Northwest Leaf: How did you get involved in the industry, and what was your motivation for starting a company? I had a lot of friends who used recreationally and medically, so I knew about Cannabis. I also had a friend who owned a dispensary as well as a shoe company. He encouraged me on the idea, and got me in touch with the initial factory contacts. We started in 2011, our kickoff year, and it was a rough year.
What was the hardest part of breaking into the industry? It was and is such a new industry. 2011 was about identifying the new market, figuring out what products were needed and which ones weren’t.
WE GOTTA ask: Who wins in bags vS. bottles? What bottles have done is add a sense of legitimacy to the industry. When you bring in Food and Drug Administration-approved packaging that is childproof, it helps keep patients and other people safe. For businesses, when they need to package medicine, it is cents on the dollar for professional packaging.
Are all bottles created equally or is there a difference in product quality? When we first started, we looked at Chinese factories, but it was clear that the products were not up to a medical standard. The lower-grade plastic has residual chemicals that can rub off on the medicine, which patients would then inhale. It’s gross. Our plastic containers meet FDA standards for safety and are waterproof and UV resistant. They are manufactured in the USA out of Pennsylvania, and are shipped to our 15,000-square-foot warehouse in California. We have also added a new facility in Washington, where we hope to expand our business and create new jobs.
How many different products ARE you makING? We make 30 different products ranging from bottles to prescription labels, bags and containers for concentrates and flowers. We try to carry the full gambit of everything a Cannabis business might need for safe and clear labeling and packaging. A few months ago, we shipped our 10-millionth bottle!
Before starting the company, you were a normal college-age guy, except for one minor detail. You were chosen to compete on the “Amazing Race” reality TV show as the first mother-son team in the series. What was that experience like?
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What is good about us is that we started a company with friends at a point where the five of us were living in a two-bedroom apartment sleeping on air mattresses. We worked 14 hours a day, didn’t have time for anything other than sleep. It was the right time of my life, and I’d had the experience of the race to give me a bigger sense of myself.
It was my last year in college, and I didn’t know much about the “Amazing Race” other than that my mom wanted to go to a casting call. There were thousands of people there to try out, but it was my birthday and I told the producers that in my video. When they called back, I actually hung up on the agent the first time, but she called back. It set me off on the most amazing adventure of my life.
In what ways do you think doing the show changed how you view the world? To see eight countries, go all around the world ... after you do something like that, you have a truer understanding of the world, and it makes you look at life differently. All we had for that whole month was each other; no cellphones or any idea of what was happening in the outside world. Now, all the other rat race doesn’t matter.
Has that experience helped you build a better company? What is good about us is that we started a company with friends at a point where the five of us were living in a two-bedroom apartment sleeping on air mattresses. We worked 14 hours a day, didn’t have time for anything other than sleep. It was the right time of my life, and I’d had the experience of the race to give me a bigger sense of myself.
Today your company and brand are quite a success. What do you attribute to your success? We were good about building a sustainable brand. For any dispensary or collective garden to say they are sending out meds in a safe way ... they look to our brand. It puts them ahead of the actual game, and it is actually packaged like a medicine.
So protecting the medicinal aspect of Cannabis is important to you and your brand? What are your plans for the future? We see ourselves having a strong hold in every state that wants to give patients safe access. We are a big brand that wants regulations in our industry that protects it, and we want to see it expand as medicine. When it comes to safety, real businesses and patients understand the value of safe medicine.
fo r m o r e i nfo : w w w. ku s hb o ttl es.c o m
dec. 2013 FACEBOOK.COM/NWLEAF
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