Cigar Nexus

Is CigarNexus.com dead?. Depends on your point of view...

JC, Jonni, and I invested a tremendous amount of personal effort and
energy into the creation of this site. It all began from our personal
passion for cigars and our mutual friendship for one another. We knew
that three gringos from the East Coast could publish a better cigar
resource than anyone else online if we tried. For over three years in our
spare time, we worked to create CNX as you see it today. Each of us
had our roles: JC was the producer and idea man, Jonni the web
designer and artist, and I was the primary cigar guy author, but we all
shared each others tasks and helped where we could.

We compiled some tremendous resources here, many of which remain
even today as the best online or in print anywhere. For two years, we
updated the site every week with something new. This site rapidly
became one of the most popular cigar sites online, tens of thousands of
readers every month, many of those weekly. It really was an amazing
thing considering that we never advertised or promoted the site. We built
it and they came. Moreover, they kept coming back for more and more.

Nearly weekly someone offered us cash to advertise on our site, to
partner with them, or some other sort of money making deal. It was
amazing considering how many Internet Sites were struggling to get
sponsors, while here we sat with people actually soliciting us. At that
point, we could have made the site into a reasonable commercial
success, but it really wasn't what any of us wanted, plus we knew it
would taint the "non-commercial" pedigree of the site. So we refused all
offers, and just kept growing the site as we could. In turn, the number of
our readers continued to increase monthly even while all the other cigar
mediums were seeing a decrease in readership. Our sincere,
straightforward style of editorial and worthwhile cigar information really
seemed to appeal to our fellow cigar smokers.

Like anything that is successful, there were burdens. One was email,
we were receiving more than 300 emails a day from readers and no
matter how hard we tried, we couldn't answer them all. Since all three of
us had very demanding careers, all of the work had to be done in our
spare time of which there was very little to begin with. This regretfully
was at the expense of our wives and children. Moreover, all of us began
to recognize that our "hobby" was beginning to actually impact our
careers... JC and Jonni are in advertising business and I am a control
systems integrator. We made a commitment to continue doing the site for
as long as we could, but said between ourselves that any of us could
and should bail when it became too much of a burden.

Well that time came last year. My personal frustration was at an all time
high. I had just completed a grueling Y2K contract that had me working
80+ hours a week for nearly nine months straight - four of them not at
home except two days for Thanksgiving and three days for Christmas.
Jonni and JC were scraping like dogs themselves fighting for a "do or
die" contract with General Motors and Ford Motor Company. Needless to
say, none of us had the energy to do the site well, so we made the
conscious decision to just cut back. Devote our energies to our work and
families and see where that took us.

For JC and Jonni, it has them on the cusp of beginning their most exciting
and financially rewarding advertising projects ever with Ford. I am
eagerly anticipating my first ride on their private jet on our way to Vegas
drinking bourbon and smoking Saint Luis Rey Churchills the entire way.
For me, it took me awhile to clear my head of the cobwebs of the
previous year's work. I almost took an 18-month contract to supervise
the control and electrical system construction of a petroleum plant in
China, but at the last moment, I took a chance and a job to work for Lew
Rothman at JRCigars.com. This is a new career path for me, as I never
had intended to end up in the cigar business in any capacity, but I must
admit I am glad I did. Although I am still very wet behind the ears, I can
see the potential to do many exciting things.

So where does this leave CigarNexus.com? For now, "as is." Although
we had the opportunity to sell the entire thing lock, stock, and barrel we
did not. Rather we decided to leave its resources online for the benefit of
others to read. Will it be updated? In the near future, no. Ever? Who
knows... as long as it remains online there is always the chance that one
of us may begin to add to it again.

Our sincere thanks and warmest wishes,

Steve Saka
Executive Editor
Cigarnexus.com

This article was reproduced from the excellent Cigar Nexus site. We are
sad to hear they have called it a day, but are nevertheless grateful for
their tremendous dedication and committment to fine cigars, industry
news and invaluable information on how to spot fake Cuban cigars.
Maybe some day..........
Real Cuban Cigars