Aug 15, 2022
This Black entrepreneur is on to something.
After he says he made over $1 million in under nine hours, music artist and entrepreneur Blakk Tatted knew he had something special with his company Blakk Smoke.
Unlike other competitors in the market, the brand offers products with real fruit, no-nicotine, and no-tobacco substances. Tatted conjured the idea because he wanted to introduce a product to Hookah lovers that didn’t include a harmful substance.
“Hookah is my passion, but anybody that’s an avid hookah smoker knows the feeling that it gives you afterward. It’s just not worth it,” Tatted told AfroTech exclusively. “Being an advocate for hookah and telling people you should try, you would love it, I felt guilty because I know it’s not the best thing to introduce to people. Many people are influenced by me, so if I’m going to do something, I will hope I’m setting the best example possible. That’s when I wanted to create a healthier alternative for people.”
Before launching his own company, Tatted was a natural-born hustler and was well known in his community, helming the monicker ”New Orleans Dip King.” He further leveraged his platform and spotlighted others’ products on Instagram. By doing this, he created revenue for many other businesses just by operating from a place of passion.
In 2019, he had the epiphany to turn his passion into dollars. Two years later, Blakk Smoke officially took off.
“The entrepreneurial side of hookah found me instead of me searching for it,” he told AfroTech. “Since it’s something that I do love to do, I was just a go-to person since everybody that followed me knew I loved Hookah. I used to have lives with thousands of people. They were trying to figure out where I get this hookah flavor from and what hookah flavor am I smoking.”
He added: “I used to be going live with random people that I didn’t know because they used to want me to show them how to put their hookah together. So, I was already just selling products that just weren’t mine. I was making all these other companies so much money, telling people what flavor to smoke today, what flavor to try, what’s the best, and what flavor to smoke next week when I go live. So, when that light bulb clicked, I was making all this money for all these other companies by doing something that I love. I realized that all the money that I’m making for these other companies, I could strictly be doing the same thing for myself.”
Blakk Tatted stayed true to his word, launching an array of products including hookah, hookah pens, hookah accessories, and 15 bold natural fruit flavors, including exotic grape, orange mint, strawberry lemonade, mango, and peach, among others. The business seems to be a hit as it earned over $10 million in just a year, Tatted told AfroTech.
As for his success, Blakk Tatted did not realize a multi-million dollar business would be in the equation. He is the first entrepreneur in his family and he learned the ropes from his friends who had successful businesses and had become multi-millionaires. Tatted had crippling self-doubt but ultimately surpassed his expectations to achieve his dreams. What’s more, Tatted accomplished it all without any loans and he sustains the business through his funding.
“I did not start with any loans or funding. I did everything out of pocket. I made sacrifices and did it. So, from that moment, the money was coming in from everything that I created. So, I just used the money that I make as profit and believe that I’m gonna make it back again,” Tatted said. “I never reached out to a banker or anyone for funding because I don’t want to get caught up with owing anybody anything, or someone to come to take 10, 20, or 50 percent of my business. I built this on my own.”
As Tatted looks ahead, he plans to open various hooking lounges and for Blakk Smoke to become a franchise.
“I want Blakk Smoke to be a household name. I don’t want to be just local. I want you to be able to say Blakk Smoke any place, anywhere, and anytime to anybody. Even if they have not tried it, they know what it is,” Tatted said. “I really want to be the blueprint to this new introduction of hookah and redefine it. I want to create a franchise and have Blakk Smoke hookah lounges all over the world.”
Samantha Dorisca is a Houston-based journalist and photographer whose mission is to impact communities through the gift of storytelling using the written word or visual media. She completed her B.A at The University of Texas at Austin and is pursuing a M.A at The University of Memphis. Her work can be found on platforms such as Houstonia Magazine, Girls’ Life Magazine, and Blacque Magazine. Samantha mainly reports on tech, trends, and entrepreneurship.
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