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