Behind the Scenes of Cann Beverage: From Startup Struggles to Market Dominance Luke Anderson, co-founder of Cann, discusses the company's journey from inception to success in the cannabis industry. Luke reflects on the challenges of raising capital, launching their microdose THC beverage, and navigating strategic pivots towards profitability, including the acquisition of Cann Media. Despite setbacks, Luke highlights the team's resilience and strategic decisions that have contributed to Cann's success and resilience in the market.
Behind the Scenes of Cann Beverage: From Startup Struggles to Market Dominance
Karson Humiston is joined by Luke Anderson, co-founder of Cann, where he discusses the journey of founding and growing the company. Initially, Luke reflects on the early days of Cann, highlighting the challenges and milestones of launching a microdose THC beverage in California. He shares insights into the struggles of raising capital, navigating the cannabis industry, and building a strong brand identity.
As the conversation progresses, Luke delves into the pivotal moments and decisions that shaped Cann's trajectory. He talks about the strategic pivot towards profitability, including the acquisition of Cann Media and the challenges faced during the Hollywood media strike. Despite setbacks, Luke emphasizes the resilience of the Cann team and their ability to adapt to changing circumstances.
[00:00:00] Hey everybody. And welcome back to another episode of the proud to work in cannabis podcast. We can't believe it is already March. I'm really excited today because this is an episode that we've been trying to do for a long time. I have Luke Anderson. Who's the co founder and CEO of can a beverage. All of our listeners are very familiar with.
Oh, you're not the CEO. Who are you? I don't have never really had a job. Okay. Should we restart? Should we record? Or is this like more fun with it? It's so much more fun. Jake is the CEO and Hillary is the president and I'm just a random, I'm a board member. Okay, so guys, we're not even going to restart this episode.
I just totally messed it up. I thought Luke was the CEO, uh, but he's not. So Luke, what, I, whenever I think of Can, I think of you. So what are you at, at, at Can? I mean, for like the first few years of the company, I was sort of just wearing a lot of different hats. I, um, I think [00:01:00] like the job of the founder is just to keep the baby alive.
And so sometimes that means being like a coach for the rec softball league. Sometimes it means like, you know, sending the kid to sleep away camp and everywhere in between. And so I've, I've had roles building ops and sales teams and, um, Mostly over the last few years that I was full time at the company, I was working as a creative director, essentially.
Nobody ever really gave me the job title, but, um, uh, that the creative and marketing that we did that was big and splashy was what I spent most of my time on between, um, you know, years two and four. Well, let's actually, if we could take it back to the story of how you decided to found the company. So many of our listeners are entrepreneurs or aspiring entrepreneurs in the space, or they've recently joined [00:02:00] like a brand new cannabis company.
And so they're early days. We love hearing about the early story. Can you just talk to us about how you got this business even, even off the ground, and then of course, we'll, a lot of directions we want to take this today. Yes. Um, it's a great story. Uh, Jake, my, my business partner, my co founder. Can's CEO is a brilliant cannabis and industry thinker who saw the need for a microdose THC beverage, I think many years before anybody else did.
And when we were both working at Bain and Company as consultants, chained to our desk, really like working our butts off, trying to learn how to be strategic advisors in industries that we didn't have any knowledge. Um, he would tell me. As we were both drinking ourselves into oblivion, as, you know, recently out queer people or closeted queer people tend to [00:03:00] do, and that is a theme that we'll come back later, um, you know, complaining about the bad feelings of a hangover or the physical, emotional, and social harm that alcohol was doing to us, he told me, and I think because he grew up in Colorado and he witnessed cannabis as legalization in his home state from the very early days, that He told me that he believed that cannabis in a beverage would ultimately be one of the more dominant and widely accessible forms of consumption.
I've always thought Jake was really smart. I always thought he had really out there points of view. Sometimes I agreed with him, sometimes I didn't. In this situation, I was like, you're a fucking idiot. Oh my god, am I not allowed to swear? No, you're allowed to swear. Okay. Sorry. We work in cannabis. We can do whatever we want.
Um, I, um, I was like, you're an idiot. This is the dumbest idea. If I'm having trouble with one substance, why would I ever just like add another substance on? It feels like a hat on a hat. Like we're talking about like, you know, alcohol and prescription drugs and recreational drugs [00:04:00] being a bad thing. And I viewed cannabis as like a, you know, due to the government's classification of it, I viewed it as a very negative thing.
I was not a stoner. I had a bad pot brownie experience in college. I coughed too hard off a joint at a party. Like these are all very relatable things. For people in their mid thirties who were exploring cannabis in a, you know, non legal capacity. And then as I got older and maybe like five years after Jake and I first started working together, I was at, um, Bain Company still, I had gone to HBS, Jake had gone to Stanford GSB.
Where he was actively incubating this two milligram THC beverage with his, uh, classmates and business partners in a venture studio. And I was teaching Bain partners about how to help multinational consumer packaged goods companies behave more like startups using agile ways of working. Uh, after giving one such presentation, I was like, well, I mean, like if, If [00:05:00] I'm telling everybody how to be a startup and I have zero startup experience, that feels kind of weird.
I used to be a high school math teacher. I know that when you don't actually know how to do something and you teach other people to do it, you're not necessarily doing a good service. Um, and so I felt a duty to try to, you know, play an entrepreneurial hand in my I just didn't have an idea of what I wanted to build.
And so Jake had this idea. I was very interested in it suddenly because at age 30, your hangovers actually start to be even more debilitating and the needs. I've crossed that line and there's recently, and it's starting to be really real. Forget that you are, you are so young and so experienced in this industry.
And I just want to give you flowers for that. Like that, what you've built with Vangst in such a short amount of time from like being a college student essentially is just so [00:06:00] insane to me. Like I would never have survived in cannabis this long without, you know, a decade of industry experience. So I just.
Wanted to pause and say, thank you for having me on the show. Really big fan of your work. Um, but you know, as a 36 year old, I am still in this mode of like, I want to go out and have 10 vodka sodas if it's a fun party, but I feel absolutely incapable of executing basic tasks the next day. And sometimes two days.
And, and when, when your Monday work. Is inhibited by your Saturday decisions. That's when you know, you need to make a life change. And so I reached out to Jake. I said, let's, let's do it. Like I know how to be a startup. You've got a brilliant idea. Let's get in a room and let's just do the, you know, three month agile sprint to try to will something into existence on a shoestring budget.
Um, a shoestring budget in cannabis still is like, you [00:07:00] know, a million dollars plus. And so we shook our hands and said, if we can raise a million dollars in three months, then we will start this business and we will build it. And I, you know, I'm fortunate to be a white dude with an MBA. Jake is fortunate to be a white dude with an MBA.
It's incredibly easy for white dudes with MBAs to raise capital. I think. Another thing I'm so impressed with you for is, you know, being a, a solo female founder and being able to raise venture financing in any industry, let alone cannabis where the prejudice I think is it. magnified. Um, that's incredibly hard.
So I do want to acknowledge up front that Jake and I had the privilege of being a two headed monster with the right resume when we walked confidently into rooms and sold this idea of a two milligram beverage. I worked really close to incredibly hard, no matter, you know, I, I really, you know, I appreciate you saying that, but it's still so hard to raise regardless of your background in cannabis.
I mean, you and I both know it because we've been in the [00:08:00] meetings. I mean, 98 percent of the funds Even if they wanted to invest in the space, they couldn't. And so, even though you had some advantages, it's still incredibly hard. So you gotta give yourself a little bit more credit there. Thank you. Also, I'm a queer person and there is some sort of prejudice against queer people as business owners and operators.
Um, you know, we're pigeonholed into these sort of like, we're creative like, um, but, uh, I can, I can relate to that. Cover very effectively as a straight person, because I was for 25 years. Um, and so we did the, you know, we did the venture capital financing song and dance, we presented as a very, very buttoned up, like Bain trained duo, and we raised a million dollars and, and we said, if we can bring the first microdose THC beverage to market.
Within, you know, six months on after that financing, then we have a viable business moved in together in Venice, shared a one bedroom apartment for a few months. made weed [00:09:00] soda and kegs in our backyard for months and months trying to figure out how to solve the testing issue, trying to figure out how to solve the nano emulsion issue, trying to figure out how to solve the price per milligram category buying barrier at retail, even with premium outlets like med men.
And we just blast through each obstacle one by one. And even though Can it be, and in constellation had, you know, a 4 billion investment kind of go toward trying to build a microdose beverage ecosystem. We were able to build and take the pole position in that category, um, on 1, 1 hundredth of funding over a few years.
And I think it was for a few reasons. One, I was a CPG consultant at Bain for years. I know what a whole foods category buyer wants. If we could design something that would fly off the shelves of whole foods. People are going to buy it. It just, you know, then we just have to break down the walls of access.[00:10:00]
Um, and, and so we made it a 30 calorie beverage with premium fruit and herbal ingredients. We made it taste unique. We made the branding look stunning, not at all stigmatizing, and something that would feel beautiful among an array of spiked seltzers and beers and wine. At, um, a backyard barbecue or a house party.
And, and then we hustled our tits off until people liked it. Um, but, but ultimately it was just like really good product, um, formulation, really good brand identity work. Um, we think red antler a lot, one of our earliest investors for pushing us to make the logo, what it is today. I love the logo. I love, I mean, the brand is just so iconic in terms of everything else, everything else out there.
Thank you. We wanted to make it look like nothing anyone had ever seen before. Um, and we also, we hired a queer woman of color [00:11:00] in Kanaka Shimura to do this geometric line artwork that I think is so foundational to the brand and covers our branded assets when they're at their best, like a mosaic. And reminds people that when you see This playful tapestry of fruits and herbs in, in a linear geometric, single line weight, it's, it's almost like as powerful as a fashion brand.
Like there's something that when you have Canada party that people. People go, Oh, this person knows what's up. And like for, for folks listening, you should, I mean, your website's just unbelievable, but highly social hangover, free award winning flavors. I love the quote. It left me bubbly sociable and I'm in a pleasant haze.
Yeah. I mean, if anybody hasn't been onto the cans website, did you guys redo the website? I feel like this looks different and better than the last time I went on here. Yes. I think we've redone it a couple of times over the last few years. As direct [00:12:00] to consumer sales of Delta 9 THC have become the lion's share of our margin.
Um, we really have rationalized investments in e commerce infrastructure that facilitate transactions and, and I think quite successfully so. Yeah, I want to get it. I want to get into that. But before we do that, just to continue on the story. And so you raised a million dollars, you're hustling like crazy.
You launched. Can you just talk to us about that? The first couple of years after the million dollars came in. And obviously, you know, there's, we don't have enough time on this podcast to get into every single detail, but you know, those highlight milestone milestone moments. And then, you know, I would love to get into, you know, doing a little bit of a pivot.
Yeah. Wow. Okay. Want to do like the. 32nd version of each of the five years. Yeah, let's do that. That would be a fun way to break this down. Okay. Boom. Year one [00:13:00] was the, you know, can we make it exist that I kind of went over already. June of 2019, we launched the product with MedMen as our first retailer. We went out in LA, right?
In California. Yep. And as anybody launching a cannabis brand, the fewer variables you have in the beginning, the more likely you are to succeed. What Bain taught me and what I taught everyone that I worked for at Bain was one product, one retail partner, one geography. If you can eliminate variability. You can, and can crush that microcosm of a world on a month over month revenue and margin basis, you can scale a business to be massive.
So we proved that with MedMen, then we quickly realized that there was no other retailer like MedMen that was getting that foot traffic and that can of curious premium consumer. And we fell on our face. We almost ran out of money. [00:14:00] I literally was so stressed out because we were about to miss payroll.
And I decided like an idiot to go to Burning Man for a week and just like do a bunch of drugs and not sleep. And I came back and I missed a bunch of meetings and I was acting really paranoid and crazy to all of my coworkers, all because I was having a stress induced and substance induced mental breakdown.
And I was institutionalized. I was literally in a mental hospital for two days. I walked out of it. Was it 2019? Like August 2019? It was late 2020. D actually, I think. Oh, okay. So we're in, we're in the sec. So we're in COVID times. It was COVID times. Yes. So the end of our first, well, hold on a minute. It was 2019 that we started the company.
COVID was late. Okay. No, it was pre COVID. It was pre COVID. Um, it was, uh, it was, [00:15:00] it was, uh, late 2019. We had signed Kiva as a distributor. We had opened up 80 accounts in California. Yeah. And then we were realizing that the cost to serve retailers with the product did not sell itself was exorbitant. And our burn rate went above a hundred K a month.
And we were just like, we had zero months of runway. Um, I think we ended up like Jake's family, like bailed us out and then I became, Oh my God. Our manufacturing partner turned out to be like a fake company that didn't have a real license. Like it was wild and I became nervous for my personal safety.
There was all of this, like, like threats of violence activity in early days, cannabis in California. And I had a paranoid mental breakdown that was probably induced by a week of going to Burning Man when I probably should have been focused on like closing a venture check. Thankfully, um, I walked out of the mental hospital and flew to New York and we.
Convinced imaginary to write us, um, [00:16:00] uh, as a lead investor on a 5 million round, like a pretty sizable check and one that sustained the company for another year. And we were able to expand to multi state. We courted a GTI the following year that helped us expand into Illinois and have a strategic partner with a lot of generous financing opportunities for us as we charted.
International domination. And then that's how we actually were able to meet. Remember we were at the, we were at Ben's Smokey Z and that's when we met. Exactly. I mean, and I have a ton of respect for Ben Kovler for running a really, really vigilantly cashflow focused MSO. One of the only ones I think, and I, and I believe that GTI will end up being a winner.
But ultimately, like, when the cannabis industry started experiencing a downturn, and this is year four, um, we were in Canada and five states in the U. S. and we were [00:17:00] doing all this, like, vertically integrated partner management. Stuff in each of the states and each state, as you know, reaches this sort of like oversupply moment, and then it has a correction.
But if all of these states are having their oversupply price, you know, bottom out moments at different times, it's debilitating for an MSO. And rightfully so, I think Ben deprioritized beverage, and I think Even like some major acquisitions that were made like AYR buying Levia, you know, when cannabis is like flush with cash, it's great to bet on the future.
Beverage is the future. Low dose is the future. We're seeing this happen right now. But then what became very difficult was You know, the fact that we weren't turning a profit and a subscale manufacturing and supply chain ecosystem in a, in a retail environment where we have to pay a lot of money for people to buy our product, because the average person going into a dispensary is like, I want to get as high as possible for a small amount of money as possible.
And we're offering, how about [00:18:00] you get not high at all for a lot of money per milligram. It doesn't work. And so, you know, Ben. Um, you know, told us to encourage to look at the delta nine opportunity. Um, we were a little hesitant at first cause we had spent, you know, we'd raised at this point, I think 40 million and we had spent the lion's share of that on just building up distribution and an ecosystem that was going to become irrelevant for us.
Um, and loss aversion psychology is really powerful. So I think we held onto that distribution for way too long. But then, um, can you talk about that a little bit? Just people, can you talk about that a little bit? It's interesting people holding onto something for too long cause you've invested so much and just, you know, I think that's a really interesting topic, especially for a lot of people in the industry right now.
Oh yeah. I mean like Jake and I were just like, Idiots for, for thinking that 40 million sunk into, um, an arcane subscale manufacturing and supply chain ecosystem in every single state where we're having [00:19:00] to lose money on every can we're selling is something that is, was going to be helpful to us longterm.
Um, and, and yet we didn't have another option. So it was really all just like, this is the only, this is our kingdom. We either like fold or we keep throwing money at the problem. Um, Thankfully, like I, I've always believed that the can brand stands for something really amazing in that it's queer led. It cares about women.
It cares about BIPOC communities who have been incredibly abused in this whole cannabis industries normalization. And so while we were doing the very costly distribution expansion game, we made some really smart investments in brand building that, that showed the world that the cam logo is. Fun at the very bleeding edge of pop culture.
We attracted 45 celebrity investors because, you know, largely I just drove around and COVID like a, a weed dealer and gave people free weed soda until they wrote me a check to me, [00:20:00] um, and people generally like their weed dealers. So like masquerading as one was one of the, one of the smartest things I think I did in my career.
And, and it was at the advice of Natalie Massonet from, from imaginary. And, and I'm. forever grateful for it. Um, but, you know, a brand is only, that's pretty incredible. Um, that's pretty incredible VC advice. Uh, people love drug dealers. So just. Well, she gave it in a, in a much more political way, but it was, you know, a lot of the most valuable consumer brands in the world built themselves via grassroots gifting to people with influence and people with built in platforms.
And if you can build an organic relationship with them, they may want to become business partners. And if, if they are writing you a check to be a part owner of the business, they value the equity. And if they're just someone you're paying to post about it, then they It's a transaction. So I think that was the advice that I took to [00:21:00] heart.
And I think was really, really powerful. Um, so anyway, we're at year four. GTI is noticing that we are not actually helping them make money. They stop, you know, helping us make the product. We are really frustrated by that. And we try to figure out how to do a best of breed approach and all of these other states.
We then I think are very Cognizant that like, nobody's going to save beverage, but as the Kleenex of the category, we could figure out how to save beverage if we were still on the bleeding edge. And, and at this point, you know, Hillary McCain, a friend of mine from HBS who I'd always respected, I, you know, I think she made the wrong move in building sweet reason because she thought that CBD beverages were going to be valuable.
I think we all now know that CBD was just sort of like placebo. So, and. Everyone is looking for microdose THC beverages to deliver [00:22:00] on actually what the promise of a CBD beverage was, was trying to do. Um, but I thought that Hillary was on the bleeding edge of the cannabis beverage thinking and I, um, you know, Made an offer to acquire her business.
And, um, not because I wanted the sweet reason brand, not because I thought that we should diversify into CBD beverages. It runs counter to everything that we stood for from the beginning, but because I thought Hillary was an exceptional leader and I thought that she could do some incredible things to organize the can business and ensure that at the point where it put itself up for sale.
The, you know, P and L, the balance sheet looked really, really good. Um, and Hillary's a next level when I saw that you did that. I thought it was so smart because Hillary's just next level. I mean, if, if acquiring her business is what it takes to get her on the team, I feel like that was so smart. I've been trying to get her to come on the [00:23:00] podcast and she's so cool that she's like, no, I don't, I don't really do podcasts.
Well, I mean, She's also, I think every entrepreneurial journey accelerates when ego death becomes a part of it. And I think one of the things that I respect about her is that she does remove her ego from decision making. And over the last year that she's been our president, I think she has, you know, even though six months of it, she was on maternity leave.
She was able to transform decision making within the four walls of CAN in a way that has allowed us to focus on. The financial opportunity and the margin expansion opportunity that will enable us to, at the time where people are ready to invest in cannabis beverage again on up rounds, we are the number one and far and away the, the one with the most brand equity and the most.
Unneeded awareness, but also with the most impressive distribution footprint [00:24:00] and most actual cans in human hands over the history of this category. Looking
at the business. And that's when you decide to make this some dramatic pivot. I would love to just take us behind the scenes there. Well, we had two pivots to make one. Um, uh, one of my investors at Anthos, who is, I think one of my favorite people to work with in the world, Brian Kelly. He invested in can and, and let our series a, it was a very, very good deal.
Um, at the right time, right before I think investment in cannabis started drying up and right before the overall venture capital crunch. Um, and, and I was calling him after a good stretch of performance. And I was like, well, what is [00:25:00] it going to take for you to reinvest and help us grow to the next level?
And he was like, actually, I feel like you need to start thinking about it. Ways in which Ken can get non dilutive financing such that when you see where the, you know, capital ecosystem is moving, you don't, you aren't reliant on outside investors to keep the business alive. And so we then said, we got to find a path to profitability.
And I think Jake and Hillary put their heads together on the can business and said, here we go. Let's figure out how to make this generate cash. And I had a relationship with London alley, this, um, production company where I was getting an offer to be a You know, seconded or acquired. And, and I was like, well, you know, I could split cans business in two.
We can have can, and we can have can media sort of like Red Bull back in the day. And I can sell CanMedia to London Alley and I [00:26:00] can make the 15 person marketing team and creative team that we proudly built and that had won 22 cannabis Clios for just like our creative work. Um, and I, and I do feel like that creative work did help give rise to the relevance of THC infused beverages.
I like, I said, Hey, you're all really brilliant. What if we just started doing that work for other brands? And what if we started figuring out how to generate cash that way? We, I really thought it was, but what I didn't understand was that the, um, that Hollywood would undergo a strike and that six months out of that last year, um, you know, the can media asset was essentially written to zero.
All of the people were fired or, you know, laid off except for me. Um, and my, you know, assistant, um, from that, that original group. Um, and the promise of cash from doing media services in production when [00:27:00] production as an industry was shut down for half of the year was not a place where cash was possible.
So, well, it, well, when I said so smart, I, uh, I feel like it would have been so smart had there not been the, I mean, it's very hard to predict that there's going to be a mass media strike. So. Totally. And like our business was running talent partners through the can ecosystem to build the brand. And so what I'm really good at is making marketing campaigns that have like, uh, you know, a person with an audience attached to it so that the distribution is built in back in the day can had to do that because you could not do paid media in cannabis.
Now, obviously with the rise of Delta nine, that's changed. And over the last year can has been really quiet as a brand and hasn't really done anything. Very interesting, but can has had a very high ROI paid media machine. And I give Jake a lot of credit. Um, and our D two C team, a lot of credit for being really [00:28:00] focused on outsized ROAS and, and to anyone that's starting a cannabis brand right now.
I'm like, yo, like if you're not in Delta nine already, you're too late like that, you can actually get this product in a majority of American households and profitably without the two 80 e, without all of the red tape. And. Even, you know, major gummy manufacturers, editorial ones like Rose delights, which are my favorite Eva Camino's, which are, you know, another favorite they're doing massive bets on Delta nine DTC and probably eventually retail.
So I think that can success story. Uh, in the last 12 months is entirely based on an outperformance of our direct consumer business and smart, you know, decisions to cut off unprofitable, um, third party seller B2B cannabis channels [00:29:00] and, and say, it's okay. That's the rear view mirror. Um, and. Even though our London Alley partnership did not work out in the way that we expected as far as it being a cash flow tool for our business, I, you know, uh, was able to form a new entity independently, maintain a partnership with London Alley, and now I'm running You know, we just did a massive, uh, commercial for Dick's Sporting Goods.
Um, I, like, I feel like I work at Dick's Sporting Goods, which is, is interesting because, you know, I like was a, a weed dealer a few years ago. Um, but, but like, you know, the amount of cash flow. That we can generate as an agency to, um, you know, potentially in a case where for some reason regulations don't work out and can needs cash.
We are now not beholden to cannabis is. [00:30:00] Fully regulated spaces, unfucking themselves in order to survive. We have total wine as a partner. We have a thriving direct to consumer D nine business. We are, you know, looking like we can double in sales on an annual basis again for the first time in a couple of years.
And also. We have a non traditional cash source that should we need it is available. Um, and so I feel like after two years of is Ken going to survive, I feel like. Can is not only going to survive, but can is going to be the Kleenex of this category. And if it weren't for having incredible people around the table at every level of this organization and every life cycle, working diligently to ensure that the can logo means something and that it's in as, as many consumers hands as possible, um, we would not have that privilege.
And, and so not to like, you know, [00:31:00] bring it back to HR, uh, services and cannabis, but like, You know, the people that you bring in in early days of the company, influence the type of talent that you bring in, in growth stages of the company. And we've been very, very lucky to have incredible talented people at the top in Jake and Hillary, all the way down to our interns and every functional expert at every level in between.
And, and that is what has ultimately been the biggest driver of Cannabis success. Sorry, Cannes success in Cannabis. And Cannes is going to be going to, I think Cannes already is the Kleenex of the category and will continue to be. And I think the really cool point that you just made is that at the end of the day, it came down to the team.
It came down to you, it came down to Jake, it came down to Hillary, it came down to All the people that made the decision to make some of the hard changes and change the focus. And not every [00:32:00] team would have been able to do that, right? A lot of teams would have said cannabis is, we've seen it. Think about how many people that we've seen say, Oh, cannabis isn't working for all the reasons that we all know about.
And they, Just fail or go out of business. It comes down to the people who say, if there's a will, there's a way. And we are going to be the category killer here. And if that means we have to pivot and cut our losses with things that aren't working and completely innovate and change, like they do it. And so I think that's why so many investors say they, uh, bet on people before anything, because if it wasn't for you and Jake and Hillary, we might not even be on this podcast right now.
So it's just such a cool story because I've had so many people come onto this podcast. Podcasts and speak to so many people that are just not in the positive mindset and positive place with their business. That you are because they, they didn't make the hard changes or they were afraid to cut off things that weren't working.
And it's super, super, super hard to do. And as a result, they either haven't made it or they might not make it, or they're [00:33:00] certainly aren't waking up, jumping out of bed every day saying, um, my business is not only going to survive, it's going to be the category killer here and for here to stay. So I'm just super happy for you that, because you're one of the most positive people that's been on the show in a while.
Well, it's because I spend 95 percent of my time outside of cannabis. I hate the industry's toxicity, but I am so fucking proud to work in cannabis. I just need to get out of this like doom and gloom echo chamber in order to get my mojo back. Like if you are sitting around people talking about existential crises every day.
That is your data set. And, and so I encourage everybody in the industry to reach out and form partnerships with people outside of it, because you're going to get a different tone, the stock market's like booming again. Like I'm sure it's going to, the bubble's going to burst soon, but like, like there is a general positive sentiment [00:34:00] in the world that I was not privy to.
Because of how difficult the last few years have been in the cannabis industry. And I think the last few years in the cannabis industry have been especially difficult for me because one of the things that can, I think did really well. Was it really showed authentic support of the communities that have been most impacted by the war on drugs and in prioritizing at the expense of our profits, support of those communities, we, we, we really got plugged in and understood and understand today.
That cannabis is 2 percent black owned down from 4 percent black owned a few years ago, all of the operators of color, all of the equity operators who were promised generational wealth, but awarded licenses in name only, or strung along in predatory deals that You know, trivialize their resumes and made [00:35:00] them feel like they were charity rather than legitimate businesses with healthy balance sheets.
They're, they're out finding other jobs in order to survive on a monthly basis because cannabis is not it. And cannabis is not it because of the negativity. And that the toxic echo chamber cannabis can be it again, if we try to operate like a traditional consumer package, good industry with integrity. I couldn't agree more.
I could not agree more. And I've had to, like, I've had to literally leave group chats because it's just to your point around like echo chambers, if everyone's talking about. How miserable they are and how much the industry sucks and how no one's going to make any money and how we just all wasted years of our life.
Like that eventually starts to get to you, you know, like I was, my husband and I were at dinner with another couple last night and he was like saying how I'm like super, super positive [00:36:00] person. But like at some point around in 2023, I started not being so positive and I basically had to just leave all these group chats and.
Stop talking to people who were just so negative because it's like, it's like so depressing I have muted or left so many cannabis communities and I say quote unquote communities because I think like, you know, people who are working to be in recovery from something. Find solutions to the problem and share them, but people who are reinforcing a toxic, unproductive negativity use spaces to throw negative energy into a space that doesn't necessarily benefit from it.
Misery loves. Yeah, that's a great, that's a great saying. So anyway, I'm super happy that you're not part of that anymore. And I didn't listen to [00:37:00] everybody listening. It's, it's super easy to sit around and complain about. The industry, but it's a lot harder to do something about it and be positive. So if you take away one message from this, it's look at what Luke's been able to do with, with can over the last couple of years.
So Luke, as you, as you look forward into the next couple of years, what are you most excited about for your personal journey and career as well as the businesses journey and career? Like what, what, when you wake up in the morning, you're like, wow, I'm super fucking pumped to do this. Oh man, I have so many answers.
Um, one. I believe that something significant is going to happen in the next 12 to 18 months that makes cannabis more efficient as an industry, that allows it a fighting chance, whether that's 280e reform, whether that's, um, interstate commerce and, you know, like, Regulation mapping between neighboring states, [00:38:00] whether that's de scheduling or rescheduling, I believe something is going to happen because.
Importantly, it's just not going to work unless everybody realizes that the investments that have been made in the legal cannabis market are being sabotaged by the freewheeling opportunities in D9 and the short sighted, short sighted. Well, the future is coming. Let's just like let everybody sell weed without a license that we see in New York, like that, that I believe is going to change.
I think we're going to move toward justice and efficiency as an industry. I don't know when that's going to happen exactly, but I believe that in the next 12 to 18 months, strides will be made. So I'm looking forward to that. And I think that will afford everybody who has stuck around some economic opportunity.
I am also looking forward to some like radical social justice work. Like I'm, I'm working with [00:39:00] Mary Pryor. We've been doing the last couple of years, a, um, a documentary film about how women of color have been exploited in the cannabis industry. And in particular, if you're marginalized for being a woman.
It's hard enough. If you're marginalized for being a person of color, it's hard enough. So why not shine a light on the work that operators who are both women and of color have been doing and their resilience and their optimism and their hope for the industry, even though it has given them nothing. I think that story I think that could be told on a, you know, a theatrical stage.
I think it can be told, um, in like an Oscar award winning documentary capacity. And I like, I want to make, I want to make an award winning feature film about the early days of cannabis and the people that it fucked over. Um, we just premiered a sizzle of it at South by Southwest last week. Um, we got Rosario Dawson, [00:40:00] our board member.
To give an amazing talk. We had Colin Kaepernick join the team as an executive producer. I think like having the guy who changed the way that the NFL thinks about racism through some protest art, um, on our side here is like really cool because if. You know, resource rich operators in cannabis have the ability.
To agree with Colin Kaepernick on the road ahead, we can, we can fix this thing. Um, I, I think, um, that project has been, you know, 100 percent of my work on Canne has been devoted to that project of late. And I, I see big things for it over the next 12 to 18 months. And I hope that it influences the future.
Some political or regulatory reform. So, so my last question for you is what do you do for yourself as a founder [00:41:00] on the personal level to keep yourself sane, you know, you, you mentioned checking yourself into like a mental institution because it was so much pressure of, I was involuntarily, I was put, I was five.
I checked myself out of it, but I was, I was put in it. Okay. So you were put into it. So what are you, so what are you doing to, like, what do you do for yourself to keep yourself sane on the founder? Journey, so that doesn't happen again. And there's a lot of founders out there that maybe have, um, a month of payroll or their, they figured out that their manufacturing partner didn't have a license or one of their employees stole from them or you name it.
I mean, every founder has dealing with craziness every day. And so I think it's super super cool that you shared that because a lot of people wouldn't share that on a podcast. And so like, what are you doing for yourself? as Luke every, every day to keep yourself sane. [00:42:00] Well, there's two things. Um, what I do for myself, and then there's the people that I let into my life.
And I think I'll start with the latter because I think you very eloquently described this sort of leave the toxic group chat mentality that I think we all need to apply to all areas of our lives. Um, you know, groupthink is destructive if you're getting advice from people who aren't equipped to give it, or they're in bad places themselves, it's just going to pull you down.
Um, so I, I refuse to work with anybody who does not want to support my health and well being and, and that's even, you know, people can't like, you know, if you're somebody who is making decisions in the best interests of the community, Of a near term P and L outcome at the expense of my sanity. I can't ever work with you.
Like I, and so I will politely exit working relationships that are unproductive for [00:43:00] me. But the beauty of having business partners like Jake and Hillary is you, you'll always have one of us who can work with you. And, and I think the, the importance of having me. Reliable, trustworthy business partners at the top of any company is understanding that you don't need to be the one that saves the day.
You don't need to be the one that fixes the problem. You can allow somebody else who has a better relationship with somebody else to do it and serve the overall interest of the brand. So I, I don't even like hang out with people who aren't, you know, Nice to me and who don't want to see me get through my divorce and, you know, recover from my mom's death to very central themes in the last few years of my life.
Like having your mom die and getting divorced in a short amount of time. Like those are the things that you wish on nobody and that most people do experience one or the other. Um, I'm like going through [00:44:00] both right now and it's really, really mentally and emotionally taxing. So I have chosen to only work in spaces where people value my work.
That's, that was like a big step for me and, and I think has made me happier and healthier. Second, When you find yourself, when you, quick question on that, just to double click on that, when, when, so when you find yourself in a situation where you're working with someone that is not good for your mental health, How do you get out?
You're just like I'm not gonna work with you anymore. I mean Jake Bullock actually taught me this very early on like I used to be like a chronic people pleaser and I would like be in an abusive relationship with somebody at MedMed or be in an abusive relationship with somebody at an MSO and like let them like kick me around Just for their own gain And, um, and Jake told me, Luke, like, you're, you're really good at this, but you're really bad at knowing who to trust.
And you, um, you think everybody wants you to succeed, but sometimes people are just [00:45:00] exploiting you. Um, and so when someone's exploiting you, then you say, fuck them. And you walk out of the room. And so I'm like, I, I'm, I owe him that mentality. And I think it's largely been transformative in my life is like, I don't say it to their face.
It's not nice to tell someone to fuck off. It doesn't help anything, but I will politely in my own brain say, fuck them and walk out of the relationship. Um, always opening a door if, if they want to come back to it, but like, I think you're, you know, fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me is the, is the Bushism that, um, I'm going to go back to there.
Um, and so I think everybody has the power to do that in their own life. Like if you need somebody else to survive, then treat them with respect. And if you don't need somebody else to survive. Don't let them exploit you. I love it. Okay. So that's tip number one and tip number two or thing that you're doing.
Number two. Wellness, baby. [00:46:00] Like, I mean, go to therapy, like. You know, have like a team of people around you who listen to your problems and help you solve them. Um, you know, be a good family member, be a good friend, build nurturing relationships, you know, in the time that you have outside of work, like, and yes, you have to set boundaries such that you can have that time ensure that you are.
You know, prioritizing healthy social life, healthy family life, and then healthy relationship with self above all of it, because put your mask on first before you offer assistance, my dear, like it is so true that if you are not doing well yourself, you are going to spread that toxicity. You are going to be the problem.
You are going to be the person that's making a group chat toxic. And so, you know, like. I, you know, and I got divorced and I bought myself a, you know, I live alone now for the first time in a while, bought [00:47:00] myself an infrared sauna and a cold plunge. Um, Oh my God. I was just going to ask you if you're cold plunging and sawning.
I'm very much on the, this morning I did, uh, for the first time I dunked in my cold plunge, so I did three and a half minutes and I dunked and I've been feeling like so great all day today. But can you tell, so is the infrared, is it better than the actual I'm trying to figure out which one to get. No, it's not, but it's cheaper.
Um, and you know, we're on a budget. So, uh, Wayfair, you can get an infrared sauna for like. Like a thousand bucks. Like it's, it's, um, it's an expensive purchase for like an appliance, but you know, like that's how much it costs to fix your car. Like what if you could, you know, have a wellness routine where you're sweating your butt off and then you take your garbage can and you just throw ice water in it and you climb into it.
Like that it's cheaper than having a membership at like a fancy, um, wellness [00:48:00] I built it in my own home and I'm really, really happy. To have it because when you dunk and spend a couple of minutes in ice water, you, it is, your brain is working for a while. How often are you, are you, I try to do it every day that I'm at home, but I travel a lot for work.
So I'm not able to do it.
Well, Luke, typically this podcast only goes for 30, 30 minutes. And we just went, I just looked up at the clock and we're at 47 minutes. So even though I have more questions, We, we have to wrap, but I wanted to say, thank you so much for coming on and for sharing your story. So candidly and, and honestly, and being vulnerable and just giving so many great tips.
This has been one of my favorite episodes that I've ever recorded. So thank you so much for coming on and congratulations. Well, Hey, we're not out of the woods yet, but things are, things are looking up for the first time in a little bit. And, um, let's [00:49:00] all, you know, as an industry rally together around like, Actual root causes of problems like regulatory reform and social equity, like operators being successful.
And like, we'll, we'll fix it together. We will absolutely fix it together. Well, thank you for being here, Luke. And thank you everybody for tuning in and we will see you next Wednesday.