Pax Labs, the folks responsible for the Ploom and the Juul and the Pax loose-leaf vaporizer, have today announced some leadership changes.
Former Deezer CEO Tyler Goldman will be taking over as CEO, and Pax co-founder James Monsees will continue on at the company as Chief Product Officer.
Pax Labs launched in 2007 with the original Pax vaporizer. The company quickly picked up steam and began selling a second-gen Pax (Pax 2) and an e-cigarette called the Juul.
Juul uses a nicotine-salt solution in the vaporization process that people seem to like. The company says it’s receiving 300 percent more demand for the product than expectations. (That isn’t exactly a real number, since we don’t know original expectations, but it does show some level of popularity).
Before taking over as Deezer CEO of North America, Goldman was CEO of Buzzmedia and a founding member of Movielink, a movie streaming service that sold to Blockbuster before… well, you know.
Goldman says that Juul will overtake Pax loose-leaf products either next year or the following year. Part of the reason for this is that Juul is a razor-model business, meaning that it continues to make money off of refills after selling the vaporizer itself.
But there are other players in the business, namely big tobacco companies, who are looking to get ahead of the shift from traditional tobacco to e-cig alternatives.
“There were a lot of phones out there before the iPhone came along,” said Goldman. “The big tobacco companies are spending significantly more on marketing and getting a product to market, with a bigger distribution network. But consumers are smart and sophisticated and know, even at a higher price point, that Juul is a superior product.”
Pax’s most recent funding went down last summer, with the company pulling in $46.7 million in Series C funding led by Sand Hill Angels.
You can check out the Pax website here.
