
How Juul became worth $38B - soheil
https://techcrunch.com/2018/12/22/juul-me-twice-shame-on-you/
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Ice_cream_suit
The big attraction of Juul is delivering cannabinols via vaping.

That is why Phillip Morris (aka Altria) put 18 billion into it.

They plan to combine Juul their vape acquisition and Cronos their cannabis
acquisition.

Big cannabis is coming and will dwarf big tobacco...

~~~
jakobegger
I don't think Cannabis would be as big a market as nicotine. Cannabis slows
you down and makes you tired. That's great for recreation, but it's not
something most people would want to consume every day.

Nicotine is different. It feels good, but you can still go to work after you
had your dose.

~~~
huffmsa
American pop culture is in an uppers swing right now. Cars, computers, etc are
increasingly faster, more powerful.

Appalachia is having a downers problem, and it'll probably spread as people
get burnt out and the economy contracts some in the near future.

Time is a flat disk.

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pstuart
I am against making any drugs illegal but shit like this is why we can't have
nice things.

~~~
aplummer
Strongly against making drugs with very low potential for harm illegal, but
that’s definitely not tobacco related products.

I feel it undermines the logic based argument to legalize recreational drugs.
As well, smoking costs 3x the tax revenue from society, coming from single
payer, I don’t love paying for people picking up smoking / vaping since the
dangers were known.

~~~
y0ghur7_xxx
> I don’t love paying for people picking up smoking / vaping since the dangers
> were known

Are the dangers of vaping known tho? Is there any study that shows it causes
physical damage like inhaling smoke from a burning cigarette? Is seems fairly
obvious to me that inhaling vegetable glycerin and nicotine does not cause any
harm. The only "problem" is the nicotine addiction, but that one does not
cause any physical harm, it just costs money to buy refills.

~~~
cyphar
> Is seems fairly obvious to me that inhaling vegetable glycerin and nicotine
> does not cause any harm.

Why is that obvious? Lungs evolved to absorb oxygen not vegetable glycerin or
propylene glycol. In fact there is some evidence that it may be harmful to
protective cells in the lung walls, potentially increasing the risk of lung
inflammation[1]. Obviously we'll have to wait 30 years to know of any long-
term effects, but maybe common sense would be a better life decision if you
don't want to be a test subject.

I would also suggest that there is a risk of cheap e-cigarettes causing even
more serious harm because they might have contaminants in the fluid being
inhaled.

[1]:
[https://thorax.bmj.com/content/73/12/1161](https://thorax.bmj.com/content/73/12/1161)

~~~
y0ghur7_xxx
>
> [https://thorax.bmj.com/content/73/12/1161](https://thorax.bmj.com/content/73/12/1161)

Thank you I didn't know about this.

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wpdev_63
I bought my first e-cigarette the other day from a local smoke shop. I am
switching to vaping as a way to quit smoking after 10 years. Anyways, I saw
the juul cigarette for more than double the price of all the other normal
e-cigarettes on the shelf and the capsules themselves weren't cheap. I
obviously went with the less flashy eco vaporizer and bought the liquid in the
bottle. Cost me $30 in total and still using it 3 months later.

My point is that I didn't any reason to buy the juul other than brand. The
competitors are significantly cheaper and more customizable(i guess). I
believe much like gopro, juul going to tank at some point. They are very
overvalued here.

~~~
huffmsa
Let me try:

"[Apple's] competitors are significantly cheaper and more customizable(i
guess). I believe much like [the iPhone], juul going to tank at some point.
They are very overvalued here."

I wouldn't say you're incorrect about them tanking, but I would argue that
they're more Apple (sleek, sexy, status symbols) than some other segment
leader.

~~~
wpdev_63
The difference is that apple makes a arguably different product than its
competitors; android marketplace is still lacking in quality in comparison to
apple store, ios is more seamless, the apple ecosystem is the strongest out
there etc.

Juul is simply packaging e-vap in a fancy wrapper and charging double of what
their competitors are charging. It's silly to make the comparison.

~~~
huffmsa
"Juul's competitors pod selection and ease of use is vastly inferior to their
own. The experience of not having to fiddle around with settings to get the
vape to work is refreshing when compared to the competition."

The article specifically mentions network affects like being able to plug your
pods into someone else's stick if yours is out of battery.

Google Play (Android Market was renamed in 2012) has pretty much the same
selection as the App store.

"Apple is simply packaging Samsung components in a fancy wrapper and charging
double what the competitors are charging."

Apple makes cellphones. So does everyone else.

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Gatsky
How is it we allow people to make money from hacking human brains...

It isn’t going to end well. Society will pay, just like it did and continues
to do for tobacco.

~~~
macspoofing
>How is it we allow people to make money from hacking human brains...

Sugar.

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brianwawok
Advertising. Loot crates. Social media.

~~~
blfr
Yeah, we barely allow people to make money on anything else than hacking
brains.

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olliej
Um, by marketing an extremely addictive drug to children and young people?

That’s what tobacco did in the past, and are doing again now.

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macspoofing
Eh. Not quite the same. And it wasn't marketed to children. Apparently there's
just something about blowing smoke and age restriction that is cool to teens.
It is almost as if Juul was sought after by them.

Also, it isn't tobacco that is the big driver of juul sales. Weed is. And
we've had a multi-decade marketing campaign about how weed carries no negative
side-effects by large swaths of the population. I got shellacked on this forum
when I tried to argue that it isn't normal for kids to smoke weed (apparently
it is perfectly normal for kids to 'experiment'). Juul didn't do that.

~~~
avn2109
Tobacco is an industrial product. It's only amenable to industrial cultivation
at scale, because of the biology of the tobacco plant. It's not feasible to
grow and process enough tobacco yourself to sustain a habit. This is why big
tobacco made such a gigantic pile of money in the last 100 years. But now
Americans don't smoke cigarettes anymore.

The thing about weed is that it's not an industrial product. A 15 year old can
easily grow enough weed in his bedroom to keep himself constantly high. This
is Really Bad for profits.

So Juul is valuable because big tobacco sees an opportunity to revive tobacco
sales aka nicotine Juul cartridges, while also replacing soon-to-be-legalized
ordinary marijuana with weed-themed Juul cartridges. It's a two-pronged
strategy.

~~~
grandmczeb
> A 15 year old can easily grow enough weed in his bedroom to keep himself
> constantly high. This is Really Bad for profits.

I see this repeated a lot, but I have a very hard time believing it matters at
all. It’s just as easy to grow tomatoes and the result is significantly
cheaper and tastier than what you can buy in stores, yet I doubt anyone would
say tomatoes are significantly less profitable because of it. Even in my own
state where growing weed is legal I’ve heard of exactly one friend who grew
their own, and that was a one time novelty rather than a real supply.

The reality is that the vast majority of customers prefer the convience of
pre-packaged and pre-portioned weed products over the cost savings of growing.
In fact, if anything the trend is towards more convenice (edibles, single dose
vapes, delivery services) rather than away from it. The profit impact of those
who do choose to grow will be extremely tiny.

~~~
vict00ms
I've had several friends that grow weed, from pretty sophisticated (albeit <5
plant) hydroponic setups to "guerrilla grows" (tossing seeds into areas
unlikely to be discovered and later coming back to check/harvest). It's a lot
easier than most home garden produce by a long shot, in my opinion. There is
even a book called "The $64 Tomato" that details how difficult that particular
fruit is to grow.

~~~
grandmczeb
Even if the actual growing isn’t hard, you need to plan it months in advance
and there’s work involved in setup and harvesting. That’s far more
inconvenient than just opening an app or driving to the store. It can also be
risky (there are still plenty of confusing rules around growing for personal
use, and guerrila growing is illegal) and even meticulously attended plants
have variable yields. The only way for it to substantially affect profits is
if a non-trival portion of customers prefer the cost savings to inconvenience,
and, imo, the evidence points strongly against this. Heck, at my local
despensery _pre-rolls_ far outsell flower and the only work involved there is
grinding and rolling!

Also, I haven’t read that particular book, but the growing difficulty depends
on the variety. I can personally attest that growing cherry tomatoes is
extremely easy (they’re commonly recommended as a “beginner” plant.)

~~~
vict00ms
That's a really good point about pre-rolls. I agree that homegrown weed is no
more of a threat to dispensaries than homebrewed beers are to Budweiser.

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varjag
"How drug dealers are getting rich"

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halfjoking
I tried nicotine toothpicks and they just made me feel sleepy and didn't give
any neurological benefits. I don't really see why nicotine is popular at all.

Caffeine, P5P, D-Ribose, Astragalus, Turmeric... etc. are way better natural
stimulants/nootropics. I guess people don't smoke for the same reasons that I
take supplements.

~~~
sedatk
Nicotine is biologically addictive.

~~~
jakobegger
I've quit smoking a couple of times. The hardest part is the first few days: I
get really irritated and angry, and I know that I would just need one
cigarette to feel alright again. After a few days, the effect wears off, and I
feel normal again.

In the long run, the hard part is resisting the urge to start smoking again.
There is always some situation where it's so tempting to light a cigarette...

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mattmaroon
They really misuse the phrase "virality" over and over here. There's nothing
beyond word of mouth spreading it from one user to another. It's more UX
that's impressive.

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dang
Ok, we've reduced the title above to the salient point.

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lozenge
Flagged for just being native advertising, considering how often the brand is
mentioned (most of the article applies to all e cigarettes)

~~~
CPLX
A profile of a successful company by an independent journalist is not
advertising.

It’s actually an entire category of journalism, and happens to be the genre
TechCrunch is known for.

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verroq
But seriously though, JUUL is the rocket ship I wish I could put my money in.

