ComeBackLucy1978 wrote:
Yeah you have no clue what you're talking about obviously.... And highly doubt they source leaf from nugroz as well. If you actually did your research you would see that probably 100 different members have left multiple rave reviews here for TFH including myself. Not to mention, the knowledge that they have and share with the rest of the community pretty much speaks for itself. Also in doing your own reading, you would have found and most likely understood exactly why they are private member vendor only....
You're entitled to your opinion..... But not entitled to spew it like it's fact!
Yikes. Not enough facepalms in the world for this response
And I actually believe it was proven that some of their leaf was purchased from NuGroz :D
Hey Lucy, I'm Chris with TFH. I understand the skepticism and I applaud you for asking the questions... they are all very fair critiques! Skepticism is actually a very healthy thing to have as a consumer, especially in the world of kratom. I encourage everyone to have some when you are sending your hard-earned cash to a vendor. I can tell you in my early years as a consumer I probably threw tons of cash down a blackhole of shill posts and "Maeng Da" propaganda. :roll: Anyway, I genuinely do owe you some thanks, your original post was the inspiration for us holding these open-order events for the Double M crowd. Also, by you revisiting this post I'm now inspired to clear the air on some things that I've heard people rightfully question. Cheers mate!
A wise man says "Don't read the comments" and on other platforms, I really dont. However, I do on this forum so I'd like to clear up this "Nugroz rumor". I dont participate in the Mewe community myself, but I have plenty of friends and peer vendors who do and thankfully they keep me in the loop with an occasional screenshot when they feel we are misrepresented. This Nugroz rumor was started by a single comment from someone (a vendor) on Mewe who said, "I heard he gets his leaf from Nugroz"... that's it. Since then it has been repeated by the same small handful of people and that is about as far as it goes.
I have
never partnered with, bought, or accepted free leaf from Nugroz.... not even a sample. Nothing against Nugroz, I am sure he is a great guy, but when I started my sourcing project I skipped right over where everyone else already was.... that was kind of the whole point of my journey. Outside of buying a single 250g bag of "Green Nugroz" from a peer vendor in 2018 (which I probably still have somewhere), I've never knowingly owned any Nugroz products (I say knowingly because I'm sure at some point I have bought from a peer that was un-labeled Nugroz). At any rate, it's normally pretty hard to prove something you didnt do, but in this case, I actually can. Anyone who visits my youtube page can see where the majority of our products come from. I can post that stuff publically because unless you frequently go hiking through middle Borneo - you will never find them (they dont have any kind of online presence what-so-ever).
The other thing I want to clear up is the whole "mystery" behind our service model. Because we have decided to limit our customer base, we have been called everything from "elitists" to "hype-masters". Again, I dont blame people for the sentiments, all you can do is draw the opinions on the information you have. I think most of the people who might have that sentiment dont spend much time on here, so it makes a lot of sense you might view us that way. We haven't always been super explanatory about what we are doing - if you are a stranger emailing us you might get the "I'm sorry we are not accepting new customers" response without much more of an explanation. I'm going to re-think how we respond to purchase requests but in the interim, I'll share some more context around what it is we are doing.
First I will address the mystery on "if we are a private vendor why do we hold special events for the Double M community? I'll address the "private" part further below, but the "Why Double M" part is simple.... this is my "online home". This is by far my favorite kratom community (or any community for that matter) and its also my favorite website. The people here are a breath of fresh air, and the mods do a good job of keeping a positive culture despite the healthy growth. I'm an avid fan of the leaf - I want to share my passion with knowledgable people who add to it. Not to knock any other kratom communities - this is just the place I like. Over the years I have tried them all, this is my summary of each.
Reddit - Lots of old-school knowledge mixed with a whole lot of new people. By far the most active and there are some incredible folks there - but censorship completely kills it for me. R/kratom should be revered by every kratom-head, we owe so much to that sub.
ILK - Incredibly nice people - I love the mods over there too. However, I feel weird about the "approved vendors" thing. The rules feel a little censorshipy.
Discord - I used to spend time on various channels as a consumer (not representing TFH). It's okay depending on the channel, but I much prefer the organization of a forum. I feel like I miss everything with it being in chat format, it's hard to navigate. I haven't really been on much since the Double M discord went down.
Mewe - I tried checking it out at the urging of many of my customers, it seems a lot of my customers spend time there. Maybe it was just bad first impressions, but I didnt get a very friendly vibe... maybe it was just the channels I saw. Im sure there is good stuff there just based on how many people tell me positive things about it, but again, the chat format just doesn't do it for me.
Mitra Dialogues / KC - I was on here under a variety of screen names back in the day and abandoned it when Reddit gained steam. It seems like everyone else did too! It was okay back in the day when nobody had a clue what was going on with kratom.... I prefer a more active and informed crowd.
Facebook - I dont do social media in my private life, I dont see the appeal for my professional life either. Ive joined 2 groups total and I think the only time I have been in the group was the day they accepted me. A whole lot of drama there... no thanks. Maybe its just the groups I visited, I certainly shouldn't assume they are all that way. Anyways, there is a chat group of seasoned veterans that I am a part of... its actually an amazing group. Unfortunately, that is the only thing in Facebook that I leverage.
Thankfully there are a variety of kratom communities available now (it wasn't always that way). This one just has the "crowd" I would like to serve... it's really that simple. As if I needed more reasons, the people here also contribute more to our research than anywhere else we source volunteers. Again - who would be better to share with?
"Hype Exposure"
Regarding the theory that we are "private" as an attempt to gain exposure through "hype marketing". Again I understand - without little context, it seems like a possible assumption. With that in mind, Ill provide a little context. After knowing these facts, I think it will be clear to see that these are not the actions of a company trying to "gain exposure". (I know the folks from the places mentioned below visit these pages. I expect to get called out accordingly if any of them are not truthful in any way):
- I was very kindly invited to post my "behind the scenes of the kratom industry" thread as a sticky on the R/Kratom Wiki sidebar. As incredibly generous of an offer it was (too which I am humbly grateful) - I haven't done it. This is a community of over 96,000 kratom consumers.... in other words - a marketers / hype-masters dream. I told them I would post it out of my passion to educate, and someday if they still want me to I might, but embarrassingly I haven't followed through with that commitment. If exposure were my goal - that thread would have been posted in r/kratom since last year.
- I've been encouraged to spend time another popular kratom community and was told they have a spot for me as an "approved vendor" if I ever decided to. It's an incredibly kind gesture that I haven't accepted - not because it's not a great community... there are awesome folks there. It's just I dont have the bandwidth to do so. Again, if exposure is the goal, I'm pretty sure you're not supposed to skip out on offers like that.
- Discord - As I mentioned above I used to spend time here and there on discord. My screenname gave no indication that I was a vendor - you would only know I was a vendor if you hang around this forum (I had TFH at the end of my name). Also, I think every single channel moderator asked if I would like to be given "approved vendor status" which I declined to avoid the un-solicited PM's (again a dumb move if you want exposure). The most I would do on discord relating to my company is a handfull of times (probably 3-4 total) I had made a post requesting product testers. Ever since I have been able to get enough testers from this community, I have never made a TFH-related post there again (outside maybe answering questions or just saying high MM discord channel).
Mewe - several of my customers have been pushing for me to join Mewe for a long time.. some have even offered to set up a TFH channel for us. I think I have been on Mewe 1 time this year, and that was only to ask around for who carries crushed leaf (we were needing samples for some testing we were doing).
- Public reviews, we dont ask for them. Just to be clear... I think I am probably the ONLY vendor who sends out thousands of test packages a year and requests that the feedback be submitted via a
PRIVATE online survey (as in nobody sees it but Angie and I). What kind of hype genius does that? Those test expenses really add up big time, if I am doing it for "exposure" I would be requiring public reviews on every single one of them! (which is a completely common thing... vendors send out samples in exchange for public reviews all the time). In full transparency, I think I have asked for public reviews a total of 4 times (1 time publically on my vendor thread, and 3 times privately). All 4 times were for the interest of sharing batch insights specifically for this community because we were in an open-order event and there were questions being asked about batches with no reviews. Instead of me providing a review of my own product, I asked if consumers who had already tried it could give their opinion. That's it... 4 times. Conversely, at times I have told people NOT to leave reviews as to not throw it in the face of the community at a time where we were not open to the public. Of all of the misconceptions, this one honestly boggles my mind.
So let's think more about "exposure". Isnt the key to gaining exposure marketing and advertising? Exposure 101 is to get your name out there, let them know who you are! We are not doing any public promotion on Facebook, Mewe, Discord, Google, ILK, MD... need I go on? We are here on Double M because we like it... and that's it. As great as Double M is, the community consists of the tiniest slice of the kratom consuming population, not exactly the grand central station of exposure. Not to mention, they are some of the most knowledgable and expect higher standards than just about any community that I know - it sounds like a bad place to start if you are just "hype".
Finally, let's look at things from a financial point of view. I hear people make comments about us hyping our kratom so that we can charge insane prices for "premium" kratom. After all, the rules of a free market are supply and demand,.... lots of hype = lots of $$$? Well, we dont... and we never will. I'm fairly certain that we could raise our prices to align with some of the "premium" brands and still have a healthy pool of customers. We are even offered nice sums of money sometimes in exchange for membership, and we have NEVER accepted. To be clear, I don't believe there is anything wrong with that business model - I am a believer that if there is a market for it, there should be somebody to supply it.... it just doesn't align with our stance. Very early in my kratom career, I was hooked by one of those vendors, I dont care to revisit that, even if I am on the other side of it.
So the question begs then... why are we "private"? Well for one I can assure you it has nothing to do with "exclusivity" or being too cool for school. It pains me every time we turn away a customer, especially if they are a member of this community. The reason is actually quite simple... we are growing the business at the pace we can keep up with while sticking to our core mission - thats all folks.
The very reason I started my kratom sourcing journey was I was fed up with the inconsistent quality that most vendors provide. I used to unaffectionately call the ordering process, "kratom roulette"... trying to find quality products consistently seemed like a greater challenge than taming a 10-foot tall unicorn. I wanted to learn why that was and see if it could be changed. My kratom journey didnt start with a plan to start a business, I actually had been blessed beyond my abilities with a successful career that I never thought I would leave. Thankfully, my wife who is wise beyond her years pushed me out of a "sure thing" career to follow my passion for kratom. Vendors come and go in the kratom industry like the seasons, I know that if we were going to have long-term success, that we must have a quality product and can never waiver from it.
I can't count how many times I have seen these high-quality and popular vendors "grow up" to become JAV (just another vendor.... many of you know what I am talking about). As it turns out, sourcing great products at a high volume can be more challenging than one would think. Outside of the giant kratom companies that have already cornered the market, the success rate of kratom vendors is down-right discouraging and extremely difficult to turn profits in the first year or two of building your business. Thankfully, we dont have the financial pressures that 99% of small businesses experience, so it gives us a lot of freedom to do things the way I would want them done as a fanatic of the leaf myself. With that, we are growing our business to at the pace we are comfortable in maintaining our standard.... that is really all there is to it.
Dont get me wrong, we are not some saints of kratom - this absolutely is a business and our long-term plan for a livable income. But it's also so much more to us, I really do feel like this is becoming my life's work. We have grown our capacity quite a bit since our early days, and we will continue to slowly grow.
The #1 question we get all of the time is "how do I become a member". We do occasionally take on new members, but the truth is we dont have a set way or process for doing so... a lot of it has just been the right words at the right time. However, we are brainstorming some ideas on how we could expand membership in a way, where everyone who is interested is included. Eventually, we would like to be open to whoever is interested, obviously starting with the members of this forum. However, our approach takes a lot of time and effort... . so it might just be a while. In the interim, we will continue to share with this community via our open-order events when we have the product and bandwidth to do so.
We are honored to be peers in this community of some of the best vendors in the business (Shaun, Ben, Nick, Dennette, Benni, Bunny, etc... you all know who to turn to!) And most importantly we are thankful and truly humbled to have the love and support of those who share our passion here! Thanks to everyone that has shown us love - it means the world to us!
There I go again... another book. Sorry for the lengthy reply
Smileytime & DG don’t have a stickied mega-thread for product announcements on a highly trafficked public forum....
Either you missed a couple of TFH events 
shout out mitraman and Texas H a B.
