VapeNation, Wanted Liquid, new shops under the Ecigg chain's flag and then some business in hunting and fishing on top of that. Niclas Lundin's various businesses are so cross-fertilised that it's a wonder he even knows what's what anymore, and to what extent he owns them. But then the Enköping profile is clearly a man with many balls in the air, irons in the fire, strings on the lyre and all sorts of other metaphors for being busy.
Niclas Lundin picks up at Enköping train station in a Dodge Challenger that's impossible to miss. Cars and motorsport in general, and drag racing in particular, is one of his main interests. Hunting and fishing is another, and then IT and of course vejp. The trip becomes a deliberate detour and Niclas points out this and that in the small town. He seems to know every building and project going on here and you quickly get the impression that Niclas is a profile, and someone most people in Enköping know, who is seen and found a little everywhere.
Hunting, fishing and cars are for other magazines to write about - we focus on the vejpand instead, and it entered Niclas Lundin's life in 2013.
- My then partner and good friend Mats Larsson decided to quit smoking. And he's a bit like me, a person who researches everything to the hilt to find out as much information as possible. And e-cigarettes... "Hmm, interesting stuff!" So he started ordering stuff home," Niclas tells me when we sit down in the VapeNation office.
The shop is located just outside the city centre, with the E18 and national road 55 right next door. One carries to Stockholm and the other to Uppsala.
Entrepreneurs who quit smoking
At that time, in 2013, you had to order machines home to Sweden if you wanted one, and in Mats' case it was from the USA. He and Niclas have been together since they were teenagers and had some other business together even then - including smoking units for meat and fish - so now we had to include a little about those interests anyway. They have had feet in the IT and construction worlds, and a bit of everything else. Niclas has also been a manager at Manpower for a few years and built up businesses there.
- I guess I just tried a few different roles and ideas before this came up.
"I was provoked shitless"
He tried Vejp for the first time at Mats' house. His partner had called ahead to warn him that he was quitting smoking, so Niclas wouldn't tempt him too much by tearing open his own packet.
- It took 20 minutes, and then he was really provoked because I didn't get up and go out for a smoke. I was never so stuck that I couldn't manage without it. But he realised that Helene (my partner) had told on me. But then he said: yes, but then you'll get vejpa instead anyway!
Wanted to make better flavours
And so it was. True to their entrepreneurial instincts, it wasn't long before the talk turned to whether it was possible to make a business out of e-cigarettes. In 2013, it was still pretty damn unusual and a few months after that first vejp night, they decided that the juices were the thing with the most potential for improvement.
- In those days, if it said that something should taste like "pear", it was ONE pear essence. Today, there are maybe twelve different essences to get the right flavour and there is sweetness, and acidity and maybe dragon fruit and this and that to build up the right flavour layer by layer. So, nothing tasted what it said it would then.
"Play money" was the start-up
Mats was the driving force behind the start-up and had done his research thoroughly, including on liquids and flavours.
- He had looked up where in the world you buy essences. In Europe, Italy, England, Holland, USA, states in the USA, how it goes with shipping agreements and more. He is extremely thorough, I love him for that. And then he says: "OK, I'm sure we can do this at least three times as well. If we spend 90,000 on this. Then we'll get a good series of juices"
A little ahead
90 thousand and more was already in the company as "play money" as Niclas calls it. And luckily so, because the first order was for at least 80 more, says Niclas. But then it was off to the races.
- We felt that, as they say, the train is on the platform - so just hop on. Now the train was even on its way IN to the platform. We realised that we were half a step or a whole step ahead of something that could be big, so it's clear that we should go.
Juice making quickly turned into online sales and delivery to the few shops that existed at the time. One of the biggest customers was VapeNation, which was then located at Kungsholms kyrkoplan in Stockholm.
The juicemakers bought into the store
VapeNation was then run by Fritte Vanecek, which has appeared in Vejpkollen before. To make a long story a little more readable, the collaboration between Wanted Liquid and VapeNation eventually became a merger. Fritte Vanecek simply asked if Niclas and Mats wanted to buy in - and so it was. Vanecek had only been running the shop as a side business to his doorman business and as an individual company. Then VapeNation AB was formed, and as that A and B suggests, with a much clearer entrepreneurial structure - signed Niclas Lundin.
A vejpshop model larger
Apart from everything else in his CV, Niclas is also a great storyteller. He tells it in detail, and he does it well. Even the part about how the store in Enköping came about has a beginning, an end and a long arc that moves it forward. He shows us around the different parts of VapeNation's headquarters and shop at the strategic traffic centre. It is both the larger model than any previous store in Vejpkollen's series on Swedish vejpshoppar, and has an interior that exudes sophistication.
It turns out that they expanded in stages and started on a fraction of the area that is included now. Then with only the office part and warehouse, and they would certainly never have a shop part as both Niclas and Mats had struggled with such before
- "We're going to have an outlet store," Maths argued one day, and I was like: "no, no, time out. You've run shops in the city, I've run shops in the city". He had an antiquarian bookshop and I had an IT shop. "We said no more bloody shops". But ... that's how it turned out anyway," laughs Niclas.
In a further step, the outlet area later became a large retail space with sofa groups and other things, as it looks now. Previously, they had shop neighbours who traded in home party stuff, but when they were training, VapeNation took over that area and knocked out the walls.
Alone again and new partners
At the same time, Fritte Vanecek was running the store in Stockholm - but after a while he wanted to move on and was bought out of the company.
- It was probably about different ambitions mostly. He ran the Stockholm shop well, but probably wanted more to travel around the world and make purchases and such, and asked to be bought out. It was no big deal and we parted as friends.
This was around 2016, 2017 - Niclas can't remember exactly.
- Then quite soon after that, I bought Matte out too. After a couple of years he thought it was time to do something else. But like I said - we've been together since we were 18 and we're 57 now and we've always said that whatever we do, nothing should come between our friendship, and it hasn't. He still comes here and sits here sometimes after work. He's found a great role that suits him perfectly. He's a sales manager at XL Bygg now.
Today, Niclas shares the office, shop and lab with Eric Gordon. He is responsible for the lion's share of the juicing and owns 10 per cent of the company.
- And I have a colleague, silent partner - Thomas - who owns 30 per cent too.
Do not make your own nicotine products
So Niclas currently owns 60 per cent of the company, but it's when you start to understand how the different parts are connected that things get tricky for Vejpkollen's envoy. It's not as simple as Wanted Liquid and VapeNation just being two legs with the same body.
- No, it's not quite like that. That bit, the production and stuff, is in a company called Ecoroxx and Wanted Liquid is a subsidiary, and so are Smokeeye and Grillman - but there we are into barbecue and smoke and those bits again. But since six months ago, Wanted Liquid is no longer mine. It belongs to the E-cig chain and Salim Chabo. We've done a deal on it and he has the strength in a completely different way - it's terribly costly to make these 10ml juices. To some extent we are now subcontracting to them. But it's mostly "Koyuki", Linus Gustafsson, who makes them now. I do not make any nicotine products here. But it was a good deal, good for everyone.
New stores in Västerås and Karlstad
To confuse things further, we'll also throw in the new stores in Karlstad and Västerås that Vejpkollen recently wrote about. They used to be Cigge stores, but that company went bankrupt in January. Now they are to be reopened under the E-cig chain, but in a collaboration with Niclas Lundin and Eric Gordon. But there the company is called Egor AB, and here somewhere Vejpkollen's emissary throws in the towel in his attempts to get all the threads together. Niclas himself is barely getting it anymore.
- It's going to be a bit difficult now, haha. What was it I owned in this company again, Niclas laughs. But of course it's just a joke.
20 years in business
Regardless of all the companies here and there, newly opened shops, barbecues and smokes, VapeNation, shop and head office in Enköping, will remain. Niclas Lundin seems to be at one with this town, and after 20-odd years in the business, it will probably take a lot before he abandons it either. But who knows what business opportunities are waiting around the next corner.
Five quick ones for Niclas Lundin, VapeNation and much more...
Who is your typical customer?
- Middle-aged lady, girl, I would say.
How big is vape in Enköping?
- Quite big actually. We are still here and we have other places in town that also sell.
What is your own favourite flavour?
- ZEN Stargazer. It is a midorimelon
What would you never put in the tank yourself?
- Tobacco
What made you start vejpa?
- Friend and colleague who introduced early
