Our Story7 min read

Inside: Meet the Two Brothers From Hull on a Mission to Get the UK Off the Vape

By Dean C. · Last updated 10 November 2026

The untold story of how two brothers who couldn't quit their own vapes ended up helping 22,500+ people put theirs down.

Brothers. Both hooked. Business partners.

Who are we?

I'm Dean. I'm 41, I'm from Hull, and I'm the older one.

Craig, "our kid", is three years younger, and we've done everything together since he could walk. Same school. Same Sunday league team. Same first cigarette behind the Co-op when I was fourteen and he was eleven. He's never let me forget I gave it him.

We're not doctors. We're not scientists. Craig's a joiner and I worked in logistics. We're just two lads who couldn't stop vaping, and got sick of it.

The real reason we started HÜM...

Our dad, Ray, worked on the docks for thirty-one years. Roll-ups, from when he was a lad. He used to say they kept him warm.

When Craig's first was born, we both stopped smoking. Same week. Switched to vapes like everyone told us to, and we were dead proud of ourselves. Dad never managed it. "You two are doing what I couldn't," he'd say.

Except we weren't.

A cigarette ends. You stub it out. A vape never does. Within a year we were both on it more than we'd ever smoked. In the car. On the sofa. In bed. Craig used to sleep with his under the pillow.

Dad died in March last year. COPD. The last two years he couldn't get up the stairs without stopping halfway. He was 68.

After the funeral we had the do at his local. About half eight, me and Craig went outside for some air. And there we were. Two grown men in black suits, stood under the pub light, both puffing on a vape. Not saying a word.

The night of Dad's wake. Mam took this through the window. We didn't know until months later.

Then Craig started laughing. Not the happy sort.

"Look at us," he said. "We quit smoking for him. And we're stood outside his wake sucking on these."

He stuck his hand out. "First one to pack it in gets Dad's season ticket."

We tried everything. Together.

Patches: we both lasted four days. Gum: Craig said it tasted like a dentist's floor. 0mg liquid: we vaped just as much, which told us everything. Cold turkey: three days, then a bad shift.

The NHS stop smoking service was brilliant for Dad's generation. But when Craig rang them, they told him straight: they help people quit smoking. Not vaping.

That's when it clicked. The craving lasts minutes. The habit lasts all day. Our hands had something in them hundreds of times a day, for years, and patches don't do a thing about that.

The moments were always the same. The first brew of the morning. The drive to work. Half-time. The last one in bed.

How we built HÜM

Craig's a joiner. He can make anything out of a bit of wood. So one Sunday he went into my garage and came out with a stick.

It was terrible. Too heavy, too short, and it whistled. But it was something to hold and something to draw on, with nothing in it.

Note: we both still had full-time jobs. For a whole year, HÜM happened at night and at weekends, in my garage, with the radio on.

Dozens of prototypes later, we had the shape: wood and a black mouthpiece, about the length of your palm, with a draw that feels right. Then the flavours. Our Mam was the taste tester. She'd smoked since she was fifteen and she had opinions. She binned the liquorice one in about four seconds.

From Craig's first stick to the real thing.

So what actually is HÜM?

A small stick of wood and metal you hold and draw on, just like a vape. A flavour core inside gives you cool, lightly flavoured air: mint, mango, strawberry and more. No nicotine. No vapour. No battery. Nothing to charge.

It won't feel like your vape. That's the point. It keeps the habit in your hand with nothing in it, so the urge fades instead of getting fed.

HÜM: wood and metal. No nicotine, no vapour, nothing to charge.

We tested it on the only guinea pigs we had: us. Craig went first. Nineteen days in, he realised he'd stopped thinking about it. I took three weeks. Then our uncle. Then half of Dad's mates from the club.

And our Mam, fifty-three years a smoker, has been off them for two years now. :)

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How it's been going since launch...

Honestly? Mental.

The first hundred orders went out from Mam's kitchen table, and Craig drove them to the post office in his van. Then it was the garage. Then the garage and the spare room. Then we gave in and got a proper little office.

Today, more than 22,500 people have tried HÜM. 89% of them feel the urge fade within 30 days, and less than 1% ever ask for their money back.

We still read every message. Responses like these are what keep us going:

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