Ryan Goldstein

Speaker A: Hello and welcome to the Effective Marketing Podcast. Today I'm, um, joined by Ryan Goldstein. Ryan is the CEO and founder of AP Keeton, an award winning marketing agency in the albed and cannabis sectors. He is the CMO of Petalfast, a cannabis sales accelerator, uh, based in California. And finally he's one of the founders of Smarty Plants, which is one of the fastest growing cannabis brands in California. Right now Ryan and I will be talking about the highs and lows of starting a business and a brand marketing execution evolution within the ALCBEV sector and the current US cannabis market landscape and what we should expect in the future. Brian, thanks for joining me today. It's great to have you on the podcast. Uh, we met for a mutual client, a good friend of ours and, and he said to me that you got to meet Ryan, you guys are going to just really hit it off. He's so like minded and I think you're going to get on really well. And he was right. The first time I met, we hit it off, we chatted for hours and since met several times. And I really want to have you on because every time I meet you, I meet your team and go to your offices. I just feel really energized. So you as a guest that had to have on and I appreciate you taking the time out today.

Speaker B: Yeah, thanks for having me man. And we love, I've loved meeting you and having you in to see us for sure.

Speaker A: As I mentioned in the intro, ryan, you're the CEO, uh, of a company called A.P. keaton, uh, which is a relatively new business. What I think is it six, seven years old now?

Speaker B: Well, five years last week and tomorrow I'm taking the day off to play golf with my original founding members.

Speaker A: Love it. Uh, and when we first met you told me this story about how you set up AP Keys and the rationale behind setting up and I just love the story. So could you just share with some of the listeners how you set it up, why you set up the business and how it's all going to.

Speaker B: I wish it was rationale. It was born from like what do I do now? Right, yeah. So I had worked for ah, an agency in Manhattan called Maximum Impact, which when I had first started there, and I want to say like 0504 it was um, like a premium promotional agency. So it specialized in tchotchkes like pens and pencils and giveaways and things like that. Um, and we grew that business to I think become a fairly special kind of trade marketing agency. But we really Specialized in off premise retail wines and spirits. Um, I made an offer to buy that family business, um, from a couple who was getting on in age and were very ecstatic and excited to have me be the heir to that, um, with a large check as well. Right. But, um, we kind of pulled our money together and after some time and some negotiations, they went dark on us. And ultimately they came in, um, a couple of months after accepting our offer and then disappearing to ask if they could have a word with me. And when they did, um, they handed me a stack of envelopes and the first one had my name on it. I opened it and it said that I was fired and that they were closing the business. Which was, um, a strange thing to have happened when I was in the middle of thinking I was going to be taking it over. Also, that was June 14th, um, and my wife was like 38 months pregnant. We had our second son on June 24th. Um, so I had that kind of brewing and then this, what I thought would be an acquisition kind of brewing. Right. Um, and then this left field kind of. We're closing.

Speaker A: Not much on your plate at that time?

Speaker B: No, it was nothing. I was right. I was just kind of doing nothing. Um, and as I'm kind of like checking for cameras, because when she handed me the thing, right, I'm thinking like, no, that's like, how. Really? What do you mean? Like, the last we spoke, anyway, um, they're changing the locks. There's like a security guard, and it's like it's happening, it's happening in spite of my, my not wanting it to. Then I'm asked if I can, can speak to the rest of the team. I did. Uh, we wound up on the corner of 40th and Broadway at 11 o' clock and boxes in our hand. And, um, there were some tears and people were frantic. And, um, somebody looked at me and said, rye, what are you gonna do? And I said, what, what am I gonna. Wow. Okay, so this is my thing. Um, I thought I was gonna go work for Hennessy or like, you know what I mean? Or Bacardi or something. Like, I was gonna client side, I got a kid. What am I going to go? Do you have suppliers? That made the most sense to me. Um, and then I looked around and so I called my wife, who's so pregnant, um, and said, babe, can I use all of. All of our money? And she said, you are, um, you're about to do it. And I said, nope, not told her the story, what just had happened. And I Said, I think I'm going to start a new business. She gave me her blessings. I don't know how. Um, and I told the group on the corner, really, I wish there was a camera like a group on the corner of 40th and Broadway. Um, I'm going to start a new agency tomorrow, guys, and, um, if you show up in my house, I'm not sure I can pay you. I don't know if, when, and how. I've got a bunch of money I put together. It's 450,000 bucks, 448 and change, that I was using to buy this business. I'm going to go to one of our vendors. Um, at the time, our largest kind of chunk of business was in store display. Um, I'm going to give him all of that because I don't have credit or deserve credit or I'm in a place to do that, um, and let myself work off of that and kind of, hopefully we start a business. And everyone showed up at my house the next day, which I was surprised, um, a little bit to see, um, particularly because, like, geographically, it was hard for people to work. I live on Long island, and we worked in Manhattan. Um, and I guess my most proud thing is that nobody missed a paycheck. Um, so we started the business the day after, on the 15th. We're five years old last June 15th.

Speaker A: So was it a scrappy afternoon when you was on the corner between the corner and the next day? Wasn't it a bit of a scrappy

Speaker B: at Dave, who's. What. Who's who's now our VP of operations? And I said, dave, uh, we're right. What are we gonna do? And he goes, reuben, his friend, lives three blocks from here. Let's go figure it out there. So on the way there, we stopped by at a bodega, and we pick up really 40s. Like, I don't even know. I haven't drank a 40s since I've been old enough to drink, but I was buying 40 ounces. Um, we had whatever we were able to take out of the office, which was like Hennessy and Doucet and Captain Morgan or whatever.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Um, and a little bit of flour, because I always roll around with a little bit of that. And we went to Ruben's apartment, which was this awesome giant rent stable down in the 20s. Um, and we got hammered, like, really hammered, um, and knew that we were going to have to figure something out, right? Because the biggest issue there was, and I hate to even rehash this, I don't know ultimately what our audience is going to look like, but we had a bunch. There was a lot to figure out. We had a lot of things in motion that we were going to have to, you know, pick up or kind of fix. And we were getting drunk about that. Um, and, yeah, that was your business plan. Ah, I think that's not my business plan. I get to do it, but, yeah, for sure. From that came our agency name. Right. Um, our brainstorm was fueled by all of the things that would come out of that afternoon. And ultimately, um, we were asked to put together a business plan to be able to kind of continue forward with some of the work and clients that we had built relationships with. And we needed a name, and we were thinking about fictional characters, and we were watching television, and we were thinking about songs and bands, and, uh, ultimately, Family Ties, which, uh, is an 80s sitcom, came, um, to the conversation topic. And Alex P. Keaton, which is played by Michael J. Fox, um, was kind of like this contrarian and this really interesting liberal family. And, I don't know, we thought it was funny and interesting.

Speaker A: What's great about AP Kids is everyone has a familiarity with the name, but they don't know where. Right. So they're familiar with the name. I know Company. I know that name.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: I m. Think it's so long ago, you don't realize how they know it.

Speaker B: A buddy of mine once called me up right after we started, and he said that he was talking to his wife, and he said, um, you know, Goldstein just got a job. He's working for A.P. keaton. And she, uh, was like, oh, that's. That's great. That's amazing. And he said there was like, a five count. And they both were like, who's A.P. keaton? Right. But, like, the implication was that they both, for a couple seconds, figured they should have known who we were. And then the other story I like to tell is I was on a call with, um, I want to say it's like, control states or, um, a large chunk of states across the country. And I, um, was being met by the director of the markets. And he got on and said, who's the son of a bitch named the company APK And I said, I am. And he said, it's the best name I ever heard in my entire life. I love that TV show. And from there on out, they've been an unbelievable region for us.

Speaker A: Um, and you had some great support from your clients as well, along the way, because it's a big move for them. The company he was working for left a lot of them high and dry and sort of backed you to come good, right?

Speaker B: Unbelievably so, yeah. In an unbelievably generous way. At a time where I think, um, we were in a precarious position. I think our clients were in a precarious position and I think, um, the trust and some of the kind of the push that we were given and it was just unbelievable. Yeah, absolutely. Some of the largest suppliers in the world were who did that for us. Yeah.

Speaker A: And fast forward five years, almost will be tomorrow. What does the business look like now and how has your business evolved from day one to where it is now in terms of the types of things you do or you did then and what you do now as an organization?

Speaker B: That's an unbelievable journey. Right. I mean, this, the last 18 months or so have I think, been a weird either accelerator or decelerator, depending on who you speak to. Um, but we, when we did start the agency, how haphazard it may have been, we did kind of have a thesis and we thought that we would be able to do more than the blocking and tackling, I think that we had been come to be known for, which was, um, awesome and tactical. Um, and I think we started to realize it as A.P. keaton really started to take its feet early. Um, that while we were being allowed to operate at retail, both by the retailer and by the supplier or distributor, that there was ways to kind of do more around that retail kind of, uh, execution. And we thought that was the, A, it would make for good business, but B, it also makes for, I think, smart marketing and smart sales. Right. Smart ultimate business. Right. The business case for coordinated efforts around retail makes sense. So we started to kind of hire at that, develop around that. Um, and then in 2017, um, my baby sister Max, um, who had started a social media and performance marketing agency out of college, uh, she made the Forbes 30 under 30 list, which, um, we thought was awesome. And I also thought was like an opportunity to get like our name in places. Right. Clients have been asking, do you do social media? Like my least favorite question ever. But yes was going to be my answer as soon as possible. And we acquired my sister's business, um, folded her group in. That added a new layer, right, that took us from, you know, I think a trade marketing focused business to a call it trade and digital focused business. Um, and kind of finding where IRL and digital kind of intersect, um, all the while growing our brand marketing. So doing a lot of brand creation, brand identity, and platform work. And then, um, right before the pandemic, we started talking with an experiential agency that we had been friends with for many years and ultimately acquired them in 2020, um, to continue to bolt on. So I think where we stand now is we were once a million years ago guys that sold tchotchkes. Then I think we started to kind of take a good hold on custom retail work and wines and spirits in the off premise. Um, and I think we've taken that and tried to build around it since then. We started a pop business in, uh, you know, about a year, a little bit over a year.

Speaker A: Such a diverse. And you. I think what I've noticed is meeting your team. Like I said, I always come out energized when I've been to your offices is the dynamic you have within the team. And like I said, you made a couple of acquisitions on the way. But the culture is great. Right? There's no one that really stands out. I think actually this bit of the business doesn't really fit with everything else. It just works and there's a connectivity. And I think what you try to do is look at the number of different brand touch points and like, how do your approach, how do we have a conversation there, how do we be credible at that touch point and bring the right people to the table? I think you do that very well.

Speaker B: Thanks so much. And the culture is the biggest part of it for me. Like, I come here every day. Right. We've got to love each other. We just have to.

Speaker A: And next time we'll have to get Maxi on as well because, uh, I know you won't mind me saying this, but you're great double acts is actually entertaining. Being in a meeting with both of you at the same time.

Speaker B: She's a special, special woman. And yeah, having her around is great. And I think the two of us are typical older and younger siblings who have strong opinions and strong points of view, for sure.

Speaker A: One of the areas that, um, is all about thinking about your core business and that retail engagement. And one of the reasons that you and I have been talking a lot over the last few months is, you know, how do we really evolve that, you know, critical moment of truth, famous last yard when the consumer meets the brand in store. And I think what we're recognizing is, you know, certainly in the drinks and the out bev sector, uh, that's evolving quite significantly. And I think, you know, I know you want to be a part of it. I want to be a part of it. And understanding how consumer behaviors are changing, what's your view on it? And over the last five years what you were doing in terms of that retail execution, pos execution in store versus what it's looking like now, how do you see the industry shaping up?

Speaker B: That's a big question. Um, I think that there's been a giant proliferation of brands. Right. There's more brands than ever before. There's new categories, there's new entrants to the categories. It's easier to get juice in a bottle and get it into the market than I think ever before. It's harder to sustain, penetrate, last exist. Right. Um, and I think that that has made that last yard or mile or foot or you know, from the warehouse to the store floor, um, really hard for them, for the masses. Right. I think that um, where there's dedicated business units, I think perhaps that's a bit easier. I think, um, that that's not always the case across um, suppliers, markets, regions. I think that sometimes, um, uh, yeah, I think to get the excellence number one in execution, it requires a third party most frequently. Um, and I think also to then get insights on that execution. Right. Like is what we're putting out mattering, um, is it getting out and when it gets out, does it work and what, what does work mean and how do we drive people to it and how do we communicate with them after it. And kind of all of that thinking is more prevalent than I think ever.

Speaker A: Yeah. And there's a connectivity as well that's needed. And you know, I've talked about it a lot but you know, I think you explained it as the rings. Right. So the ring or the center point of the store is what your focus was on initially and it was like how do we expand that and how do we engage with consumers outside the store once we engage them outside the stor, how do we look at digital to bring them to the store and you know, bring it to life beyond just that final uh, yard engagement. So it's, it says it's a push pull marketing process really, isn't it?

Speaker B: In a big way. Yeah. And I think that unfortunately bandwidth often, I think the aha moment for me is continues to come. Pandemic accelerated as well. But even pre, most everyone has a smaller team or less bandwidth than I had thought. Always like my, my, my romantic version of brand marketing and kind of brand infrastructure is oftentimes not as robust in real life. Right. Um, so while I think brands I don't know that we invented by no means have been the touch points. Right. Those rings. But, um, are they doing them all, all the time? Probably not. Are they doing them coordinatedly all the time? Probably not. Is it in concert? Probably not. And when they are, you know, they're whoever. Aviation. Right. Or whoever's done it. Awesome. Right, yeah. Um, and I think that we want to help as best as we can. It's hard for me to have conversations independent of the next. Of the rest of the ring.

Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, you can see that I'm smiling, Ryan, because when we did, when I did a presentation to you about what I did and what our company did, I was sharing some of the key initiatives and I think three of the five key initiatives, we invented that

Speaker B: here. I'm saying I didn't invent those ones, but I want to see what you were.

Speaker A: So what were they? I can't remember where they were now. Invented them.

Speaker B: I'm sure we might not have done them, but we certainly invented them.

Speaker A: I love that, uh, I mentioned in the intro, Ryan, that uh, um, you're also, um, CMO of a cannabis business called Petal Fast, which I kind of love to learn a bit more about. And the reason I'd love to learn about them because I know nothing at all about the cannabis market. The CBD industry. Are they two different things? Are they the same things? Are different distributors? And just, uh, for the listeners, you'll laugh at this. Ryan certainly laughed. I called Ryan on 4 20, uh, about something totally different that we're working on together. And his response was, Lee, you're calling me on 4 20. You are clearly not a cannabis guy. Today is the St. Patrick's Day of the cannabis sector. Uh, call me tomorrow.

Speaker B: And that was in the middle of a multi store tour. I think I had been, um, I was a handful of chocolates in. Yeah, it was, it was, yeah, it was the equivalent of like the 9pm call on, on St. Patty's Day while I was at Patty's or something.

Speaker A: Now, in transparency, I've never taken cannabis, I've never used cbd, never used CBD oils. So for me, uh, um, again, excuse the pump. It's totally GREENFIELD for me.

Speaker B: Huh.

Speaker A: If you can give me like an idiot's guide to the industry, the sector, what it looks like and also what it's a big question, but more so your role at Petal Fast. And I guess in summary, what the industry is looking like right now.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So Petal Fast is exciting for so many reasons. Um, and I feel like it's a convergence to so many things that we've learned and thought about and talked about in our wine and spirits in general CPG stuff. Um, so let me take a stab at. Hold on, I'll walk back to question for a second. I'm going to start with petal fast, which I think will help kind of shine some light on.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: On some of the kind of like the general market and where I think they're interesting points are. Um, we had a bunch of cannabis clients, um, really purposefully about five years ago or four years ago or so. Um, we started to see a migration of talent from wines and spirits into cannabis, um, in various ways. And they were friends of ours and we were fortunate that some of the initial kind of migrations were with we're into. As you would imagine, someone leaving a large kind of secure spirits job would only go to what they consider to be a larger cannabis opportunity. Right. So our first couple of forays into cannabis years ago were with the biggest multi states or the largest operators that you could have in the business. So um, it was a really interesting way for us to see states really quickly. Um, see the way that licenses worked to a certain extent and brands worked in that universe to a certain extent. But we kept bumping into things as a marketing agency that I think um, are not common for traditional CPG and boost, which is like we would work on a blueprint or a platform or, or some kind of brand activation and then the brand would get, the grow would get robbed literally at gunpoint and they would have no more money so they'd have to cancel the event or they would run out of chocolate and they couldn't make the product any longer or I mean things that you just couldn't fathom that would happen. Right. Um, that don't happen to AB or Diageo or Remy or Campari or whoever. Right. Um, and it was frustrating and essentially we were like, we would wind up getting stuck with the bag sometimes. Right. Not getting paid. We would do work and spend a lot of resources and time and energy and be hopeful and it wouldn't happen. And fine, put that in a box concurrent to that. And still we were still trying to grow that, that business because we believe that there were some overlays from wines and spirits marketing and operations. Cannabis, um, a client of ours and friends of ours, um, company called Cushco out of California, um, which is an ancillary company in cannabis. They started off as a packaging company and they do kind of a bunch of like, uh, think of like Restaurant Depot style for um, their president, a ah, guy named Jason Vygotsky, who has a really awesome background, um, founded a beef jerky company and exited and founded a really amazing ancillary cannabis company and sold that to Kush and stayed on as their president, um, took them public. Really. Uh, amazing kind of background there. And then their ev. Their. I'm sorry, executive council or general counsel, a, uh, guy named Arun Kurichetti, um, Harvard lawyer Kirkland Ellis. Great background, cannabis law, really deeply connected to the space. They had their own thesis, unbeknownst to me. So when I say I invent stuff sometimes, I invented it in my room. You might have invented it in yours too. Right. Um, and their thesis was essentially a little bit of what we had seen, which was the cannabis needs help. Right. And the help they need, Jason and Aruna thought, and then kind of through discussions was five prong, um, did it help with distribution at scale, Particularly in the state of California, which is where we think cannabis markets being kind of made for a lot to a large extent, um, we think you need, uh, some kind of e commerce, D2C or digital solution. We think you need marketing and retail services, which is where we came in when Jason and Arun came to us. It was for that third finger. Sometimes I argue it's the thumb. Um, but you know, um, uh, you need the ability to go from state to state, um, which is a thing that's very difficult in cannabis because you can't go over state lines. So you need to grow, um, and manufacture and produce and distribute and do all of the things under the guidelines of individual states. And each of those states guidelines vary tremendously and wild.

Speaker A: So you can't produce in one state and then ship it to the other not.

Speaker B: So we remove the goods. We deal with predominantly a pedal at Pedal Fast. We deal with exclusively THC products. The only part to get you high, um, at AP Keaton, we deal to a little extent with traditional CPG package, cbd, but not really. Our focus is really thc, um, and really root to market for thc. So thc, it's a cannabinoid. So it's the. It's the stuff that gets you high in pot or it's the most, um, the most, uh, like publicly known or the most commonly known cannabinoid to get somebody high. Um, in the plant there's many, many cannabinoids.

Speaker A: Um, is it in tablet form? Is it in gummy form? Is it.

Speaker B: So depending on the state, there's different form factors that are allowed, possible or happening. Right. So, um, I use California as an example because to me it's the most mature. I'm sorry, whoever thinks that that's not true, but ish, it is. Um, and in California, we've got our SKUs are limited by their ability to manufacture. So there's beverage, um, there's chocolates, there's gummies, there's tarts, there's marshmallows, there's popcorn, sriracha, flour cartridges, concentrates, um, powders, sticks, capsules, oils, ointments, rubs, tinctures.

Speaker A: Wow.

Speaker B: Um, um, California, it's as robust of a marketplace as you can imagine. Colorado, very robust. Vegas, uh, uh, Nevada is very robust. Um, and varied. And then there's. It's just such a wild kind of thing to try to wrap your arms around. Every state varies in the way they license. So some states require verticality. Imagine that, um, Jameson had to distill, package and distribute individually in every state in the country. Right. And then do that with different laws in each of those states. Would some of them allow you to say Irish whiskey, but some don't let you say Irish? Some like, just imagine the. There was that level of oversight.

Speaker A: So these in individual cannabis stores, or they could be in a stupid question, but could you find these things in a, in a Walmart type store?

Speaker B: Yeah. So now no. Now no. Um, and again, depending on the state, it really, really varies. The easiest one not to be repetitive to talk about, I think is California because it mirrors the environment feels the most familiar. Right. To general traditional cpg. Um, and where they're sold is in dispensary. So rec. Legal and medical legal dispensaries. Um, there's about 700 or so of them in the state. Um, another arguably couple hundred illegal shops set up in the state that, you know, you would look at and think they were legal because of licensure and kind of the way that it's still a weird and gray. Um, and those 700 shops, some function very sophisticatedly like an Apple store or, you know, like, you know, look like an Apple store and also kind of turn like stores we understand that have placements and planograms and you know, things along those lines. And the vast majority argue function more like privately owned independent liquor stores or, um, if we're trying to equate them that way.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Um, but they can't, you know, up until recently and still not finished. They can't be banked very well. It's hard financing. You know, access to finance is very hard. Um, I think traditional financing is going to get easier. Um, I think that most, uh, of the markets have um, an imbalance between cultivation opportunities, retail opportunities, um, and kind of where those things intersect. So there's sometimes more pot than stores and in other cases there's more stores than pot. Um, it's just a.

Speaker A: What about unit cost? Is it, is it I guess is of equality to you know, drinks and liquor. What you buy is how does the price point vary?

Speaker B: You buy by weight and oftentimes by milligrams of THC to that weight. Right. So um, and then it depends on the form factor. So um, flour is sold so the much the way that the spirits are sold in kind of traditional form factors. 50 MLS, right. 375, 750s, however that goes through.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Um, in cannabis, depending on your form factor, if you're a flower brain, you might be sold in grams, eighths, quarters, halves an ounce. Um, or you might be sold as pre rolled joints that look like cigarettes or. So there's, there's different form factors but to kind of put the period on the pedal fast thesis, which I think is really interesting, um, what we said to brands was you exist, you're in California. Great. We think we can help you with those five fingers. Right. We think you need a distributor and there's only a handful of really good ones in California. Ones who are capable of taking you to the 700 really geographically disparate doors across the state. Right. 700 doors, giant state. I think there's 700 liquor stores and restaurants, you know, within 10 or 12 blocks in certain cities in America. Right. So a lot of state to cover for uh, a few amount of doors. The logistics of it's a nightmare. Right. Um, so we can help you with that. We think and we, we tied ourselves to who we think are the best distributors in the state. Um, we think that we then hired a salesforce. We have a full sales team. I want to say it's 16. It varies depending on as we're growing. So forgive me on the day. And that sales force overlays, um, either the brand team salesforce or the existing salesforce at the distributor. So essentially you've seen it in drinks. You've also seen it in CPG with companies like um, Acosta or who overlay unfi or things like that. Um, so we didn't invent that model either, but we brought it to cannabis. Um, and we started to take brands on board with the promise of again kind of affecting those distribution, E comm. Retail services and marketing, helping you get into other states when the time comes and being aware of law. Right. Um, and that's more than most brands have and can care for. And it's also something that the pandemic really pushed the desire to push off of balance sheets. We also see it in spirits. Um, you know a lot of these kind of venture funded are new to world brands and spirits and cannabis is. There's a real good similarity. Can't take all that on their balance sheet. Right Now I have 16 salespeople, I have seven full time merchandising people, field marketers. Right. We, you want, it's a couple million bucks a year. Right. Like to take that on your balance sheet. It's a big, big lift in one state.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: So um, we have, the objective is

Speaker A: to share that resource across multiple suppliers.

Speaker B: So we've got 13 brands now in house. We've created a portfolio. Kind of the idea was we would create a port pedal fast, would create a portfolio um, that was categorical and differentiated. And Jason and Arun and team have been unbelievable in finding kind of the best opportunities across California. And then um, we inject kind of our marketing, um, tactical marketing and trade I think for the most part kind of marketing and then also really marketing to the trade um, in the space. But the way we think about it evolves daily um, because it's such a dynamic kind of place.

Speaker A: So would you say the closest match would be something like you're trying to be an acosta for the cannabis market or is that too simplified?

Speaker B: No, I think that's perfect. I think Acosta I hope is continuing success and has continued success. I'm not sure where they, if they're awesome or people love them, but the model essentially is we lay people over, um, over either your existing resources or the resources of a distributor. We help make sure that you're in a ton of stores that were and that we're executing on your brand marketing promise, your trade marketing promise and then ultimately I don't know, finding like the intersection in between. Um, yeah. And it's an amazing model. We've been, we've got hundreds of brands who have applied, um, which I thought was, I didn't know that that would be the case when we started the business. Um, and we've built a 12 or 13 brand portfolio from within. We launched ah, a house brand, an A.P. keaton kind of construct called Smarty Plants, which is a flower brand. Um, that is the lead flower brand in the Petal Fast portfolio.

Speaker A: And when you say flower brand, what does that mean?

Speaker B: Uh, like so pot that looks like plants. Right? So pot that you'd like you would imagine if you pictured it from where, in the 70s or what?

Speaker A: Yeah. Okay. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker B: So, so you grow it. We grow. Well, we don't. We buy it from a partner, but, you know, like flower pot.

Speaker A: Got it.

Speaker B: Okay. Um, so yeah, we born Smarty Plants from like kind of this white space that we felt that there was in the marketplace. And A.P. keaton, um, had done a bunch of work around the brand and kind of its marketing construct. And then with, um, the Petal Fast team, um, helped kind of shore up supply chain, which is the biggest issue for cannabis kind of across the market. And the amazing sales team is helping kind of make it a really, really unbelievable brand. Case study for us.

Speaker A: Um, and how professional is the supply chain in the cannabis market? Because I guess there's all your stigma to it. Right. And if you go years back in terms of, you know, the quality of the supply, you know, something's legal, something's non legal, how do you manage compliance with that supply chain?

Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, it's a great question. It's a brand new ish market. Even if it goes back to 30 years to the illicit market or 50 or whatever, it's still a thing that we're, that you're vetting daily, that you're trying to find partners that are, that are, you know, we don't have the luxury of time to figure out if these guys are the right guys or this place is the right place. So the supply chain, I would say, um, is, is gaining in sophistication, but requires a really keen eye to make sure that you're in a good place with the right people. It's hard.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: And again, because to set up a grow, to set up production is very costly, requires so much know how likely and ideally would require a ton of research, which we've not had the ability to do, or at least have it funded federally for years. So it's tough. The supply chain's tough. Right. Um, there's not a lot of cultivation opportunities, period. Just from a licensing perspective, where there are cultivation opportunities, it's costly and difficult to set up. Uh, and then once you have product, manufacturing the product, turning it into, um, goods, fulfilling those goods in a succinct manner and then, um, fulfilling it from a logistics standpoint is hard. And then as new categories come on board, like beverage, um, distributors perhaps, who for years have been not prepared for heavy, cumbersome goods. Right. This is a $60 eighth. Right. It's the same amount of money as bottle, Wild Turkey, whatever reserve. Right?

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker B: So to move a bunch of these is much easier than the moving, moving 750s and lighter.

Speaker A: Yeah. And the margin versus shelf space as well for a reseller is much, much greater.

Speaker B: Ish. So that's where the other issue comes. So the illicit market undercuts the, the legal market in so many instances. So imagine you could buy whatever Don Paranone for half price on the street because they didn't have to. The street doesn't have to pay the taxes or the overhead or those instances. And it's not necessarily being enforced or as difficult to enforce. Right. Um, so I don't know, I think

Speaker A: about from a retailer, the space they need to sell.

Speaker B: Right, right, right, right.

Speaker A: You know, go back in. I used to be a sales rep for Wrigley's Chewing Gum. And um, part of my sales speed was, okay, the shelf space that Wrigley's Chewing Gum takes on shelf versus I know what it was. A snicker bar, a Mars bar. You get four times the shelf space on that and your margin is much, much higher.

Speaker B: 100.

Speaker A: Looking at that, the product you showed me is obviously much smaller. Uh, and you're going to get much greater return on for smaller shelf space.

Speaker B: You know that Bo Wrigley has a amazing marijuana company.

Speaker A: Really?

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: I think it's surprising me how how many people are involved in the industry now. There's so many celebrities have got their own brands. I know you're working on some celebrity endorsements as well brands, right?

Speaker B: We have some really cool stuff. Yeah. So through um, in the Pedal Fast portfolio there, um, we have an amazing um, infused pre roll brand. We just launched some packaged flower like we were talking about called Space Coyote. Um, that brand's built on collaboration which I think is awesome. So um, Source Flower Source concentrate, um, transparency around that collaboration. Right. And we've added in, they've added in um, uh, musicians, um, we hope and are hopeful to add in some athletes and. And we have some amazing things around that Smarty. Um, Plants is an amazing ambassador, director of cool shit, um, a musician and a comedian named Open Mike Eagle. Um, we've done a bunch of cool stuff. Yeah.

Speaker A: And everyone I'm talking to you right now is talking about E commerce as you know.

Speaker B: What's that?

Speaker A: E commerce going direct to consumer. Is that even happening in this sector right now is even possible? Is it legal?

Speaker B: Yeah. I'm so excited about that. To me is some of the most exciting opportunities. Right. Because it's obviously where a lot of the momentum and energy is in spirits. Right. And we're we've seen a huge growth because of our digital capabilities um and our retail relationships. The way that spirits is. The way that spirits has to work from a DDC perspective requires synergies across retailers, across states. We're in a unique position to kind of help affect that. Right. Same thing in cannabis except cannabis is 30 seconds old and spirit started 200 years ago. So it's a bit of an old boys club. Right. Um so yeah.

Speaker A: Is there a drizzly for cannabis?

Speaker B: There's not a drizzly but what there are there are. What there is are is right are um. There's uh, online only stories. Right. So there's delivery services who some either take possession of the product and deliver only like a fulfillment center don't have brick and mortar um and others serve as um, like a routing portal. So um, similar ish to Drizly except um, not. Not quite the same. But yes there is pot delivery and it's and it can be done through websites like iHeart, Jane, UM or Vana or um, other ones along those lines. Hyperwolf is an online only store, grass store.

Speaker A: And would you just to sort of close out on this. What do you think the future looks like and I guess what's the future look like for Petalfast as a brand and organization, the future business and what is, what does the market look like, the marketplace look like? Because legislation is changing literally daily right now. Right. And states are ah changing legislation, opening up doors.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: What do you think it looks like?

Speaker B: So I'm jazzed about Pedal Fast right? Because I think um as state by state, as states open. Right. The ability to prove model in, in California and then take brands across into new states with either LPs or however we take them across. Right. Um is a really exciting opportunity. Um, so I think to see brands go national would be ah or as close to national as possible. Right. Um would be a next logical step. Um and would be really exciting. I think we're going to see a couple of our brands, the Pedal Fast portfolio brands, um go into other states perhaps even this year um which is exciting. Um and yeah I think that, I think just the continuation of us identifying healthy brands, ah, helping to foster really strong brand owners and brand founders um and then you know innovating in the face of white space if we need to and um, then moving those brands across the country and then as far as the industry itself, um, you know I mentioned it a little bit. I think traditional finance is going to be a big deal. I think being able to bank is Going to be a really big deal. I think the quarantine's, um, for both booze and for pot. Right. Like people drank more and smoke more and I think even experimented and learned and discovered more. And I think there's going to be continued kind of post quarantine induced consumption. I think, um, there's going to be more stores, there's going to be more grows, there's going to be a lot. I think it's going to, it's going to boom. Right. I think prices are going to get, will drop as there's more cultivation. I think there's going to be turmoil, I think there'll be consolidation.

Speaker A: Is there an international brand possibility with some of these cannabis products?

Speaker B: I don't know a whole lot about it, if I'm honest. So I invested in a business, uh, some years ago. Um, it's now called Clever Leaves. It went public with spac and they're growing in Colombia. Um, they're, they're led by a really smart group of guys, Ivy guys, kind of venture guys and analysts and um, brought some really amazing growers together and talk about equatorial climates and the cheapest marijuana that can be grown on Earth. And kind of as that moves around the world, I don't know, I think there are huge opportunities for imports kind um, of as that becomes something that can happen. Um, international brands, I think are hard in established markets. Right. Or in established, you know, businesses. So, yeah, sure. But I think the legislations and regulations around it right now make it a ways down the road.

Speaker A: Got it. Okay, well, thanks for the, thanks for that. Hopefully I didn't ask too many stupid questions. No, no, there's probably listeners that think, God, this guy lived under a rock for, uh, 40 odd years.

Speaker B: It's a brand new thing, man. Nobody wants to know. I, I know very little.

Speaker A: Okay, so just to close out, Ryan, um, I've got five questions I'm asking all of my guests. Be great if you can sort of spend the next five, ten minutes, um, give me your responses if that's okay with you.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, sure.

Speaker A: So first question. What's the most memorable marketing activation that you're most proud of, that you've been involved in?

Speaker B: I don't know. I like, I feel like it's sometimes. What have you done for me lately? Right. So, um, I think ad week was probably my, the thing that right before the pandemic felt the most relieving to have accomplished. And it was the largest thing we took on. Um, from a execution standpoint, um, uh, Adweek happens Here in New York and a number of countries. And it's, uh, this giant conference and from a graphics and sponsorship perspective requires something like, uh, I'm making it up in 30,000, 40,000 square feet of graphics. And it needs to go up in a very, very short period of time, hours, and come down, you know, very, very quickly after it's in a borrowed space. Um, a very high profile. We had to shut down a couple of city streets. It was just a really exciting, large, you know, 80 person install. And, um, it's one of those ones that, you know, you feel like you can do it. You know you can do it. You've done them before, but when it's here, it's like shooting. And then when they're over you're like, oh, ah, good. So that I think that one probably, um, right before the pandemic too, we did an amazing Dos Hombres project, um, at Sobey. Um, I'm a big fan of Breaking Bad. So we helped a lot. Right. To launch that though, which is so much fun. Right. So when Aaron and Brian and Michael, um, brought that out right to the universe. Um, we helped put together a lot of that kind of go to market work. And then, uh, culminated with Brian and Aaron Tendon bar at, uh, south beach, which was really awesome. At a booth and experience that we created that one.

Speaker A: Cool. And is there anything that you've sort of watched and admire from the sidelines that you haven't been involved in? You kind of look at, you think, wow, that's a great piece of activation that I'd love to be involved in.

Speaker B: Yeah. So many times I'm like, um, I'm, uh. And I try not to be salty. Right. Um, I don't know if this was a recent one or not, but I talk about it all the time. Do you know the brand Brew Dog?

Speaker A: Yes. Yeah.

Speaker B: They did this thing with Waze during Carnival in, uh, Brazil.

Speaker A: Um,

Speaker B: I think. Yeah. Um, where they, um, noted historical drunk driving accidents on waves as happening in real time. And when you clicked on the drunk driving accident, it would give you news footage and a bunch of information and would chart the route and kind of. It was a, uh, you know, cautionary tale. Right. Don't let this be you as well. I thought it was such a brilliant way to kind of integrate a piece of technology that lives so frequently in front of your face. Amazing responsibility, message, and ultimately brand marketing. It was cool.

Speaker A: They're the best ones, aren't they? Ones that could be really risky and could blow up in your face. But turn out really, really well.

Speaker B: Uh, what Reynolds did with the Peloton Woman was the greatest thing ever. And he turned it around like eight seconds. And that's one that could have been super risky. Right. But that's one where I would. I, uh, was just like, ah, uh, this guy. Good. Good on you. I think it was Adrian Molina was involved in that too. Davos guys are killing it.

Speaker A: And what's the best career advice you've been given?

Speaker B: Yeah. So I was once told that I can say anything I want so long as it doesn't come from a place of anger or fear. And I think that that for me has been really interesting because it's enabled me to feel really unencumbered. But more so than that, I think it's caused me to try to identify those two traits in my clients and relationships because I believe that oftentimes our clients are coming from places of anger or fear. And I think that's often driven by culture or by who knows? And we'll have that conversation another day. Um, so I think that. I think realizing that anger, fear are difficult emotions to harness and we should try to avoid them when dealing with one another.

Speaker A: And similar question as well. So I'm sure you haven't got any regrets at all, Ryan, but is there any advice you'd give to your younger self?

Speaker B: Be less afraid and less angry. But you know what I mean.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Like, for real. Because I, I try to talk a lot with our team now about, um, and I don't want them to mistake the lack of reverence for irreverence. Right. But I, I remember feeling reverent of even people I'm friends with now. Right. Or. And I think that's a fear to a large extent. And I think anger is what you do when you're afraid. So we. If we couldn't execute something or something was going to be late. I think a younger me reacted in a way that I probably wouldn't want to see on a GoPro. Yeah.

Speaker A: And, uh, I think it also stifles entrepreneurship as well. If you're fearful about being bold, you kind of tend not to do the things that you, you know, the right things to do. And they don't always work out, but you're either successful or you learn from them. And finally, I love an inspirational quote. I've had some great ones so far, so I'm sure you won't let me down. Ryan, is there any inspirational quotes that you try to live by?

Speaker B: No. I'm afraid I'm going to let you down now. Here's the one. The only one I have. The only one I think that I live by, and I say it all the time. It's. And it's, like, kind of corny because it's the Serenity Prayer. And I try. I actually will say it out loud a couple times a day. Do you know it?

Speaker A: No.

Speaker B: So it's grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. So I'm not a religious man, nor am I, which I'm imagining, if anyone's listening might think. Nor am I judging, um, uh, in recovery, because that's. That's something that's used oftentimes in recovery. But, yeah, I think it's awesome, right? I think we accept what we can't change. I think we change what we can. And I think we should understand which. What's the difference between those two things?

Speaker A: Ryan, thank you so much. I really appreciate you taking time out. I know how busy you are right now. Um, but generally, always enjoy talking to you, and hopefully you'll come back on the podcast again next time. We definitely have to get Maxi on as well.

Speaker B: M. Oh, uh, she would love it. She would love it so much. And by. I'm impressed. Like, a tight 60. You just were. This was awesome. Nice.

Speaker A: Just.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Okay. Thanks, Ryan. Really appreciate your time.

Speaker B: Thank you, brother.

Speaker A: See you soon.

Speaker B: That's it for this episode of the Effective Marketing Podcast. Thanks for listening. Be sure to, like, subscribe and share so that you don't miss our next episode. You can also visit the website at the theeffectivemarketingpodcast.com for more information, including guest profiles and videos.