User:Iraniana Leone/Sandbox

Social Smoke Incorporation
Company type	Incorporation
Industry	Hookah and specialty Tobacco
Founded	September 2002 in Arlington, TX
Headquarters	Arlington, Texas, USA
Key people	Dr. Sayyid Nadimi, CEO; Ali Nadimi, COO; Abrahim Nadimi, Dir of Sales
Products	Hookah Pipes; Hookah Shisha Tobacco; Hookah Charcoal;
Revenue	2.3 Million (2008)
Website	SocialSmoke.com

Social Smoke, Inc

Social Smoke, Inc is an international provider of Hookah pipes, tobacco, and accessories headquartered in Arlington, TX.

Social Smoke, Inc was founded in 2002 and first started selling hookahs in October 2003. The company has grown considerably over the years and was #422 in 2008's Inc 500 list.

History

Ali Nadimi and his brother Abrhaim were first introduced to Hookahs while growing up and spending time friends from their local mosque. While too young to smoke, Abrahim and Ali, would watch as the friends would together and socializing around the hookah after their fast was broken during the Islamic month of Ramadan. After visiting Iran in 2000 Ali was reintroduced to the Hookah and finally decided to purchase his own in 2002. Not a drinker, Ali would take his hookah to parties and soon realized that although everyone that was introduced to the Hookah loved the experience the supply for Hookah supplies was difficult to obtain. There was not a decent local provider of Hookah supplies and websites where few and far between. When visiting Detroit in the Summer of 2003 Ali noticed that it had a much larger and more refined Hookah industry and it catered to all ethic groups. After seeing this Ali began working on Social Smoke's website which went live on October 2003. Abrahim began helping Ali list Social Smoke products on eBay and soon after that began receiving request from retail stores looking to purchase hookah products to resell. Social Smoke's first tradeshow was at the Retail Tobacco Dealer Association (RTDA) in Las Vegas in 2004.

In the summer of 2005 Abrahim joined the company full time as did their mother, Iman, their father, Dr. Sayyid Nadimi. Dr. Nadimi immediately focused efforts on improving Social Smoke's supply chain. Abrahim focused on sales, while Iman focused on the administrative efforts. Ali continued to improve the functionaliy of the website and focus on improving the overall operation of the company. In 2005 Social Smoke imported their first full container of products and in the spring of 2006 Social Smoke began importing its own in house designed products. Since then the company has been expanding their purchasing and sourcing capabilities and manufacturers many of their items and imports the vast majority of the rest.

Products

Social Smoke specializes in Hookah pipes which it imports from the Middle East and Asia. Besides hookah pipes Social Smoke retails and distributes a full line of Hookah accessories and shisha tobaccos. The company's Hookah pipe offerings include traditional hookahs which are assembled in their Arlington, TX warehouse made using Egyptian stainless steel stems to modern hookah designs made with a variety of materials manufactured in China.

Competitors

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Website and IT Solutions

Social Smoke's website first started was a basic dynamically loaded website which incorporated a minimal amount of graphics, however, through constant iterations the website has evolved to enhance the user experience. Social Smoke has incorporated a growing database of product pictures to allow customers to view hookahs in a variety of colors. Besides changing the images Social Smoke has also developed and programed its own custom software functionality into the website allowing it's site to be customized to Social Smoke's manner of doing business. Major website functionality milestones include the creation of a wholesale website strictly for resellers, a dropping shipping system which automatically manages all

All website design, is done in house as is the product images that appear on the website.

Advertising

Most of the advertising for Social Smoke has been through word of mouth. The company is listed in various Hookah related forums such as Hookah Forum.com, and Hookah Domain. The company attends a few tradeshows and advertises in a few trade publications. Since then Social Smoke has maintained a presence at the annual RTDA tradeshow (now called the IPCPR) and attended shows in Salt Lake City, Puerto Vallarta, and Las Vegas.

In the News

Besides being interviewed for various stories related to Hookahs Social Smoke's first large scale media appearance was on the Inc 500 list in September 2008. Social Smoke was then covered in an article for Fortune Small Business magazine Booming hookah biz links China, Iran, Egypt - and Texas, a photo gallery titled Smoke On Fire, and also a video by CNN titled Hookah business smokin'