Kyle

61.6M Americans use nicotine. 9 in 10 quit attempts fail.

I'm building the fix.

[email protected]

[Kyle @BuildingRespiro]

Tech is busy selling people better vapes, stronger pouches, and “optimized” nicotine routines.

I’m building the opposite.

Respiro is a simple path to be done with nicotine altogether — no insurance, flat fee, real meds, real plan.

Waitlist: https://t.co/TaQuceg8U1

[Kyle @BuildingRespiro]

Hardest things about building a company from scratch:

- Nobody is coming to save you
- Your worst week and your best week happen 3 days apart
- The boring work is the work
- Compliance takes 3x longer than building
- "Almost done" is a lie you tell yourself for months
- Your win rate against doubt has to be 51%

You sign up for all of it.

[🩰 @Keybaker_]

All these vapes confiscated from a middle school is crazy 😒 Rockford check on yall kids.

[Kyle @BuildingRespiro]

Respiro is almost here.

After months of quiet building, we're launching telehealth for nicotine cessation in the next few weeks.

49 million Americans. 9 in 10 quit attempts fail. Almost zero of them have a real treatment program.

Follow along, it's almost time.

[Kyle @BuildingRespiro]

A war of wills sounds about right.

It's also exactly what 49 million Americans are stuck in with nicotine. And willpower loses that war 95% of the time.

Willpower has a 5% win rate against pharmacology. Different war, same lesson.

[*Walter Bloomberg @DeItaone]

IRAN'S PARLIAMENT SPEAKER SAYS IRAN AND THE U.S. ARE IN A 'WAR OF WILLS'

[Kyle @BuildingRespiro]

The UK just banned tobacco sales for anyone born after 2009.

I'm not here to argue whether adults should be allowed to use nicotine. They should.

I'm here for the ones who tried it, got hooked, and now want out. That's a different problem and it needs different tools.

That's what Respiro is.

[Kyle @BuildingRespiro]

Nicotine doesn't just hook you. It rewires you.

Chronic use upregulates nicotinic acetylcholine receptors by 200-300%. Those receptors don't return to baseline for 6-12 weeks after your last dose.

This is why "just quit" fails. The brain you're quitting with isn't the brain that started.

Treatment has to outlast the rewiring.

[Kyle @BuildingRespiro]

World No Tobacco Day is May 31.

The WHO's 2026 theme: "Unmasking the appeal — countering nicotine addiction."

Meanwhile the FDA just made it easier for unauthorized pouches to stay on shelves while they finish review.

The industry is moving faster than the regulators. So is the addiction.

That's why Respiro exists.

[Kyle @BuildingRespiro]

Cigarette smoking just hit an all-time low: 9.9% of US adults.

Overall nicotine use: 18.8%. Unchanged.

Translation: people didn't quit nicotine. They switched delivery systems.

Pouches and vapes are eating the cigarette market. Cessation hasn't caught up to that yet.

[Kyle @BuildingRespiro]

@MarkMiller4728 @mcuban Smoking kills more Americans every year than alcohol, opioids, car crashes, and guns combined. Nearly double.

The people trying to quit aren't the idiots here.

[Kyle @BuildingRespiro]

New data from Mass General on quitting vaping:

FDA-approved cessation medication:
- + 51% quit rate at 12 weeks.
Placebo: 14%.
Text-only support: 6%.

The meds work when people can access them. That access gap is what we built Respiro to close.

[Kyle @BuildingRespiro]

@mcuban Tobacco cessation is supposed to be a covered preventive service.

In reality: 30 states have Medicaid coverage gaps, prior auth cuts access by 80%, and millions on non-ACA plans get no coverage at all.

For most nicotine products? There's no covered cessation protocol at all.

[Kyle @BuildingRespiro]

100%. And for the care telehealth can actually deliver — scripts, cessation, mental health, routine stuff — direct-pay sidesteps the denial problem entirely.

The doc carries the malpractice. The patient gets care. No insurer in the middle calling it "unnecessary."

Won't fix surgery or the ICU. Fixes a lot of what gets denied.

It's why Respiro exists.

[Kyle @BuildingRespiro]

What quitting nicotine actually looks like:

Week 1: brutal.
Week 2: foggy.
Week 4: easier.
Week 8: you stop thinking about it hourly.
Week 12: you forget you used to need it.

Most people quit the quit at week 2. That's why most people don't quit.

[Kyle @BuildingRespiro]

@MalloryGates14 @GovPressOffice This misses the point.

The goal isn't "safer nicotine delivery."

It's nicotine freedom.

Vaping keeps you addicted to a substance that costs you money, health, and autonomy.

[Kyle @BuildingRespiro]

@psycdalex

[Kyle @BuildingRespiro]

Quitting nicotine isn't a willpower problem.

It's an access problem.

You deserve support that actually works.

Respiro makes evidence-based cessation accessible—no judgment, just science.

You've got this. 🫡

[Kyle @BuildingRespiro]

I watched people struggle to quit nicotine.

The solutions were either:
• Too expensive
• Too complicated
• Too slow to access

So I built Respiro.

Telehealth nicotine cessation that actually works.

[Kyle @BuildingRespiro]

No co-founder. No funding. No agency.
Just me, a full-time job, and ~53,500 @Perplexity_AI credits this month.

Who said bootstrapping had to be hard. 🚭

[Kyle @BuildingRespiro]

Hims launched in 2017 with two products - generic ED and hair loss meds.

Both drugs already existed. Both were cheap. Neither required a new FDA approval.

What didn’t exist was a frictionless way to get them.

$7M seed. $40M Series A. $500M valuation within 12 months.
$2.3B projected revenue in 2025.
The insight wasn’t pharmaceutical. It was behavioral.

People don’t skip treatment because they don’t care. They skip it because the process is broken.

[Kyle @BuildingRespiro]

We’ve finalized agreements with a nationwide physician network and pharmacy home delivery infrastructure across all 50 states.

One mission: helping people quit nicotine — for good.

Respiro is almost here. More coming soon. 🚭