Editors’ Note: This is the transcript version of the podcast. Please note that due to time and audio constraints, transcription may not be perfect. We encourage you to listen to the podcast, embedded below if you need any clarification. We hope you enjoy!
This week we are joined by Brady Cobb, Founder of Sunburn, to discuss:
- Florida Cannabis Market
- The Why behind Sunburn
- Publix effect
- Sunburn vs. Trulieve?
About Brady Cobb: Brady Cobb is the founder and former CEO of Bluma Wellness, which was recently acquired by Cresco Labs. He founded One Plant Florida in 2018, a boutique-style medical marijuana company and that holds one of the fourteen medical marijuana treatment center licenses in the State of Florida. Cobb is a lawyer, entrepreneur and advocate for cannabis reform in Washington, DC, where he works with lobbyists and representatives to better the state of the industry through law.
#Cannabis #Cannabiscommunity #DEA
At Eighth Revolution (8th Rev) we provide services from capital to cannabinoid and everything in between in the cannabinoid industry.
8th Revolution Cannabinoid Playbook is an Industry-leading report covering the entire cannabis supply chain
The Dime is a top 50 Cannabis Podcast
Contact us directly at [email protected] Bryan Fields: @bryanfields24 Kellan Finney: @Kellan_Finney
[00:00:00] Good to go.
[00:00:01]Bryan Fields: What’s up guys. Welcome back to the episode of the dime. I’m Brian Fields. I’m with me as always as ke Finney. And this week we’ve got a very special guest Brady, Cobb founder of sunburn cannabis Brady. Thanks for taking the time. How you doing
[00:00:10]Brady Cobb: today? Good, man. My pleasure. Thanks for having me.
[00:00:12]Bryan Fields: I’m excited to dive in. Ke how are you doing?
[00:00:14]Kellan Finney: I’m doing really well. Looking forward to talking
[00:00:16] to Brady today. How are you, Brian?
[00:00:17]Bryan Fields: I’m doing good. This is our, uh, live first edition here at been seeing a capital conference. So before we dive in Brady thoughts on how the been seeing a capital
[00:00:25]Brady Cobb: conference is.
[00:00:26] I think it’s high energy. It was, uh, I think it’s, I think something like over 2000 attendees, which is up from, even from the Miami show, I think it kind of continues to demonstrate the interest in the sector with everything going on. Uh, you look at the federal macro, you look at a lot of the state based adoption.
[00:00:40] You look at the eyes from the street, traditional, you know, investors are starting to take a peak. It’s a great place to come. I’m very, very happy with the attendance and the energy. It seems like people are pretty stoked to be here. Yeah, absolutely. I think it’s
[00:00:51]Bryan Fields: a great energy and a great conference. And for our listeners that aren’t familiar about, you can give a little background about you and how you got into the cannabis space.
[00:00:57]Brady Cobb: Yeah, so I, I was a, I’m a [00:01:00] lawyer, but I say I’m in recovery. Um, on like my 11th step. But my, my passion for cannabis, you know, not a lot of lawyers have big passions for cannabis. I’ve been a user of the plant and, and a big fan of the plant. You know, since way too young, my mom would probably not be happy to hear the actual age.
[00:01:16] Uh, my passion for it comes from my family history. So my father in 1977 and 1983, he was one of the biggest smugglers of cannabis in the history, the justice department. Uh, so every kid wants to be like their dad. He went to prison. I wanted to avoid that part. So instead of running shrimp boats full of weed into Florida from Columbia, I decided to go to law.
[00:01:33] Uh, learned how to change the laws. And he died in 2010 and that was kind of the seminal moment for me to put up or shut up and go do it. So I started doing a lot of the regulatory work in the early years out west, uh, did the first kind of Canadian transactions representing AF RIA and others as they looked to enter the us, uh, took my first trip to Lemington back in like, you know, 15, uh, Emily Paxio was the only other person I know that was actually up there at the, the us side, but, you know, Liberty health started that company founder, uh, [00:02:00] exited when they went to biomass route, bought another license, uh, called three boys’ farms, turned that into BMA, one plant focused, exclusively on premium.
[00:02:07] We live and die with the quality of our flower hands. That’s it. So sold that to Cresco. I actually just had a great breakfast with Charlie this morning to catch up. Uh, corporate cannabis was not for me. So Wes management team, we exited last. And we’re back in the game, we just acquired the med med assets in Florida.
[00:02:23] So we’re getting ready to relaunch those.
[00:02:24]Kellan Finney: So, uh, after your second successful exit, what was the motivation for kind of jumping back in with sunburn?
[00:02:30]Brady Cobb: It’s a great question. So two, two twofold answer. Uh, number one, I can’t sit at home and the industry is still we’re in the second inning. Uh, maybe for me.
[00:02:38] And as I look around, we do, uh, we’re data geeks. So as we studied the marketplace, You look at the data points and I’m big fan of headset where a client headset, they demonstrated to us that there’s a gap in the market. When I say there’s a gap in the market, most of the MSOs, most of the big operators in the state, especially Florida, 70% of the market share in Florida is average product or worse.[00:03:00]
[00:03:00] We specialize in high end product and there’s most of the brands from a brand positioning standpoint where huge believers in the brands are ultimately, what’s gonna. They’re all very generic medicinal and feel kind of very similar to each other. We’re we’re gonna go be a very, we’re gonna adopt cannabis culture.
[00:03:16] So that was number one is we saw a gap in the market we saw, okay. There’s a lane for us. Second thing is I’ve always, I’ve been waiting 25 years to launch this brand. We’ve literally been working on the brand for 20 years. Uh, we, my creative director who was a screen, uh, screenwriter play actor out in LA, we went to Florida state together.
[00:03:33] He began interviewing my dad when we were at Florida state together. And when I told him the story one night over beers, and he’s like, there’s no way that story’s true. I took him out to introduce him to my dad. And he started interviewing him. You know, we have all the Miami Herald articles. We have interviews with the federal judges, the DEA.
[00:03:47] So we probably have a thousand hours of audio, all his Columbian partners, all his partners, every the, the appellate court judge who had to sentence him, the federal judge who had to. So we built this story and it’s uniquely authentic. And I think [00:04:00] outside of burner’s story in cannabis, there’s really now authentic cannabis brands out there.
[00:04:04] They’re all made in, in a marketing office somewhere, and we believe it’s gonna differentiate us. And I’ve been waiting to release this IP. It was actually supposed to go out as a multis series, Netflix. and we sold it to imperative entertainment. In 2014, we bought it back from ’em when they didn’t actually launch it.
[00:04:18] We didn’t put it in BMA. Blue mode was not called sunburns. I didn’t control the cap table right now. Cresco, as much as I love Charlie would own my dad’s story and I would be jumping off a bridge. So we’ve been waiting for this moment to go back and relaunch it. We think it’s a perfect time. As brands are starting to really matter to go do it, getting the capital raise to go do it was fucking hard.
[00:04:39] uh, but what kept me going was the opportunity to launch the. Tell the story. So you always knew
[00:04:44]Bryan Fields: you’d be back in the game. It was just a matter of
[00:04:46]Brady Cobb: time. I took some time off. I mean, I had a hell of a run from Liberty from soul global in the AF RIA short to Liberty health to three boys, one plant where we built out a business that had 25 million CapEx needs with 14 million, [00:05:00] uh, got to scale, you know, we had the second highest volume on a per store basis.
[00:05:04] We’re the only ones that were there, kind of clipping away at Kim. Um, And she’s done a tremendous job in, in what she’s done in Florida, but just different business models. And I knew I was coming back, but I needed some time off. We took a month off and just sat in Aspen, uh, and just turned my brain off. I didn’t answer my phone for like three weeks after we left and then it was okay, let’s do some consulting.
[00:05:23] So we focused our consulting as a team cuz I kept the whole team together. It was really humbling for me. One. I left Cresco and said I was leaving my whole team go. We’re going with you? I go, I don’t have anything. They go, we’ll figure it out. So we did some consulting work. We focused on California and Arizona for turnarounds.
[00:05:36] Two reasons, a plenty of work, a lot of turnaround opportunities out there. B uh, Studying those markets and what was moving in those markets, especially Arizona, cuz that’s the most recent state to go from medical to adult use. I wanted to see what makes successful in a flip. So we went out there, we studied, we started running swats on those markets.
[00:05:55] We’ve been running a SWAT on the Florida market since 2018. 400 pages. [00:06:00] We just digitized it with Microsoft BI, where we’re actually now scrubbing and actually pulling data every day to see where pricing is, marketing, branding, discounts, everything. And we saw the opportunity in that if the stores that do really well in those markets, that flip are well located stores with high quality product that have ample parking, the tertiary locations and shopping centers don’t do as well.
[00:06:21] So we looked at them, we looked around and okay, we wanna come back into Florida. That’s where we all. I moved my grow team across the country. Once I moved them from California and Colorado to do one plant, I, they didn’t want to go anywhere else. I didn’t want to go anywhere else. So we said, we’re doing it here.
[00:06:32] Then we looked at what’s available of all the licenses that were available as we were doing SWAT analysis on all the licenses that were available. Med men was, it was a clear winner, uh, with the store locations and the ample parking. I mean, they spent three and a half million bucks a store on. build up They’re palaces.
[00:06:47] Um, and they did the hard work were main street locations, Alton and 13th and south beach with 40 parking spots. CMAA street and west Palm Deerfield beach pier Sarasota, right in downtown. I mean, these are sites that fit right with [00:07:00] what we wanna do. I don’t want a hundred stores. I want 25 stores. Cause I ultimately believe our goal is to use the stores like apple used stores to immerse the consumer and the.
[00:07:10] And then ultimately be able to sell it elsewhere. Um, our whole plan is I don’t need 150 stores or 50 stores. I need 25. Well located stores immerse the consumer in the brand. And when the wall comes down and brands matter, now we have a hyper local brand with a cult following, hopefully knocking on wood that everybody would want to distribute otherwise and not have that retail exposure because in my humble opinion, as soon as traditional retail can sell cannabis, they’re gonna fucking.
[00:07:35] sell it And they’re really good at selling stuff. That’s
[00:07:37]Bryan Fields: what they thrive on so quickly. I’d love to know like the, the sunburn. I know it has some, some history with you and your dad. I’d love to know quickly on that. Just for our listeners. Don’t know. The premium standpoint, I know pricing is, is a big factor in the Florida market.
[00:07:50] So I’d love to know how you go about attacking that. Cause I know Floridas are looking for deals and you’ve kind of narrowed down exactly how to approach the market specifically and harder to have these premium products
[00:07:59]Brady Cobb: still sell. [00:08:00] Well, that’s a great question. So on sunburn, the DEA task force, the, the joint DEA DOJ task force that was commissioned in 1981 to take my father down the year I was born, he was ultimately indicted in 1983 was dubbed operation sunburn So it’s our little tip of the hat to every OG, anyone that’s ever taken a chance to keep the plant, anyone that’s ever smuggled, Florida’s probably by the way, Florida’s got a rich culture in that. Yeah. You know, is the smuggling capital of probably the drug smuggling capital of the United States. If you’ll go back from the sixties all the way up to.
[00:08:30] Present day there’s a groupers, right? Yeah. There is square groupers. There’s, there’s a, there’s a seizure in the paper or bales found floating every couple days in Florida. So it’s our little way to make it authentic and unique to Florida. And that’s why we named it sunburn cannabis. It’s also a middle finger to the DEA and the federal government so, uh, the second piece of it on pricing is, and that’s a great question.
[00:08:53] You know, the average pricing in Florida right now for an eighth is I think, as I saw it yesterday on our system was right around 42 bucks pre. [00:09:00] So the way we distinguish it is I have a hard time discounting a product that’s high quality to me. I hear the word discount. I believe it implies there’s something wrong with it.
[00:09:10] And I think that’s why you see the heavy discounts across the big three in Florida, because there is something wrong with it because the cultivation facilities were thrown together rather quickly. There’s not a focus on cultivation. So it’s a lot of average product. Well only right now we have 700,000 in change patients.
[00:09:27] There’s 23 million residents. So the black market is kicking everybody’s ass. As I’ve always said, I don’t compete with Kim rivers or Boris or George Artos. I compete with the black market. That’s always been when we built one plant, that was our mission to the team is we are gonna grow good enough flour and put good enough saltless concentrates on the market that people will go get their card.
[00:09:47] They will stop buying from their local plug, sorry. And they will come into the stores and it worked. I even had some of the local plugs coming into the stores to buy product and getting their medical cards. So for us, it’s [00:10:00] about, I reward people for buying. So the thing in Florida, that’s often overlooked from a CPG standpoint, and that’s where having a guy like Ryan Martin on my team is, is critical.
[00:10:09] Who comes with 25 years of alcohol experience. It’s commonly known in CPG. It’s not much talked about in cannabis, but there’s something in Florida called the public’s effect. And when I say that, I mean, Publix has a 70 share of the grocery market. That’s unheard of almost nationally for one grocery. And by the way, they own win Dixie’s real estate too.
[00:10:25] So take their share up even more. So at Publix, the consumer in Florida is conditioned to look for. Because on any given day, there’s a BOGO on any aisle. So the consum, the Florida consumers kind of pre-programed to look for a deal. What we attacked it as cuz we had a higher quality product is I will reward you for buying more on a bulk deal.
[00:10:44] I’m not just gonna discount it. So we, you work on, you have to pricing architecture and you have to be disciplined to set it up in a way that you still achieve the. Net price after discount that you want, but it’s gotta be tied to quality and look at what jungle boys just did. So they launched with no [00:11:00] discounts, $45 ACE, and they set the single week.
[00:11:02] The, the, the one week record for most ounces sold per store. The closest, I think truly, truly was had the leader at four and change 400 ounces plus or minus per on a per store basis. Was the record. Our highest ever we ever got was right around three 80. They did a thousand out of a store in O on no discount.
[00:11:19] Premium product premium flour, proper genetics. Couldn’t couldn’t keep it in stock. They actually had to shut the store after the first three days, coz they ran out of everything that shows anyone can talk to me about price compression. All they want that lives in the mid tiers and down. you have a proper product on the shelf.
[00:11:37] It’s gone. That was our experience. Our inventory at one plant, we were net 40 days and it was all gone. We had a problem of replenishing the stores. So as long as you put quality out there and you commit to that, you’d feel less pricing compression pressure. If you don’t, you’re gonna have a problem. What do you think is, uh, causing all these other, uh, operators to not maintain that high quality on the shelves in these markets?
[00:11:57]Kellan Finney: You think it’s like multiple variables? You think it’s like [00:12:00] a combinate compounding?
[00:12:01]Brady Cobb: I think it’s commitment. You gotta. I think they’re kind of tied to, they’re tied to the beast almost in a way. And I say that, I mean, you go out, you go multi-state, you go public. You are now beholden to earnings reports.
[00:12:16] And when you’re beholden to those earnings reports, you can’t pull your cultivation facilities offline, especially in a vertical market to do retrofits, cuz you’re then gonna miss your earnings. Unless your lunatic CEO in this market want to miss earnings and have your stock down 80. , it’s not gonna be a fun ride.
[00:12:31] So the minute what what’s often overlooked in cannabis and it’s, I think it’s largely not, not taking a shot here, but I think it’s just it’s fact largely, most aside, aside from like Matt, Darren, and Ben, there’s not a lot of, of CEOs that, that have actual cannabis cultivation experience and or commitment to the plan, uh, and understand what it means to do premium at scale.
[00:12:54] It’s hard. It’s a. You know, it’s when you’re, when you’re a big wholesaler in Illinois, you’re just churn stuff out. You [00:13:00] want stuff on the shelves to do that premium at scale, nobody’s really done it yet, to be honest cookies try, but I think they got too big, too quick. Uh, they went and did the licensing route instead of maintaining quality.
[00:13:11] So the, the weed you buy from cookies in Michigan is not what you used to buy in Melrose in LA. And that’s their problem. So to do it at scale, it takes commitment. You kind of gotta know who you want to be versus who you don’t want to be, because it’s what you say no to that will define success in my opinion, not what you say yes to.
[00:13:25] So do you want to have 900 skews, every ratio, product known to demand, or do you want to focus on flour and saltless concentrates? That’s what we do. We’re disciplined. That’s what we’re focusing on. We’ll offer edibles, but like the ancillary products that are 3 to 4% of sales nationally, that’s just, that’s not.
[00:13:41] Happy to have you go to truly even buy that. If you want high quality flour, come here. You want ROSN come here. You want a good ROSN vape? Come here. Um, that it, it it’s. I think your question is a great one. I think it’s just largely the decisions you make on the front end of a cannabis business are gonna affect the decisions you can make on the [00:14:00] pricing on the back end.
[00:14:00] I think that was overlooked in the gold rush to get online and to get to scale. So I think it was just a matter of, okay, just get it going. And then once you’re going. It’s really hard to pivot, cuz remember, let’s say you wanted to change your garden. You’re talking about being offline from a product standpoint for six months, minimum, the decisions that we’re making right now in the garden from a genetic standpoint, we’re not gonna see the benefit of until April.
[00:14:26] So it’s, it’s a, it’s steering an aircraft carrier, you know, you’re trying to turn around something you can’t just, it’s not a quick turn, so you could throw as much money at as you want, but unless you’re committed to it, I think it’s just, everyone got too big too. We’ve seen brands
[00:14:40]Bryan Fields: can go east can eventually brands go west.
[00:14:42]Brady Cobb: So that’s on my, you know, our, our B a in the office, our big, hairy audacious goal in the office is to plant the flag in California, build sunburn in Florida. We already did it with one plant once. Uh, we produced flour and concentrates that we were able to take out to California and show off and it worked.
[00:14:58] My whole thing is it can [00:15:00] go east to west. We are gonna be, you know, biggie smalls going out to the LA rap game. That’s the goal amazing, uh, that is 1000% the B a for my crew is going east to west and, and showing that Florida, by the way, Florida it’s often overlooked has a as deep of a cultivation and cannabis, history and culture.
[00:15:19] As California, as deep Florida has been known for me for a long time. Huge, huge. And by the way, it’s people have been growing weed and moving weed through Florida. For 50, 60 years. Yeah. So at the end of the day, there’s a lot of really talented growers. There’s a lot of really passionate people. It’s a part of the lifestyle.
[00:15:35] I mean, you’re in the Florida keys, you’re sitting on a dock, you’re smoking a joint. Uh, it’s been there for a long time. We just, we lagged in the state adoption. So that’s our goal go west. What is one factor
[00:15:46]Bryan Fields: statistic operating in the cannabis industry that would shock most individuals?
[00:15:51]Brady Cobb: That’s a, that is actually a, that’s a great question.
[00:15:53] Let me think about that for a second. I would have to say. With all of the something we just talked about [00:16:00] with all of the price compression, I was shocked to see the average frontline price is still around 40 bucks in Florida. You hear price, there’s a price impression article every three or four days and every earnings report they talk about it.
[00:16:12] I think the other thing is the true size of the black market. When you study the size of the black market, it is fucking huge and that we haven’t even scratched the surface yet. Not yet. I know
[00:16:24]Kellan Finney: I was looking at some data and it said the black market could be like 60 to 70 billion. And we’re looking at like the total med and rack market of like 30 billion.
[00:16:31] So it’s just absolutely insane how big that market is.
[00:16:33]Brady Cobb: And that’s the thing I think on a branding side and a culture side, people understand most consumers, most, most of the big companies that are out there operating right now believe they have to reintroduce this category to consumer. my argument always has been now they know exactly what it is.
[00:16:52] They’re buying been buying it in glad sandwich bags that are fucking rolled up for how long and Starbucks parking lots. This is not rocket science. You may have to teach them [00:17:00] a new, okay, this is a CBD three to one or whatever it is, or this is now a tincture. This is how you use your pen, but they understand it.
[00:17:07] It has its own culture. It has its own movies. It has its own language. It has its own, uh, you know, music is, I mean, you didn’t go to a. Look back. How far, how far back could you go? Where a concert where cannabis, wasn’t a part of it to make enhance it. It’s been making people be able to tolerate their in-laws for generations.
[00:17:25] So at the end of the day, it’s like, you don’t have to run away from that. Then I feel like so many companies shy away from it. It’s okay. No, we’re gonna be clean. I hate the fucking word normalize. It drives me nuts. No, it already is normalized guys. There’s a huge. Excellent. Three to four exercises of the legal market on a good day.
[00:17:45] And everyone’s been totally fine buying from a shady guy out of a car or gal out of a trunk and glad sandwich bags like no one cared. So you think you have to create this experience where you shy away from the culture. I couldn’t be in more violent disagreement with that. Let’s do a quick rapid [00:18:00] fire hit me.
[00:18:00] True false. The
[00:18:01]Bryan Fields: location of dispensary is just as important as the quality of the product in the store. True. Psychedelics has a
[00:18:07]Brady Cobb: medicine yay or nay 1000. Homegrown yay or nay. Yes.
[00:18:12]Bryan Fields: True or false. You have the most appearances on the high-rise podcast.
[00:18:15]Brady Cobb: I, Matt, Matt from Nita might have me. McKinley might have me, but I think I’m close.
[00:18:20] What non
[00:18:21]Bryan Fields: recreational state do you think is under the radar and PO to turn
[00:18:24]Brady Cobb: heads PO to turn heads, uh, non recreational state PO to, I mean, obviously Pennsylvania is probably, I think gonna be a relatively good one. Um, non. Alabama North Carolina north. Carolina’s gonna be a big one. We’re they have a big economy too.
[00:18:41] They’ve got north. Carolina’s gonna be a big one, Alabama. We’re we’re going, we’ve been working on our Alabama piece for about a year. That’ll be, you know, organically. We’re going after that. The regs are gonna be pretty strict outta the gate though. I mean the initial draft of everything’s non no smokeable in Alabama in Alabama.
[00:18:57] So it’s gonna take a second. Yeah. What year [00:19:00] will Florida be at Dell use? I believe 2020. when Florida goes rec will medical
[00:19:05]Bryan Fields: operators be allowed to
[00:19:05]Brady Cobb: switch to recreational? Yes, that’ll be actually I believe the tech, the framework will be such that the existing licensees will service the market. What causes more disruption in the cannabis
[00:19:15]Bryan Fields: industry, interstate commerce or federal legalization?
[00:19:20]Brady Cobb: I think it’s federal legalization. I don’t interstate commerce to me and I had gotten much, you know, the Canali all have a dartboard. They. they, my fixtures on it. They throw darts at it because we had a few debates on this. I don’t think interstate commerce is not gonna be that disruptive to operators and brands.
[00:19:36] This notion that everything’s gonna go California and be shipped across the country, by the way, flower, degrades quickly, uh, as you’re shipping it and moving it, it degrades even quicker. Um, I, I don’t see it by the way. It’s gonna take a second, cuz you gotta think about it from a state based perspective.
[00:19:51] The state regulatory systems that are already in place. Are going to allow for those operators in those states and those products in those states to be [00:20:00] protected, the states are gonna have their own rule. You’ll never convince me that this will not be rolled out the same way as alcohol and federal legalization.
[00:20:07] I believe always have. I’m a huge advocate, safe banking will be the first domino to fall. And then you will see a three tier alcohol system, the alcohol distributors, not in a million years. Are they gonna let someone else distribute the product? So at that point, they’re distributing product, interstate commerce, and then alcohol, if you look there’s dry counties, There’s dry cities.
[00:20:25] It’s gonna be the same framework there already have it. I, I’m not saying this on conjecture I’m in DC. I’m we’re meeting with the alcohol lobby. I, you know, raised a lot of my capital for sunburn from the alcohol industry. The reason they’re investing in is because they see the potential for brands retail’s gonna get hurt in the long run.
[00:20:41] I think the biggest disruption’s gonna be federal legalization and what it does to retail cannabis specific retail, cuz the minute it’ll be the C stores first followed by the big boxes. The minute that they can have high margin items like cannabis. Total wine will get rid of half the cigars and it’ll be pre-rolls and gummies.
[00:20:58] Yeah. At the speed of fucking light, [00:21:00]
[00:21:00]Bryan Fields: 10 years from now rank these markets by size, New York, California, and
[00:21:04]Brady Cobb: Florida, California, Florida, New York.
[00:21:11] When you started
[00:21:12]Bryan Fields: your journey in the cannabis space, what did you get? Right. And most importantly, what did you get wrong?
[00:21:17]Brady Cobb: I got right. Staying committed. and honoring kind of what my gut always told me was don’t take the shortcuts. Don’t don’t just go do a, take a job or do a deal just to do it. It’s what you say no to not what you say yes to cuz once you do that, if you go the wrong route and you go corporate, you get pigeonholed in.
[00:21:33] The thing I did wrong is is it’s it’s a hard lesson is managing your cap table and making sure you’ve got the right shareholders in your deal. It’s why we took so long to get our capital raised is we were very selective on this deal. On who we brought in, that was a lesson and a learning from last time, because I wouldn’t have sold one plant Florida.
[00:21:51] We were just hitting our stride, but I had shareholders, I, and I would’ve never gone public. Uh, we had shareholders that wanted to sell and they had control over [00:22:00] me and I had to do it. So, um, it was a great learning experience to sell the business and go through that whole process and, and everything afterwards.
[00:22:07] But that was a big lesson cap table. Protect your fucking cap table. If you want to set this up the right way and, and go the long route. If you don’t have the right shareholders, it gets, it can be really challenging. And then you’re, it’s the weird experience of you’re in the bunker fighting and you’re getting shot at, from inside the bunker.
[00:22:22] That’s not a good feeling 20 years from now. We
[00:22:25]Bryan Fields: will look back and say that was bar Barrack. I can’t believe we did that in the cannabis industry. What is that?
[00:22:30]Brady Cobb: A hundred milligram beverages. I think it’s a single biggest threat to normal, to, to having beverages be a real category by selling such high dose.
[00:22:39] Some of these high dose products. For the average consumer, if they go buy a hundred milligram fricking beverage and they open it up, think they can just drink it. That’s gonna be bad for the industry. Um, it also tastes terrible. It tastes terrible, but I, I think we need to do better as an industry on how we address the public and, and kind of market ourselves.
[00:22:58] I think, I think there’s, there’s a gap [00:23:00] there and I, yeah, it’s making sure we have the right products on the shelves,
[00:23:05]Bryan Fields: which product category are you most bullish on over the next
[00:23:07] five
[00:23:07]Brady Cobb: to 10 years beverage? Edibles and beverage, I mean, flour starts and ends. I still think the flower market will dominate, but as far as markets that are gonna go bigger, beverage is absolutely gonna be massive.
[00:23:18] In my opinion,
[00:23:19]Bryan Fields: since you’ve been in the cannabinoid industry, what has been the biggest
[00:23:21]Brady Cobb: misconception that it’s a bunch of stoners sitting around, um, conferences and just, you know, not, not sophisticated. And I think the biggest thing is also that if you’re in this industry, you’re perceived as, and, and you, and you do smoke that you’re, you’re.
[00:23:36] Able to operate a business and operate at a high level. I think that’s the biggest misconception about cannabis. And it’s one that I love dispelling kind of on a one-to-one basis. My wife, her family, uh, my wife’s family who was, you know, I never knew. And now they’re utilizing and using, using, using the plan all the time because they realize, yeah, I can function.
[00:23:53] I am actually in some cases, right? Sativa’s you’re, you’re functioning and actually performing better, same way. Psychedelics opens your mind [00:24:00] up and allows you to actually have some real thinking and creative. It, it, it takes away the stress that change. It allows us to think creatively. And I think that’s the biggest misconception.
[00:24:09] If you could
[00:24:09]Bryan Fields: sum up your experience in a main takeaway or lesson, learn to pass onto the next generation, what would it be?
[00:24:15]Brady Cobb: This is not for the faint of heart. Uh, this industry is hard, but you need to be, you need to be committed to what you want to do. Plan, identify, study before you make a move. And it’s again, I said it a few minutes ago.
[00:24:29] It’s not what you say yes to that will define your success. It’s what you say. No. Well set.
[00:24:35]Bryan Fields: All right. Prediction time. Brady hit me. It’s 2027. When consumers are purchasing flour, what characteristic do you think is most
[00:24:42]Brady Cobb: important to them? Quality, top quality is gonna, you know, quality is gonna drive. It there’ll be some markets.
[00:24:50] I it’s, it’s a, it’s a tough question because if you drill down into each individual market, different things, drive consumers in different markets. The consumer in [00:25:00] Cleveland, Ohio is gonna be at a different price. And want a different product than the consumer in south beach, Miami and, and the consumer in, in, in LA is gonna be different than the consumer in Bakersfield.
[00:25:13] So it’s gonna be quality and price they’re gonna, I think will be the two biggest drivers of product. Kevin. I agree. I think quality and price. Um, mainly quality though. I mean, in like more mature markets, you continue to see like the brands that maintain their shell space are the bronzes that are maintaining that same quality time and time.
[00:25:33] So I think quality for sure. What
[00:25:35]Bryan Fields: do you think. I think effects. I think when we talk about flour, my mom always asks, is this scary pot?
[00:25:40]Brady Cobb: I mean, it’s a fair question. I don’t
[00:25:42]Bryan Fields: know, mom. I hope to God, it’s not for everyone’s sake year, but like, if we know what it’ll do from like a, a feeling standpoint, I think that’ll help people feel more comfortable making that leap back into the category.
[00:25:52] Right? Like exactly. Like you said, Brady said people have consumed cannabis for tons of years, but they’ve been unsure of what exactly will happen to them. All the. So [00:26:00] if we can get closer to making them feel comfortable when they’re making that purchase, I think the category will absolutely explode.
[00:26:05]Brady Cobb: I couldn’t agree with you more.
[00:26:07] It’s a good point. And I think, again, that goes back to what I, my fear on some of these products that are really, really high dosage, why? Yeah. And by the way, on a beverage, the idea for a beverage is to be sessionable. You want to have two to two and two and a half milligrams. You can have two of ’em in a night, go to bed, feel like a million bucks and get up because I can tell you with gummies.
[00:26:27] As we’ve studied the gummy explosion where it’s year to year from 4 20, 20 to 4 20 21, it was highest growth item edibles with gummies representing 70% of that growth. I see it in my own house. So what used to be a date night with my wife and I once a week, where a girl’s night out for her, where they’d go have, you know, two bottles of wine or we’d have two bottles of wine, wake up feeling like shit.
[00:26:49] The next morning has now transitioned to. Split a 10 milligram gummy go have one glass of wine, have a fucking awesome time. Get up the next morning. She’s a yoga teacher and feel like a [00:27:00] million dollars. We have watched that my wife has had more people requesting her to how they get a, you know, how do they go see a physician in Florida after having that experience?
[00:27:10] That is what you’re talking about because they’re controlled you, you know, You know what you’re taking, you take it, you get to where you want to go. That is gonna be a huge thing. And I think one big differentiator from the black market that’s often overlooked is lab testing. Yeah. Yeah. Now we gotta do a better job of policing the labs.
[00:27:27] Sure. As we’ve seen by a lot of recent headlines. Sure. You know, they’re playing games, chasing THC percentage, just so I won’t even talk about why. I think that’s a terrible idea and we never played that game. But at the end of the day, to me, it’s, it’s incredibly interesting the consistency piece and that’s where.
[00:27:43] The MSOs will thrive by the way. I think they’re doing a great job of it. I think, especially you look at a Cresco or pure leaf, they’re trying to have that Frito lay experience. So what you buy in one state is the same as you buy in the other state, same experience, same, same journey, the whole thing. So for Brady far, our listeners,
[00:27:59]Bryan Fields: they [00:28:00] want to get in touch.
[00:28:00] They wanna learn more and they wanna buy sunburn
[00:28:02]Brady Cobb: cannabis. Where can they find you? We’ll be in Florida. We’ll be operational flip to sunburn, uh, in early November. And the website will be up in the next couple weeks. We’re just going through the approval processes with the. And, uh, off to the races, Instagram, Twitter, all that’s coming online too.
[00:28:16] So kind of early November, we’ll be launching, we’ll be flipping the first four stores in Florida over to sunburn, and then we’ll flip the rest of ’em over the next call. It kind of by end of January, we’ll be done with med med
[00:28:25]Bryan Fields: entirely. Awesome. Excited to have you, uh, to watch back and see how it goes. I appreciate it.
[00:28:29] Thank your
[00:28:29]Brady Cobb: time. Thank you.
[00:28:31]Bryan Fields: Appreciate it.
