Smokin' Sales

Walking through a gift and merchandising conference in Las Vegas while looking for a new business venture, Danielle and Matt Steingraber noticed a girl in the corner smoking something that looked like a pen. Curious, they asked what it was.

Within two weeks of discovering electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes) at the 2008 event, the Steingrabers, along with their business partner, Michael Murray, put in a $50,000 order for e-cigarettes from a Chinese manufacturer, and within two months they had set up three mall kiosks.

“We thought this was revolutionary because it revolutionized smoking,” Danielle Steingraber says. “Six years ago this was so nascent. Nobody knew what it was,” Matt Steingraber adds. They named their electronic cigarette (e-cigarette) company White Cloud Cigarettes.