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Growing a Weed Business · What's Your Problem?

• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Pushkin. I'm Jacob Goldstein and this is What's Your Problem,
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: the show where entrepreneurs and engineers talk about the world
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: they're going to build once they solve a few problems.
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: My guests today are Raft and Joy Hollingsworth, the brother
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: and sister team that runs the Hollingsworth Cannabis Company aka
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: thhc Co. Joy and Raft run a farm in Washington
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: State where they grow and sell about six hundred thousand
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: dollars of marijuana a YEurope. Their problem, how do you
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: help more black people get into the legal weed business.
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: They've been working on this problem for a long time.
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: It started about a decade ago, right after Washington State
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: legalized recreational marijuana, and Joy and Raft decided to start
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: their own farm from scratch in rural Washington State, despite
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: having lived their whole lives in downtown Seattle at the time.
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  Speaker 1: Their dad had just retired after a career at the
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  Speaker 1: Seattle Parks Department, and he put up a big chunk
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: of his retirement savings to fund the farm. Joy and
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: Ralf told me, like a lot of entrepreneurs when they
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: started out, they really didn't know what they were doing.
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: You got to be a little crazy. You know how
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: they say entrepreneurs, you jump off a cliff and you're
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: going to figure out how to build your plane on
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: the way down. That's what it kind of felt like. Yeah,
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: and who started driving out found the property on Craigslist.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: It was six acre plot of land in Mason County.
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: You know, we see this land, we like it. I say,
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  Speaker 1: I'll take it. And the real estate agent, Larry at
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: the time, said, okay, we'll meet me at the Mason
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  Speaker 1: County Title Office. Okay, great, Larry. So we go down
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: there and I had a Safeway bag, like a paper
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: bag full of cash. Oh my god, we're gonna pay
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: for this land. And we were so like EVA at
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: the time, we didn't want to tell anybody our plans.
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: What are these two black eyes from Seattle want with
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  Speaker 1: six acres off of this private dirt road by the prison?
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  Speaker 1: What do they want? It was ridiculous in hindsight, But
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: I mean, you're telling it as as funny, right, But like,
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: were there any other black people there? Was that scary?
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: Was it fine? Like? How was that part of that?
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  Speaker 1: There's no other black people out there? And the neighbors
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: have been really nice to us to this day. They've
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: been great stewarts as neighbors, and so how did you
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: get from there to hear? Right? So you got your farm,
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: you get to know the neighbors. Kaus. It was chaotic.
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: We had a fence, we had cameras, we had a
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: couple of buildings, but the rest was just we're in
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: the open field. We don't really know what's going on.
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: We're gonna grow plants. We're gonna not only we're gonna
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: grow plants, We're gonna grow four thousand plants in the dirt.
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: We buy dirt from this guy down the road because
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: we heard from a friend that he has good dirt.
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: And it's like landscaping there. It's not even dirt you grow.
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: We like plants. It so like you bought the wrong dirt.
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: You bought the wrong dirt. Yeah, that sounds like a problem.
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: This guy would be like seven thousand dollars. It was
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: a problem. I mean, there was just so many different things.
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: We're freaking out. I moved to the farm. I'm living
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: in the construction trailer that we have, you know, put
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: on the farm as our office space. I'm sleeping in
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: the office. We hire a guy on um Craigslist. We
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: hire everybody that first year from Joy tell me, Yeah,
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: it's been all Rafts so far. Tell me what what
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: listening to? Yeah, No, I'm I'm sorry. We're still on
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: year one and I think you want to get from
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: year one now, So Joy, you pick up the story here. No,
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: I love it, but Joy, you pick up the story.
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: Get me over the next nine years. Here. I'm listening
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: to year one right now, Jacob, and I'm like, bro,
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: we'll get us to twenty twenty one. Lad. Hey, Joy,
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: you got it, you got it. Joy, this is your moment.
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: I want to hear you're good. I'm sorry, No, I
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: mean it. I mean it. Joy, you tell me the
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: story of the next nine years. Raff is right. It
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: was such a learning piece and a learning curve with everything,
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  Speaker 1: and it felt like an experiment for year one, and
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  Speaker 1: we didn't know what we were doing wrong. We just
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: kind of like it just felt like it was this
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: whole entire thing of solving problems one after the other.
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  Speaker 1: So every year it felt like we got better. It
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: just kept continuing to get better and better until that
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: moment right in twenty seventeen, which I think switched us
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: when we were on and got to have dinner with
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  Speaker 1: Anthony Bourdain and crew. And that was really the year
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: that really, you know, put us on the map for
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: so many different reasons. And just to be clear, here,
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: a producer for Anthony Bourdain's CNN show read an article
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: about your farm in a in a Seattle newspaper and
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: then like a month later there's a TV crew filming
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: you at the farm and you're having dinner with Anthony
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  Speaker 1: Bourdaine and you wind up on his show on CNN.
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: What does that do for your business? Right after that show,
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: all these people hit us up and said, hey, we'd
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: love to buy your product. Can you ship us a pound?
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: I live in Texas, I live in California. It's like, no,
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: that's actually illegal. We can't do that. And so it's
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: hard to monetize that piece when you can't be close
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: to the consumer. But on that branding piece, absolutely absolutely,
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  Speaker 1: it gave us a lot of credibility in spaces that
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: we weren't really we didn't know existed. So let's just
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: talk about the business today, like sort of what it is,
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: how it works. I pulled it up on Google Maps
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: on the like satellite images one. If you just Google map,
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  Speaker 1: Hollingsworth cannabis company. It comes up and like I'm zooming in.
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  Speaker 1: But first of all, it is clearly like way out
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  Speaker 1: in the middle of nowhere, right, it's just trees and
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  Speaker 1: farms and what is that maybe a creek all around.
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  Speaker 1: But if I zoom in more like I can actually
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  Speaker 1: see like it looks like mostly greenhouses and that's where
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  Speaker 1: you grow the weed, grow the cannabis. Correct. So we
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: have eight greenhouses. We have three shipping containers, and we
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: just modify them to the buildings like wired and with doors.
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: So there, I mean they feel like you know, steel
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: frame buildings. But then we have a converted construction trailer
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: and that's where we do all the processing and it's renovated, hardwood,
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: floors is painted. It's nice. Tell me about the plants.
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  Speaker 1: They're living, breathing beings. They are very much alive, and
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  Speaker 1: at one point in time we'll have two thousand, one
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  Speaker 1: hundred plants alive growing and it's like it's a symphony.
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  Speaker 1: It's beautiful and they're very resilient too. A plant can
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: look a hot mess one week, give it a little nutrient,
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: little sunlight and figure out what's wrong, and it looks
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: like a million dollars the next week, so they bounce
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: back really fast, and like Raft said, they're actually living
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: and breathing organism. We play the music. What music do
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: you played? The plans? It was like two straight weeks
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: he was playing gospel music and I was like, oh,
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: he's going through something right now, no please, okay. And
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: then the next day he's playing just you know, some
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: nil soul music. Now he's good. So it just really depends. Okay,
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: are you okay? Raft? You came through it, Okay, Yeah,
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: that's accurate. How like, how is the business doing? Like
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: is your dad's life savings safe? Yeah? When we started,
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: our first order was for two thousand dollars and it
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: took that joy way to take us three weeks to Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: it was three weeks to process it. That's not a
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  Speaker 1: living between four people, not going to make a living
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  Speaker 1: that way. So how about now we could probably get
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  Speaker 1: a two thousand worder out in like a day, maybe
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  Speaker 1: less right the same day annually more or less. How
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  Speaker 1: much do you sell? About five to six hundred thousand
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  Speaker 1: dollars wholesale? Okay in marijuana which was quatest like twelve
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  Speaker 1: hundred pounds, and that's that's grown and sold grows, right,
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  Speaker 1: so that minus your costs is your profit exactly. And
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  Speaker 1: so there are people in Washington who sell millions of
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  Speaker 1: dollars a year certainly, right, million dollars a month? Yeah?
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  Speaker 1: Oh wow? Okay, So how do you compete? Man? I
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  Speaker 1: feel like this is like small business lessons here, like
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  Speaker 1: how do you compete against a business that's more than
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  Speaker 1: ten times your size? Joy? How do we compete with business? Like?
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  Speaker 1: We really have to focus on our brand, what we
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  Speaker 1: do better than anyone else? You ask Joy, but then
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: you answered Joy, how do you compete? There's a demographic
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  Speaker 1: and people they want cheap weed, people like going to
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  Speaker 1: Walmart and Costco. But there are people that really value
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  Speaker 1: knowing who grew their weed, who grew their weed, how
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  Speaker 1: did they grow it? And then when you can connect
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  Speaker 1: to the consumer with that via Instagram, online story connecting,
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: building relationships, then they feel like, you know what, I
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  Speaker 1: want to be connected to them and I want to
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  Speaker 1: support them. I want to support this black business, this
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  Speaker 1: family owned and operated business. And a lot of people
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  Speaker 1: have told us they see their family in us. Every
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  Speaker 1: time they look at us, are like, you remind me
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  Speaker 1: of my sister or my mom. Is or I love
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  Speaker 1: your mom, she's smokes, she's really funny. Or your grandmother
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  Speaker 1: she's one hundred and one, I love her. We connect
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  Speaker 1: people on that family piece, and that's really huge. You
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  Speaker 1: mentioned your mom and your hundred and one year old grandmother.
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  Speaker 1: Are they part of the business. They certainly consume part
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  Speaker 1: of the business. They're part of the cost side of
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  Speaker 1: the revenue side. Yeah, my mom's a designated tester. You know,
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: we have name tax for everybody, and that's her title.
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  Speaker 1: My kids want to grow up to be ice cream testers.
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  Speaker 1: I feel like your mom really hit the jackpot on
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: that one too. After the break, the problem Joy and
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  Speaker 1: Wrapped are working on now, how do you help more
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  Speaker 1: black people get into the weed business. That's the end
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: of the ads. Now we're going back to the show.
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  Speaker 1: Back before weed was legal or quasi legal whatever it
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  Speaker 1: is now in America, black people made up a disproportionate
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  Speaker 1: share of the people arrested on marijuana related charges. Now
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: that weed is legal or quasi legal, black people are
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: underrepresented in the marijuana industry and this is a problem
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  Speaker 1: that Joy and Raft are working on now. We wanted
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: to use our platform of being one of the only
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: black farmers in the SATA Washington. Not the only, but
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: one of the few to use our platform to help
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: bring attention and awareness to that. Did I read raft
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: that you were on some kind of a state committee
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: that recently changed a rule that was keeping people out
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: of the legal weed business. Yeah. One of the things
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: that we talked about, amongst a million other things, was
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: this rule that the Liquoring Cannabis Board had that would
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: disqualify you from owning a marijuana business essentially if you
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: had a non violent drug offense conviction or charge in
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: your past. And they changed that rule finally, which is
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: a step in the right direction, but it is not enough.
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  Speaker 1: And you've also worked on this Washington state law that's
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: addressing some of these some of these social issues. Right.
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: We helped, you know, draft the bill. Connect with people
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: will help lobby the bill. We were out there testifying.
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: It was a big heavy lift and it passed. Yeah,
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: we can't take all the credit for it, it was
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: It was definitely a community push. And the biggest piece
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: is Washington brings in over They've brought in over the
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: last two years over a billion dollars in tax revenue,
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  Speaker 1: and so a lot of those funds. We have been
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: using our platform to try to get those back into neighborhoods,
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: which is important. And how this, you know, how amazing
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: would it be that these neighborhoods that were torn up
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: by the War on drugs, affected poverty, homelessness could go
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: back into those communities from cannabis tax dollars and continue
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: to repair those communities with those tax dollars that were generated.
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  Speaker 1: I think that is really the goal. And Jacob I
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: just want to give a shout out because yesterday the
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: governor came out with his proposed budget and it allocated
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: one hundred and twenty five million dollars for disfortunately impacted
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: groups community reinvestment from the cannabis tax dollars. I mean,
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: that's a huge The effects of the bill are going
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: to be felt for generations. Great. So people are sort
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: of talking about this idea that marijuana might be legalized
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: at the federal level. Right right now, clearly you're operating
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: and you know under all these state rules. What would
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: it mean for your business if we were just legal
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: in America? Oh my goodness, what would it mean? Itould
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: be amazing. You know, right now, we grow twelve hundred
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: pounds to fifteen hundred pounds depending on the weather of marijuana,
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: you know street, if that was marijuana we can sell
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: directly took the consumer, I can imagine. I mean, look,
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: a thousand pounds convention has kind of put that at
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: ten dollars a gram, one pounds, four hundred and fifty
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: four grams, you're talking about forty five hundred dollars a pound.
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  Speaker 1: If we could produce four to five million dollars in marijuana,
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: actually six million dollars in marijuana every year, it would
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: change dramatically. Would it also mean you would have to
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: compete against you know, these giant even in some cases
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: publicly traded weed companies that have been kind of building
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: up in Canada and waiting to like sweep into the
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: US when marijuana is legalized here. Yeah, I think we would.
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  Speaker 1: But at the end of the day, everyone has to
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: grow the plan. We focused on efficiency in growing it
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: for an environmentally friendly impact. You know, we grow for
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: nine dollars a day in power, and I don't think
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: anybody really can compete with that in terms of price
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: in economies of scale. Now, obviously people can produce more
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: or marijuana, but I think what we offer that those
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: other companies don't. It's just that authentic, lovingly produced product
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: that corporate marijuana really can't replicate at that scale. It's
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: like craft beer your craft weed. That's exactly right. We
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: don't produce a lot of it, but what we do produce,
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: we produce it, you know, with love and attention and
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: dedication and service. And we really care about what you
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: experience when you use our product because we put our
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: name on you know, so basically you can't wait until
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: we It is just legal in America, Me and everybody
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: else in a minute, the Lightning Round, including Joy and
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: Rap's favorite things to do when they smoke, and the
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: best and worst things about working with your family. Okay,
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: let's get back to the show. We're going to close
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: with the Lightning Round. Are you ready? I want you
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: guys both to answer. We can interrupt each other, you
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: can talk over each other, but I want everybody on
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: this one. What's your favorite thing about working with your family?
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: You can't get fired. You spending time with my dad
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: and my sister and my mom. What's your least favorite
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: thing about working with your family? Same answer, Joy, Yeah,
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: the same. I can't fire rafts if we have a problem.
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: I can't fire him the same answer. I don't want
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: to presume that you guys smoke weed. But if you
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: do smoke weed, what's your favorite thing to do when
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: you smoke? I smoke before I go to bed. My
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: favorite thing to do is to sleep. I don't smoke.
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: I'll take some edibles, and then I like to do
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: design stuff, so, like, you know, some high level stuff
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: because it makes me super creative. So it might be
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: the website, might be some cool pictures, might be a
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: label design, might be some inspiration that type of thing.
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: So your answer is work joy your favorite thing to
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: do when you get highest work? Yeah, isn't that crazy?
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: It's okay, No, it's great. If you have just like
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: a ten minute break in the middle of the day,
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: what do you do to relax? I watch unintentional as
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: mr videos on YouTube, especially the medical variety. It's my favorite. Well,
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: like doctors just sort of like rustling little like plastic
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: rappers as they're doing a surgery or something. Yeah, oh,
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: you know, my favorite thing is the lymph node check.
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: I'll watch a compilation of that. Did they just like
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: gently touch your lymph nodes around your neck and clavical
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: do you, guys think you'll work on the farm forever? No,
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: probably not. How will you know when it's time to
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: go do something else? When I do not love going
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: to grow plants, there's still that like just pure amazement
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: at the growth a week over week where I'm just
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: I'm enthralled like a little kid. Great. Thanks so much
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: to both of you for your time, Thanks for talking
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: to me. Thank you guys so much for thinking of us.
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: Really yeah, it's great. Thank you, Thank you guys. Joy
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: and Ralph Hollingsworth run the Hollingsworth Cannabis Company phc CO.
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: Today's show was produced by Edith Russolo. It was edited
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: by Robert Smith and Kate Parkinson Morgan and engineered by
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: Amanda ka Wong. I'm Jacob Goldstein and I'll be back
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: next week with another episode of What's Your Problem.