in the warehouse or two million dollars worth a product in the warehouse, I imagine, especially when you do it early. How do you manage to coordinate sales with inventory so that you can get through that product fast enough.
This is the thing I have never done pre autist before.
I only and I preached this all the time, only sell with inside of your warehouse.
Which is why I had to get I know, if you see when I just.
Purchased a human hate beautiful, man, it's beautiful, Thank you so much.
And that's because the reason why I was selling out because I was only able to go as far as my invatory allowed me to. So when I had those one million dollar days, I was completely sold out.
So I've always was mad at myself. Everybody else is around me, car I.
Was like, whoa, you made a million dollars in a couple of hours, And I'm mad at myself with my head done because if I made million dollars in such and such hours and it stopped on it because my inventory ran.
Now, I was so lowed. I could have made three million dollars in twelve hours.
I could have made five million dollars and twenty four hours, but I limited to myself.
So I'm never okay with selling out.
It all sounds good and it all looks pretty, but if you were literally a business person that you focus on the growth of your business, you're hitting your growth every single time.
So selling out is not the goal. The goal is constantly making.
More money, more money and been having enough inlatory to sustain the amount of magnitude of your consumers, but still not selling out.
Always got to supply for somebody else. Because also, you.
Can't get so like cocky and level headed to the point where you feel like, oh yeah, it's so lowed when I restart then come back. You gotta always have this humble mindset that when I don't have it, they we're going to get the next best things from the next best person.
That's right, and so so how do you think about because you know you're selling out so quickly, what is the think on the balance of or if it's selling outs so fast at this price, maybe it's priced it could go higher. How do you think about that?
So that's that's the thing. I feel like, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. When with everything's setting out so fast and the price is what it is, like before I released it, I like evaluated everything and find out my price and points and what work for me and what will be most suitable for me. How could I manage my business be fair to the consumers but also make sure I'm getting my profit and able to suspend my lifestyle and everything like that.
When I came up with that price, I did that.
So just because I'm being supported to this magnitude, I feel like it will be unfair to the consumer and very selfish to raise the prices, you know, and fluctuate the prices just to make my life a little better and make my my properly little higher, but actually taking more out they pocket. These are the people that support me. I need them to feel more comfortable than me, you know. So when they work hard and get dey tech every week, I need them to like buy for me and I
have regrets after it. I need them to love the product when they receive it, and I need them not have a regret when they see that price come out of their bank account. Because at the end of the day, if we constantly see something that's costing us too much money, and we add up at the end of the month, end of the week and saying this is too high, nine times out of ten we go not going to go back and continue doing that.
D that.
So I was reading this interview and this is a quote from you, and you said I wanted to offer a healthier alternative. I wanted to create a vaping product that could be made with vegetables and water. But no one wants to smoke vegetables and water. I was left with that truth, but felt there had to be a way possible to incorporate fruit into hookah smoking. I tried many things and received a great deal of feedback. People
told me it was not possible. It was so discouraging, it was not gonna happen, It was not gonna work. And that fruit would burn. How do you go about then testing sampling products before you go into mass production, into mania manufacturing.
Oh my god, Dad was a lot that was.
That's the part that I was, I'll say a discourageing because before I even got to the point of getting tested, so many people wouldn't even entertain the idea to test it. It was like, I can tell you right now, that's that's not gonna work. I tell you right now, that's not possible. I can tell you right now, you know
it's so. And also allow those nose and a lot of that feedback also worked better for me because they allowed me to also go back to the drawing board and constantly reinvent, constantly like re educate myself more and more and more.
What could I add? I, what could I do?
What could I subtract to make sure it's possible to Also, I was trying to work so hard to convince people to understand the logic from the person from the beginning, so that I wouldn't even get a no. To the fact that it made me getting myself down to the tea so perfect that I couldn't get a nod no more. And not only did I get a yes, the yes that I got was just so you know, it was so like above and beyond because I did all the work. If I don't got yes from the beginning, I probably
would have stopped there. I wouldn't researched more, I wouldn't added more, I wouldn't see what I what could be used, what can be used.
So I just feel like that was the best thing that can happen to me. I literally got.
I think it was like seventeen denials, wow, twenty one or.
Something of that nature.
That's very discouraging, especially since at the same time, I'm fronting everything. I'm paying for these mixtures, I'm paying for these formulasts, I'm paying for these testing.
I'm also trying to live my life.
As an entrepreneur already and doing things on Instagram. I don't have that much money right now, so all these things are costing. It's discouraging, especially when you already got a conference zone. I was doing things right right now with we TV networks and stuff like that, making a lot of money.
With those two It's like, why even entertained something.
I'm getting those from and making zero dollars from and I'm spending all the money I'm making here.
That's very discouraging.
You're might as well say forget that I'm a goo where I know it's for sure, but I was adamant.
And when I put my mind to something, I'm going to do it.
And I feel like my vision is my vision for a reason because I see things that other people can see.
So I'm not going to let their response dictate what I continue to do. From that point. I'm going to prove you wrong. And I did that. I love it. I love that.
Other than other than your online strategy, which you can you know, direct b to see business to consumer, you can sell directly to your customers, how did you work out your business to get distributions into other people's stores, other people's vape shops, and other people's hook luages so that they can sell your products.
So that's the thing we have.
Like tens of thousands of emails and requests about that.
I have never done that yet.
I haven't allowed them to do that yet because I feel like I'm still a new business.
I'm, like, what, less than two years in the game, So.
I still have my freshness, I still have my exclusativity, and I love that about me. Like I'm an online business. I'm doing so great online and everything like that. So I feel like before at least let me like exude in a success and all of you know, the highs and lows and experience all my lessons on behalf of myself before I include others before.
I even get to their route, Like I.
Will want more experience as a you know, an individual, independent entrepreneur of it before I include like.
A through Z. Right now, I'm not ready for.
That that yet, And I understand one day that's definitely you know, supposed to happen, and that's going to happen, but I just feel like, right now, it's not the right time, especially if I'm having so much success on my own by not being so exclusive.
I feel like that plays a big part that people want to come get.
It because it's not easy accessible and when they sell out, there reading for the restock. So I feel like I'll be working against myself while I'm at the highest part of my career at this point.
You know, how did you get celebrities to back you on using their showing media platforms or was that just they saw organically and.
Like organically that's what that's the thing about me, like I thought, it was so hard for these celebrities.
I always admire these celebrities. You know, I'm human like everybody else.
And I was like, one day I wish I could One day, I wish I could get this person, get that person.
But they are human just like us.
They like to do the same things that we do, and they like to be a part of.
The trends and everything else like everybody else.
So I guess seeing my business everywhere, seeing everybody going crazy about it, seeing that everybody don't have access access to it, what it made them want to do is use their celebrity card that just slide in the DM and.
Be like, yes, I know it's so loud. I know they can't get it, but I want to try it. Can I get it? And that's where it started at.
So it got to the point that they started sliding DM or get my number from fellow friend X and try.
I send it to them. Hopefully one day we could do business.
And before I know it, when they get the delivery, they making a video just like everybody else.
And they literally used to brag and be like, well, y'all can't get this. I know it's so long but I got mine, so it became a trend. Like it's like a who's who's who got the black smoke? You know? That's fine.
When I think about when you create an innovative products, I want you go level deeper there on. You know, how how you keep away compy casts or or have a brand strong enough that they can do whatever and do we gonna do what we're gonna do anyway, And so how do you think about your brand being so strong and how do you ensure that it's so embedded in the minds of your consumer that you know, ten other people can go and do their fruit thing, We're still going to lead this market.
Yeah, And that's my biggest point, Like I feel like people remember.
People remember you in a way that you present yourself.
So if I would have just came out and say, hey, hooker from fruit instead of explaining that this couldn't be done, I was the first one to do it. Whatever the kids can be. So that's why people hopped on the wave because and they want to try regarding because it's like this is impressive, this is interesting.
I want to try something that I never tried.
I want to see what this is like, see what this tastes like so I feel like now we are stamped as the number one hooker brand, not only the number one hookul brand.
That's the first to ever do it.
So not even if somebody else was to do it or try to do it, that's cool, but it always would be like, oh, you're doing with black smoke, and you know, I feel like there's nowhere around it. You know, it's never going to be somebody come like take my spot. I'll do me because you cannot erase history and I have made history.
You know.
I love that this is an entrepreneur I follow. His name is Paul Judge, and I'm a paraphrase a quote that he says because it makes me think of you, and it says, the easiest way to get smart people to want to work with you is to have big ideas. Smart people want to work on big ideas, not small ones.
And you're creating something out of nothing. And talk to me about some of the most critical roles on your team from the start that were important to you get into the scale that you're at because they could have done a lot of other things.
Yes, absolutely, just like having a vision is one thing, but having your vision unfolding in front of you, like I can promise you, I can tell you firsthand, like it's not as beautiful and as peachy and cream as it may sound like, because you only believe as far as you can think, and you only can think as far as what you're capable of. So I had this vision, this idea, and this magnitude and of this idea of how big I wanted it to be and how great I wanted it to become.
But me as a person, I was not prepared. I was not ready to deal with that.
Like I wasn't I didn't have the proper knowledge and understand understand it because I feel like I was gonna learn as I go. What I have accomplished this far probably would have been my twenty years span. So I thought, as I grow on, I was going to have time to, you know, educate myself and learn more and be able to put things in different perspectives. But my success almost happened overnight. So it's like you're making the money, you
gotta deal with the product. You gotta deal with inventory, you gotta deal with the help, you gotta deal with the consumers.
You gotta deal with the growth. You gotta deal with the brand.
Like all that is a lot with one person, especially when not starting off as a team.
You're not starting off with a team.
So the roles of the people that I do have closest to me, Thank God for them. They played such an important role, like working the late nights, early mornings.
I'm talking about getting off at four a m.
Coming back to work at eight am. Like I cannot take all the credit. It's times where they tell me you rest, you go home, you go get you some sleep, and they was running it, you know.
So I'm at a point right now like I just cherish the people.
It's like I cannot tell my story without including them in it because they've done this with me.
Like it's all written and it has.
People on my team that I can promise you it canna be fifty it is from now.
I can promise you.
There's nothing that can make them not be a part of this team. There's nothing that can make me fire them or get rid of them. It's just like without without them is no me, and without me is no them. And we have that understanding and I would never break that long to me.
I've heard you, Well, there's other people who would not embrace being called an overnight success, but I've heard you embrace it.
Can you talk about why you've.
Embraced that concept of being an overnight success.
Let me tell you why I embraced it.
Because although my journey itself wasn't overnight, because I was creating myself as Black Tadded, already an entrepreneur, working hard, working with these brands and doing little things. However, the Black Smoke success was overnight. Despite that I used my platform that I had worked on for so many years, that doesn't make a difference. When I released my brand, it was an overnight success. And the reason why I'm not against the overnight success because I feel like that's
ultimately the goal that everybody should want. Nobody want to want to have the option to say, hey, you're gonna make a million dollars tomorrow, and they gonna say, hey, no, I'd rather do it in seven years.
No. So you don't really hear about the overnight success too often.
So I feel like, when it happened, it's a great thing, and I want to give other people hope that you can have that one week or that one day or that one month that can really change your life.
Not everything's gonna take five to sevent ten years. So that's why even I feel like that gives you the push.
That you need even when things doesn't go the way that you expect them or want them to go.
You know, this one day it a probably pop. So I feel like that's giving people inspiration.
And hope to not give up and keep going because it just may be your day and it just may be your week.
And so I want to go a little bit into your who black title was before being CEO of this big company. Now you're a social media influencer, like you had people You're funny, comedy and things.
Yes, And there.
Was a quote I found for you where you said I was because you have brand deals, people were paying you to post about their stuff, and you said I was okay with giving everybody else business, but it never hit me that I was truly sleeping on myself. That's a quote from you. And so what is the difference though, between an influencer who can create a big following and can sell things versus an influencer who can't seem to make anybody pull out their wallet because that happens.
Yes, yes, that's the difference because also what people got to understand, like having followers, it's not like equivalent to having influence.
It can have people with a lot of followers.
And they can literally be a comedian that makes gets with a wig ones per see, and it has people that follow them simply because of that that reason, all they want to see from you is that video of this character that you put that makes me laugh.
That's it.
But when you but it's a difference when you have a person what follows, what influence that pretty much have they word is bond and have built a lawyer following, and people know that they don't just put their name
and their mouth and they stamp on everything. That's why it was very important to me that just because something sounded good and just because something was presented to me, just because they massed the dollar amount which I ask for or maybe have succeeded while you're asking for this and you say no, so I'll give you this instead.
It was never about the money for me.
It was always about like my influence, always about my word of mouth.
Because if I'm going to tell my followers.
To go get this, when they're gonna get it, I needed to actually work because if they go get it and it doesn't work. That's gonna only hurt me in the long run. When I say it, go get something. I really need them to go get So if I don't.
Believe in it, I'm not gonna post about it. I don't.
If I wouldn't use it, I'm not gonna tell them too. If I wouldn't buy it, I'm not going to convince them boy it. Because you can't do things with just a dollar. That's a temporary fix. That's a long term disaster.
So how do you encourage people who or teach people who have watched your story? You know, come from you know, I don't want to say the bottom, but come from not a lot and have achieved what you've achieved and look at you and say, you know, well there's something that's got to be something more to it. Then this's a regular guy. That's not possible for me.
How do you.
Relate to people so that they can be inspired by your story and take nuggets from your story so that they can apply those things to their lives.
Yeah, that's why. And yes I do come from the bottom. Like I was not born to silver s fool, like I lived in the ghetto. I live in the hood, like I have literally witnessed murders happening in front of me, and that's just my truth. So I feel like that's why I don't just only like talk about the great I don't just highlight Oh, everything is perfect to me. Like I let them know, like the things that discouraged me. I let them know, like the things that that I
still haven't figured out. I let them know that this thing has grown so much bigger than me that I really at one point didn't have no idea what I'm doing, what I was doing. I just had a dream and that's just what happened. And also I just need them to understand, like it's not about where you come from. Yes, that plays a big part on you know, of the opportunities sometimes that we have and also the resource. But also you do not have to be a product of your environment.
It's up to you to change that narrative. You don't have to want only what you see.
I came from where I came from, and I've seen everything around me, but I see the way it affected everything and everybody around me. So all I didn't know exactly what I wanted to do or what I wanted to be wanted to be, but I know I wanted it to be opposite. So you literally got to bin yourself to thank for to train yourself to believe. And I know it sounds so cliche, but when you put your mind to it, you can actually do it.
Like where you come from does not determine where you're going.
Black Tech Green Money is a production of Blavity, Afro Tech, Black and Fat Podcast Network and I Hire Media. It's produced by Morgan de Bond and me Well Lucas, with the addition of production support by Said and Rose McLucas. Special thanking to Michael Davis, Vanessa Surroundo or Maya Multru. Learn more about my guests and other tech this weepons and innovators at afrotech dot com. Enjoy your Black Tech Green Money shit is with Somebody could get your money.
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