Meet Stephen Gurka III of Elevated Stash

Today we’d like to introduce you to Stephen Gurka III.

Thanks for sharing your story with us Stephen. So, let’s start at the beginning, and we can move on from there.
Thanks for having me Voyage Dallas! I’m Stephen Gurka III, USMC veteran and co-founder of Elevated Stash, along with my partner Alex Aguilar. Alex and I actually came up with the idea for a smokers subscription box almost two years ago after I experienced several bad trips to the VA Hospital. As a Marine veteran, I suffer from PTSD, anxiety, and severe insomnia. I was seeing several doctors at the VA Hospital to help with the issues but quickly realized that the only options I had to help with the issues were pills on top of more addicting pills.

After personal research and also writing my thesis at Southern Methodist University on how Medical Marijuana affects Veterans with PTSD, I had come to find out that veterans fall under Federal law, not state law, and have barely any access to alternative medicine versus prescription pills, which are harmful, cause more issues, and are extremely addictive. As times are changing, Alex and I found out that slowly but surely, veterans are gaining access across the nation and being allowed to smoke as a form of medication, but the items and accessories needed were very pricey.

In June 2017, while I was attending summer school at SMU and Alex working his full-time career, we both decided to dive into launching our smokers subscription box business called Elevated Stash. Not only did we want to bring smoking products to people at a much more affordable price, but we also wanted to take away the hassle of having to go into these local “head shops” because not everyone wants to be a part of that environment. Each month we curate a new box of glass and tobacco smoking accessories, deliver them to your doorstep across the globe, all for a recurring price of $29.99 (cancel anytime).

What makes us different is that we also strive to give back. Since the beginning of launch, we decided to be this impact, and from every single sale, we donate a portion to charity to help veterans. Each month we partner with a new charity, in which we extensively research and reach out to. We also donate gift boxes, glass, and accessories to various NORML organizations and veterans events across the nation. We attend meetings and rallies, we have spoken with different groups all the way from DFW NORML to HCC, a veteran nonprofit, to help veterans grow their businesses.

This is the forefront of our company, and we believe that with time, social change, and bringing awareness to people, more veterans will have access to the right medicine for themselves.

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
Smooth road?! Ohhh of course not! Alex and I have tried to do most of the business on our own, so struggles were definitely a part of this journey. For our industry, one of the main struggles has been with advertising.

For adult products such as tobacco smoking accessories, we are legally NOT allowed to advertise through outlets such as Facebook/Instagram ads, TV ads, billboards, etc. We’ve had to figure out different solutions and try various ideas along the way.

For example, we spent almost two years building our Instagram and social media presence and seven weeks ago, out of nowhere, Instagram just decided to delete us overnight, our page and all of our content, with zero explanation.

This also happened with famous influencers on YouTube, which had a significant impact on our business and sales. Luckily enough, we were able to get our account back after weeks of appeals and such. Anyway, struggles are definitely apart of any business idea or venture, which is why not everyone does it!

Please tell us about Elevated Stash.
Elevated Stash is a smokers subscription box and unique online headshop. We create new boxes each month and deliver them straight to your doorstep. Our main box, “Pikes Peak,” costs $29.99 and features a brand new piece of glass each month with eight-ten other smoking accessories.

We ship every package discretely and also allow customers to cancel at any time! If you aren’t needing an entire box or just feeling risky, we also feature a gift box, a mystery box, and a very specific and unique online headshop with select items that aren’t seen often!

As a company, we are known for excellent customer service, quality, and useful products, and that we give back. We truly do care about creating change and helping veterans in any way possible. We say thank you to our customers because it is their money that is being donated.

If you had to go back in time and start over, would you have done anything differently?
Haha! We believe that there are valuable lessons learned within the issues and failures that we’ve had, but if we could go back…

Honestly, we would have tried to build our Shopify store ourselves instead of jumping the gun in paying a developer. No confusion, developers are great and can help tremendously, but for us, we could have done it ourselves with a little more time and self-research.

Also, we could have launched the business much sooner without making sure every little thing was perfect because, in reality, it’s not going to be.

Pricing:

• “Dead Sea” box (subscription) = $5.99
• “Pikes Peak” box (subscription) = $29.99
• “Mount Everest” box (one time purchase) = $99.99
• “Mystery Stash” box (one time purchase) = $38.99

Contact Info:

• Website: www.ElevatedStash.com
• Email: Admin@ElevatedStash.com
• Instagram: www.Instagram.com/ElevatedStash
• Facebook: www.Facebook.com/ElevatedStash
• Twitter: www.Twitter.com/ElevatedStash

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