Interview with Marc from Vegas de Santiago: A Journey of Wisdom

I’ll be honest with you, I rarely talk to people who amaze me. Getting to talk to Marc was an honor at first and ended up with the honor becoming an admiration for his way of thinking and being. Marc’s thinking on life has an incredible amount of in common with the way I think and being able to share his perspective on dreams and humility in the conversation filled me with a deep joy. I will share our conversation with you and his way of living, thinking and being. With my hand on my heart, I am sure that the world would have become a much better place and more people would have had happiness in their lives with just a little bit of Marc’s thinking.

Table of Contents

The story behind Vegas de Santiago cigars

Tobacco has long been grown in Costa Rica, but has been better known for growing tobacco for cigarettes and not cigars. It was in the late 1990s that a group of tobacco growers, after 80 years as producers of tobacco for cigarettes, decided in their passion for tobacco to start growing tobacco for cigars and not just cigarettes, they wanted to do something new and develop. During that period, even larger cigarette companies were closing down their plantations in Costa Rica and the tobacco growers also needed a new way to earn their income. These tobacco growers started a cooperative to change their way of working and help each other. However, growing tobacco for cigarettes and cigars are two completely different worlds, the tobacco grows in a different way, the genetics of the tobacco are different, the harvesting and fermentation are completely different. These tobacco growers created the first cigar which was then called Originales, today known as white label and then made the cigar Chaman. It was at this time that Don Luis Santana Llamas, former product manager at Hupmann, came to Costa Rica and showed the cooperative how to develop its resources and knowledge of how to make cigars. Don Luis Santana Llamas had previously worked his entire life in the Cuban factories and was at this time retired and living in exile from Cuba. Don Luis met the cooperative and revealed all his knowledge. The cigars were initially sold in Costa Rica. It was when Marc’s father Rudolf Niehaus (also known as Don Rudy) came into the picture that exports to the world began. Rudolf moved to Costa Rica in 1998 with his wife Lany and in his search for an alternative to the cigarettes he smoked, he became a big fan of Vegas de Santiago cigars. (More on his move to Costa Rica later in the article). Convinced that the cigars could be a hit, a partnership was created where Don Rudy was given exclusive sales rights to the rest of the world. Sales increased and it wasn’t long before Vegas de Santiago was producing around 50,000 cigars a month for export to the United Arab Emirates. A few years later, the factory found itself in a bit of an economic crisis when the Costa Rican government demanded that the loan taken out in 1998 when the factory was started be repaid. If Vegas de Santiago couldn’t repay the loans, they would seize the factory and sell the assets in arrears. Don Rudy called his son (Marc) hoping to get help and investment to save the factory and the jobs of its employees. Marc sold all his assets he could and sent the investment to his father and in that way helped save Vegas de Santiago with his father Rudolf and his partner in Costa Rica. You could say that Marc was a big part of Vegas de Santiago before he even started making cigars and was the salvation of the brand as we know it today.
The name Vegas de Santiago means Fields of Santiago.

How did your journey with cigars begin and what did you do before?

“Cigars have not always been a dream for me. When I was 20 years old, my parents chose to divorce and my father moved to the USA from Switzerland. My father was 50 when he moved. In the USA, my father found love again. Lany my father’s wife was from Florida USA. Lany had a brother who had invested in a house in Costa Rica, giving Rudolf and Lany the opportunity to live in the house when they had gotten bored of living in the USA. A place my father lived in until the day he passed away. I think the reason my father stayed in Costa Rica for his last years is that Costa Rica is the Switzerland of Latin America. The country, the livestock, the environment and the culture are so similar that he felt incredibly comfortable. When my parents divorced, I chose to travel to Asia and stayed there for 4 years. During my trip, I found a deep interest in Buddhism and its teachings. I became a Buddhist monk and lived as such for 2 and a half years. After living as a monk for two and a half years, I chose to move back to Switzerland and work as a teacher. I worked as a teacher for about 20 years and felt it was time to venture into the unknown again and take on new challenges. The unknown became a passion. I chose to start working with my father and Vegas de Santiago.”

What were your biggest challenges and how did you get past them?

“One of the biggest challenges was that my father and I had such different opinions about how we should drive the brand forward. My father was quite a patriarchal leader and felt that he was always right in his thoughts, which left little room for my thoughts and visions for the brand. My father thought online shopping was the only thing to focus on while my thoughts were to continue investing in physical stores was the future to strengthen the brand. My father thought cigar stores would disappear thanks to online shopping. My father was a little ahead of his time, you could almost say, and he was one of the first to believe and dare to invest in online shopping for cigars. A cigar cannot be smoked via a screen and physical retailers will always be needed with their expertise were my thoughts. In our sharing of opinions and my conviction that physical retail was the future, I created the D8 and Heritage cigar lines to sell them in the way I was convinced of. It took me a little more than 2 years to produce these blends and start selling them to retail retailers. It became a venture into Europe. Although it took time, I was persistent and in the end we were well received by both dealers and cigar enthusiasts. Considering that we were also one of the few cigar brands from Costa Rica and as established as we became, we became ambassadors for the country overall. It was when I created D8 and Heritage that I was given free rein to do more of what I wanted with the cigars.”

When I listen to Marc’s story, I can’t help but think that it was the golden thread between father and son that was the great combination. Selling stores physically and being visible on the internet. The decision Marc made, made it possible for Europeans to have the chance to enjoy Vegas de Santiago.

When Marc was 20 years old, he chose to move to Asia to travel around for 4 years, ending up becoming a forrest Buddhist monk and living like that for about two and a half years. Years that gave him a lot of lessons and peace. Lessons I think we can learn from

What is the most important thing you learned as a forrest Buddhist monk?.

“During my years as a monk, I learned important things that will always stay with me in life. Meditating and letting emotions pass is about more than just relaxing for the moment and getting some peace, it’s really about learning to see things as they really are. Not letting emotions control your decisions. You learn to master yourself and control your thoughts. People are too much controlled by their emotions today and make their decisions based on them alone. A lot of the fears we have are just fears based on ignorance of the future. If you learn to control your emotions and explore with a curious mind, you open up possibilities for the future and our actions.”

When I heard about Marc’s teachings from Buddhism and how the D8 and Heritage cigars came about, I couldn’t help but feel how the teachings from Buddhism brought him to those two cigars. Not that the cigars are inspired by religion, but that religion made Marc control his emotions and brought him to clarity.

At the time of writing, Vegas De Santiago cigars can be found in the following countries.

Sweden, Belgium, Germany, France, Switzerland, Cyprus, Serbia, Macedonia, Croatia and Israel.

To find your nearest Vegas de santiago dealer contact:
customerservice@vegassantiago.com

One of the big questions I always wonder is how to follow your dreams. A question that is close to my heart and turned out to be almost a passion for Marc. I think many people in the world would feel better about themselves if they dared to chase their dreams and dared to invest in their own mental well-being.

How do you follow your dreams?

“I was never taught to dream, but to be reasonable, to follow my dreams was something I learned later in life. In today’s society, we are taught to take the safe path and not dream big, that if you fall, it hurts. The pain of failure, what society will think of you and the feeling of defeat are things that most people fear and stop us from dreaming. The sensible decision is to take the safe route for the uncertain and become part of the herd to follow the flow. Following your dreams means that even though you think “differently” and dare to invest in your dreams, you must dare to stand up for yourself. You must be honest with yourself, your dreams, beliefs and values. You must dare to face people’s negativity, there are always people who lift themselves up through the failures of others. It is in these situations that you have to stand up for yourself and continue on, even if they are people who are close to you. People usually speak from their own fears. It is incredibly important to be honest and loyal to yourself first before being loyal to others. When you lose your loyalty to yourself in order to be loyal to the thinking of others, you lose yourself.”

“To follow your dreams, you have to dare to dive into the unknown. You have to dare to fail and learn, never give up. You have to take control of your emotions and look at your dreams with realistic eyes. There will always be negative people around you who speak against you, you have to learn to stand up for yourself and do what feels right for you. Make a plan and take small steps. Time is an incredibly important part of everything we want to achieve, sometimes we work against time and want things done faster. Think about how much time you spend in front of social media a day? Take a little bit of that time and dedicate it to your dreams. Trust yourself and your ability to do it. What you can’t do, you can learn”

When we talked about this, I couldn’t help but think about how important it is to have the right people around you. I personally made an important move in my life many years ago, a tough decision that helped me follow my dreams and feel better about myself. I know that socializing and friendship are an important part of people’s lives and that reducing your circle of friends can affect your life. I broke off contact with people who had the negative thinking, it turned out that around 80% of my social circle disappeared. Incredibly, the last 20% made up for it. I surrounded myself with people whose attitude towards life was to support my dreams with positive criticism and the desire for happiness, instead of negative criticism and thoughts of giving up. Over time, my social circle was filled again with people whose attitude towards life was like mine. I also want to mention that you can be loyal to other people and support their dreams, being loyal to yourself is not about being selfish but never compromising your own well-being and dreams. It’s about giving what you get and not surrounding yourself with people who take you for granted and what you give. Personally, I have as a basic rule in my days, no matter how hectic the day has been, there is always at least 15 minutes left to take a small step towards my dreams. I know that 15 minutes doesn’t sound like much, but 15 minutes a day extra on my dreams is about 91 hours a year. Those 15 minutes also fill my day with extra joy and peace. You can compare it to meditation, a moment where I get lost in my goals, a moment where I do something for myself.

Why do you think the cigar community is more open then others?

“Tobacco has a unique calming effect, creating a serene environment when a cigar is lit. In that moment, social hierarchies fade, and everyone is seen as equals. What emerges is not defined by material possessions or status but by genuine human connection. Even if conversations touch on investments or material topics, the deeper, authentic value of individuals remains at the forefront. There is a sense of calmness and harmony that defines the culture of smoking cigars, giving a shared experience of tranquility and mutual respect”

I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart Marc. The time you took means an incredible amount and the wisdom you impart will follow me wherever I go. The words about dreams and thoughts about mastering emotions are things I think many people would benefit from learning. I hope more people are inspired to follow their dreams and take your words to heart.