275: From the Battlefield to the CBD Boardroom: Craig Henderson of Extract Labs

Speaker A: Um, now at McDonald's, everyone can get

Speaker B: more of what they want when they want it.

Speaker A: With McVowey, you can choose your wake up call, you can choose your study

Speaker B: meal or even your drive thru dinner.

Speaker C: Jump from craving to saving with McDonald's under three dollar menu including a McChicken

Speaker D: for only two dollars. Limited time only. Price and participation may vary. Cannot be combined with any other offer.

Speaker C: Tired of juggling sales tools or spending hours on prospecting just to book a few meetings? Meet Apollo, the go to market platform for finding leads, connecting with buyers and closing deals all in one place. Apollo gives you access to over 210 million contacts and AI that handles all your busywork. Finding leads, drafting emails and even prioritizing your day. So stop paying for five different sales tools when one does it all. Visit Apollo I.O. and sign up free today.

Speaker B: One day I'd start to figure something out. And about the time I thought I figured it out, the following day, it would just be a complete disaster all over again. You know these farmers are calling asking where their isolate is and I'm making excuses, just trying to buy me some time. So I'm spending half my day trying to work and figure this stuff up, the other half trying to do research. 90% of those days was complete frustration. Literally crying myself to sleep three, four nights a week. So I'd leave every week on Monday or Tuesday, get back Thursday or Friday. I did that for a couple of years. Really put a toll on my marriage. So coincidentally, me and my wife filed for divorce one day before I got fired from Apex. I kind of think that not having any other outs and not having any coddling really made me focus and made me like Craig, this is on you. You've got to do this or you're going to look like a total loser. I think just being scared every is what's kept me going. My name is Craig Henderson, 36 years old. I live in Boulder, Colorado. Started Extract Labs back in late 2016 just because I saw a demand for industrial hemp processing for CBD oil. Back then I never imagined that we would create products. I was just trying to be a processor for hemp farms. Late 2017, we decided that products is something that the world really wanted. Not enough people were making them. Um, so we decided to launch our Extract Labs product lines and that's really our main focus today.

Speaker C: So I guess if someone was listening to the interview on their phone while they're on a bus or something like that, you just go to extractlabs.com and we can learn A little bit more about you.

Speaker B: Exactly. Yep. You can get our wholesale pricing there. You can get all of our online. We sell all of our products online to all 50 states. So, yeah, anyone who's interested can go to extractlabs.com I try to give that

Speaker C: information sometimes out in the front so people can actually see what your product looks like. Because again, this is, uh, obviously a new generation, if you will, of being able to have entrepreneurs in this space. So can you just tell us a little bit more about what CBD does?

Speaker B: Yeah. So cannabis in general has, um, over 120 different cannabinoids. Most people are familiar with THC. It's a whole nother industry. In the marijuana side of things, it's strictly just THC on the hemp side of things or in the CBD side of things. Today we're focusing on CBD, but our goal is to focus on the other 118 cannabinoids. CBG, CBC, CBN. A lot of these cannabinoids offer medicinal value without psychoactive high. So people who like marijuana or THC like that psychoactive high. We are focused on all those other cannabinoids that don't give you that psychoactive high, but helps with things like anxiety, sleep, seizures, chemotherapy. We're actually doing cancer research with csu and, uh, the results are looking very promising.

Speaker C: If someone did, like smoke marijuana, does it still have, like, CBD in it? So you still get those things. It's just you're actually not using that in your products.

Speaker B: Some marijuana is high in cbd. Most marijuana is not. But there are marijuana strains with CBD and other cannabinoids in it.

Speaker C: So how big is your company today?

Speaker B: Today we've got about 40 employees. We're on track to do about 13 million in revenue this year. We have two buildings in Boulder, Colorado, totaling about 13,000 square feet. We're looking to expand into about 25,000 square feet this next year. And we are in about 200 to 300 stores nationwide at the moment.

Speaker C: So CBD just. So again, everyone's on the same page. You can sell that in every state.

Speaker B: I think there's might be a few states with stricter regulations, but according to the Farm Bill act, it is technically legal. I know some states or cities are putting bans on it or just putting stricter regulations on it.

Speaker C: Again, why would most people want the cbd? Oil?

Speaker B: Like I said, a lot of the medical things that people are being prescribed pharmaceutical drugs for. CBD is actually a great alternative. Seems like depression, anxiety is what we See the most of. But we get a lot of crazy stories about children with pain, back problems, seizures, a lot of epileptic children and animals. We sell a lot of our products. People give to their pets all the same reasons. Cancer, epilepsy, anxiety, when you leave the house and your dog freaks out and tears the house up. A lot of people are giving their pets CBD before they leave, and it seems to calm them down.

Speaker C: Can you just tell us why it's kind of catching on fire? Because, again, I think a lot of people now, at least in the us might start seeing CBD stuff around, and you're like, what is that exactly? Uh, why is it catching on so much?

Speaker B: I think everyone wants access to cannabis, and there's only 10 or 13 states with marijuana regulations. So the other states still want access to cannabis and they can't. They don't have marijuana loss there. So this is one way to get access to it. The other reason is not everyone wants to get high. People might want a lot of that medicinal value from cannabis, but don't want to get high. So that's where CBD comes in.

Speaker C: So the idea is like, I think a lot of athletes have kind of pushed is like, instead of maybe taking pain pills, which it seems like a lot of people get hooked on, they kind of look for like a cbd, a more alternative, natural thing. Is that the idea?

Speaker B: That's exactly right. Professional athletes, instead of taking hydrocodone to kill their pain or inflammation, CBD is proven to work really well. And once they try it, they love it and they just keep coming back for it.

Speaker C: Is it not addictive?

Speaker B: That's what they say. I don't believe it's addictive. And there's no studies that show that it's addictive. So as far as I know, it's not addictive.

Speaker C: So you started your company, looking at your timeline here, about three years ago, correct?

Speaker B: Yep.

Speaker C: Even looking back upon when you, I guess, right before you started the company, I mean, let's just say even when you're graduating in college or whatnot, did you think you'd be in the cannabis industry?

Speaker B: So I was in Southern Indiana, going to my engineering school at University of Louisville, and I kept seeing these documentaries on TV about California and Colorado legalizing marijuana. And I kind of thought that it would help people, and I saw it as a huge opportunity. So while I was in school, I was focused. I was trying to figure out a way how I could move out west and get into this industry with my engineering degree. So I'd been trying for three or four years to get out here. At that time, there was no CBD industry. It was just the marijuana side of things. And I couldn't get anyone to call me back. There was an extraction company in Ohio that made supercritical CO2 extraction equipment. I ended up getting on board with them, convinced them to let me move out to Colorado to represent the company, and they did. And then that business went through the roof. And I worked there for about three years teaching people. My job was traveling the country teaching people how to turn marijuana into oil via CO2 extraction.

Speaker C: So basically, you worked with a company that created these machines, and you're selling these machines to other actual marijuana companies so they could extract those oils, Correct?

Speaker A: Yep.

Speaker B: Marijuana producers out in California, Colorado, Oregon, Washington, Arizona, all the real early adapters of marijuana laws back in 2013, 14 and 15.

Speaker C: And so I guess you're saying even coming out of college, you saw this as an opportunity, so you hooked up with a, uh, bigger. I don't even know if it was, quote unquote, like a big company yet, but at least you kind of saw the forefront. It didn't seem like it was an accident, like you saw an opportunity here.

Speaker B: That's exactly right. Yeah. I didn't know it definitely wasn't a big company. I just wanted my foot in the door. In the cannabis industry or in the marijuana industry, I saw there'd be opportunity. I didn't know. I've kind of got an entrepreneurial spirit inside me. Obviously, I wasn't at a place to start a business six years ago, but I just wanted my foot in the door, get out there, learn the industry. I thought that once I got out there, be a great industry to be a part of and maybe one day I could start my own business.

Speaker C: I don't want to jump over. So coming out of high school first, if we just even go back to that part. When did you actually graduate high school?

Speaker B: 2001.

Speaker C: Okay. And then from there, did you actually ended up joining the army?

Speaker B: I did, yeah. Back then, I never smoked marijuana in high school. I had no passion for the industry whatsoever. I got out of high school, didn't know what I was going to do with my life. Wanted to go to college. Didn't really have the pieces together to make that happen. So I joined the military right after September 11 happened.

Speaker C: So did that for a few years. And then that's what led you when you actually started college. You're a little bit older, so coming out again after you got done with the army, you decided, hey, let's just go get in this industry and you'll find a way eventually.

Speaker B: Yeah, finishing up the military. And the military is when I had my first experience with cannabis. Like I said, I never smoked it during high school. After I came home from Iraq, I met some friends, smoked it for the first time. And really that was kind of when I decided, like, this might not be as bad as everyone's saying. So never thought I'd make a career out of it, but I did just become open to it. I realized it wasn't as bad as everyone said, so I just really opened my mind. I decided to get out, go to college. And then throughout college is when I really started thinking about the benefits of this. And then when I saw it getting legalized, I was like, wow, this could be a great opportunity one day.

Speaker C: Yeah. It's funny because, I mean, I've even looked back on when they had prohibition, if it would have been the opposite of marijuana and alcohol, how much worse alcohol actually is for you versus marijuana. And those rules had switched how different things could be where alcohol would be the thing that would be scared of if they were trying to start putting that in states now versus the marijuana epidemic. Right?

Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. At least I'm not, uh, products worth selling, uh, aren't getting people in car wrecks and killing people and getting people addicted. It's crazy that alcohol was able to catch on even with all of its problems. People just kind of let it be, all right.

Speaker C: And so the company that you worked for when you came out of college, what was that again?

Speaker B: Apex. Supercritical.

Speaker C: Yeah, and the funny part is, I think we discussed it on the pre interview and his interview will come out close to this one actually. But I actually interviewed the founder of Apex Supercritical.

Speaker B: Nice, Andy.

Speaker C: Yeah. So, uh, just tell us your experience there. I mean, I talked to him at the very end of the interview about what had happened, how he said he had to downsize his sales and whatnot. So why don't you just tell us what you learned at Apex and then again how you were kind of able to do extract labs and come out from it.

Speaker B: My job there was teaching people how to extract cannabis using CO2. So I learned all the ins and outs constantly in different facilities around the country teaching people how to do this. And then as I'm teaching people, I wanted to teach them more and more. So I learned other processes, post processing techniques. So then when they bought an Apex machine, I could go out there, teach them extraction, teach them two or three refinement steps after that. So I kept learning more and more just so I could better sell equipment, because I was on commission at Apex, so the more equipment I sold, it benefited me to be very knowledgeable. Also, during that time, I started getting phone calls from hemp farmers asking what they should do with their hemp. So my experience in extraction with this demand, seemed like no one was really helping hemp farmers out. As soon as I lost my job two days later, decided to start a processing company. And my goal was just to do it out of my house and just kind of be a real niche small company. I never imagined CBD would be as big as it is today. I thought it was kind of like something no one really paid attention to, but I thought it would be, uh, just enough to keep me alive out of my house.

Speaker C: So, again, the idea was, before you were selling the machine, but now you're actually taking that machine that you used to sell and using that for your own business. So you're basically the guy that you were selling to originally. Is that right?

Speaker B: That's exactly right. Yep.

Speaker C: Okay, I want to keep everyone on the same page. As far as if we're talking about hemp and marijuana, these are two plants that are basically kind of the same.

Speaker B: That's correct. The only difference, by definition, is the THC levels are below 0.3% in hemp, and in marijuana, THC levels are above 0.3. Other than that, they look the same, they're growing the same, they're almost identical.

Speaker C: Right. And so, yeah, those machines, again, you were just saying you're doing it to the original, I guess, people who wanted marijuana get the THC out of there. But again, you had this other plant that's basically identical, that you could extract the CBD stuff and other people just getting into it. So, again, you saw, wow, the market opened up way more than just the states that legalized marijuana.

Speaker B: Yeah, uh, everyone. There's 13 states, and in those 13 states, everyone's focused on marijuana. The, uh, hemp industry, there really was no regulation. It just kind of opened up. There was no rules about keeping it within states. So I was able to get into an infant industry that was open to the world, where all these investors and stuff were focused on individual states trying to just claim the market in that state with 50 other competitors. So it really was this awesome window of opportunity for me that I never realized back then it would be this big.

Speaker C: Hey, everyone, I'm here with John Austensen. And actually I interviewed John on episode 270, which is a recent one and further back on episode 250. So if you want to hear more about his story. But I'm here today to talk about franchise opportunities in 2025 with John. So John, why don't you just give us a review of kind of what you do and maybe some exciting opportunities for someone who might want to invest in franchises.

Speaker A: Absolutely, Austin. So yeah, Fran, Bridge Consulting is our company and we guide clients of ours through the uh, exploration process where they're checking out franchises. We focus on what I call non food franchising. So it's all the industries outside of food that their clients are getting into. And it's entirely free to work with us. We simply get a referral fee from the brands on the back end. So none of that's passed on to our clients. So if anyone's interested in identifying the top 10 or 12 opportunities that are open in their market, uh, that could be a good match, we'd be happy to take the through the process. So yeah, to give you a little bit of color of what we're seeing out there first, we're seeing more interest than ever before. I really think entrepreneurship's alive and well in the US and we're seeing that across a range of different industries and different types of businesses at different price points, all sorts of backgrounds getting involved in franchising in new industries. You know, maybe they're bringing a transferable skill set. Some of the types of opportunities that we're seeing interest in would be things like home and property services, you know, very scalable businesses. Everything from pull out shelving companies for kitchens and pantries to dumpsters, to restoration and water mitigation, mold remediation, you know, kind of that non sexy space. Ah, certainly, you know, they're remodeling companies and others that might be a little sexier if you will, but things like pressure washing, it's asphalt paving and line striping. Again, no expectation. Do you have a background in these? We step into them, you lean into the franchisor and they really support you and teach you and guide you and your team. You know, other industries would include things like health and wellness. So everything from recovery modalities like sauna, red light, cold plunge, uh, cryo, all under one roof potentially to things like fitness and even sunless tanning. There's a great opportunity in that space that uh, has a nice recurring revenue. Just a great business model that has uh, great earnings industries like kids or pets or seniors. Few examples there in the kids space. Everything from youth soccer to tutoring and stem to Trampoline parks we're always going to spend on our kids. Right. We'll also always spend on our pets. Industries like pet grooming or boarding or training, you know, continue to just thrive out there. Even pet more um, crematoriums which takes a special individual but there's a business to be had there. All these different types of niches. We see clients of ours getting involved in industries around the senior space. 10,000 people turning 65 every day for many years now and people want to age in place. And so that can be everything from in home health, which a uh, lot of our clients have gone into, to other solutions like helping people age in place by providing wheelchair ramps and stairlifts and mobility solutions throughout the home. And so again all these different niches and I'd say even though there's a diversity of opportunity, some of the general themes that we're seeing out there are understandable cash flowing businesses, you know, things that aren't trying to be the new trend or the new sexiest thing on the block. Instead it's businesses that should stand the test of time. That's really where our clients are getting in and becoming business owners oftentimes for the first time. And some of these opportunities you can be all in, invested at ah, 150,000 and then certainly goes up from there. But I'd say 80% of our clients are getting into things that between 150,000 and 300,000 they're able to step into oftentimes utilizing an SBA loan. Banks love lending to franchises. We see that the lending uh, as well as the robs program where they can roll over an old retirement account self directed and purchased the business that way as well. So lots of ways to get involved. All different price points in definitely a variety of industries. And like I said, we're seeing so much interest these days.

Speaker C: Yeah, uh, and just reviewing it sounds like. So you're saying home and property services kind of health and wellness and then we have kids, pets and seniors are kind of those hot trends that you're seeing in 2025.

Speaker A: I wouldn't call them trends, I would call them themes that we're seeing out there. Because really the theme is what are people going to spend on regardless of the economy. It's the things they care about, their kids, their pets, their aging parents, their homes, their health. That's really where we see most of the interest today.

Speaker C: Well, thank you for kind of giving us that rundown. Someone wanted to book a call with you and if they would be a good investor for A type of franchise that, uh, you can help them find. What's the best way for them to go ahead and reach you?

Speaker A: Yeah, we'd love to engage with them. Come out to our website, franbridge consulting.com, f r a n bridge consulting.com, share your email address. We will send you a free downloadable copy of our bestselling book, Non Food Franchising. That could be a great primer. And then if you'd like to take a next step and get on a call, would be happy to help.

Speaker C: And again, if you want to listen to more about the details of what John's been up to recently, check out episode 270. Yeah, why don't we talk about that transition a little bit more? How old you were when you're at, uh, Apex. Supercritical. Just kind of walk us through that transition because it sounded like it was just rosy that you said two days later you kind of started your own company. But I want to make sure that we're on the same page of like your age and what your plan is. Because I think this is the real interesting part. Why people start listening to these interviews is like, hey, what was everything like right when you started? And just give us a little bit more detail.

Speaker B: Yeah. So I graduated college. I got out of the army at 24. I was in college fall, spring, summer, full time for six straight years. Got my bachelor's degree and master's degree in engineering. Graduated I believe when I was 30. Immediately got on with Apex. Was with them for three years, or about two and a half years. Which brings us to late 2016. At that time we moved. I moved my family. I had a, uh, wife and two kids. We all moved out to Colorado. It was hard out here. I didn't realize I'm from Southern Indiana. Price of housing was really cheap. And I thought coming out to Colorado would be easy. We got out here, we couldn't even find an apartment to live in. We were stuck in a hotel for a couple months and end up pawning off one of our cars at a CarMax just so we can get the security deposit to put on our apartment. And that was just for my job at Apex. Like, I didn't want to let my boss down. He trusted me to move out to Colorado. So I really sacrificed a lot. Ended up moving into a tiny two bedroom apartment, then worked at Apex for three years. Things at Apex weren't going so well. My job was to travel the country almost every week. So I'd leave every week of Monday or Tuesday. Get back Thursday or Friday. I did that for a couple of years. Really put a toll on my marriage. So, coincidentally, me and my wife filed for divorce one day before I got fired from Apex. So we went in, filed for divorce, next morning, woke up, lost my job at Apex. Things were definitely not good in my life. The next day is when I decided that I would try to start a business.

Speaker C: Seems like, again, I don't want to brush over it. So you filed for divorce, and the very next day you let go of your job?

Speaker B: Yes. And that was three weeks before Christmas, so it was rough. Six months after that, actually.

Speaker C: Yeah. It sounds like you probably didn't have much in savings based on you saying you have the pawn cars and whatnot just to make ends m meet to get out there, huh?

Speaker B: Yeah, I think I had about $5,000 in savings. I took that. I bought a small rotary evaporator and a small freezer. I could figure out the rest. I didn't even have a chiller for the rotovap. I had a fish pump and a bucket, and I'd fill it full of ice and use that to cool the coils in the rotovap. So every morning when I first started this business, in the first three months, drive up to the grocery store, buy, like 30 bags of ice, because that was cheaper than having to buy a $3,000 chiller back then. That's kind of just the story of the company. Usually we'd buy things or we'd buy parts of things and just kind of make it work. Wait for some money to come in, buy something else, wait for some money to come in. And just barely hanging on by a thread, I'd say for the whole first year of the company, I think we fast forward.

Speaker C: Even though you're saying just the full first year because you're saying some terms there that I think, again, leave people behind as far as the very next day. You knew what you needed to do if you wanted to start extracting cbd. So you had a, uh, little machine yourself that you started using.

Speaker B: I couldn't buy a CO2 machine, which is a really nice extraction piece of equipment. I did know that alcohol, just ethanol or isopropyl, would pull oils from plants. So my extraction equipment was a five gallon bucket. I put alcohol in it, and then I'd put plant material in there with it, swish it around, strain the plant material from it. And then I needed a way to get the alcohol separate from the oil. So I pull out of the plant material. There's oil and alcohol in solution, a small, simple distillation piece of equipment called a rotary evaporator was my first piece of equipment I bought to distill off the alcohol so I'd have leftover oil from the plant material.

Speaker C: It's interesting that even the next day you're ready to start your own business, even though it didn't seem like you had much money in the bank. And it had to take a toll emotionally, even if y' all both agreed on a divorce. You said you were with your kids and you're in these apartments. Can you just talk about that a little bit more?

Speaker B: Yeah. We'd been together nine years. My daughter, I think at the time was eight. And it was hard. It was extremely hard. And then losing the job. And I felt like it was just this huge mistake trying to get out to Colorado because I've been in Colorado now about three years. And for the whole three years, it wasn't just the end. The whole three years was a struggle. Things were more expensive out here. I kept feeling like the industry left me behind. My dream was maybe get out here and do my own marijuana thing, but that industry had already left me in the dust. So I kind of felt like I was just defeated. And then to lose my job or my foot in the door in the industry was just God awful. So I thought, oh, well, suck up my losses. I'll start this little thing out of my garage. Working with hemp that no one knows about. Oh, well, it's not my dream, but it's something that hopefully will pay the bills. And then for the next six months, every day, I regretted starting that company. I kept telling myself every night, like, tomorrow you're going to look for a job. I had an engineering degree, so I always had that fall back on every night. I was at my wits end with trying to get this company to do something. So every night before I went to bed, I'd promise myself in the morning I'd work on my resume and go find a job. Well, in the morning we come around, I'd have a little bit more motivation in me and I'd just tackle it again. And this went on like that for about six months.

Speaker C: And you said about the marijuana thing, if you would have started doing that, you felt like it was too mature already in Colorado that everyone had done that. But again, people weren't even looking at hemp. And you saw that opening.

Speaker B: Exactly. It's a blessing in disguise. I'm so glad I did not get in the marijuana industry ever. That industry is so regulated, it's within states only. You're competing against 100 other competitors in a single state. Just a nightmare of an industry, if you ask me. So it really is a blessing that this happened. And I got into something I didn't think huge. And now CBD and hemp is outdoing marijuana, or if it isn't yet, it will be in the next year or two.

Speaker C: That's another point that you bring up that I even think about is that, uh, you're saying if you would have done marijuana, your market would only have been people in Colorado, because you have to stay in that state. But again, it's something that we had talked about originally. CBD sounds like it can be basically sold in every state in the U.S. so you have a much bigger market and opportunity.

Speaker B: Yeah, way bigger market. Today, a lot more people are getting into it. But for the first couple years, I was still one of the only guys on the hemp CBD thing. So business was amazing. Helped us grow at the rate we did. And not only can we sell in the US we're allowed to sell to other countries. So instead of competing in a state market, we're allowed to compete in the world market.

Speaker C: And you're saying for the first six months, even when you used this machine, started extracting CBD oil, you're able to push yourself each morning kind of to do it the next day. Just tell us what each day was like. What were you doing to grow your business at that point? Because it was a startup and you had no money.

Speaker B: So at that time, I knew how to do the base extraction. I knew how to remove plant waxes, which is winterization. But I knew people wanted distillate and isolate. I didn't know how to make that, but I figured I could teach myself. First step is try to get some farmers, bring me plant material. I got that. They dropped it off in my garage. When they show up at my house, they'd be like, oh, where's your facility at? And I tell them that I'm having electrical upgrades being done on the building, so just drop it off here. I'll be back in my facility in a couple weeks. There was no facility at that time. It was just my garage. They'd want me to take it to Iceland. I was like, okay, just give me three weeks. I'll get this taken isolate for you. I didn't realize that taking winterized oil to distillate oil and then to isolate, I definitely underestimated how hard it was. So every day it was me trying to figure out that next step. And then I'd, uh, lose one day, I'd lose the next day, I'd have a little win one day I'd start to figure something out. And about the time I thought I figured it out the following day, it would just be a complete disaster all over again. And then after a couple months, these farmers are calling, asking where their isolate is, and I'm making excuses, just trying to buy me some time. I'm on the Internet, so I'm spending half my day trying to work and figure this stuff out, the other half trying to do research, calling as many people as I know, just trying to get someone to give me some advice. And just every day, just finding a piece of the puzzle here, a piece of the puzzle there, A small win here, small win there. But to be honest, 90% of those days was complete frustration. Just wanting to cry and literally crying myself to sleep three, four nights a week.

Speaker C: Even when you're doing that, I mean, you're at home, you're working from home. Your wife and kids moved out at that point?

Speaker B: They did, yeah. So, uh, about a week after we filed for divorce, they're moving out. And obviously I'm wanting to try to keep that together. Now's not the time to be getting divorced, like, oh, my God, we're jobless. Because my wife also worked at that last company, so we both lost our jobs that same day.

Speaker C: Oh, wow. So that's even. Wow. I didn't know that. Uh, obviously. So, yeah, just add that on top. So she's dealing with the same thing, too. And then you both have kids.

Speaker B: Obviously she is. And there's a little bit more to the story. She had, I, uh, guess a boyfriend at that time that I didn't know about that was willing to support her. So I couldn't figure out why it was so easy for her to pick up and, like, run out of the house with the kids, get this apartment. I couldn't figure out how she even paid for the apartment. So she's got some help on her side, someone helping her along. I just felt like everyone. The whole world was ending. Everyone's leaving my house now. I'm stuck in this house by myself

Speaker C: and working from home.

Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker C: So, uh, it's already hard enough to start a company, but I imagine just dealing with that. I mean, personally, I've had to, uh, deal with working from home, and it gets isolating and definitely. But, dude, when you add on, like, I didn't have kids and a wife that moved out at the same time, too I mean, I've been through breakups where that already takes a toll, just like a relationship to. But then when you add the relationship toll and you're working from home and total isolation and you're trying to figure out again, it doesn't seem like you've done anything to promote your business yet. It's all just trying to figure out the product first. It seems like even the first few months it was.

Speaker B: Luckily I did have a little bit of a network, uh, with working for Apex. So I did have that. Gave me a one up day. I started that business. I had 200 people out there I've trained that I knew would probably be interested in cbd. I could just figure out how to get it from the plant and get it in a form that they wanted. I could probably call these people. So sort of had that part figured out. If I could just produce a good product, I'm sure these people will buy it. It took a while, it definitely took longer than I thought for them to buy it. But a few of those people ended up turning into customers.

Speaker C: Okay, good that, uh, at least you had that. But again, you had to make sure you figured out this product. It seemed like there was no easy way to use some terms that I'm sure other people don't know and I know, at least I don't know as far as the extraction method and what you had to do. So how long did it actually end up taking to figure out your product here? What's going on, everyone?

Speaker B: It's bluff here.

Speaker C: And you know what's more American than America's 250th birthday? Supporting American owned companies like Spinquest, America's

Speaker B: number one social casino with over a thousand games like Live Dealer, blackjack and craps. They're offering new users a 30 coin package for just $10.

Speaker C: Go to spinquest.com and sign up today.

Speaker B: Spin Quest is a free to play social casino void where prohibited. Visit spendquest.com for more details. It's probably three to six months and

Speaker C: you said you only have 5,000 bucks in the bank. So what happened? How were you living? Because I imagine you still had to pay a mortgage and obviously pay for food and all that stuff, if it's

Speaker B: okay to talk about. I was doing, you know, I knew a lot of people in California with cannabis, so I was just hustling, trying to broker deals between people, farmers with marijuana, people looking for marijuana. So I was kind of dabbling on that and I had some friends in California, so I was just working as hard as I could for them also to bring in some side cash to keep me alive while I got this company off the ground.

Speaker C: Okay. How often were you sleep, you're working seven days a week again. If you're working from home and starting your business from home and trying to do all these things just to maintain some sanity first.

Speaker B: Yeah, uh, I'd go to sleep, I'd work until 8 or 9 o' clock at night. I'd get back up 7, 8 o' clock the next morning and just go as hard as I could, as long as I could. And occasionally, if I had a win, I take a day off just to kind of like, okay, let's end this week on this good note and we'll take a day off, relax, get back at it the next day. Yeah, it was horrible. It was the worst thing I've ever had to deal with.

Speaker C: I, uh, mean, now that you've gone through it, do you think you can do anything?

Speaker B: Yeah, it's definitely the sky is the limit now. I never imagined make it this far. I never imagined I'd make it past those first three months. And the fact that with just a great idea and just a lot of hustle and willing to sacrifice, it's amazing what I've been able to do. And now it just opens up my mind to so many other possibilities. I wonder what else I can accomplish out there. I never thought I could.

Speaker C: How did you keep it together after these just even first six months of the company? I mean, did you even have friends, business friends, or anyone else that you could talk to or that you would even want to talk to about? Because there's other people who are listening right now who are going to go through something similar or going through it right now. And do you have any advice for them on, um, how you were able to do it?

Speaker B: I had a friend in California that I talked to and he kept telling me it's a bad idea, I should probably get out of it, quit wasting my time. So I kind of quit talking to him. My parents, they lived in Indiana. They were just kind of encouraging me to leave Colorado and come home.

Speaker C: Yes.

Speaker B: I really didn't have a lot of support. I found a girlfriend, a temporary girlfriend for six months that she was kind of lighting a fire under my ass. I'd go to her at night to complain and she'd just be like, you know what? You need to quit complaining. Just get up tomorrow morning. She kind of gave me some great advice about just sucking it up and doing it. That relationship never worked out, but her Advice during that time was really useful. Come the evenings, I'd go to see her for a couple hours and I would try to complain and try to just cry about how miserable my day was. She didn't want to hear anything about it. So it kind of just taught me to suck it up. Quit complaining. No one wants to hear your fucking problems. And, yeah, that really seemed to help.

Speaker C: Yeah, so it's a good step. Again, what you said you had a friend in California that was talking to you and being negative about it. And even if you're friends now or whatever, but at that point in time, if you have people who aren't on board with you and what you want to do and this is the thing that you want to do, it's important not to keep those people around, at least at that point in time, because again, if everyone's pulling away from you, you need energy, you need to be able to focus. If you have these other things pulling at you negatively, it's going to be even harder, I guess, to grow, uh, a business.

Speaker B: Oh, that's 100%. I couldn't even talk to anyone if they didn't think it was a good idea. I had to rule them out immediately. I was so deep at this point, I could not stand to hear anyone tell me it was a bad idea. I just had to focus on what I knew I thought would work. I knew the industry. I think there's a demand for CBD at this point and just had to really dwell on that. If I could just figure this one piece out, I'd be good. And then the next day, if I could just figure this one piece out, anytime I looked at the whole picture, like, you don't have a website, you don't have this, you still don't have a building. If I actually looked at the whole picture on what all could go wrong, I would want to tap immediately. I couldn't do that. I had to focus on one piece at a time, focus on it till it was complete, move on to the next one. Took time, but it worked.

Speaker C: So after these six months, it seems you finally able to prevail and that you're going to sell your product to, uh, other businesses. So it's going to be like a more of a business to business versus if I'm looking at you. You even mentioned your website. Your website is beautiful. I'm looking at it right now. It looks like a consumer can purchase from it right now, but back then it was just trying to get your product into the hands of these other guys. Who actually sold marijuana products.

Speaker B: Yeah, well, I was just going to produce the raw CBD isolator, raw CBD oil to sell other product manufacturers. Well, I couldn't find product manufacturers, at least enough of them. And farmers are like, we want to bring you plant material, but what are you going to do with it? I was like, well, I'll process it before you give you back your oil. They're, uh, like, we don't want our oil, we just want to grow. And I started seeing demand in the margins on some of these products. I was like, well, I think I can make that product. A few of the products were fairly easy. Some of them were a lot harder. My biggest struggle with that is, okay, I've mixed CBD oil with coconut oil. I've got a tincture. Well, now I need to find a bottle for it. Okay, that wasn't that hard. Now I need to put labeling on it. I've never made a label for a product in my life. I don't know what goes on a label. Same thing. Just had to one day at a time figure these things out. And then it seemed like once we had some products with labels on them that looked good, uh, went to a trade show or two, then that's when sales really took off. Stores started carrying us and we started getting two, three new stores a week. And we still do today. We pick up two new stores every week.

Speaker C: How long did it take to get to that point where you actually started putting your own packaging and product together? Because again, we understand that you were figuring out the product. You finally got it. It's obviously like selling corn. If a farmer doesn't want to buy back his raw corn, I guess they want to sell it to the supermarket. And you were selling, you thought you originally could sell it back to those guys, but you couldn't. Uh, and then you didn't know where to sell it was the idea.

Speaker B: That's exactly right. I didn't know. I was like, I'm not going to have a business if there's not products to put this in. I couldn't find product manufacturers. So I was like, well, I guess I'll create my own products. And then I was like, maybe we can create an e commerce site people could buy directly from us. And then it seemed like stores started picking us up. And that's really when we put all of our focus. So about the year mark is when we started making actual products. About the year and a half mark is when we started getting them into stores. So we've been in stores now, about a year and a half.

Speaker D: The worst time to need medicine is when you can't get it. Jace Medical helps you prepare before illness turns into a crisis. With Jace Medical, you're not scrambling. When sickness hits, you're ready. The Jace case gives you 10 emergency medications, including antibiotics and symptom relief, delivered to your door after an online physician evaluation. Fall travel, back to school. Germs surprise sickness. Don't wait for the cough, the fever, or the pharmacy scramble. Go to jase.com J-A-S-E.com and get your Jase case from Jace Medical today.

Speaker C: It's very interesting. Even up to this point in the story. You're figuring out the extraction and then now you making these products to you. Maybe it was easier to find some labeling and containers that you could put the CBD oil in, but it still couldn't have been easy.

Speaker B: No, that was really hard. And we're still learning today. You know, our first few labels would get in the stores and we'd have health departments from other states calling us, letting us know our labeling is not within guidelines. I didn't know there were guidelines for labels. So it's constantly been trying to figure out how to make these labels. Right now we've got it. Now our labels are great. We got some really nice certifications. We're working on GMP compliance in our entire building. But this was all stuff that was foreign to me, just kind of figuring it out one day at a time.

Speaker C: Tell us about that one day at a time. I mean, is there any stories of you being able to extract the oil and then taking it to the next level? Just kind of walk us through. Because again, I don't want to just jump through that. You even said it was more difficult than I would think. Because to me, thinking from an entrepreneur's point of view, far away, I'm like, oh, it's legal. You can easily find packaging. That must be the easy part compared to you experimenting with this product and figuring it out. But I guess your mindset, you're an engineer, you need to be able to figure that out. But maybe there's so many manufacturers of labels and bottles and stuff that it was hard to actually find what to put your CB oil in.

Speaker B: Yeah, and really just the product itself. Some of the products. Let's use our muscle cream, for example. We kind of formulated in house. We did some research online, found these awesome oils and stuff. We mix them together. We tweaked the recipe. Okay. Now we've got something that feels nice and creamy. It feels Good when you rub it on your skin. And then a week later it wouldn't feel like that. What do we do different? What do we do different? We'd make 500 of these things. Next day, I'm, um, flipping trays. I'm just mad. I can't figure out why the cream changed. And it had a lot to do with temperatures and a curing process. Again, something I never knew. So these creams, you have to heat up the oils just right, mix them at the right times, pour them hot, and then immediately get them in a freezer. So it's almost like a tempering process on the creams if you want the same consistency every single time. And this is all stuff that no one taught us. It just over a six month period of like, why is this happening? And we try something else. Why is this happening? It's easy now. Now you can go back and tell someone how to make cream, but it took six months of figuring that out to get that recipe correct. And then labels. We didn't even put labels on the beginning. It'd just be a Sharpie marker. We'd write on the top of a tin can what it was and put a picture on Instagram. And then people would start calling us, wanting to buy it. So for the first three months, products just went out with like a Sharpie marker written on the top of what it was.

Speaker C: You keep saying we. Who's we at this point in time?

Speaker B: At this point there's probably five of us.

Speaker C: Well, geez, that seems pretty big jump from you just working from home and all of a sudden you say there's four other people.

Speaker B: Yeah, we did so first three months by myself, and then over the next nine months we got up to about five people.

Speaker C: Well, how were you able to hire these people?

Speaker B: Yeah, off Craigslist. I find someone who's willing to work really cheap off Craigslist for 12 bucks an hour. I just pay them cash, promise them that one day, if the company does well, I'll make it up to you, then I'll give you a raise, actually get you on payroll. So I got a lot of people that were just super passionate. They didn't have formulation experience or lab experience or sales experience. They were just younger people between 22 and 25 and really passionate, wanting to get into this industry. So they couldn't work for me part time, full time for $12 an hour cash.

Speaker C: Did you have any investors or something as far as being able to get money even though you're hiring cheap, which is smart, especially when you're getting started. It didn't seem like you had that much money in the bank.

Speaker B: No, the little bit of money we were making, so I wasn't paying myself. Like I said, I was still brokering some weed out in California, so that money was supporting me and I was taking the money I'd make from that to pay these employees and kind of fund the business one day at a time.

Speaker C: I guess you're making a decent amount from selling the weed in California to be able to hire these people then.

Speaker B: Yeah, it was good. California was still 2016. Still had crazy regulations. It wasn't as regulated as it was now. So there's, uh, still a lot of wild, wild west selling out there.

Speaker C: Okay, so now we're talking about you have four employees at this point in time. Six months to a year into the business. Are you still working from home when you're doing all this stuff and trying to figure out how to make the CBD oil into product?

Speaker B: No, we got a real small building, little 2,000 square foot building around month five. And there's two of us at that time. And then three months later, we had about four employees outgrew that building. And so went and found another building that was 5,000 square feet. That building just wouldn't hold us anymore. The electricity was inadequate, so we broke the lease on that. Had to end up settling a lawsuit later on in life for that, broke the lease on that one, got into that 5,000 square foot building, and there we grew into about 25 employees over the next year and a half.

Speaker C: What was the year mark when you moved into the. Because I'm trying to think of what your real big stepping stones are into the business. Was it moving into that building? Was that at the year mark or so? The 2,000 square foot.

Speaker B: The 2,000 square foot was at month four.

Speaker C: Oh, damn. So that was month four. Then how about the upgrade? When you moved into the next building?

Speaker B: The upgrade was probably around month eight.

Speaker C: So, uh, four more months.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: Wow.

Speaker B: Yeah, things started really picking up quickly.

Speaker C: Yeah. So, I mean, it seems like everything from. Even when you started, you sounded dejected, that you were just doing this from home and trying to figure it out. And eight months later, you've already moved into two buildings because your business is growing so much.

Speaker B: Yeah. So then it started getting real exciting. Then it started feeling like, okay, now we might be a real company. Still didn't have a website at that time.

Speaker C: Did you have a company name?

Speaker B: Yeah. Extract Labs.

Speaker C: Okay. Even at the time, and you were 100% owner at this point in time

Speaker B: too, I was still. Yep.

Speaker C: Wow. So what mistakes did you make over those eight months? I mean, other than the product. We know you told us it took a lot of time and tinkering to figure that out. But even like I say, that first full year, what issues did you have that other entrepreneurs could learn from?

Speaker D: The worst time to need medicine is when you can't get it. Jace Medical helps you prepare before illness turns into a crisis. With Jace Medical, you're not scrambling. When sickness hits, you're ready. The Jace case gives you 10 emergency medications, including antibiotics and symptom relief, delivered to your door after an online physician evaluation. Fall travel, back to school. Germs surprise sickness. Don't wait for the cough, the fever, or the pharmacy scramble. Go to jace.com J-A-S-E.com and get your Jace case from Jace Medical today.

Speaker C: Anything with hiring? It seems like if hiring people with $12 off Craigslist, I think some people might be worried. I think it's smart to hire cheap. But did you have any issues with hiring?

Speaker B: That's probably our biggest success was the hiring. Just finding passionate people. That's why the company did so well. It was me grinding it out with three people. Me grinding it out with 10 people. Up until even recently, there are 18 people in the building. They still see me every day working, working, working right there next to them. Um, and they somehow I never imagined you could hire someone and they would have the same passion you would for your own business. And I feel like I've got almost 40 people like that. That has been our biggest success by far. The reason we're so well off is having all these people super focused, super passionate, just killing it every day. Some of those people now make 60, 70, 80k a year. But for the first six months or a year, no one was making over $20 an hour.

Speaker C: It's probably you being in that market. Luckily, if you're in southern Indiana at this point in time, I think it'd be very hard to probably find the same type of passionate people who would be interested in CBD because. Because again, Colorado legalized weed. So people are open minded to what the type of plant could do for them as far as a benefit versus if you were in south Indiana starting this company.

Speaker B: A hundred percent. Yeah, we've got. Out of the 40 people here, I think only four of them are from Colorado. The other 36 are literally people just like me who moved out here around the same time I did, or some of the people we hire we give them an interview, they pack up their car, they drive across the country for the interview with plans that they're going to get the job. And if they don't, they'll just figure it out from there. We just love that. We love seeing people want to drive across the country just at the shop for an interview. That just shows how much they care. And those people end up turning out the best.

Speaker C: They're believing it's more than just a job. It's like a cause of kind of like them wanting to be open minded and be able to do things like this. So I'm looking at your website now too. It seems you obviously have multiple products, so were you just trying different ones all after this first few months too? I don't know if it's easy to walk us through because I'm looking at topicals, some CBD crumbles, some say CBD vape. So to me it's pretty amazing that you're even able to come up with all these different products. And when initially you're just telling us you were shipping them in aluminum cans.

Speaker B: Yeah, I think what it was is just working the marijuana side of things or teaching people. I would go out, someone would buy this new machine, they'd be working out of their house, I teach them how to do extractions and a year later I'd go back and visit them. Um, they're real similar stories to mine. They'd have a building, they were making marijuana products. So I think I saw enough marijuana products, I saw what was succeeding. It seemed like vapable products. The shatters and crumbles on the marijuana side were really popular in topical products.

Speaker C: That's good because you had a template. I think that's always important is that if you had to brainstorm all this shit, I was like, dude, it seems like very hard. But just because the marijuana industry had just been legalized, you could see what was doing well and kind of just mimic it.

Speaker B: Yeah, If I could just create the same products marijuana industry had without thc, I could get these same products, CBD version of the marijuana product into people's hands in states where they couldn't get it.

Speaker C: Sorry for cutting you off. Yeah, so I guess you're about, you want to say eight months a year in when and you want to kind of pick up the story again when you had moved to your second building and how things were going.

Speaker B: Yeah, about time. I'd master a job, I'd hire someone to do what I was doing and then I'd move on to the next job, then find someone to do that. Because there's a lot of things like shipping. I didn't realize how intense, just the logistics behind shipping. And now we're shipping out four or five hundred products a day. So it's a whole team. There's four or five people over there all day long, just packaging and shipping things. I can't really say those first couple of years, I'm not sure what mistakes we made. I feel like we made a lot of, lot of good choices. I'd say in the last six months, maybe we're doing so well that we kind of got ahead of ourselves. And we spent the last early part of 2019 patting ourselves on the back just thinking that we were unstoppable. And I think we kind of took our fingers off the pulse of the industry because we saw right after April, you know, April was a record month. January, February, March and April were all record months. And then sales started dropping. So May, June, July, we've seen a decrease in sales and I think we just got a little unfocused, started celebrating a little bit too much. And some of these stores, you know, maybe wholesale prices weren't in line with what our online prices were. And so stores would be like, why would we buy from you? We can't sell it for as cheap as you sell it online and still have a margin. So these are things I just never took into account. Recently we've lowered wholesale pricing to give stores. Now if they buy it from us wholesale, they'll have a 60% margin and that puts them right in line with our e Commerce site pricing. 60% margin. Stores are loving it. We're starting to see a huge uptick in sales. I've never taken investor money and I don't think it hurt us. I think it was great, but I think now we're at a point where I really want to take that next step and get us into a 30,000, 40,000 square foot building, bring in 10 or 15 more employees. So I think we're in a position now. I've always been against taking investors money, but I'm opening my mind a little bit more to it. I think if it's the right investor or the right kind of funding, I think it would be beneficial not just for the company, but all the employees in the company as well.

Speaker C: Well, uh, you have to listen to Andy's episode. Obviously your old boss said it's super critical because he kind of said the exact same thing. I'm kind of the same mindset too. It's like when you start taking on money, then you have more people telling you what to do versus if you're the 100% owner.

Speaker B: Exactly.

Speaker C: Can create a great business. But I know he had mentioned that he kind of regretted not doing it because if you would have done it, ah, in an industry that's skyrocketing, kind of like yours again, yours is lagging a little bit as far as marijuana got out at first, so you can see what issues that they had.

Speaker A: And.

Speaker C: And again, Andy said he would've taken money now that he looks back. Just because you're in a market that can't skyrocket and if you can be on the forefront of it versus if you don't take that money and you have other companies that come and take a lot more market share. I think that's the one thing that he said he wish he would have done over.

Speaker B: I agree. And I think I saw the mistakes he made. That's another thing. I owe a lot to that company. It was a small startup. When I started with him, there were six of us. When I left that company, there was 25 of us. So I definitely got to see the mistakes he was making and I think think I'm starting to see that now. So I see some other companies that have taken on 50 million funding and boom, they've surpassed us. And I thought I was against it, but it's like, well, if it helps everyone out, if it helps out, uh, I can't just be selfish. I need to do what's in the best interest of the company and all the employees. And I think taking money now might be the right time. And watching him not take it, I definitely saw that company plateau about the time I got fired. So it's cool to hear him say that.

Speaker C: Hi, I'm here with John Austin again. And if you didn't know by now, he's our first repeat guest on the podcast. So, you know, he's a special guy. Uh, John, why don't you tell us a little bit about what you do and how you might be able to help our listeners.

Speaker A: Yeah. At Franbridge Consulting, it's Inc. 5000 business that we built up. And that's because we've been able to help so many clients step into business ownership, oftentimes for the first time or in some cases the second or third time. And we focus in an area that I've dubbed non food franchising. You know, with that again, we help people with all different types of backgrounds step into business ownership all around North America. And, uh, you know, they get the support of the franchise system. We help educate them along the way. And the beauty of this model is, Austin, it's entirely free to work with us. We simply get a referral fee from the brand on the back end. None of that's passed on to our clients. You know, we've been able to help quite a few of your listeners in the past and would love to help even more.

Speaker C: Can you give us like a timeline of how this process might work when working with you to find a franchise?

Speaker A: Yeah, we try to keep it as efficient as possible. And just like everything in franchising, there's a defined process of how we go about it and how the franchisors would engage with you. And our goal is to identify the top 10 or 12 opportunities for you in your market, uh, you know, that are available. And so it would start out with an introductory call with us, again entirely free. Uh, we'd get to know you, have you fill out just some very simple paperwork to get a little bit more of a profile and then we go to work on our end to identify, uh, based on our relationships, based on what we're seeing out there and our past experience. What are those top, let's call it a dozen opportunities in your market would come back then and present those to you. Uh, you would try to narrow this down to maybe three or four to then have a conversation with that. We would tee up and from there the franchisor will take you through a series of calls and presentations, really exposing you to the business. And, um, you'll get to talk to other owners in the system and hear about their experience. You'll get to read through their fdd, their franchise disclosure document, where they share all their historical results and information. Again, trying to get you as much data and info as possible leading up to what's called a Discovery Day. I'd say typically that's around 45 to 60 days out from when you have that first call. We do have some people that will move faster or slower, but usually it's around that two month mark and that's where they would fly you into their home office. You spend a day or two with the franchisor and their team and make sure you get your cool questions answered, but also make sure it's a good culture fit. You know, franchising is a partnership and again, we want you to go in eyes wide open and really feel confident, uh, when you go to sign that franchise agreement. And it's not that you're launching the business right after that. You know, typically there's site selection. If it's a physical retail customer facing build out that takes a little bit of time or in a lot of cases our clients are getting into service based businesses that don't require a physical location. But still there's going to be some degree of training and prep work that the franchisor would help you with, with to launch that business, you know, shortly thereafter. As far as how do you find the right franchise? Again you can do a lot of googling. The problem is there's, there's so much noise out there. Even the top 100 franchise list or top 50 lists from different publications, usually companies are paying to be on that list. And so it's just a PR move for them. So again so much noise. It's important to understand what's going on, you know, behind the scenes. What is that leadership team, what is their background, what do they bring to the table, how do they support, support uh their owners. And again that's based on our rich history and what I call non food franchising, all these other industries. We can help our clients really understand, you know, what are those opportunities that if we were in their shoes we would want to be considering there in their market.

Speaker C: And you said 45 to 60 days is kind of most people take to make a decision and they might go out to a uh, franchise wherever they're located. But after that what would you say? What would be a typical timeline finally putting up money to close on a franchise? Are we talking about like six months from now after that or like give us a time frame so everyone can listen and kind of understand that?

Speaker A: Yeah, to level set I'd say most of the opportunities our clients are getting into are between 150,000 and 300,000 from an all in investment range including working capital, certainly some on either side of that. But a lot of our clients are using SBA loans and so it does take a little bit of time for uh, that money to hit. Some will use an old retirement plan, roll that over through what's called the Robs program, which is kind of a new neat way to purchase as well. So uh, we work with our clients on that funding strategy. What I see most often is at that, let's call it 60 day mark, where you're ready to move forward and you're signing the agreement, you're usually paying a deposit while you're, let's say while your loan or your retirement funds roll over. You've already had confirmation that that's going to happen, but it may Take a few more weeks or even a month after that. But no, it's, it's again process driven. Banks love lending to franchises, as you might imagine. And uh, we've got great partners that help our clients with every piece of that.

Speaker C: You said you kind of help identify what market. Say if I'm in Jacksonville, Florida or you're in Atlanta or someone's in New York, if it's oversaturated, you can help us figure that out.

Speaker A: Yeah, so I'd say we fly at 30,000ft where we're saying, hey, here in comparable markets, here's how the franchisor is done. I'd say the franchisor flies, you know, much closer to the ground where they would take you through, uh, using their technology to identify the demographic information at the zip code level. So average household income, you know, number of addressable businesses with these characteristics. So that gets really detailed. But then I encourage our clients to actually take another step, you know, once they're serious about a business. How about you do a little bit of secret shopping? How about you call around? How about you get some quotes? How about you go out and visit the competition? You know, I'd say if there's a competition that could be an indicator that uh, it's a good thing. There's a need for that service in the market. However, again, yeah, you want to make sure you're not saturated. You also want to make sure what is your competitive advantage against that competition. So there is some science and some art to this and we come alongside to try to hold their hand through the process. Come out to our website franbridge consulting.com franbridge consulting.com and share your email address. We'll send you a free downloadable copy of our book, both audio as well as PDF. Non uh, food Franchising is the title, it's best selling book. We'd love to share a free copy of that with you. And then if you'd like to take a next step, let us know uh, in the email that we reach out to you with and uh, would be happy to get on a call. Again. It's entirely free to work with us. We're essentially a real estate broker, but for franchises.

Speaker C: Well, thank you for sponsoring the podcast and thank you for giving us some insights here on franchising. It's kind of astonishing to me is that you come out, you're a sales guy for this other company and then you start your own business. It sounds like the worst moment anyone can imagine in their lives really. Just as far as the other parts Is like you didn't have a ton of money, you didn't have a lot of emotional support or spousal support when you started it. And then everything's been up and up. Obviously we can jump back to you said recently maybe there's been some dips, but it's just amazing to me that it seems like everything worked super well, at least for the first two and a half years it has.

Speaker B: And sometimes I wonder if I would have had, uh, more emotional support, if I would have had more people sitting there coddling me and offering to help, if that would have really crippled me. In college I felt the same way. Getting engineering degree, I felt like I was just kind of on my own. It was up to me to succeed. If a few more people would have helped me back then, maybe I wouldn't have. And I kind of wondered the same about this business. If I would have had a wife at home to sit there and listen to me cry every night and just tell me it's going to be okay, or parents just said, oh, why don't you do this? Or maybe my parents would have offered me a job. So it's almost. I kind of think that not having any other outs and not having any coddling really made me focus and made me like, Craig, this is on you. You've got to do this or you are going to look like a total loser. I think just being scared every single day is what's kept me going.

Speaker C: And what was your daily routine? Because we talked about that when you first started off, when you're working from home and you're dealing with all this, it seemed like non stop that, uh, maybe you're working six days a week or whatnot. But just tell us about a routine if you found one that worked well for you and maybe something that we can figure out to help us with our business.

Speaker B: Working out. I'd get really stressed, I'd start drinking, I would numb it for a minute. But then the next day I was worthless. I've realized I've seen some really leaps forward in progression. If I just get up in the morning and I give myself 30, 45 minutes or 60 minutes of working out. I joined a CrossFit gym about a year and a half into the company. And even the employees around me said they noticed a huge change in my attitude and just the way I was able to comprehend and deal with problems. Because it seems like this first couple years, every day, it was just a fire to put out. And if I was working out, eating healthy, it definitely helped Me deal with that stress a lot better. And now if I go a week or two without working out, instantly I feel like I'm in an old place three years ago of just misery. So working out seems to be the thing that really keeps me focused.

Speaker C: How you're able to manage that type of growth from you being the only guy and then jumping to 25 or so employees now, what systems did you have in place for like communication stuff? Because if you don't have a background, if you've never built a company before, I'm just wondering like how you even know what to do to set this up, how you're prioritizing your time, time from initially making the product to what it is today.

Speaker B: Putting a lot of responsibility on other people, Just really letting people loose. You know, in the beginning there wasn't company handbooks, there wasn't a lot of guidance. So we hire people and I don't know, almost lack of guidance and just kind of like, look, I just need you to get this done. They were passionate enough about it, they took ownership of it. And letting people take ownership of things, even letting people take ownership, you know the mistakes they're going to make, let them make them. I watch people all the time, they come to me like, oh yeah, this happened. And I don't tell them like, yeah, I knew you were going to do that. Just need to let them go down that same path you did of trying this stub, um, their toe, trying that trip over themselves. And then if they care about it enough, they're going to want to figure it out. They're going to want to show you they can do this. Especially when they're 24 years old and they can see that they're going to be a top leader in this company by time they're 25, 26. If they can just show me that they can. We're hiring people for $12 an hour at 22. But I'm wanting them to have the passion and the expertise of a, uh, professional 35 year old person with a college degree. I don't think they wanted to let me down. They moved out here, they're in the same boat I am. If they screw this up, what are they going to go back to? So really kind of letting the leash go, Letting people have a lot of freedom to make mistakes and take ownership of a part of the company and just let them make it theirs. And if they come to me too many times asking for advice, that's not you doing it, that's me doing it. You need to figure this out, you need to figure this out and really hand them ownership. And that's hard for the entrepreneur, um, too to trust they're going to do things you want them to do. I never thought it was possible, but once I did it once and I did it twice. Now I've got 15 people and I realized that if you give them an area and tell them to take complete ownership of it, and if they don't, you fire them. So we do go through a lot of people. We fired a lot of people. There's 40 people here. We've probably been through 90 people. But that's a good thing. I think the people that are still here see that, that and they're like, wow, the reason I'm still here is because I'm killing it. Not just because they feel sorry for me. And I think it helps build team unity between people, a bond. Everyone's really close here. Everyone realized they've kind of made the cut. They came in here, they made it past the three month mark, which a lot of people haven't. And it's like a sense of pride for them.

Speaker C: Was your first firing hard?

Speaker B: The first 20 were hard. It felt like a breakup or a divorce all over again, Especially a couple of those people I fired were people that, that helped, you know, were in my garage with me. Those first three or four people that helped start the company aren't with us anymore and they were with us for a year or two. And it's sad, I think the company just outgrew them. Um, it was extremely hard, gave them a lot of chances. We just needed them to be on a much higher working level than it appeared they were capable of at 25 years old. I'm sure those first three or four people learned a lot from me. I'm sure they're going to go on and have amazing careers in the cannabis industry. I already know a few of them, they got great jobs and they probably learned a lot from their mistakes. But at the time, what I needed from them, um, just they weren't able to deliver.

Speaker C: Can you give us more details on one of those hardest hirings? Because again, I think some entrepreneurs listening now realize that maybe there's someone who did help them grow their business for the first couple years. And then you're like, shit, I don't know if I really want to fire this person because they helped me get it started, but at some point you need to in order to have the business succeed in it and give opportunity to other people.

Speaker B: That's exactly right. Yeah. My first guy who was in my garage with me, who killed it those first couple years, he was definitely my go to. He was the only manager at one point. And now the company's got probably seven different managers. And some of these people. When you've got there's one of you and you're doing a good job, it's easy to give all that person the credit. When there's six managers, there's me and I've got six managers underneath me. I can see six different people. The one doing the worst stands out. You don't have to be the best, but you definitely don't want to be the worst. And you know, those five out of six of those managers all kind of keep coming to me. Complaints with that one guy, with that one guy. They also had a lot of respect for him because they knew he was the person who brought a lot of them on, hired them in the beginning. There just comes a point where everyone's in agreements like this guy is really holding us back. You know, it's hard. I'm the only who did the firing. I don't ask the managers to go fire other people unless someone low end. But any of the managers, I deal with myself. And it was extremely hard. I definitely cried that night and it was sad. I knew he'd be okay though because like I said, the best opportunity that was given to me in my life was being fired from my last job.

Speaker C: Yeah. And people don't realize that at the time, right?

Speaker B: Never.

Speaker C: You just think like, uh, fuck your boss, whatever. You didn't give me the opportunity and stuff. But then again, you wouldn't have started your company today, right? Probably. If you're still at Apex.

Speaker B: That's exactly right.

Speaker C: Yeah. It can sink at that point in time. But. Yeah. Why don't you walk us through what you had to say to him. And I'm just curious again because I think some people lack the courage to be able to do this. You need to.

Speaker B: That is a good point. So I tried firing him once before. We had some issues in the past, tried letting him go. He got really upset and just begged to stay. Begged to stay would change. And obviously I just want someone good there. So I figured, okay, let him come back on. And he did. For three or four months. He killed it. And uh, like I said in the beginning or a few minutes ago is a lot of times I don't give people all the guidance. I don't think people need their hands held. I think if you throw them in a position that after a few Months without guidance. They're going to figure it out. And if they don't, then it's not up to me to sit there and teach them everything. And I think that might have been the problem here, is maybe he was looking for more guidance for me. I didn't have guidance to give. I just needed someone who was going to get in there, get it done, and then I'd complain about it and then they change it and fix it the way I wanted it. That strategy doesn't work best for everyone. So fired him once, let him come back after about six months, went in there and just try to make it short. Sweet. Walk him outside. Hey, this isn't fun for me either, but I need you to leave. Then he started yelling at me. We yelled back and forth a little bit and just got him out of there as quick as possible. Luckily, I fired about 10 people before him, so I got better at it. In the beginning, I felt like I owed him m excuses and reasoning and really it's not up to me to give him reasons.

Speaker C: Thank you for sharing that again. I think after you even said the first one, you might cry, especially if the person helps you get to where you are. But there's different parts of a company that maybe if you stayed as a two or three person company the whole time, maybe he would have been awesome for the rest of Life for like 20 or 30 years. But when you start growing different sizes, different people react differently, or people have stuff in their personal lives that can make their work life not their highest priority, right?

Speaker B: Definitely.

Speaker C: Not that it needs to be the number one priority necessarily ever, but especially if you're hiring someone. I think a lot of entrepreneurs, when you're doing it, that's kind of like your number one priority. You're all in. You're doing it at that point in time. But usually employees, they obviously are employees for a reason. They don't have the same type of dedication you have. And it seems maybe that's an issue that just happened over time with this

Speaker B: guy maybe, and a few other people. I tell all the people that I work with like, look, guys, we're not taking on funding. I was like, so the other companies, if they're taking on funding, that's how they're getting to the top. We are not taking on funding. So how are we going to get to the top? And it's going to require all 30 of us or all 40 of us to come in here every day and just kill it, just kill it, murder it every day. Some people can do that for three months. Some people can do that for years. It's sad to say, or some people might think I sound harsh, but we're a small company, we're still only three years old or less than three years old. I need people in here that don't wear out after three months or after six months. People that are willing to keep coming in here day after day killing it just like their first week of work. And if not, then I'm sorry, it's just not the place for you right now. And I've promised everyone this and I hope I can live up to this promise. The ones that are willing to come in Here give me 3, 4, 5 solid years of just busting your ass one day. You know, the goal is to maybe go public. And if we go public, I'll make sure you get a little piece of the company before that time and you're going to be rich. But if I'm going to make you rich, I need you to come in here and treat this company just like it's mine every day. Some people can do that for a month, some people can do that for six months. And you know, and some people just wear out. And I know that sounds really insensitive, but that's what it takes and that's what we've done so far to get where we're at. So part of it sounds really insensitive, but that is the reason we're doing so well today.

Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, I don't think so because I think mostly now it's like business owners or want to be as business owners right now or people want to make themselves a better, not necessarily just even employee, but just have those grand ideas where they understand that they ah, you have to put the work in. But most employees mindsets, it's hard to find those diamonds if you will. Right. And if you're able to find those guys who can understand that even society now you just want everything to be done correctly right away. You want to get to the top right away, but it takes time. And so I think a lot of people listening can understand that. So unfortunately a lot of people are way too sensitive about shit nowadays. It's like I don't really care because one way you say something, you're going to offend somebody either way. So it is what it is, right?

Speaker B: Oh, every time. Yeah. Uh, luckily I've got the military, I was in the infantry. So the way things were done were extremely aggressive or just very brutal and totally honest.

Speaker C: Right. You don't have time to bullshit yeah.

Speaker B: And I use that today and I never thought that civilians or people outside the military would be receptive to it, but it amazes me how many people are receptive to it. And the ones that are receptive to it end up taking the way I act and they use that in their leadership or management style and it seems like it's really spread throughout the company.

Speaker C: Yeah. But I was going to say too, I'm curious again, you start off kind of a sales guy and I'm glad you brought back the military into it because that's what I was curious about about how are you able to get your guidance to grow this business? Even the leadership aspect or whatnot. Because it seems you've done it right. I mean, I don't know if you're listening to podcasts or reading books or doing other things to help grow you as a business owner to make sure you do this thing right.

Speaker B: The whole leadership and management style, the only thing I've had to lean on was my military experience. And then at Apex, remember I told you how I kind of just throw people into the water and let them figure it out? That's how I was treated at Apex. When I moved out to Colorado, I had no guidance out here. I touched base with Andy over the phone, but really it was up to me to figure it all out. And I had this deep desire to not let him down, even though he was giving me no guidance. So I realized that I was able to do that for him. Surely I could find some people to do that for me. So that little bit of leadership of us letting people give them enough rope to hang themselves and see if they do, I learned from him. And then the other majority of my leadership, I learned from the military. Being firm, direct, and maybe a little bit abrasive.

Speaker C: How about growing like your business or knowing what tools and stuff to figure out? Because again, that's a different aspect of like getting a website, giving people their own email domains, making sure it stays in an organized fashion. Because I think that's again, what happens when you have kind of high growth company like yours. It's just like where everything starts getting unorganized and whatnot. I mean, how were you able to keep everyone on, um, point on that?

Speaker B: I learned at Apex what they were doing. We had Dropbox. I knew that they bought their domain through GoDaddy. So a little bit of stuff I saw the owner struggling with, with. So when I decided I kind of just followed in his footsteps. I was pretty fresh out of college. I've only been out of college now about six years. So luckily a lot of that technology is still fresh in my brain. So we use Dropbox to keep our files Together, we use GoDaddy to purchase a domain. And I actually found a website guy out of Texas who's a friend of a friend who was trying to start his business as a webpage designer. So I was able to get him does some amazing work. Didn't cost me a lot in the beginning and a lot of it is just making mistakes. I didn't know a thing would be a problem until it was a problem. So even when people would come to me like, hey, I think this can be a problem in three months. Was it a problem today? No. Well, we've got problems today, so when it comes to a problem we'll deal with it. And now we're so big of a company we can't think like that. But for that first year or two we just had to deal with the problems that were right in front of us about to run us over. And I guess that's how we learned to organize and create emails and structure. Once it became a problem, then we deal with it. Just to sit back on day one and try to plan everything out and solve all these problems you knew would be problems a year from now just wouldn't have made sense. There's no way we would have survived. We were just doing what we did that day to try to survive and if a problem arose, we'd fix it.

Speaker C: It's funny that you even said that when you said you moved out to Denver and you're kind of your own guy. Uh, because it kind of is like running your own business when you're a sales guy. That's what I always tell people, if they're listening, if they want to start their own business. At least if you're getting into sales, that's a great stepping stone because you've got to figure out how to make money. And if you have an owner, you said at ah, Apex, Andy, who wasn't hand holding you, that exact same thing happened to me when I was doing commercial real estate. They had a headquart in Charlotte basically and they had a satellite office in Jacksonville. It was me and another guy and they didn't give me any fucking structure or anything. I didn't whine about it. It's like, okay, they give me the opportunity to be a sales guy for these guys. Let me figure it out. Of course sometimes it'll be nice to figure this stuff out, but you're going to make mistakes Maybe I'm saying the wrong thing in an email to commercial real estate owner about what I can actually get done for him. Um, but you make those little mistakes and I'd much rather have a guy who is offhand and not versus like holding my hands hostage of what I could do.

Speaker B: A hundred percent I agree.

Speaker C: Yeah. So I mean that's awesome that at that point in time when you're working for Apex and it could have been maybe you wanted more structure and whatnot. But anyone listening, if you have the opportunity to get in sales and they're not helping you out, it's on your ass. You've got to figure it out. And that's the best thing, that's the best stepping stone for starting for any business.

Speaker B: Definitely. Without that, without that experience with Apex and what you just described, just having to figure it out, without that little bit of experience, I probably would have tapped out a lot sooner and starting my own business. But luckily I was a little bit familiar with that. Just figuring it out kind of added.

Speaker C: So I guess now you're finally about to come up on the three year mark. I know you've said maybe you're looking at funding now or what do you just see for the future of your business?

Speaker B: I think we'll be $100 million company. I thought we'd be there a lot sooner. I'm predicting now in the next three to five years, 100 million. I thought honestly we'd be there probably in two years from now taking some funding, getting a much larger building and trying to develop everyone's. Now when we created a CBD body cream or CBD Shatter, we were the first ones or one of the first ones. Now everyone's got CBD products and I feel like a lot of these people who've taken funding is to beef up the CBD side of things in their company, how to produce more CBD isolate. We are not trying to compete in that game. We want to keep producing our CBD products, but now we are focused on other cannabinoids. We want to be one of the first guys to produce high CBG products. There's some oils and stuff out there that say they're CBG, they've got 1% in um, them. We want to put out high dose cbg, cbc, cbn, cbdv, just different cannabinoids and do this, ride that same wave that we rode when CBD was new to the public. We can ride that way five more times with different cannabinoids or ten more times with different cannabinoids. That's what we want to do. And when that happens, then we can start building off. We're doing CSU research right now on cancer. If that comes through like we think it will, then we will get into more clinical trials. And the ultimate goal, in five or 10 years, maybe be like a, uh, large pharmaceutical company, but just with all cannabis products, different cannabinoids for different ailments, and actually do clinical trials on each one of these cannabinoids for said, uh, problem.

Speaker C: That's amazing to me, your mindset and your intuition on what to do here, because it sounds all right to me too. I mean, not that you need my respect or anything about doing it, but I kind of agree with you. If you just kept beefing out the cbd, dude, I see so many goddamn CBD companies now. It seems like it coming out of nowhere. If you're able to go to a market right next door to it and you set acronyms of all those letters that I don't even know what they are. But I think the listener can imagine that you're just saying, again, you're going to a fresher market and jump in there first. That's really your opportunity. Instead of just staying in this one silo where everyone seems like they're jumping in now.

Speaker B: That's exactly right. Let's take that. First few weeks in my garage trying to figure out how I've got this plant in front of me, how do I pull out and separate that one cannabinoid when there's 20 of them in there. I figured out for CBD, made a lot of, uh, money off it, built a company off of it. Now how do I find those other cannabinoids, get them out, separate them, and actually make medicine with them.

Speaker C: So how's your love life today?

Speaker B: Actually got a baby on the way, got a new girlfriend I've been with over a year now, Got a baby on the way. Things are great. Almost made me tear up just now thinking about it. It's crazy that three years later, from the most bottom I've ever been in my life to being on top now with a great company, a great girlfriend, another child on the way. Pretty amazing.

Speaker C: Hopefully your story kind of inspires those people who hit those low points because it gets depressing to me when I hear sometimes other podcasts and listen to them and they, nothing's gone wrong in their life and that they didn't have to bounce back from anything. And I think stories like yours will help anyone at, ah, any point in their life that uh, they have to deal with losing a loved one, whether through death or doing something else, where they end up getting a divorce. It is amazing to me that you're able to grow this much in three years. Just even looking back, there was one last thing that you talked about when you were able to get things back on track this past year. It seems like that you're finally congratulating yourself and that you're able to figure out the margins for when, I guess you're putting in the supermarkets, the stores, so they could actually equal your price. Weren't you saying something?

Speaker B: The way I see it is if A store carries 10 different CBD products, but ours is the highest margin for them, um, they're going to push our products.

Speaker C: Right. And that's a good point, too. So now you're the highest margin, you think for them?

Speaker B: We think we are. If we're not the highest, we're right up there in line with the highest. Ever since we've adjusted our pricing, stores are just giving us nothing but positive feedback, placing larger orders. So it seems like that little mistake we made really hurt us. And it seems like when you make a mistake take and your margins are low, not everyone's going to tell you, like, hey, your margins suck. I'm going to buy this company. They're just not going to buy from you. And then you kind of just have to figure it out on your own. So we took a gamble. We lowered our wholesale costs. Hurts our margin a little bit. We figured that it would probably help the stores out and they would sell more of our products. And it seems like just after three, four weeks of doing that, we're already noticing a huge spike in sales.

Speaker C: I was just pointing that out as well. It's just like overcoming little obstacles. I'm glad that you said, too. It's not like they necessarily. Someone's going to tell you what to do do. You've got to figure it out. So it was good that finally everything had, uh, been going up. This seems like the only business down thing. And then you're able to figure that out even. And again, it's just keeping your eyes open, figuring out what's working. And then there's no playbook. If it was easy and they told you what to do, then everyone would do it. Right.

Speaker B: Exactly right.

Speaker C: Trying to go through these hurdles in life and in business, figuring out if you have a down couple months in sales, what the hell's going wrong with my business? Something's got to be going wrong. And it's not like those People are necessarily going to tell you, you.

Speaker B: I think a lot of business owners just assume like, oh, this happens, this happens. Let's just write it out, write it out. I'm afraid of that. I'm afraid if I ever get too comfortable, you know, I feel like every time I take my finger off the poles, every time I take a three day vacation, I feel like the world's ending, like I need to get back there, I need to stay focused. If I don't stay focused and keep people around me focused, then, you know, you could easily fail. You know, two, three, four, five months goes by, sell, start dropping. If you're not doing something proactively to fix that, that before you know it, you'd be out of business kind of

Speaker C: ending on that and bringing it full circle on that. So that's what I was going to ask. Any last words of wisdom for anyone? Because it seems like your story has just been able to bounce back from these little things in personal life or bigger things in personal life, but even in your business life, just looking for these opportunities of what's going wrong and how to fix it. But yeah, any last words of wisdom for anyone who's listening and starting their business?

Speaker B: That's it. Just stay focused, don't get too comfortable, don't celebrate too much. Things can always turn at a moment's notice for the worse.

Speaker C: Thanks Craig for joining us again. If someone wanted to say thank you for doing the interview, what's the best way for them to reach you?

Speaker B: My email, Craig C r a I gxtractlabs.com and again they can go to

Speaker C: extractlabs.com to buy directly from you, right. In all 50 states here in the US and I guess is it to every country internationally?

Speaker B: Almost every country we quit shipping to Canada. So not Canada at the moment, but I think just about every other country. Yeah.

Speaker C: So if anyone's interested M maybe they can check out your site and check out your product. And thank you for coming on and sharing your inspirational story here, Craig.

Speaker B: Thank you, I appreciate it.

Speaker C: Hey there millionaire interview listener. Thank you again for tuning in to this episode. If you enjoyed it and want to show us a little support, we would really appreciate a five star review. It helps other listeners find the ship show so they can enjoy it just like you. And if you're looking for more episodes that are in the product niche, then try episode 11 with Bottle Breacher founder Eli Crane or episode 13 with Sammy of blacksocks.com or try episode 18 with uh, Yak Gear founder Bill Bragman. As always, thanks again for tuning in and have a great day. Join the club by going to millionaire-interviews.com SL Patreon that's millionaire-interviews.com Patreon to help support the show.

Speaker B: Oh, I have, uh, had no luck lately.

Speaker C: Wait.

Speaker B: Lady luck.

Speaker D: Ritzy.

Speaker A: I got you.

Speaker D: I've had so much luck on spinquest.com they have all of my favorite games. Slot games, live blackjack, craps and bubble craps. You can even get a $30 coin pack for just 10 bucks.

Speaker A: Box.

Speaker B: 10 bucks for 30. I'm headed over to spinquest.com right now. Spinquest is a free to play social casino void where prohibited. Visit spinquest.com for more details.

Speaker D: Summer ends, sick days, school bugs and last minute pharmacy runs. Don't With Jace Medical, you can get ahead of the chaos with emergency medications delivered to your door after an online physician evaluation. The Jace Medical Jace case includes 10 emergency medications, five antibiotics and five symptom relief meds to help cover more than 50 infections before school, travel and packed calendars turn one small problem into a big scramble. Be ready with Jace Medical. Go to jace.com J-A-S-E.com and get your Jace case today so you're ready before the next what if becomes a real problem.