A recent University of South Carolina alumnus is making good use of his marketing and management degrees by starting his own cigar company based out of Columbia, South Carolina.
Justin Shelton officially started his business, Atlas Cigars, just a week before he graduated this past May. I spoke to Shelton in a phone interview wherein he shared his favorite hobby of smoking cigars.
“I’ve always had a big passion in cigars; I started right when I turned 18 and just ended up getting really into it,” Shelton said. “What goes into producing them, and the way that the tobacco is blended and, you know, all the things that go into making cigars.”
What started out as a small venture selling cigars to his fellow Beta Theta Pi fraternity brothers, has now turned into a business spanning the country. Shelton said that his company now has representatives at nearly 25 colleges from South Carolina to Arizona.
Shelton’s business isn’t just targeting college students. They’re now trying to incorporate many ages (all 18 and older, of course) and give people an opportunity to begin the hobby of cigar smoking.
“Now we’re actually expanding into a subscription model where we’re going out to young professionals and people that maybe aren’t into cigars as a hobby yet,” Shelton said. “A lot of people are intimidated by it. A lot of people think you have to be old and rich, basically, to smoke cigars, and they think there’s a lot of upfront cost, so we want to educate people and provide them with the opportunity to get into the hobby relatively inexpensively.”
Shelton gave some advice to those just starting out in the cigar world.
“All you really need to know is how to cut the ends of them, light it up and don’t inhale,” Shelton said.
Shelton also talked about the flood and its effects on Columbia. He told me that while his cigar business wasn’t directly affected, his day job and his home were both damaged in the flood.
This, along with having roots in the Columbia area, has inspired Shelton to give back.
“This is where we started; this is where we grew our business. Why don’t we give back to our community?” Sheltonsaid. “So I looked for a local organization to help ... I found Harvest Hope.”
Shelton decided donating a part of his profits from Atlas Cigars was the best way to get involved in the relief efforts.
“We’re going to give 10 percent of our proceeds for two weeks, and we might even extend it longer if we feel like there’s a demand there,” Shelton said. “We’re also offering some deals to incentivize people ... for the next couple of weeks we’re going to give people the opportunity to order boxes of cigars straight from us, and [we’ll] send that to them. We’ll also deliver straight to people’s tailgates. I’ll even come do it myself and chat with them for a while.”