Staff Photo by Dan Henry/Chattanooga Times Free Press
Angie Cunnyngham store manager, weighs out tobacco while demonstrating how their create your own cigarette process works while at Firebrand Smokes of of Hixson Pike on Monday.* Name: Firebrand Smokes
* Location: 4816 Hixson Pike, across from Burger King
* Products/services: Firebrand Smokes offers smokers the opportunity to roll a carton's worth of cigarettes for much less than the cost of purchasing them fresh at the store. Smokers choose a blend of tobacco similar to what they smoke, purchase cigarette tubes and combine the two into a large rolling machine, which creates "runs" of cigarettes roughly equal to the number in a traditional carton. Owner Steven Youd said the tobacco he sells contains none of the additives present in traditional cigarettes, including recently mandated fire-preventing chemicals.
* Age: Opened on Nov. 4
* Startup investment: $200,000
* Annual sales: Expected to be around $1.2 million per year.
* Target market: Smokers who aren't going to quit and prefer paying less for additive-free tobacco.
* Biggest hurdle: Youd has not owned a business before, and getting the required permits and paperwork took more time than he expected.
* Biggest reward: Customers tell him they cough less and feel better, which makes him feel good, he said.
* Challenges in the future: As a first-time business owner, Youd is unsure how effective his marketing campaign will be, and getting the word out is necessary for success.
* Lesson learned: "It's never as easy as you think it's going to be" to open a business, Youd said. Each unexpected expense adds up, as does each unexpected delay. He recommends that would-be business owners budget twice the amount they expect to spend to open a business.
* Five-year goal: He plans to open several more stores in East Tennessee.