Yesterday marked the 8 month anniversary of when we shipped our first boxes of Four Kicks cigars. Hard to believe…in some respects, it feels longer than 8 months–in others, time has flown by. We started back on November 9, 2011, with 66 retail partners. Today, we opened our 180th door. And we’ve done it all with just the four of us here: Mike, Michael, Nancy, and myself. For that, we all thank YOU–our loyal Four Kicks customers and supporters. I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating: we can’t do what we love to do without your support. We remain ever grateful and humble.

I was reflecting upon this yesterday on my drive home. Anyone that knows me also knows that traffic is very high on my pet peeve list. A portion of my drive home involves a 2-lane/1-way stretch known as “the bypass.” For the life of me, I cannot comprehend what is so difficult about driving forward–no stop lights–no crossing traffic. Nonetheless, it’s almost a sure thing that someone will wreck on the bypass. Last night was no exception. Traffic was backed up, and it took me 15 minutes to go ONE mile (yes, even at my advanced age I can still run faster than that). This was thanks to a careless driver who wrecked his vehicle into the shoulder of the road. The 2-lane bypass was reduced to a 1-lane bypass, replete with cop cars and emergency response vehicle. “Why?!,” I asked myself. My conclusion was that people don’t look where they’re going(!).

Yesterday, I was also reading an online article that referenced a Hollywood talent agent. The agent was basically saying that if you want to be a movie star, don’t do reality shows. Look at your long-term vision of where you want to be and then work back and take the steps that will get you there. In other words, have some vision and “look where you’re going” if you want to get where you want to be.

When we embarked upon the journey that would become Crowned Heads, we spent nearly a month contemplating and creating what would later become our “Philosophy” page (see the ‘About Us’ section of our website). At that time, I was chomping at the bit with ideas for blends and brands, concepts for bands and boxes, and I just wanted to get after it. Honestly, I was growing impatient with Mike and asked him, “do we really need to spend weeks on this mission-statement-thing?!” In the end, Mike’s age & wisdom (Mike, you’re still a “young man”) prevailed.

In retrospect, I can now see why we spent those weeks defining our ‘philosophy.‘ We knew that if we put that up, everything we’d do going forward would need to adhere to that philosophy–whether it would be a cigar, a box, a band, a hat or a t-shirt. In short, we were “looking ahead–looking to where we were going,” and to where we wanted to be.

We could’ve come out of the gates with several cigar brands, a couple of dozen facings, and opened 200 accounts. Instead, we spent several months visiting cigar factories and speaking with cigar makers, evaluating and contemplating our long-term plans…to eventually partner with Ernesto Perez-Carrillo, Jr., and come to market with one brand and four facings. Mind you, I’m not knocking the business model of coming out big with numerous brands and hundreds of accounts–but that model just didn’t line up for the vision we had in mind for Crowned Heads.

Our goal was–and continues to be–to gradually grow our business and base it upon consistently excellent cigars. That gradual growth was and always will be contingent upon the supply of the right tobaccos, and that can’t be rushed or cheated. We want to build brands–not personalities. We want people to buy our cigars because they enjoy them and believe them to be excellent–not because they might have an opportunity to meet one of us to sign a box, or to ‘buy 3 and get 1 free.‘

For me, there’s no greater gratification than having someone tell us that they truly enjoyed smoking our cigars. Hearing that makes the months of tweaking blends, traveling to the factory and fields, creating packaging ideas, rolling calls to our retail partners, all so worth the effort. Adding to someone’s quality of life–even for one hour at a time–makes what we do here so gratifying. Creation is everything to me. Having the opportunity to have a vision in mind of what something should look/smell/taste like, and bringing that vision to reality…it’s an amazing gift. To have someone say they enjoyed the product that was once just a ‘vision’…well, that’s the icing on the cake. Creation–not criticism–is what matters. I still maintain that artists can exist without art critics–but critics can’t exist without artists. And so it is in our industry.

So, looking back at the last 8 months…I say ‘THANK YOU‘ for supporting Crowned Heads and Four Kicks. Thank you for being patient with our growth–thank you for following the journey. We’ve only just begun. I am truly excited when I look at where we’re going.

Jon Huber
Crowned Heads