How to choose the TOP 100 hookah tobacco. Interview with the founder of Hookah Tobacco Reviews – Alexey Vaev.

– Hello Alexey! We have known each other for about 7 years (since the time when we first held the Hookah Battle in Vladivostok). I know that you have been developing your retail project for a long time — the Алибаба (Alibaba) chain of stores in the Far East. Tell me in a nutshell, how did you get into the hookah industry and how did you start?

– Hi! Before coming to the hookah industry, I tried a hookah in a cafe called, oddly enough, “Alibaba“, then when I got my own hookah, there were endless experiments with the tobacco available at that time, I constantly hung on the hookahpro.ruforum.

In 2007, when I was 19 years old, I went to the USA for the summer on a student program and at some point, while I was in Los Angeles, I could not find a job, and then I remembered that I understand something in hookahs and got a job in a ordinaryhookah bar. There, for the first time, I went to purchase at a giant wholesale warehouse of various tobacco, tried Starbazz for the first time and generally immersed myself more in the topic.

In Russia, after graduation, I could not find a job in my specialty for a long time, although I really wanted to, so I worked as an office plankton and the only ray of light was the sale of Chinese hookahs through a simple website written in a Notebook by my friend. During the day we worked at work, and in the evening we delivered a few orders.

At some point, I was invited to work for a large audit company, where I dreamed of getting, but I chose hookahs, which I never regretted. With zero expenses and a large margin, the capital grew rapidly, and with it the business, which has now turned into a full-fledged retail network.

– I know that for quite a long time you have been developing an interesting project – Htreviews, a service for ratings and reviews of flavors and brands of hookah tobacco. I think it will be interesting for you to know that not so long ago I was a judge of the John Calliano Awards project and used your service to make a judicial decision on the brightest taste of the year (approx. Black Burn – Overdose took this nomination).

Tell me, please, how did you come up with the idea of creating such a portal?

– I am very glad that you used htreview! I came up with the idea when I ordered tobacco in an American online store a long time ago. There was a lot of tobacco and it was impossible to understand what flаvor to order. There was a forum hokahpro.ru, but the reviews there were not structured and it was hard to find a specific taste or just a list of the best tastes.

Something like an imdb rating or a Кинопоиск(movie searchsite), but for hookah tobacco, in fact, this idea was implemented in the portal.

– What are the monthly attendance figures for Htreviews at the moment? How many registered users and how many of them are active? What do you think is the portrait of the average user of this service? (hookah lover who smokes at home, hookah bars staff, common visitors etc).

– Attendance is now about 80 thousand unique visitors per month. There are several thousand registered, but I don’t even know who is active, because someone like me tries all the tobacco in a row and writes reviews almost every day, someone once a month. But on average, about 20-30 reviews are added per day, which is quite a lot, because at the start there were so many in a month.

As for the portrait of the average user, there is no such thing, because there are absolutely all categories: hookah master, visitors, and those who smoke at home. I really like that you can read the opinion of a girl who smokes hookah at home and has tried many flаvors, and the opinion of an industry professional who has a different perception. It’s a really cool!
– It is clear what benefits your resource brings for an ordinary hookah lover. Do you think it can be just as useful for business? For example, does your service help you build a more competent assortment of tobacco in your retail project?

– That’s exactly your example I use in my work. When introducing new tobacco products, I use only the rating on the site. That is, the first ten flavors of the new brand that will be included in the store’s assortment will be from the top of the rating. Brands sometimes give their top based on their sales statistics, but all sales are mixed there: wholesale, retail, in addition, these are only shipments that do not take into account sales to the end customer, the picture is distorted.

And also from the website I learn about brands that are worth paying attention to. If tobacco just flashed somewhere in the advertisement, it doesn’t mean anything at all, and when reviews actively appear on it, it means that tobacco is smoked.

– Who mainly forms the content on the site? You or the users? Are users somehow stimulated to leave ratings and reviews about tobacco (in other words, why would they do that?) Do you think there is a problem with representativeness? How fairly different brands are represented? It can be seen that 261 tobacco brands and 7460 flavors have been in list. Do you admit that some popular brands / tastes are not represented on the site, and if so, why?

– The database is 99% formed by myself, as information about new products becomes available. Also, the site users themselves can add tobacco through a special form, and often just write to the email “add this kind of tobacco”, which I do as soon as I have a free minute. Sometimes an application for addition is sent five seconds after the announcement of a new taste in social networks. And the most responsible brands regularly inform by email about new tastes, send pictures and descriptions, for which I love them very much.

Now, of course, not all brands and tastes are on the site, and I constantly forget to add something, because there is a hell of a lot of everything and something new is constantly appearing. Adding tobacco is not the most interesting work, but many site users have the same impulse with me to make the database as complete as possible simply because it’s cool, so they add tobacco themselves, upload good pictures, add a normal description, put down flavor tags, and I just have to click “publish” and then every time I think “damn, dude, thanks forthe help”.

As for the reviews, people write all the reviews themselves without additional stimulation. People have a need to share information and their impressions. You can, of course, write about it in social networks, but if a person does not have a profile account on the topic, then few people will be interested in it, and there are a huge number of people on xtreview who are interested in the topic. They will read the review, make some conclusions, maybe you can help them with the choice. Well, it’s always nice to just broadcast to some audience and share your impressions.

There is perhaps a small element of the game — the “usefulness of reviews”, for reviews and likes of their reviews, participants receive points, and the most active user can get an active participant’s star. However, these elements do not give any privileges.

And there is also a separate category of site user, which I also belong to – tobacco collectors. We just need to try all the tobacco, and we keep records on the website. There are about 850 tried flavors in my collection now, but they are catching up with me quickly.

– Your website says: “The site is not sponsored by any tobacco companies, does not sell anything and does not pursue anyone’s commercial interests. It makes no sense to write me suggestions about the “cheating” of certain tobacco. I can only add your tobacco to the rating, and then public opinion will decide its fate.”

Have you often been approached by representatives of tobacco brands with a suggestion about cheating? Can brands cooperate with you in any way at all?

– They didn’t apply directly, well, of course I would have refused, but they tried to cheat themselves. I cleaned it out manually, but what is most surprising, attempts to cheat were instantly calculated by active users of the site and the brand received such an avalanche of hate, for some time, all positive reviews on the tastes of this brand were ignored and in general always raised doubts: ” isn’t it rigged??”. An attempt to increase the rating is an attempt to improve the reputation, but it turns out exactly the opposite effect.

We are already cooperating with tobacco producers. You can create a manufacturer’s account and receive notifications about all reviews of the brand’s tobacco, as well as respond to them, give recommendations on the use of tobacco, recommend mixes. Some brands actively use it, and this is the most pleasant form of communication between the brand and the buyer.

Another form of cooperation is testing new flavor. You can send a new taste to a group of active users who will write about their impressions. The brand receives a lot of reviews for a new product and attracts attention to a new flavor. But, no one promises that the reviews will be good, so this is some risk, here I can only recommend making good tobacco.

– Is it possible to say that this is a non-profit project? The only ads that can be seen on the site are Алибаба (Alibaba)stores. Do you think it’s possible to advertise other stores as well? Have you ever thought about monetizing this project? As far as I remember, we bought advertising from you a couple of years ago for our project Russian Hookah Meetups.

In general, in the original, the project is non-commercial, but naturally there were unusual ways of monetization through working with brands, which I mentioned earlier. I don’t plan to make classic banners anymore. But the costs of maintaining the project and constant development and refinement are so high that there can be no question of any income in my pocket yet. Rather, I just know that such a site should be on the Internet and as long as finances allow, I am ready to develop and support it.

– Do you know about the German SMOKEDEX project? What do you think about it and do you think it can compete with your service?

– Yes, I found it on the Internet, it’s very good that Germany has a similar project, and in principle, similar sites could appear only in Russia and Germany. We can compete only for an international audience, outside of our countries, and here, after all, htrevews has the advantage, because now the whole world is interested only in Russian hookah tobacco, and they are smoked most in Russia, respectively, and there are more reviews here. By the way, what is interesting is that there are also the most reviews on Russian tobacco on Smokedex, but from the Germans.

But in general, in the format of “these are my competitors”, I certainly don’t think we do similar things, but in our own countries, we are rather colleagues.

– What do you think about the project to create mixes Hookah Mixer? Have you ever thought about creating a similar functionality with mixes or a hookahmixercollaboration?

– Cool idea, decent implementation. Many brands have tried to do this, but it turned out to be an independent project. It’s nice to see that the author is able to work with tobacco and hookah brands. I think that the next step is for the author to get to the DNA of flavors, find an explanation for why certain tastes go well together and generate mixes based on this. Similar functionality is not planned, and I think collaboration will happen one day.

– What is the current team of the Htreviews project at the moment (who supports and develops it)? Are there any special plans for future development and if so, tell us what.

– There is no team, I am doing the project alone. But there is a third-party developer, and they have a lot of people. In the very near future, a new custom engine will be ready, which works a hundred times faster and is already sharpened specifically for the functionality of the site. We will also roll out a new design and all sorts of nice little things that will allow you to interact with the project more pleasantly.

There are always a lot of ideas, but the idea is worth nothing at all. Any high-quality development is always time and money. Good programmers are always busy for a year ahead, and it’s better not to work with bad ones. Many different proposals come to the email and many want to implement, but those who have encountered development know that it can take a very long time from idea to implementation.

– What do you think about the search project Where2Smoke.net ? (in 2021, Hookah Battle and Where2smoke agreed to merge into one company).

– I had a section on the site — A Rating of hookah bars. As a result, I removed it, because I was simply unable to keep the information up to date. The fullness of the site that you have now … it’s scary to think how many hundreds of hours it took. It looks pretty.

– Have you watched any recent Hookah Battle shows (Mix and Story / Rap Hookah Battle / Shop and Lounge Award, etc.)? What do you think about our shows? Would you agree to become a member of the jury in one of these shows, forexample Mix And Story – people from different countries come up with a mix describing the region where they live. The judges evaluate the video presentation and the mix. 

– I can’t imagine how you organize such things, and the creativity of the users is generally beyond the limit. Cool and fresh! I will be happy to be on the jury.

– Are you familiar with the brand rating compiled by Oleg KnyagininWhat do you think about this rating and whether it is combined with the data of your resource?

– I am not familiar with the rating, because I have completely stopped going to the VK (social network), but I remember Oleg was shown on TV many years ago in the news in a reportageabout hookahs. The analytics are interesting, I think almost all top brands are clear to everyone. There is also a rating of brands on htreview, but the rating of flavors is more important, both general and within the same brand. Because knowing that such and such a brand is very cool does not give much, because you can take an unsuccessful taste. What I would really like to see is the market share of various brands, and I think in 2022 such statistics will already appear thanks to an Честному знаку (Honest Sign). Moreover, it is very accurate and by wholesale/retail segments.

– Have you ever thought about developing your website for an audience of foreign countries with other language versions and local tobacco brands (English / German, etc.)?

– Yes, the English version is on the way. But a lot of foreigners come to the Russian version due to the interest in Russian tobacco in the world. Interestingly, there is still interest in the “smokiness” of tobacco in the reviews of foreigners, although no one writes about it in Russia anymore.

As for the addition of foreign brands, this will also happen, because there are a lot of interesting things there. For example, in Germany there is tobacco from the popular rapper Capital Bra, but what is even more interesting, the rapper is originally from Russia. Another interesting country is the USA, in this cradle of marketing, collaborations with rappers were done ten years ago, and in the wake of the popularity of Russian tobacco, they will also come up with something there. Maybe even Starbazz will change the design of the jar, for the first time since 2006.

What do you think about our project to place vacancies only for the hookah industry — Hookah Head Hunt? How much, in your opinion, does the market need such a resource?- Hookah Head Hunt

The idea is implemented, the project is working, and then the market itself will decide whether such a resource is needed or not, you never know what will shoot. Sometimes you have to wait five years. The industry is developing in such an unusual and interesting way, companies are growing and new very narrow-profile specialties will soon appear, which will clearly have a place on your resource. By the way, I noticed that a hookah bar in India requires a hookah master, but it is definitely a girl, it is very interesting why.

– Have you ever thought about the functionality of integrating your service into reviews/ ratings of third-party hookah shops? An example from the private market of medicine – the sites of private clinics sometimes use third-party independent services, such as Prodoctorov, instead of their reviews and ratings about doctors. Thus, the user is sure that the rating / review is not screwed up by the seller himself.

Do you think it would be possible to implement such a system in the hookah industry, where online stores use not their own functionality, but third-party functionality for reviews/ratings of their products? Does such an idea make sense?

– This functionality has already been implemented for the Алибаба (Alibaba) stores website. Tobacco products display a rating with htreviews. To do this, the unique id of each flavor htreviewsid is used. The difficulty lies in integration. If on Alibaba I can poke around in the engine of the store site and adjust the functionality as I want, then it is more difficult with other sites – different cms, different customization options. The universal API from htreviews is almost ready. And then either a third-party store should really want to implement interaction with the api on its website, finalize its website itself and get rating plates and reviews on its website, or it needs to be done for it, which not everyone will be allowed to do. Well, in any case, a third-party store will have to prescribe the htreviewsid for each tobacco on the website or in its accounting system, because it is simply impossible to synchronize by name.

Sooner or later, of course, everyone will come to this and we will synchronize with everyone, because it is no longer possible to collect a new similar database of reviews simply on your website-store. By the way, many stores think that the site is not needed at all, like people come to them through social networks anyway, but when you visit their site, in principle, everything becomes clear, indeed, such sites are probably not needed.

– Thank you, Alexey, for an interesting and informative interview! We hope to see you in the judges of Hookah Battle and wish good luck to your project!

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