Influencer
Sesh Turns Investor Jake Paul Into a Co-Creator to Compete Without Big Tobacco’s Budget
Sesh says it cannot outbid legacy tobacco companies for space on convenience-store shelves, so the independent nicotine pouch brand raised money from celebrities who use its product. Its newest release goes a step further and makes one of those investors a co-creator with “Sesh Reserve,” a limited-edition pouch built with Jake Paul and his ranch brand, Paul Reserve.
That bet on influence over ad spend comes from Josh Metz, Sesh’s Chief Marketing Officer, whose career runs through stigmatized categories. He was the fifth employee at Tinder in 2013 and later led marketing at skincare brand ZitSticka.
“We knew that we could win as a product because we had a really great pouch. We knew that we could win on culture and influence,” Josh says.
The pouch traces to Thomas Ericsson, the Swedish scientist who created Zyn and later developed the Sesh formula. Founded in 2020 and headquartered in Austin, Texas, Sesh sells only to adults 21 and older who already use nicotine, pitching them a premium pouch that, in Josh’s words, “didn’t really exist in the United States yet.”
America’s Pouch Market Still Needs Educating
Selling that premium first requires explaining it. Josh measures the U.S. against Europe, which he calls a “much more advanced” pouch market. “In Europe, you have moist pouches, long-lasting pouches, quick-release pouches, high-strength pouches … low-strength. There’s a spectrum,” he says. When Zyn took off in America, the market offered dry pouches and little else.
Sesh’s answer is a moist pouch with a patented gum base that, per Josh, releases nicotine slowly and evenly. Most pouches hit hard up front and then crash, he argues, comparing them to cheap chewing gum. “Instead of this spike and crash, you’ve got this consistent release over time,” he says.
Josh has explained new formats before. “It’s very difficult to educate a market on something new,” he says, recalling the same problem at Tinder and with pimple patches, where stigma kept people away at first. He points to demand as the opening, saying smoking and vaping in the U.S. are down 30% year over year while pouches are up.
That mix of a new format and a stigmatized category shapes who Sesh lets speak for it. “As the market’s matured, so has the way we’ve worked with creators and who we want to tell our story,” Josh notes.
Sesh’s Celebrity Investors Already Use the Pouch
Those storytellers start on the cap table. When Sesh raised capital, it took money from users willing to help raise awareness, a roster that includes Post Malone, Mark Wahlberg, the Jonas Brothers, DJ Khaled, and Jake Paul.
Josh frames the arrangement as trust running in both directions. “It’s been amazing to watch not only these people put their trust in us, but help us build this brand through their own stories and their own journey with nicotine,” he says.
The roster stands in for spending Sesh cannot match. “We don’t have the budgets to go and buy shelf space and advertising and put our logo on Lewis Hamilton’s Ferrari F1 car,” Josh says. Jake, whom he calls “arguably the world’s greatest promoter,” covers the awareness side. Turning him into a co-creator took a meeting in Austin.
Sesh Pitched the Drop, Jake Picked the Flavor
Jake was already invested through his AntiFund when his team visited Texas. Sesh hosted him at its office and pitched a flavor collaboration that day, according to Josh, who added in written follow-up that Jake chose the flavor.
Compliance came before the creative. Sesh reviewed Jake’s audience demographics across his platforms to confirm it was predominantly adults 21 and older, according to Josh. “We only market to existing adult nicotine users, and that standard doesn’t change for any partnership,” he says.
The branding ran through Jake’s ranch, which Josh says the influencer wanted to tie into everything he did this year. Sesh saw a fit between a high-end ranch and a premium pouch. “If the crossover wasn’t there, we wouldn’t have gone for it,” Josh argues. The ranch also matches one of Sesh’s chosen communities, a group Josh calls the modern outdoorsman.
The bundle added Paul Reserve body spray, an existing product from Jake’s personal care brand, W. Bundling it, Josh notes, made the drop feel like a complete Jake Paul release. Jake is compensated for the paid, co-branded partnership.
Jake Worked as Reserve’s Stand-In Creative Director
That release went through Jake at every stage. Sesh pitched ideas, and Jake said what he wanted and what he didn’t, covering the name, the label design, and the gift box, according to Josh. “When you put something out there with your name on it into the world, it’s essentially a piece of your art,” he says, adding, “We were happy to let him almost be like a stand-in creative director.”
That involvement carried into production. Josh spent a day filming with Jake, starting with a morning meeting on the shoot’s goals, then capturing content on a boat, at a shooting range and around the ranch. “He would come and check with us if we were happy. He would ask us if there was anything else we wanted to capture,” Josh says.
In Josh’s account, handing over that much control worked because Jake already used the product and knew how to sell it. The launch showed what that delivered.
Reserve Brought New Customers at a Premium Price
Jake teased the move to an audience of more than 80 million followers. “Watching the traffic hit our site from his awareness was a roller coaster,” Josh says.
Inbound followed through Instagram, customer service and press, along with other creators who look up to Jake and wanted to work with Sesh. “Jake’s a polarizing figure. Those who love him really, really love him,” Josh says.
Reserve accounted for roughly 30% of Sesh’s direct-to-consumer sales on the website, Josh says, and it has been the brand’s top online seller since launch. The $90 bundle, which included a metal can and ten cans of pouches, sold well above standard can pricing, and about 40% of buyers were new Sesh customers.
Josh treats that customer mix as the cleaner measure. A typical Sesh flavor launch sells at a lower price, mostly to existing customers trying something new, he notes. “Reserve brought new adults into the brand at a premium price.”
Freedom Works When the Don’ts Are Strict
Those results rested on the latitude Sesh gave Jake, and the right amount depends on the creator and the project, in Josh’s view. “When it comes to someone like Jake Paul, you want to give them as much freedom as you can because it’s what they do best,” he says.
Nicotine narrows that freedom. “The do’s can be interpreted by the creator, but the do nots have to be pretty strict,” Josh says, because there are things Sesh legally cannot say. Jake’s team needed the rules only once. “We told them once, and it was like they heard it once and everything was above board,” he says.
For social posts or ad creative with other creators, Sesh sets the same prohibitions and lets creators tell the story their own way. “That’s important for me because we want it to be an authentic nicotine journey,” Josh says. Picking the right creators, he adds, keeps the back-and-forth to a minimum. The advice returns to the precondition behind Sesh’s fundraising: the people telling the story already use the product.
Sesh and Jake Plan More Beyond Reserve
Reserve was built as a limited online drop, though Josh believes more may come on the flavor profile because it has been so popular. Future work with Jake could include new flavors, accessories, or direct access to Jake for the Sesh community, he says.
The drop sits alongside the retail push the cultural strategy was meant to support. Sesh is in more than 7,500 retail doors and on track for about 30,000 by the end of 2026, according to the company. Josh says he would change nothing about Reserve beyond getting another day of filming with Jake.
“Sesh and Jake Paul are now intertwined and hopefully will continue to be,” Josh says.
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