We were lucky to catch up with Chris Maatouk, Jad Fares And Nabil Maatouk recently and have shared our conversation below.

Chris Maatouk, Jad Fares and Nabil Maatouk, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?

We used to love collecting certain lighters for their designs and built-in packing tool. But living in windy, cold London, we kept running into the same issue—flames constantly going out and the spark wheel killing our fingers after multiple tries.

That’s when it hit us: the world is missing a lighter that has cool designs, a built-in packing tool and that is also windproof. So we set out to build one—adding a dual-end tool for both packing and poking.

After years of work, countless sketches, prototypes, and learning everything there is to know about lighters—NAAR finally came to light!

To bring NAAR to life, we were actively sourcing manufacturers. Since development was taking time, we had come across Zengaz during our search and found a great opportunity to distribute their products in parallel—we grew their presence in multiple countries, elevated the brand to a whole new level, and eventually became partners with them in the brand.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

We got into this industry as unsatisfied consumers who wanted better lighters—windproof, well-designed, and practical.

That led us to design what millions around the world believe are the best jet lighters: high-quality, collectible, and affordable.

We started with Zengaz, an existing brand that we helped scale globally. We introduced the iconic Cube Display, which revolutionized jet lighter sales. Before that, jet lighters were mostly plain, unbranded, and forgettable—you couldn’t name a lighter brand beyond Bic, Clipper or Zippo, let alone a jet lighter brand.

Since then, over a dozen companies have copied our concept for lighters, vapes, and grinders. But we’re still leading—innovating, protecting our IP, and staying ahead.

Today, Zengaz is in 70+ countries, and our new brand NAAR is already in 25+. We’re proud to have brought real innovation and energy to a neglected category—and we’re just getting started.

Are there any books, videos, essays or other resources that have significantly impacted your management and entrepreneurial thinking and philosophy?

As fresh grads (Chris and Jad), and with Nabil coming from a corporate background, none of us had previous entrepreneurial experience—so we knew we had to learn from those who had done it before.

We immersed ourselves in everything: mindset, business skills, daily habits—anything that could help us grow. We spent countless hours watching YouTube videos from people like Tony Robbins, Brian Tracy, Simon Sinek, Richard Branson, Gary Vee, MrBeast (interviews), and many others. We signed up for MasterClass, Mindvalley and other platforms to learn how to scale a business. We read books like Think and Grow Rich, Atomic Habits, How to Win Friends and Influence People, The Power of Now, and many others—everything from self-help to leadership.

To this day, we’re still learning—now with the help of consultants for more technical areas. We genuinely believe that anyone jumping into entrepreneurship should treat learning as a daily practice. It’s one of the biggest reasons we’ve come this far.

How did you put together the initial capital you needed to start your business?

Contrary to popular belief, we didn’t need a lot of capital to get started—and many businesses actually don’t. We began by working with designers to create sketches and 3D renders, flew to China to meet our supplier, then made a prototype.

With that prototype in hand (a “sample”), we started pitching to distributors. When someone placed an order, we got paid first, produced second, and shipped after. Bit by bit, the business grew—and we’ve been fully self-funded from the start.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.naarinternational.com
• Instagram: @naar.official and @zengaz.worldwide
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/naar-international-fzc-llc/