Taking a step back to move forward Unlike other seasoned professionals who move to cannabis, Natasha Lannerd understood that to fully understand how to apply her CPG expertise she first needed to understand the cannabis industry. As the Director of Business Development at 1906 New Highs she joins Karson Humiston to discuss why she started her cannabis career by taking overqualified positions. She explains how taking the time to learn the industry from the ground up has propelled her cannabis career. Produced by PodConx Proud To Work In Cannabis - https://podconx.com/podcasts/proud-to-work-in-cannabis Karson Humiston - https://podconx.com/guests/karson-humiston Vangst - https://vangst.com/ 1906 New High - https://1906newhighs.com/ Natasha Lannerd - https://podconx.com/guests/natasha-lannerd
Taking a step back to move forward
Unlike other seasoned professionals who move to cannabis, Natasha Lannerd understood that to fully understand how to apply her CPG expertise she first needed to understand the cannabis industry. As the Director of Business Development at 1906 New Highs she joins Karson Humiston to discuss why she started her cannabis career by taking overqualified positions. She explains how taking the time to learn the industry from the ground up has propelled her cannabis career.
Proud To Work In Cannabis - https://podconx.com/podcasts/proud-to-work-in-cannabis
Karson Humiston - https://podconx.com/guests/karson-humiston
Vangst - https://vangst.com/
1906 New High - https://1906newhighs.com/
Natasha Lannerd - https://podconx.com/guests/natasha-lannerd
Natasha Lannerd: [00:00:00] Hello everyone. My name is Natasha Leonard and I'm the director of business development at 1906 new highs. And I'm proud to work in cannabis because I get to be surrounded by so many amazing people doing amazing groundbreaking work to bring this plant to the people
Karson Humiston: Hey everybody. And welcome to the proud to work in cannabis podcast. I'm your host, Carson homicide and the founder of . And today I am so excited to have a longtime friend, Natasha Leonard on the show with us. Natasha is the director of business development at 1906. Natasha. Welcome to the show.
Natasha Lannerd: so great to be on Carson. Thank you for having me.
Karson Humiston: Let's dive right in Natasha. Tell us a story. How did you decide to move into the cannabis?
Natasha Lannerd: I think it's so great because we met right around when I made this decision. So I had gotten into the cannabis industry, not necessarily intentionally. It was kind of a second. After an [00:01:00] illness that I didn't know, I had flared up. I had a successful career in the natural foods industry, helping a handful of startup brands.
Moody's gluten-free foods, teach Tulia, simple mills, really helping brands break through and grow up. I loved my last job at simple mills. I thought I had kind of arrived as far as my career was concerned. And then I realized that I had what at the time was a mystery. I happen to have multiple auto-immune.
And so my health has always been something that has been a big part , in my life. And after, traveling every week for six years and working incredibly long hours, coming down with this illness was really impacting my ability to show up and be present in a very demanding job. And so I took a step back from that.
Certainly had a little bit of a personal Meltdown slash ego death slash what am I going to do now at 27, starting a career over that. I, didn't intentionally want to leave. And one of my best friends had entered the industry a few months before me being in Colorado and I also voted for [00:02:00] amendment 60.
And she was like, you might want to consider entering the cannabis industry. And at first I was really confused on what that would look like because I've been a long time consumer of cannabis, both as I would say, an adult user and also to help support myself when I happen to be having any type of autoimmune flare.
So it wasn't one of those situations where I had to understand the benefit of the plant. I was already very familiar with how it could help other people. One of the things that I think I realized is where is my place in the cannabis industry coming from a very well-established business of, consumer packaged goods or natural foods, CPG.
And so I dipped my toe in the water with a company called PAX vaporizers, PAX vaporizers is one of the largest vaporizer companies in the cannabis industry. And I funny enough had a packs one. Years before they really launched the more cannabis?
design focus and my friend was like, you should just apply and see what happens.
I was well [00:03:00] overqualified for the position, but I figured, if I'm really going to get serious about doing this, you kind of have to get in at the ground level. And for me, it was in , a territory sales position covering. The dispensary channel. So it was incredibly interesting at that moment to realize that not only was I working for a startup company, which I had extensive experience doing, but also working in a startup industry and, it kind of opens the door for since a lot of systems that need to be created, but a lot of creativity in the process of.
Karson Humiston: So let's talk a little bit about the taking the step backwards to take a step forward. It's something that we hear a lot of people entering the cannabis into. Say, do you think that entering in at a more junior position has ultimately helped you get further along? You know what I've heard of some people saying I'm going to wait until the cannabis industry becomes larger and I can get on the larger role.
And I'm not sure how well that's played out for those folks versus folks like yourself that took a step backwards, entered in it into [00:04:00] a job that you were well over. Qualified for. Talk to us about the, taking a step backwards to take a step forward mentally.
Natasha Lannerd: I think one of the things that I've been the most firm in is that you can't ever expect anyone to do a job that you don't know how to do yourself. And so I knew outright out of the gate, I was going to need to approach this like I did in the natural.
Industry and college, I worked at a retail location after I graduated college, I helped start a successful brokerage. Then I started working as, a regional for a natural foods company and then graduating on into a national and then to a VP level role from there, I knew the ins and outs of what the folks are doing at retail all the way through, at the highest levels.
And I. Specifically that if I were ever going to advance in the cannabis industry, having a comprehensive understanding of how this actually works in the day to day was going to be critical. So though I was overqualified for the position I was under-qualified and a novice and understanding the human relations.[00:05:00]
Element of this business, which is incredibly personal. And from there, I started going into dispensary's meeting store managers, selling in the product, and I did that in Colorado, in California. So I got to see how the different markets functioned, which were very differently, especially, kind of when I entered in, I've been in the cannabis industry for seven years and obviously over the course of seven years, There's been a huge explosion on upper level opportunities for people to come into.
I think one of the things that I've seen is kind of a cautionary tale of people who don't necessarily want to invest any time and understanding the more entry-level mechanics of the business is that they think. The skills that they use. For example, again, , in CPG are going to automatically come through and you're just going to be right.
Hitting the ground running. And one of the things that I've found is that the mechanics are at play, but the understanding of the fundamentals is not. For instance, One of the first conversations I had with a retailer was around like the velocity of a sale of like, [00:06:00] how many units are selling through this point of distribution in any given time period.
Right. As a that's pretty much . One of the core metrics of how fast your product moves. People didn't know what the word velocity. And so yeah, the mechanics were at play, but the understanding of the vocabulary and how to actually explain what is happening in the market was not. And so I can understand this language and I can speak this language, but if I'm sitting across the table from somebody who has no idea what I'm talking about, I'm not getting it.
And so I would really just kind of throw out to people. If you come in at a more senior level management position, I highly recommend that you invest the time for yourself and spending time at the ground level with the folks that are engaging at the retail level, with people that are going in secret shopping dispensary's and just understand the forces and the dynamics that are at play.
Karson Humiston: Completely. We've seen time and time again, people coming into this industry and not taking the time to learn the industry and the dynamics of [00:07:00] the industry. And then we've seen so many people like yourself who got in, rolled up their sleeves, got in there, right. Truly learned and understood the dynamics of the industry, which ultimately helps you move faster , as time plays out.
So let's, let's get back to you. So. In a sales role at PACS, then one.
Natasha Lannerd: I just kind of realized that I didn't see the level or the opportunity to advance in the way that I wanted to advance. And I also didn't necessarily see an alignment and everything that I had learned that I know works. The formula from CPG that , is the path forward really being.
And so I just, PAX wasn't the right fit for me. It was an amazing opportunity. I made a tremendous amount of contacts and so many friends like true friends, and I decided to take another opportunity. And this time I decided to get really creative and go work for a company in California through the pre ICO, [00:08:00] transition into the regulated market called.
And I went to California and I was there for about 90 days as a contractor.
Karson Humiston: what timeframe is this? Just so listeners have a sense of where we are
Ballpark set 20 17, 28.
Natasha Lannerd: Oh, it was before then. Yeah, like 2017. I've been with 19 and six for almost five years. It'll be five years in March.
Karson Humiston: Oh, wow. Okay. So, so we're talking still early days just for folks listening, right. California has just legalized and you
Natasha Lannerd: Yeah, probably 2016
Karson Humiston: Great.
Natasha Lannerd: that's like, kind of in the pre ICO stage. So the regulations hadn't take place. It was like that year countdown between, Hey we're going to try to retroactively implement regulation and an industry that has. Existence for over a decade, thriving, retail. So I decided , to be adventurous and go out there. And I think that I saw a lot of things going on in California, that I knew at the core of my being working so much To understand compliance in [00:09:00] Colorado and also to how compliance works with larger companies to understand that the way that business was being done in California in general in mass was not in any way, shape or form.
And it simply was one of those things that I did not want to have my name associated with because I knew in the long run that though it was technically not enforceable at that time. I knew what best practices looked like. Obviously coming from the natural foods industry where food safety and just all of those different things are critical.
Through to compliance of the way, the transactions are managed and handled. So to say that I saw it all in California would be a understatement. It was wild west. And I cannot imagine that a day where Netflix doesn't someday produce some type of mini series about what it was like working in the cannabis industry that year leading to full regulated market in California, because it was.
Karson Humiston: Oh, I mean preaching to the choir, we were helping people hire. Right. And it [00:10:00] was the stories of, we would walk into a dispensary and they would hand us a bag of cash in exchange for helping them find bud tenders.
Natasha Lannerd: Oh, yeah.
Karson Humiston: I mean, definitely, definitely. Or we're going to have to collab on some chapters of a book for the the California market early days.
Okay. So, you go out to California.
Natasha Lannerd: I came back to Colorado to my home.
Karson Humiston: You said, you said I'm, I'm out, I'm
Natasha Lannerd: yeah. And also California is not great for my health conditions. And so I needed to be in a drier climate. The Colorado obviously affords me, so I come back home to Colorado. And I decided that I was going to leverage just the community of people that I met. And I started consulting on sales
Karson Humiston: including with bags.
Natasha Lannerd: Including with bank's revenue, architecture stuff, and just really kind of helping people understand how to build pipelines that are going to net the type of revenue results that they're looking for. So obviously that's how we met ,
Karson Humiston: it was great. When Natasha started working with advanced, we probably had about 10 employees. Give or [00:11:00] take tiny office. And it was, it was 2017 and between 2016 and 2017, we grew our revenue from 300 K to 1.5 million without any funding, with a bunch of really kids.
I mean, the average age of someone on our team was 23. So bringing in someone like Natasha to. Actually get a sales strategy in place was changing. And I remember being at that trade show in Oakland with you, you actually stayed in the Airbnb with our team and we were at the NCAA trade show. I mean, we just smoked that trade show.
I mean, everyone that went to that trade show started working with banks. I can't speak to the experience other people had, but you played a pivotal point in the bank's growth.
Natasha Lannerd: uh, I know I'm so proud of you guys to see what you have. Pretty amazing. And like I said, like from entering the industry in 2015 to seeing, where we are now in 2022, the level of growth that has occurred has been incredible, , rising tides, raise all ships and it certainly has been the case.
So in addition to working, with you advanced I was working with a [00:12:00] few other clients just doing really project based roles. Different retailers, helping them kind of get dynamic things going on. And then that's actually how I met Peter Barsom. Who's the co-founder and CEO of 1906. We had met at a cannabis function and this is something I'll just plug out there for anyone that's listening to this who wants to be in the industry.
You have to grow your own. Networks don't grow on their own without you going out there and putting yourself out there. And I know that can be kind of scary, but sometimes you got to get really good at talking to strangers and there is no friendlier of environment to try than a bunch of cannabis folks.
So I found myself at this amazing event and here. Peter Barsoum and someone else in the industry who I had talked to had, had kind of floated by name as, as potentially being someone who could help him. And he comes, right up introduces himself, which if anyone listening to this podcast has ever met him, , he's got a big personality and frankly, so do I, so we hit it off famously and he's like, yeah, we just launched this product.
It's amazing. However, [00:13:00] We're in all of these dispensaries, but we're not really hitting the financial goal that we thought we were going to. And I'm like, oh, okay. This is a great time for me to help you. Right. Cause that's What happens with a lot of folks. They associate distribution with revenue and that's not necessarily.
A given, there's a lot of other forces that are at play at market that really kind of all combined together to yield the revenue that you're looking for. And so I did a half sales strategy day. I'm reviewing all of his existing retail locations. Understand. The, the turn of his products and just really getting together kind of a makeup of like why this is working, why this is not working.
And that half a day contract turned into him bringing the on for a project for us to work with Bebo, which was a brand that was based in California at the time that we were wanting to bring in Colorado and fast forward to now it'll be five years. I've been working with 1906 in may. And over the course of that five years, we went from a very small team.
When I entered the company, we were probably like all in with our [00:14:00] manufacturing option and management team, like less than 20 people. And right now we're closer to 75 people. We are also operational now. Many states, I mean, growing rapidly, Colorado, Oklahoma, Illinois, Massachusetts, Arizona. Our team is manufacturing product right now in Michigan and Ohio.
We have plans to go into Florida, New Jersey and New York before the end of the year. Missouri's in there too. So yeah, it's really crazy to see, at not again, like the opportunities that you have in the industry grow as the companies have an opportunity to grow.
Karson Humiston: What would you say is the. That you've learned in taking the team from one state, small team to multi-state, I'm sure you've gone through fundraising rounds and managing the business through COVID in some of the cannabis pullbacks we've seen. . You've really been there through a lot of cycles.
So, , , what are some of the biggest things you've learned in growing a business?
Natasha Lannerd: I'll just kind of revert back to a food [00:15:00] analogy because that's what I know best. When you walk into a grocery store and you buy a bag of chips, those chips were probably made in one of a handful of facilities around the county.
Those brands that you're buying. They only really have two things that they focus on sales and marketing only. They don't make anything. They don't manufacture anything. Very few companies manufacture their own product. Everything is made in a co manufacturing environment because it cuts down on cost and improves volumes.
We don't have the luxury of doing that in the cannabis industry. Every state we go in. We have to recreate the wheel and manufacture the product in every single location. And so one of the things that I think that we learned that is something that I've shared as I've gotten more involved in doing mentoring with, brands that will eventually want to grow is understanding what it looks like to scale what your.
So when we started the business, we were really focused on beautiful confections. Our chocolates are divine for anyone who's ever had the opportunity to try them. [00:16:00] They're amazing. We knew that what we were doing had struck a chord.
We were the first brand to launch a fast acting product into the market that was low. We also knew that what we were putting out at, an offering with the inclusion of plant medicines and nutraceuticals was an amazing combination. And we knew that what we had was a winner. And now we had to figure out how we work on to produce it in multiple states at one time and through the genius of our manufacturing team and a little bit of inspiration from a few breaking bad episodes, we realized that we were going to need to have a product.
That was easy that the machinery was had a reasonable CapEx, right? Because the facility that we have, in Colorado to produce these beautiful chocolates is over 6,000 square feet. We have millions of dollars worth of equipment in there, and frankly, it's all massive. So we knew we had to develop a product that actually had scalability.
And that's when we started really dedicating a lot of our time and effort into developing a press tablet, which we call it. We saw a [00:17:00] huge opportunity and that when you look at the way, the majority of people consume medicine in their day to day lives, it's through press tablets or capsules. Over 4 billion prescriptions were filled in the United States last year.
However, when we got into the tablet market, we realized that less than 1% of the total sales in the cannabis industry, top line were from tablets. And when we saw that we were like, this is a huge opportunity. You do not have to teach Americans how to take. It turns out it's pretty intuitive and people know, and they associate it with.
Then we had to go to the fact of how we were going to put all of those powerful ingredients that we use along with the THC and the CBD into a very tiny tablet that took us a few years to figure out. And then we realized that we could manufacture these tablets at scale. I mean, we can produce tens of thousands of tablets in an hour if we're producing it, the highest capacity that we can hit and we're able to go into a new market, we're able to print.
Tens of thousands of tablets. And then we're able to pack up all of our stuff, which fits in a 60 [00:18:00] foot box truck, all of the equipment and drive it to another location. And so we're able to build a business?
that has allowed us to see. Which is lower capital expenditure. That's also mobile, so we don't have to recreate the wheel and have fixed assets in every single state that we're in because we rely on partnerships with existing license holders instead of owning facilities and licenses in every state.
Because of the cost prohibition to doing that. So I guess to summarize is make sure that whatever you're doing, that you have a plan to scale your product beyond the state. You're currently operational in. It takes a lot of time. It takes a lot of tweaking and it takes also to, and awareness of what investors are willing to fund and what investors are not willing to fund.
And we learned that lesson alone.
Karson Humiston: It's and it's a great point. , like you mentioned, when you go into the grocery store and you buy a bag of chips, nobody's thinking about , where this bag of chips was produced. , in cannabis, , you cannot.
Product across state lines. So 1906, if [00:19:00] they want to go into Florida, it's not like they can just ship their chocolates from Colorado to Florida. And I think that, obviously this is just, we just know this, you and I, but people listening, maybe have no idea. So, so yeah, if you're going to start a brand and you're going to go into every single state get ready to pony up because it's not gonna be.
Natasha Lannerd: It's not going to be cheap. It takes for us, one of our biggest things is the majority of brands have grown through licensing deals where they teach people how to make their products, which is fine because most people in the cannabis industry make very simple. Right. Because they don't have a food manufacturing background, like the people on our team do.
And so they licensed their product out and they might get, maybe a 10 to a 15% royalty if they're lucky, but they lose all control over the manufacturing of their product. And we were unwilling to do that. So for us to maintain complete control over the process, and ultimately the prep, the finished product, we knew it had to be.
us.
And so, and then we had to figure out how we were going to get. This many people on the road at one time. And man, has it been eyeopening? [00:20:00]
Karson Humiston: Let's talk about fundraising a little bit. I know that that's something that you've been involved at in 1906, probably. Something that you were involved in, in your previous companies, people out there that might be fundraising for the first time or be on a team that's fundraising for the first time.
What did.
Natasha Lannerd: You know, Getting involved in the fundraising component of the business was kind of the last piece for me and understanding just full circle, how to start, grow and run companies. And I started getting more involved in that right before COVID hit and have helped. Over $15 million with theater since then in the last two years.
And I think one of the things that I've learned is that first and foremost, really find a way to keep track of the people that you're talking to because no doesn't always necessarily mean no forever. It can be no for now. And I think one of the things that we really figured out that made a huge difference for us is we had to show investors that we could scale.
Our concept and operate in multiple markets at one time. [00:21:00] And I know for people listening to this, and this is something that I found myself ruminating on countless times is like, it's the chicken or the egg? I need the money to grow. And if I don't have the money, I can't grow. Okay. You got to kind of take that out.
I think the other thing to keep in mind is that the investors that you have currently, if you have any, and even if it's just friends and family and it's a seed round, those are your best. Possible people to have on your team for word of mouth. I cannot tell you how many investors have come to us, because they've heard about the opportunity through one of our existing investors.
I strongly recommend that , anyone you bring onto your cap table, that you build a personal relationship with them because not only, do investors want to give you, financial resources or maybe, strategic resources. They also want to be helpful because everybody wins. Right?
So really take the time to develop a personal relationship with your investors so that you understand how you can be helping each other to grow. I mean, obviously your incentives are aligned at that point. [00:22:00] And I would say lastly, make sure that your ability to deliver on what you say you're going to do as possible.
It's so challenging in the cannabis industry, because not only do we work for startup companies. Everyone's a startup company, it's a startup industry and it's incredibly impacted by politics and. Local state national. What have you, so make sure that when you go out and you present to investors, that you understand the dynamics that are at play, that could be impacting your business, that aren't necessarily just operational.
Karson Humiston: That's super good advice. Natasha, we are out of time, but thank you so much for joining us. And if people, it was, it was great. And if people want to follow you, how do they follow you? How do they stay in.
Natasha Lannerd: Probably the best way to find me is on LinkedIn, just Natasha lanyard. I'm not much of a social media person.
Karson Humiston: Perfect. We will, we will follow on LinkedIn. And thanks again for being here today. It was awesome.
Natasha Lannerd: It was good to see you. Carson have a good day.