Latest / The Inspired Stories Podcast / Building Railroad Tracks for Cannabis: Will Brophy's Mission Normalizing the Industry Through Nabis

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Building Railroad Tracks for Cannabis: Will Brophy's Mission Normalizing the Industry Through Nabis · The Inspired Stories Podcast

0:04
Welcome to another edition of the Inspired Stories podcast,
0:08
where leaders share their experiences so we can learn from
0:11
their successes and be inspired by how they've overcome
0:14
adversity. My name is Anthony Codispodi and
0:17
today's guest is Will Brophy, Chief Operating Officer at
0:21
NABIS. They are the number one licensed
0:24
cannabis wholesaling platform offering distribution services
0:28
and analytics across California, New York and Nevada.
0:32
They distribute over 400 brands and manage more than 9000
0:37
products using a software enabled portal and a fleet of
0:41
over 90 vehicles to deliver top notch service.
0:46
Under Will's leadership, the company continues to expand,
0:49
supported by his background in operations and strategy.
0:52
He has also held the role of Head of Operations at Navis and
0:56
currently serves on the board of the Cannabis Distribution
0:59
Association. Before joining Navis, Will
1:02
earned his Bachelor of Arts in Government from Harvard
1:04
University, which sharpened his strategic thinking and problem
1:08
solving skills. With a commitment to driving
1:11
efficiency and compliance, Will and Nabis have earned
1:14
recognition for revolutionizing the industry.
1:18
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2:03
All right, back to our guest today, the COO of NABIS, Will
2:06
Brophy. Thanks for making the time to
2:07
Share your story today. Thanks for having me, Anthony.
2:10
Excited to talk to you. All right, so before we jump
2:12
into Navis and what you guys are doing there, just want to talk a
2:15
little bit about your background graduated from Harvard, worked
2:19
in a variety of fields, E com food and beverage travel
2:23
industry. What was the most formidable
2:26
stop for you along the way? Will.
2:29
Yeah, good question. Maybe an unfair answer, but I'm
2:34
going to give you a couple. I think, you know, I stopped
2:36
first at a place called McMaster Carr, which was a large
2:40
industrial supply distributor. And I think it gave me an
2:43
appreciation for just how difficult it can be to run a
2:46
scale distributor. And then I, you know, the stops
2:50
in e-commerce and food and beverage really gave me an
2:54
understanding of, of operational scale and how quickly customer
2:57
expectations can move. And, and I feel like Navis, I
3:01
get to pull from a little bit of both.
3:02
So, you know, trying to pull from everything I've done along
3:06
the way. But yeah, definitely, you know,
3:09
it's, it's an interesting combination of building a scale
3:12
distributor over time. So feel a little lucky I got to
3:16
work at a scale distributor and then build companies.
3:18
And this is this feels like a culmination of the two.
3:21
And So what stage was Navis when you joined them?
3:26
Yeah, absolutely. So it was fairly early days
3:29
still. It was about 40 people and you
3:32
know, two small warehouses. We're really getting things off
3:35
the ground. And it was at the stage where
3:38
we'd, I think we'd, we'd found product market fit.
3:41
There was clearly a lot of demand for Navas, but our demand
3:44
was somewhat exceeding our technological and and logistical
3:48
prowess. So we were we were falling
3:50
behind on orders and losing track of inventory.
3:54
So it was still early days, but there was a lot of promise.
3:57
And I think, you know, it was clear that the industry needed
3:59
someone like Navis. How we were going to pull it off
4:02
was was a bigger question for us.
4:05
So how did the opportunity for for you to join the organization
4:07
come about? Yeah, I, I actually knew June
4:11
from from college and I had been helping him hire for this role
4:15
while I was working in in finance in New York.
4:19
And I found myself more excited about helping him hire than I
4:22
was about my own role and really, really felt drawn to it.
4:27
Sort of the, the mission of normalizing cannabis and
4:30
supporting all these entrepreneurial brands really
4:33
resonated with me. So yeah, I felt really drawn to
4:36
it. And, you know, eventually my
4:39
wife said to me, and one day when we were walking through
4:42
Prospect Park, she said, you sound way more excited about
4:45
this role than your real job. I think we should.
4:47
I think we should move out West. And yeah, the rest is history.
4:51
OK. So you were helping him hire
4:53
specifically for the COO role, or you were helping him hire for
4:57
other roles in the company? Yeah, it was to, it was for
5:00
their head of operations role that was really going to be
5:02
their first key operations executive.
5:06
June and Vince told me they were trying to get me to come work at
5:08
Navis. I genuinely thought I was
5:09
helping them hire. So who knows what the truth is?
5:12
Somewhere in between, probably. OK.
5:15
And you said you got excited about the mission of normalizing
5:20
cannabis. Say more about that.
5:22
Sure. So I've always been a a consumer
5:24
of cannabis. I've always appreciated the plan
5:27
and I really loved the supply chain work that was going to go
5:30
into it. So it felt like a a perfect
5:32
marriage of the two. And you know, I think early it
5:36
was clear to me that cannabis needed professional operators to
5:39
come in. There's clearly demand for the
5:41
product and there was a lot of amazing operators, particularly
5:45
in the brand and retail side of things.
5:47
But they were missing some of these, you know, messy middle
5:51
parts of of the supply chain. And that happened to be where I
5:55
was spending my time and my career.
5:57
So I felt like I could really make an impact and I felt like
6:00
it was quite important to yeah, professionalize the industry and
6:05
and really build a best in class supply chain so that we could
6:10
normalize cannabis and make it normal.
6:12
I mean, particularly when I joined 6 or so years ago, there
6:17
was still pretty heavy stigma around cannabis.
6:20
And there there is still in a lot of places, but we're seeing
6:23
it fall away. And I think, you know, we in the
6:25
industry have a big part in that.
6:27
And the more we can professionalize ourselves in the
6:31
industry, the more we can make it accessible to people who
6:35
might not be so comfortable walking into a, a building that
6:39
doesn't feel medical to them, right?
6:42
Doesn't feel like a, a place where you can trust.
6:45
And and that's really important, is to build the trust of
6:48
consumers to grow the industry. And so when we talk about
6:52
normalizing cannabis and making people feel more comfortable
6:55
around it, the perception that people have is sort of like back
7:00
alley deals or, you know, maybe there's a, a, a smoke shop that,
7:04
yeah, seems like some place I wouldn't really want to go into
7:08
or send, you know, my, my wife into by herself.
7:11
Is that kind of what we're saying?
7:12
And so wanting to try to clean up the image and have nicer
7:16
places for people to go and access the product.
7:19
Yeah, that's a huge part of it. A big part of it is just how it
7:22
feels when you walk in the doors.
7:24
There's also the unseen parts around making sure that the
7:27
supply chain is truly clean. And we're providing access to a
7:31
wide range of choices that of products that really resonate
7:35
with those people because you can have the perfect storefront,
7:37
but if the products don't speak to them, they're, they're not
7:41
going to feel like it's accessible.
7:43
And then even, you know, a layer deeper than that, making sure
7:46
the product is safe and effectively tested is critical.
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And you know, it's really important for the legal industry
7:52
to keep working hard to to grow itself.
7:55
There's not adequate testing in the traditional legacy market.
7:59
And particularly when I was joining about six years ago, it
8:02
was right in the midst of what we in the industry called vape
8:05
gate. I don't know if you recall, but
8:07
there was, there was a slew of really nasty press around legacy
8:13
market vapes and what they were doing from a health perspective.
8:17
And it really highlighted a sort of splinter in the community
8:19
where, you know, the the folks that wanted to clean tested
8:23
accessible products and those that were operating sort of in
8:26
the old school more legacy market fashion really caused a
8:30
splinter. And yeah, made it important, I
8:33
think for people to come in and make sure that the the legal
8:36
market could be competitive, could stand up against the the
8:39
legacy market. I like that the legacy market,
8:43
what a nice way to refer to it and what was the the specific
8:46
issue with the the vapes from the legacy market?
8:51
Yeah, I mean, you can you can get a different answer talking
8:53
to a lot of people. I think the, the short answer is
8:56
that, you know, the way a lot of vapes are made, there's a lot of
9:01
combustible material and chemicals that are not great for
9:04
you unless you do it the right way.
9:08
You know, they're people cutting corners without adequate testing
9:12
can lead to pretty bad outcomes when it comes to to vapes in
9:16
particular. And I think it's just really
9:18
important that people can make informed choices and know
9:21
exactly what products are in the vape they're they're using.
9:25
And I think, you know, when you get it on the legacy market,
9:27
you're not going to know what's in there.
9:28
And I think that's a lot of what was was happening is, is sort of
9:34
additives that are would not be approved in the in the legal
9:37
market that were in there and doing quite a bit of damage.
9:41
And So what you guys are able to do differently is you have that
9:44
testing, you're not cutting the corners, you've got labels on
9:48
the products. People know what it is that
9:49
they're getting. Yeah, and the industry is still
9:52
not perfect. It's making strides over time,
9:54
but you know, independent third party testing, chain of command
9:59
the whole way, really just sort of treating it like
10:02
pharmaceuticals or alcohol, but have strict regulations.
10:07
It is important because you know, I, I won't sit here and
10:09
tell you that red tape is necessarily fun for the
10:12
industry, but we're talking about stuff that people are
10:16
inhaling and ingesting and it's, it's just absolutely critical
10:19
that they know exactly what they're taking.
10:21
So paint a picture for us on where NABIS sits in this whole
10:27
ecosphere. Do you guys own shops?
10:30
Do you own brands or you do you have grow operations kind of
10:34
paint the picture? Sure.
10:36
So it varies state to state a little bit, but the the core of
10:40
it is that we're distributors with a supply chain technology
10:45
stack that sits around distribution and provides other
10:48
value added services. So there's a couple ways to look
10:52
at the supply chain in cannabis. You know, there's, there's the
10:56
sort of technical steps from the cannabis side and that reflects
11:00
more closely the licensing and cannabis.
11:02
So from that side of things you have goes from cultivation to
11:07
processing or manufacturing called different things in
11:09
different States and then it typically goes to distribution
11:12
and then retail. So those are the four main legs.
11:15
In reality, when you then look at like ownership structure of
11:19
those products, it's typically brands, distributors and
11:23
retailers and the brands will own portions of cultivation in
11:29
manufacturing or not. There's, there's a million
11:31
different iterations. Some brands own all of their
11:34
cultivation and their processing or manufacturing, some own one
11:39
or the other and some own neither and work with, with
11:42
trusted partners to to bring the products to market.
11:45
So we sit in that distribution phase.
11:47
So really you know where we're coming in is we're you know,
11:52
aside from the technology solutions that really can
11:55
reverberate throughout our partners supply chains, our
11:58
core, our core interaction is to take products from the
12:02
manufacturing or processing step.
12:05
We hold them warehoused in our facility folks then place orders
12:09
against that inventory that are delivered to licensed retailers
12:13
and delivery services and then we collect capital from those
12:18
those retailers and remit it back to our brand partners.
12:22
Got it. So you're not doing the growing,
12:24
the cultivating, you are taking other people's brands.
12:28
I think in the intro we said 400 different brands and 9000 skews,
12:32
which is you know, kind of mind boggling.
12:35
And then you are as the licensed retailers need these products,
12:41
you're making that delivery, collecting the funds and then
12:44
getting the funds back to the the brand owner, right?
12:47
Yeah, exactly. So you could think of us, you
12:49
know, there's other parallels. We're definitely, I think
12:52
different in a lot of ways, but if you think of like Cisco and
12:55
Food, for example, a large food distributor or you know, many of
13:00
the large alcohol distributors from like a supply chain
13:04
perspective, that's essentially where we sit.
13:06
We do some different stuff in terms of how we try to support
13:10
our brand partners and our retail partners, but that's the
13:13
the sort of basic idea. I'd like to hear more about how
13:17
you're doing some different things to support both the brand
13:19
and the retail partners. That might be interesting to
13:21
explore. Sure.
13:23
So you know, we, we try not to just deliver product, we try to
13:26
provide a full stack solution. So we do the logistics and the
13:29
logistics are critically important.
13:31
If you can't do those, well the rest of this is, you know,
13:35
you're sort of dressing up a pig.
13:36
But we also do financing through Navis Capital, which is invoice
13:41
factoring critically important to get in cash flow to certain
13:45
brand partners. We do marketing placements
13:48
through our marketplace and you know in California for example,
13:51
our marketplace share alone accounts for 25% of our
13:55
wholesale volume. We do an extensive amount of
14:00
analytics for our brands to help support their sales initiatives.
14:04
Those are the big areas, but we're we're constantly
14:08
expanding. And you've mentioned the
14:11
importance of technology and what you guys are doing multiple
14:14
times. I'd like to hear more about
14:17
that. What is so special about what
14:20
you guys are doing in the text deck?
14:22
Yeah. I mean, look, we try to
14:23
introduce modern technology to, you know, this the distribution
14:29
world, which is typically a little bit antiquated.
14:31
And you know, there's the basic ways where it helps to to, you
14:36
know, Dr. efficiencies. That's really important for us
14:40
internally and to sort of leverage tech to, to build a
14:44
really truly optimized set of processes that build to
14:47
something that's effective for our brands.
14:49
But a lot of where the tech comes in is, is outward facing
14:53
for us. So, you know, we really, one of
14:56
our core, you know, missions is to provide access to cannabis
15:01
and let the market choose what's going to what's going to stick
15:05
with them. We believe that drives
15:07
innovation. We believe that drives the best
15:10
product offering for customers, which in the end is good.
15:13
Whereas you'll see a lot of more traditional distributors, they
15:16
have limited technology, they, they need to keep a narrower set
15:20
of brands and skews. And so they're serving more of a
15:25
curation function, whereas we, we try to provide a platform
15:29
function that lets the market decide and let's and let's the
15:34
consumer decide what products resonate with them.
15:37
And really it requires that technology to do it right.
15:41
We, we emphasize self-service technology for our brands.
15:46
You know, for example, we have a sales rule on our platform that
15:50
allows brands to customize almost 2000 different unique
15:54
pricing rules so that really brands can can choose their own
16:00
adventure on our platform and it lets us carry way more brands
16:04
without running into principal agent problems.
16:08
So you said when you first joined NABIS, there are about 40
16:12
employees. There were some challenges.
16:15
You guys were, you know, losing some orders, things were getting
16:18
slowed down. I think today you're probably
16:21
about 10 times that size in terms of headcount.
16:27
Talk through just one specific example of a tech implementation
16:33
that you put in place. Here's the problem that we had.
16:36
Here's what we did. Here's how it's better on the
16:39
other side. Sure.
16:43
So I think you know one of them really interesting challenges in
16:46
the cannabis industry is collecting cash.
16:49
It's an industry that has traditionally some cash flow
16:52
problems for a variety of reasons.
16:55
I think the most salient probably that it's, you know, in
16:58
new industries, so you have a ton of young new businesses who
17:02
typically struggle with cash to begin with.
17:05
And then when you factor in how hard it is to access cannabis or
17:08
capital as a cannabis company, it's there's a lot of cash
17:12
strapped retailers that we're selling into or that our brands
17:16
are selling into our and we're delivering on their behalf.
17:20
And one of the challenges that Nabis, so you know, a
17:23
traditional distributor will buy and sell inventory and they
17:27
therefore control who they're selling into.
17:29
Verse not we don't do that. We don't buy and sell inventory.
17:34
Our brands retain title to their product and use our platform to
17:38
choose where to sell into. Where it's hard is you know, you
17:42
have a little bit of disconnect then between the incentives of
17:45
the accounts receivable team, the incentives of the delivery
17:48
drivers and the incentives of the sales people of those
17:51
brands. And it was it, it was a
17:53
challenge to get through, you know, to get all the sales that
17:56
they were looking for and do it in a way that we could actually
17:59
collect on those orders. And you know, it's a little bit
18:02
simpler when they're all under one roof, right?
18:05
Everybody's on the same team. You can, you can make calls, you
18:08
can your AR team can just put controls in place to dictate the
18:13
behavior of those drivers and those sales reps And you can
18:16
call one sales operations meeting and crack some skulls
18:20
and, and really get the everybody aligned.
18:22
It's harder for us with those across different teams, but it's
18:25
still critically important to make the right choices when it
18:28
comes to AR. So we were having frequent
18:31
issues where there was just too many bespoke requests.
18:34
They wanted us to be able to collect on an invoice before we
18:38
delivered a new one. And it it was really hard to
18:40
take their needs and translate them from 300 different brands
18:45
and 300 different styles of needs to translate that into
18:48
something that was actionable by our delivery drivers.
18:51
So what we built was, you know, further sort of choose your own
18:55
adventure features for accounts receivable.
18:58
So now when you go on our platform, particularly in
19:02
California, we have something called a must pay prior balance
19:04
feature. And what that does is when
19:06
you're placing your order on Navis, you can say, all right,
19:10
we'll give them, you know, we'll give them 30 days of credit on
19:13
paying for this invoice. But delivering this invoice is
19:17
contingent upon collecting the past due invoice of this invoice
19:22
or that invoice, or they can run it as a credit limit in our
19:26
system. There's a bunch of different
19:28
ways for them to choose their financial exposure right on the
19:32
ordering platform so that they, they're in control and it's our
19:37
guys will show up and they'll, they'll deliver and collect as
19:41
told. But the tech really lets the
19:44
brand choose how much exposure they're willing to take first,
19:47
not and where that's really helpful, I think is not just in
19:50
getting the work done, but it also puts the power of choice in
19:54
the in the brand's hand. Because we have some brands who
19:57
are counting every dollar and they don't want to deliver
20:00
anything that has. Any risk of default on that
20:04
credit right? Every dollar that they don't
20:06
collect is a huge problem for them.
20:08
They should have the right to build their sales strategy
20:11
accordingly. We also have other brands who
20:14
are flush with cash and they care way more about market share
20:17
than they do about collecting every dollar.
20:20
That's also valid if that's how their their organization is set
20:23
up. So by building tech that really
20:26
let's that lets the people self-service and choose their
20:28
own adventure. There we're able to service two
20:31
different profiles of customers and do it in a way that's
20:34
authentic to their needs and lets us embed in their supply
20:38
chain instead of trying to dictate a cohesive sales
20:41
strategy across two different orgs that that maybe don't have
20:45
the same needs. So the difference today is
20:49
people can still have sort of different requests of you in
20:52
terms of how to handle those accounts receivable.
20:55
It's just now you get the technology layered in place.
20:57
So it's not like a post it note somewhere that says, oh, this
21:00
brand might, you know, we got to collect before we deliver the
21:03
next order. Am I understanding that
21:04
correctly? Yeah.
21:06
And really put simply, what I think, I think the way I would
21:09
think about it is that traditionally distributors don't
21:12
carry many brands because they all have bespoke needs and
21:16
requests, right? They all want things done a
21:19
different way. And as an operator that's really
21:23
hard to do. So you, you typically limit your
21:25
scope of brands so that you can, you can sort of wrangle all
21:29
those externalities. At Navis, we try to build the
21:33
technology in a way that lets us take a ton of different needs,
21:37
but run it through a core flow so that, you know, while we have
21:41
300 different brands with, you know, 400 different brands with
21:44
a a wide variety of needs. It's all getting built into a
21:48
system that's scalable and, and consistent so that our operators
21:52
can actually execute on it. And so since you've put the tech
21:56
in place to solve this issue, what does the operator see
22:00
that's different for them? Is it just that hey, the the
22:04
communication on how the collections should be handled
22:08
for this client or just much more crystal clear and kind of
22:11
upfront? Yes, our drivers will.
22:14
For example, they have a delivery app that we've built
22:16
native and it walks them through what they need to do at the
22:19
retailer. Now, being a driver in the
22:22
canvas industry still has lots of challenges.
22:25
So it's not to say it's easy, but they pull up their driver
22:28
app and it tells them, hey, delivering this order, in order
22:31
to do so, you need to collect this order and this order or you
22:34
don't have to collect anything. So for them, they really just
22:37
need to follow the guidance of a delivery app, but it's it's
22:42
basically taking a bunch of different risk profiles,
22:45
decision making profiles that are made at the brand level and
22:48
it's all getting filtered down through that app instead of
22:51
being a series of delivery notes that are drivers left to
22:54
interpret because we are asking our drivers to to make sense of
22:58
300 different sales and and AR strategies in a sort of
23:03
qualitative notes field, which is not really reasonable.
23:07
Gotcha. OK.
23:08
I, I understand that now and I can see how that would be a lot
23:10
more helpful. Will, you said something about
23:14
how hard it is for cannabis companies to access capital.
23:18
Why is that? Yeah, I mean, at its core, the
23:21
the main reason is that a lot of capital ties back to federal
23:25
institutions and cannabis is federally illegal.
23:28
So, you know, you want to rent a building and the mortgage is
23:31
underwritten by Chase Bank or one of the large federally
23:36
backed banks, you can't do it. You want to apply for a federal
23:41
program, you can't do it. Yeah, banking access is is quite
23:45
bad in cannabis. We've been lucky to find good
23:49
partners, but it's not that easy for everyone.
23:52
So, yeah, it really comes back to the fact that it's a
23:54
federally illegal product. And that ripples, ripples
23:57
throughout banking, maybe more profoundly than other areas.
24:02
So how does one who's in the cannabis industry find access to
24:06
banking? Throw a hope and a prayer.
24:11
You know, there's, it depends on the state you're in.
24:13
Some states have done a really good job of backing and
24:16
chartering banks and, and basically saying we, we will
24:21
sign off on the fact that these are compliant operators.
24:23
That's originally how we built a relationship with our bank
24:26
that's, that's in California called East West Bank.
24:29
The state basically said we will vouch for them as legal
24:33
operators and they went and they chose a pilot group and they've
24:37
been fantastic partners to us. Not every state has that.
24:40
So yeah, it really depends. A lot of people in cannabis,
24:45
just being honest have to have some degree of capital upfront
24:49
on their own or it's not viable. You can't go in with a business
24:54
plan and ask your local bank for 2,000,000 bucks to start a
24:57
cannabis company. That's not really viable.
25:00
So you you basically have to have some form of start up cash
25:04
or find an Angel investor to get things rolling.
25:07
And then once you're closer to profitable, you can, you can
25:10
work with some regional banks particularly are typically not
25:15
domiciled out of, out of a state where it's going to be a major
25:19
problem. But yeah, it tends to be more
25:21
regional banks and private credit and Angel investors less,
25:27
you know, going to your, your local chapter of a large
25:31
National Bank. So the banking relationship that
25:35
you have there in California, is that something that you're able
25:39
to utilize for the operations in Nevada and New York?
25:43
Yeah, they've followed us across states now.
25:45
So they're, they're an awesome partner for us.
25:48
And there's other, there's other folks out there, but yeah, it's,
25:52
it's not easy to get there. What are some of the other
25:55
logistical challenges, aside from accessing capital or just
25:59
accessing a bank, that people wouldn't realize that cannabis
26:03
businesses have to try to get creative with?
26:07
Yeah, I think one of the one of the simpler ones is just the the
26:11
regulatory challenges that come with with shipping a controlled
26:16
substance. So we have pretty intensive
26:19
track and trace platforms in in more mature States and we have
26:23
to log everything at, you know, every, every unit in every unit
26:27
out and everything along the way.
26:30
They implement the seed to sale programs is what they call them.
26:34
And it's a, it's a pretty large compliance burden.
26:37
And yeah, it's, it's, you know, think of what you would imagine
26:42
a Pharmaceutical industry looks more like.
26:45
So that adds a layer of complexity, particularly for
26:48
younger companies. And we're aggregating across the
26:53
whole industry. So we get to see, we get to see
26:56
small and large companies. And it's, there's unique
26:59
challenges on both sides with track and trace.
27:02
The other big one I would say is just the, the changing
27:05
regulatory environment. I've worked in a quite a few
27:08
industries and they have odd regulations across the board,
27:12
but I've never worked in an industry where those regulations
27:15
are changing as quickly as cannabis regulations are.
27:18
So you, you know, as soon as you feel like you have your head
27:21
around the ranks in one state, they're probably changing and in
27:26
meaningful ways. So that that always keeps
27:29
everybody on their toes. Do you guys have access or
27:33
trouble accessing? I don't know like even basic
27:36
things like payroll solutions or benefits or I don't know if you
27:42
guys do retirement plans, are those things kind of locked out
27:45
or, or or do you have solutions for those too?
27:49
Both. We have to work pretty hard to
27:51
find good partners that are comfortable with cannabis.
27:54
It's getting better over time. When I first started, we
27:56
couldn't, we couldn't work with probably 90% of software
28:00
providers. HR benefits, you know,
28:05
retirement benefits all the way down to just random software
28:08
vendors, you know, W or warehouse management softwares,
28:13
you know, random expense filing softwares.
28:16
There's tons of restrictions. More and more folks are open to
28:21
cannabis companies, but it's taken quite a bit of time and I
28:24
would still say there's a a pretty large filter set upon all
28:27
vendors, whether they're willing to work with cannabis or not.
28:32
And yeah, we've, I mean, banking solutions, we, we've had a lot
28:37
shut down and then had to restart.
28:38
So yeah, there's definitely, there's definitely still
28:43
restrictions and it's just an added layer of, you know,
28:47
needing to pick, pick up all your toys and go somewhere else
28:50
more regularly than you might imagine.
28:52
And so is it still largely a cash based business?
28:57
Not entirely. I mean, so it really depends who
29:00
you talk to in the industry. There's some retailers that are
29:03
still pretty cash heavy. We definitely take in a lot of
29:07
cash from those retailers and we get it into the banks as quickly
29:11
as possible. We think the more the industry
29:14
can move towards digital solutions, the better.
29:17
Cash is not great for anyone, but there's still quite a bit of
29:20
cash. So we have, you know, cash pick
29:23
up services and we clear a lot of that cash into the banks.
29:27
But yeah, it's, it's a dwindling percentage over time.
29:30
And we found the new markets as they're coming online are a
29:33
little bit cash like compared to California.
29:36
California still has a pretty heavy cash footprint.
29:39
But like New York, for example, Nevada, most things are done
29:43
digitally. So we're hoping that's the
29:45
future safer for everyone. You know, you were drawing the
29:49
comparison to the Pharmaceutical industry and I don't think you 2
29:53
have direct experience working in that industry.
29:55
No, I'm sure that you've talked with folks.
29:57
Do do you get the sense that the the red tapes or the
30:00
requirements for the cannabis industry are about the same or
30:05
more intense than pharmaceutical?
30:10
Similar, I think is my understanding.
30:13
I think what part of what makes it hard to compare, honestly, is
30:16
that vast majority of the players in the Pharmaceutical
30:20
industry are scaled beyond what any of the players in the
30:24
cannabis industry are. So there's just not a lot of mom
30:27
and pop pharmaceutical companies.
30:29
And the cannabis industry is built on the back of mom and pop
30:33
brands and mom and pop shops. So it's a hard comparison.
30:38
I think they're fairly similar ideas.
30:41
Cannabis law tends to be something of a mix between the
30:45
liquor industry and the Pharmaceutical industry.
30:48
I think they do have pretty similar track and trace
30:51
programs. I mean, we've, we've worked with
30:54
a warehouse management software company in the past who who has
30:58
pharmaceutical clients and it's, it's a lot of the same things.
31:01
You have to track everything down to the lot level.
31:03
Nothing can get lost. Everything that's if there's any
31:06
issues, it has to get reported back to the state immediately.
31:09
So same kind of ideas. I my impression is on the
31:12
pharmaceutical side, most of the players are scaled.
31:15
So a lot of these these tracing issues are just integrations
31:20
with a large ERP program, whereas in cannabis, more people
31:23
are doing them manually still, but it's the same kinds of
31:26
requirements. OK.
31:29
Well, I appreciate you sort of taking that little sidebar with
31:32
me to explore some of the unique challenges that you guys are
31:35
enduring in the cannabis industry.
31:37
I mean, every business has its challenges, You guys have those,
31:42
but then you have all of these other barriers because of the,
31:46
hey, it's legal to state level, it's not legal to federal level.
31:48
Some people don't want to work with us and and that adds a lot
31:51
of complications. But clearly there are people who
31:54
are excited about Nabis. You're one of them.
31:57
There are a lot of, you've got hundreds of people that work for
32:00
you and they're excited to be there too.
32:02
Why do you think that is? Why?
32:03
Why do you have such an enthusiastic workforce?
32:07
Yeah, I think there's a a few angles, you know, cannabis
32:12
industry itself is really exciting.
32:14
People appreciate the product, you know, cannabis consumption
32:18
and in the States is quite high. So there's clearly the plant
32:23
resonates with people and I think people are excited to work
32:27
in a new emerging industry where not not getting set in stone and
32:31
there's a lot of opportunity. I also think, yeah, I also
32:36
think, you know, finding an industry that has growth promise
32:40
is really exciting for a lot of people because when you look at
32:43
a lot of, you know, industries across the States, there's,
32:47
there's quite a few that are in decline.
32:49
And I think people are, especially as times have gotten
32:52
tougher, people are acutely aware of whether they're joining
32:54
an industry with with hope or with decline in the future.
32:58
And I think people want to be a part of that.
33:01
I also think, you know, it's, it's an exciting thing to get to
33:05
work at a company that you can be your whole self at.
33:09
And not to say we're perfect, but you know, I talked to so
33:13
many colleagues who have consumed cannabis their whole
33:16
life and always had to hide that from their colleagues.
33:19
And when they, they realize they can actually just be open about,
33:22
you know, consuming cannabis, we obviously don't consume in the
33:25
workplace, but they can share with their colleagues that it's
33:27
a passion of theirs. There's there's definitely an
33:30
excitement for people and yeah, I mean, there's there's not a
33:33
ton of places where you can you can get free weed at work and a
33:36
four O 1K match. So I think it's definitely
33:39
exciting for folks. So I could see that I, I
33:43
wondered where you were going when you said people can be kind
33:45
of their, their whole selves, their true selves.
33:48
And so I get that, right. If you were working in a
33:50
corporate job or, or wherever you were before and they and
33:53
they, you know, that cannabis was, you know, strictly taboo,
33:57
could talk about it. You know, what are people going
33:59
to think? And now obviously you're in an
34:01
environment where it's a much different mindset.
34:03
And so people feel like they can just be more relaxed, more who
34:07
they are, talk about what they do in their free time or openly
34:11
right. Yeah, we often times, especially
34:14
towards the tail end of the week when we get to the end of the
34:16
meeting, I'll, I'll ask folks, you know, what's, what's
34:20
everybody smoking this weekend? And people go wide eyed still
34:23
because they're not used to, they're not used to being able
34:26
to have an honest answer to that and a work call.
34:28
But it's exciting to get to be, yeah, really be who you are in
34:33
the workplace. So I'm talking about the growth
34:37
and why, you know, this is an industry that's that's blowing
34:40
up, it's expanding and people want to be part of that.
34:42
What are you particularly excited about as it pertains to
34:47
Navis growth? Where are you guys headed?
34:51
Yeah, we want to be, you know, we want to help lay the the
34:56
railroad tracks for the industry.
34:57
So we're excited to grow across the country.
35:00
I'm particularly excited about growth and in New York right now
35:04
where we already are, obviously California and Nevada are
35:07
critical. We're never going to take our
35:10
eye off the ball there, but very excited to see New York
35:14
developed into a more mature market.
35:17
There's tons of signs that point towards it being an incredible
35:21
market and it's already great in many ways, but it's going to
35:24
take time to fully develop and we're hoping to help shape it
35:27
into not just a big market, but a thriving market.
35:32
And then there's, you know some other states across the country
35:34
that we're excited to expand into over time.
35:36
And as always, we're we're always eager to expand our
35:39
platform in the states we are in to cover more of the needs of
35:42
our brands and and retail partners.
35:45
Say more about that last part. What does it look like to expand
35:48
your platform? Are you just saying adding more
35:51
products and more brands or is it adding more services to those
35:55
clients? Yes, all of the above those well
35:59
put. I think for our retailers, you
36:01
know, there's, there's some products and services we can add
36:05
that'll make their lives easier. But a lot of it is just
36:07
expanding our assortment of brands and, and skews.
36:09
And then for our brand partners, there's always more we can do to
36:14
to set them up for success. It's really, really hard to run
36:17
a cannabis brand and there's, you know, it's, it's just
36:22
complex and they have limited resources.
36:24
So the more we can do to, to set them up for success, whether
36:27
it's through analytics, capital services or or entire new
36:31
offerings that we're we don't have now, I think the more we
36:35
can set them up for success and support them, the better and the
36:39
stickier our platform becomes. Any of those newer services that
36:43
you're working on now that you want to talk about?
36:47
Nothing, nothing that I want to sort of roll out just yet, but
36:52
there's plenty of exciting stuff coming down the pipe and we are
36:55
working hard, especially on our sales and analytics.
36:59
It's a big one. We're definitely trying to make
37:01
sure that brands and their sales teams in particular have access
37:05
to all of the insights they need to to drive growth.
37:09
And I think, you know, this industry, for example, still
37:14
relies pretty heavily at times on, on a sales Rep calling a
37:18
buyer from a retail shop. And even if it's an order
37:21
they've placed every month, the last, you know, 24 months, it's
37:25
still very manual. And then that retailer has to
37:30
set up or the, the brand Rep has to take the order and set it up
37:33
on our platform. And it's, it's a little bit
37:36
manual and arduous. So, you know, sort of indicators
37:40
of when it's time to reorder and ways to reorder more effectively
37:45
are really exciting for us. We've got some partners that
37:48
we're working on, on some solutions with one of them
37:52
called virtually managed inventory, where there's a
37:54
little bit more give and take between US and the retailer on
37:58
what they need. And, you know, and in
37:59
Dreamworld, right, you can set up Parse on our site where you
38:03
say we'll share as a retailer, we'll share our inventory levels
38:07
with you, the distributor. And if it, you know, if levels
38:11
ever get below a certain threshold, A reorder will be
38:14
placed automatically. That would reduce the burden on
38:17
everybody, the retailer, those sales reps.
38:21
It's common in other industries. I mean, it's exists in the
38:24
liquor industry. So we we want to drive the
38:27
industry towards adopting some of those best practices so that,
38:31
you know what, we can make it a little bit easier to be a brand,
38:34
a little bit easier to be a retailer in cannabis because
38:37
there's already a lot stacked against them.
38:39
Do you have anyone on your team that has experience working in
38:43
the liquor industry? That's you.
38:45
You guys are able to kind of pull from some examples of what
38:49
they're doing. Yeah, definitely.
38:51
So, you know, at the top, our President, Sean Arroyo worked in
38:56
the in the liquor industry if he started a beer company and then
39:01
worked with large distributors. And then we've got a a few
39:04
different folks, especially on our revenue side that have
39:07
experience in alcohol. And then we have some awesome
39:10
advisors from the alcohol industry as well.
39:12
And you know, we're, we try to take lessons from wherever we
39:17
can find them. And there's definitely stuff to
39:20
learn and from the alcohol industry as well as, you know,
39:22
big tech as well as other areas. So, yeah, we try to draw on as
39:27
much expertise as we can because there's there's not necessarily
39:32
a road map for cannabis companies.
39:33
There's not a huge cannabis distributor that we can look to
39:37
and and model our business after.
39:39
We're really sort of, you know, blazing that path.
39:42
And so it's just really important for us to try to learn
39:45
from other other industries so we don't end up, you know,
39:48
falling down the same path. As we're talking about the
39:54
future growth, you mentioned, you know, you're in the three
39:56
states now. You're, you know, excited about
39:59
growing all of them moving into new states at some point.
40:03
Any states that you have your eye on that you want to give
40:06
voice to yet? None that we've, you know,
40:09
circled yet. There's there's a ton of states
40:11
that are really interesting to us.
40:13
So yeah, nothing, nothing that we want to roll out yet.
40:16
But I think, you know, maybe the criteria that we think about
40:19
would be interesting. It's there's a couple different
40:22
ways that we would think about new states.
40:24
So the first would be sort of geographical and demographic
40:28
needs. So, you know, we definitely look
40:30
at states that have difficult geographies for, for brands to
40:38
navigate because it'll, it indicates to us that there's a
40:40
large demand. So if you look at places, for
40:42
example, that have large urban populations that are spread out
40:47
from each other, you're going to have a distribution problem.
40:50
So, you know, that's, that's at the core of, you know, why we
40:52
were successful in California, aside from the other good things
40:55
we did. But you know, one of the main
40:57
problems in California is that your two major markets, the San
41:00
Francisco Bay Area and Los Angeles area, there are five
41:04
hours apart at least, right? And so if you're running a
41:07
brand, managing inventory across 2 cities makes it really tough,
41:12
not to mention San Diego, Sacramento, all the many others.
41:15
But there's a, there's a distribution problem there.
41:17
So it's, it's right for us to go in and, and help provide
41:22
solutions. Whereas, you know, I have
41:24
absolutely nothing against it, but we're going to add less
41:27
value in a place like Rhode Island where any brand can self
41:30
deliver their own products effectively.
41:33
So there's there's those states out there that that are really,
41:36
you know, geographically appealing.
41:39
Some of them online, like the Ohio's of the world, some of
41:43
them not yet. I mean, Texas is going to be a
41:45
whale for the distribution industry.
41:48
I think winning Texas will be huge when it comes online.
41:51
Same with Florida. And those are inherently good
41:54
distribution states because there's there's a challenging
41:57
geographical problem. Another layer we look at besides
42:01
sort of regulatory friendliness, which is a big piece, is, you
42:05
know, the more a market is segmented, the better it is for
42:08
Navis. We do a really good job of
42:11
helping segmented markets. If there's one or two players
42:14
only, it's a little less exciting for us.
42:16
There's a sort of second vector we look at, which is where our
42:20
existing partners want to be. And that might lead to a
42:24
different direction, right? So while, you know, while Rhode
42:27
Island is not challenging from a distribution perspective,
42:31
traditionally we also have, you know, 400 partners we really
42:35
value. And if 20 of them say we
42:37
desperately want to be in Rhode Island but we don't want to go
42:40
do it ourselves, we'll consider that too, because we want to
42:43
support the partners we have in their expansion.
42:45
So really, everything's on the table, but for somewhat
42:47
different reasons. And, you know, it's up to us to
42:49
figure out how to build our business in a way that reflects
42:52
the needs in those various states.
42:54
And you mentioned 2 states in particular, Florida and Texas,
42:57
and they haven't come online yet, meaning it's not legal
43:00
there yet. That's right.
43:01
So we won't go there, obviously, But there are examples of if you
43:05
look geographically, you know, Texas and California are in a
43:09
league of their own when it comes to how many cities over
43:12
150,000 people you have and how far apart they are.
43:16
Most states have one or two cities over 150,000 people.
43:20
You know, some of the larger states like the New Yorks of the
43:24
world have four or five. California and Texas have like,
43:28
you know, 12 to 20 and they're pretty far apart.
43:32
So I mean, they're, they're really tough.
43:35
Texas in particular with Houston, San Antonio, Dallas,
43:40
Austin, there's just so many different major metro areas that
43:45
are far apart where you can't essentially just plop down one
43:48
warehouse in the middle of the state and service it all
43:51
effectively with daily routes. That's a That's a big sign that
43:54
they need distribution support. What do you think has been the
44:02
most effective growth strategy for you guys?
44:07
Yeah, I think, I think in a in the simplest sense it's it's
44:12
partner first expansion. So it's really listening to what
44:15
the people in the state need. We are we are not a stand alone
44:20
brand that can just impose its will on a market right.
44:23
We really need to we need to have an appetite for a
44:26
distributor in a market to to be successful there.
44:29
And I think one of the things that we have done pretty well is
44:32
balancing, you know, the sort of calls for us need for us with an
44:39
internal self-confidence, right where you have to, you have to
44:42
believe that the market needs a distributor and you have to
44:46
identify that a distributor would be effective there.
44:49
And then you have to be confident in your own ability to
44:52
go in and execute. And you know, sometimes,
44:55
sometimes there's a need for a distributor and folks don't
44:58
necessarily think any distribution partner can handle
45:01
it. We're less worried about the
45:03
latter. We we know how to execute
45:05
effectively, but if we're going into a state where there's no
45:07
demand for us, we're not going to be as effective.
45:10
So I think really listening is is quite helpful.
45:14
And then I think being thoughtful about how we balance
45:17
the long term and the short term is, is definitely key for us.
45:21
We're in a position now where we've got a little bit of a base
45:24
to our business so we can think about, you know, what are we
45:28
doing over A2345 year time horizon, whereas, you know, new
45:33
companies starting up really have to prioritize the next 18
45:36
months. So I think it's been pretty
45:38
critical to our growth to get to a point where we can start to
45:41
have slightly longer term thinking, which is typically
45:44
very difficult in cannabis to do.
45:45
So in New York, for example, we were able to go in and and try
45:50
to provide services to brands knowing that frankly, the market
45:54
over the 1st 12 months was not a great market, right?
45:58
It wasn't ideal for us. We didn't make a ton of profit
46:02
in it, but we knew we could build out, we knew we could
46:05
build out a team and we knew we could build out a, a suite of
46:09
products where we would start to get our hooks into the industry
46:13
in a good way and really help people solve problems.
46:15
And we believe that if we helped get the industry up and running
46:18
in those first 12 months, it would pay dividends down the
46:21
line. And that's, that's proven
46:23
successful. So being sort of longer term
46:25
thinking and going places where we're actually needed has been
46:29
most effective. And so the final one I would say
46:31
is, is going deep in states, right?
46:33
So you'll see a lot of people in cannabis that are are a lot of
46:38
companies and cannabis that are in 15 states, but they're just
46:43
working with partners in every state.
46:44
They really have no sort of meaningful infrastructure or
46:48
team in any of those places. And sometimes it works,
46:52
particularly if you know, if you're a brand that has amazing
46:55
branding and you're trying to be asset light.
46:57
Good strategy for a distributor. We have to provide depth of
47:02
value in the supply chain for us to be worthwhile.
47:05
So we really go into a state and we try to do it the right way
47:09
and focus a little less on what I call corporate cookie licking
47:13
and a little bit more on building sort of deep supply
47:16
chain values so that our partners know that they can
47:19
count on those Navis services in the states.
47:22
And that requires a sort of discipline of expansion that I
47:25
think is hard for a lot of companies.
47:27
And cannabis, I mean, the fact that we're only in three states
47:30
tells you that we're, we're really committed to doing those
47:34
states right. And we took a long time to to
47:37
expand out of California while a lot of our peers were going and
47:40
grabbing the Missouri's and the, you know, Oregon's and other
47:44
things like that. But we didn't want to go places
47:46
where we couldn't build services that we really believed in.
47:49
So I think that discipline has also been helpful for us.
47:53
Sorry, you just shared a lot of interesting information there
47:56
and I appreciate it, but the thing that jumped out at me was
47:59
a phrase that you used corporate cookie licking.
48:04
Yeah, it's the idea of like, you know, running state to state to
48:07
plant a flag for the sake of planting the flag.
48:10
And I think, you know, I call it corporate cookie licking because
48:13
it feels like people at times race into these new states to be
48:19
the first in the ground with the understanding that at some point
48:22
they'll come back around and really build it out.
48:25
But it doesn't often happen. And you end up stranding a lot
48:28
of assets. So for us, the idea is like, you
48:31
know, until you're ready to actually go after that state and
48:33
do it the right way, it's not as helpful to go plant a flag there
48:37
to mix metaphors. Yeah, there's not necessarily a
48:42
first movers advantage if you're not going to do it correctly and
48:45
really commit the resources to it.
48:47
Yeah, there's a first movers disadvantage there where you
48:51
know, our reputations, everything in the industry,
48:54
especially it's a small industry still.
48:57
And if you, if you do do people dirty in a state, they won't
49:00
forget it. And so we really only want to go
49:03
in when we can build something and and operate effectively.
49:07
The end of the day, people are entrusting us with their product
49:10
and they're trusting us to be an embedded part of their supply
49:13
chain. And we have to hold up to the
49:14
standards of all of our our partners.
49:17
So if we're not able and ready to do that, we have to take our
49:20
time and and get there before we ask for people's trust in those
49:24
new states. Well, I'd like to shift gears
49:27
for a moment, and I want to ask you about a serious challenge
49:30
that you've overcome in your life, whether it's personal or
49:33
professional. How did you get through that?
49:36
What did you learn? Sure.
49:39
So about 4-5 years ago we had we had a 420 from hell at Navis.
49:47
For those who don't know, 420 is a pretty big holiday in the
49:50
cannabis industry with lots of consumption and the industry
49:54
does a ton of ordering ahead of it.
49:56
So it's really it's peak volume season for us.
50:00
Think of it like what Prime Day probably feels like at Amazon
50:03
where you've, you know, you've got 3X4X the volume flowing
50:07
through your warehouse. And one of the important things
50:10
to note for us is that we're exclusive distributors for quite
50:13
a few of our brands. So if they want to get product
50:16
out, it's coming out of our doors, which is a huge, you
50:21
know, vote of trust from them. But it also means that if our
50:24
system gets backed up and we're not getting orders out, we are
50:27
directly impacting the revenue of our partners, which is super
50:31
serious. So we had a, we had a situation
50:34
where essentially you know, we, our warehouse was starting to
50:38
get overloaded with product and we weren't quite, quite ready
50:41
for the volume surge and we had large delays miss packs.
50:46
We did our best and honestly still did just about as well as
50:49
anyone in the industry. But we, we expect to be better.
50:54
And we, we had delays which we, we almost never have at Navis.
50:58
We deliver over 97% of orders on time and in full.
51:03
And we've trained our partners to expect that.
51:06
I believe they should expect that and demand that of their
51:08
partners. And we were, we struggled to get
51:11
there. I mean, we did our best and we,
51:13
we did pretty well, but not to the standard we would expect.
51:16
And it was a, it was pretty devastating for a lot of us
51:21
because we're getting the calls from our partners saying, hey,
51:23
we're not happy. Some didn't mind, they were
51:26
really understanding, but others were pretty gutted.
51:28
And that was a big wake up call that we have to be really
51:31
careful about capacity management.
51:34
There's quite a few lessons we took from it.
51:36
I think one of the things we do well at Navis is we try to look
51:39
really hard in the mirror. And, you know, sure, we'll pat
51:42
ourselves on the back when things go well, but we also need
51:45
to be really honest with ourselves when things don't go
51:47
well. And we weren't proud of that
51:48
moment. So we did a lot.
51:50
I mean, I learned a lot from like a personal leadership
51:53
perspective on what I need to do to be an effective leader at
51:56
Navis. And then as an organization, we
51:59
learned a lot about how careful we have to be about capacity
52:02
planning and how rigorous our processes need to be to really
52:07
flex under the weight of massive, massive volume.
52:11
And we spent the last four years getting better and better and
52:14
better. So hopefully that situation
52:15
never repeats. And I think we've earned back
52:17
the trust of all the partners from that.
52:19
I think we earned it back pretty quickly.
52:22
But yeah, it wasn't our finest moment, though.
52:24
Looking back, I'm really glad that it sort of, it sounds
52:28
crazy, but glad it blew up in our face big and early so that
52:32
we could learn some really important lessons early on about
52:35
what happens if you don't build a system that's ready for the
52:39
weight of of future scale. And we're really, really
52:43
conscious about, you know, making sure we don't overload
52:47
our system anymore. And we built in both tech
52:50
features that help smooth volume.
52:54
And then we built a ton of internal processes to, to make
52:57
sure that we're just hyper aware of how we're filling up our
53:00
space and how much human capacity we have to get orders
53:03
out the door. Because at the end of the day,
53:05
yeah, we take that, we take the trust that brands give us really
53:09
seriously. So anytime we violate that, it's
53:12
it's got to be a huge wake up call for us.
53:14
So what was the core problem when this occurred?
53:18
Is it you guys didn't think that the orders were going to be the
53:22
volume that they were? You didn't have enough people on
53:24
hand, you didn't have the enough boxes to fill the orders, you
53:29
just not a large enough warehouse space, some
53:32
combination of all of that. Yeah, it's never one thing.
53:36
It's always a confluence of factors.
53:38
I think the big ones were we didn't realize just how much the
53:43
volume would surge, especially in those COVID years.
53:47
We weren't really sure what 4/20 was going to look like.
53:50
And I think we got caught a little flat footed.
53:53
Most of the problem was centered around us.
53:56
We were basically filling up one of our facilities in LA and it
53:59
was, it was over full and we needed to move to a new facility
54:03
and the timing wasn't great relative to 420.
54:06
And you know, one of the tough things about inventory is
54:10
there's a little bit of a, it's a little bit binary right, where
54:15
you either know where every single unit is or you don't and
54:18
it can start to spiral. We definitely didn't know where
54:21
every single unit was because we had both an over full building
54:25
and we'd moved to a new one. We'll one of our big lessons was
54:29
never to do a warehouse move, never to let it get too full and
54:31
never to do a warehouse move close to our peak seasons.
54:35
But that definitely made it hard.
54:36
And then, yeah, I mean, it's, it's really like a grain of
54:38
sand. And the motherboard type thing
54:40
where our systems, we had redundancy in place, but they
54:44
weren't entirely ready for the comorbidity of operational
54:48
problems. So for example, we had ways for
54:53
our drivers to flex in and help our warehouse staff.
54:55
But when it happens at peak season, those drivers are fully
55:00
occupied on the road. So it was hard to to sort of
55:03
bail out. So we got our whole staff in.
55:04
I mean, we had our our full executive team in the warehouse
55:07
packing orders and we found a release valve.
55:09
But yeah, it was, it was, you know, a bunch of different
55:13
problems and it took a bunch of different solutions to get out
55:17
of it. So not one thing.
55:18
And yeah, but we've learned a ton from it.
55:20
And, you know, I would argue now we're in a position where we're
55:24
more prepared for volume than I think anyone in the industry.
55:28
And because we've learned the hard lessons.
55:30
Yeah, and I understand what you're saying.
55:32
You almost look back at, it's strange to look back at that
55:35
moment with a sense of gratitude because it, you know, it was
55:39
really painful to go through, but it exposed all of these
55:42
cracks in the foundation at the same time.
55:45
And so you guys got busy in a hurry fixing those cracks, which
55:48
is just set you up for better growth as you move forward.
55:53
Yeah, yeah. And I think that we learned, we
55:57
learned the lessons the hard way for sure, but we learned them
56:00
early enough that I think people still had some some grace and
56:04
letting us figure it out. I think, you know, the
56:07
expectations are different for us today.
56:09
And that's something we we try to own.
56:11
So yeah, a blessing in disguise, not something we ever want to
56:15
replicate. And it wasn't, you know, we did
56:17
our best to to get out of it. It wasn't, I don't want to say
56:20
fully catastrophic, but definitely a huge learning
56:23
lesson for us, for me personally and for for the company as well.
56:28
And yeah, I mean, I think it's just important for us to own
56:30
when we're not perfect so that we can get better and strive
56:32
towards it. That's so important, you know,
56:35
because I think in any business relationship, things are going
56:38
to go wrong at some point, right?
56:40
And it's how you step up and handle that that I think really
56:43
defines you as a company. Yeah, 100%.
56:47
Especially, you know, we're part of other companies as well.
56:51
It's not just us. We can't just, we can't just,
56:55
you know, focus on ourselves. Really.
56:56
The, the part that stung wasn't that we were having long days or
57:00
doing anything of, you know, that was, that was hard.
57:03
The part that stung was the calls from from clients saying
57:06
you let us down here. And we vowed to not repeat that
57:09
ever again. Nice.
57:11
What's your superpower? Will.
57:15
Yeah, I don't know. That's a hard question.
57:17
I think if I had to say, my superpower would probably be,
57:24
you know, building great teams to solve hard problems.
57:28
So I I really enjoy taking a step back and identifying the
57:31
right mix of skills and perspectives and then setting up
57:35
a team of people for success. My role is often about creating
57:40
clarity and cutting through noise and aligning everybody on
57:44
what matters most and making sure the team has the autonomy,
57:48
the support and the vision to execute.
57:50
And I think that's where I've where I've had the biggest
57:53
impact at Navis. You know, earlier in my career,
57:56
my answer might have been something about my own
57:59
individual talents. I no longer really think that's
58:02
the area where I have the largest impact.
58:05
It's more about, you know, telling a story of where we're
58:09
trying to go and then finding the most talented people we can
58:13
and, and explaining to them what their part of their story is
58:17
and, and setting them up for success.
58:18
And then to the extent they have blockers along the way, helping
58:22
them take down those blockers. So, you know, I think we have a
58:25
team at Navis that I would stack up against anywhere.
58:28
And when I think of what I'm most proud of at Navis, it's
58:31
helping to assemble that team of people to tackle super hard
58:35
problems. So I guess I would call that my
58:37
superpower. How do you what have you?
58:41
Found success with when it comes to recruiting and retaining
58:44
folks, whether it be kind of your leadership team or more of
58:47
the front line workers because you guys are growing fast.
58:50
How do you approach that? Yeah, it's an evolving question.
58:57
As we change over time, we have to change our approach.
59:00
And I think, you know, if there's one answer that's always
59:03
true, it's probably not a very good answer because what worked
59:05
for us at 40 people, it's different from what works for us
59:09
at 500. I think there's definitely
59:11
through lines though. We have to stress the culture
59:14
and stress the mission and people want to be part of an
59:17
industry defining moment and and practical habits like structured
59:20
onboarding really, really help and they help scale culture
59:24
even, But a lot of it is, is finding people that are there
59:27
for the right reasons. I tend to think if I were to
59:32
sort of drill down a little bit, especially on my team as I hire,
59:35
I tend to look for people who have a, a really strong
59:38
intelligence to ego ratio. I I find that that predicts
59:43
really well into the cannabis industry.
59:45
That's endlessly challenging and requires a lot of compromise,
59:50
collaboration and adaptation. If you find people that are
59:53
really smart and don't take themselves too seriously, I like
59:58
to say I, you know, people who take their work super seriously
1:00:01
but don't take themselves too seriously are really quite
1:00:05
effective at Navis. And you know, we're, we're not a
1:00:08
perfect workplace for everyone, but for self starters who want
1:00:12
to, you know, really launch their careers and and drive.
1:00:16
Big, big initiatives. It's an awesome place to work.
1:00:20
So we try to, we try to find the right fit for us and and then we
1:00:23
end up being a good company for them too.
1:00:26
Well, what's something that you wish more people understood
1:00:28
about your industry? I think I wish people understood
1:00:33
how challenging it really is. I think there's a, there's a,
1:00:37
there's a perception that the cannabis industry is a really
1:00:41
chill industry full of people who just sort of hang out and
1:00:45
smoke pot. And I think, you know, there's,
1:00:48
it's definitely a fun industry to be in, but it's some of the
1:00:51
hardest working people I've ever had the chance to interact with.
1:00:54
And people who are taking big bets on themselves, you know,
1:00:59
folks starting small businesses, folks starting large businesses.
1:01:04
It's really hard and there's really, really tough moments and
1:01:07
really, really great people working on hard problems.
1:01:10
So I think I like to disavow people and that it's an easy,
1:01:14
chill industry more than anything so that folks know what
1:01:17
they're walking into if they're interested in the industry.
1:01:20
But I, I think it's also important to to highlight the
1:01:24
need for for better regulation, like we need access to normal
1:01:29
banking and it affects everybody.
1:01:32
So definitely, yeah, a little bit of a call to action there
1:01:35
that the more we can normalize cannabis and pressure our local
1:01:39
politicians to care about cannabis, It creates jobs, it
1:01:42
creates tax revenue and there's really positive benefits from
1:01:45
it. So, you know, I think a lot of
1:01:47
people stop short at OK, you know, cannabis is everywhere and
1:01:50
therefore it's normalized are sort of missing that it's it's
1:01:56
very popular, but it's not normalized at your bank.
1:01:59
It's not normalized with your your politician.
1:02:02
So did the fights not over yet. And I think, and it's important
1:02:06
for people to realize that. I've just got one more question
1:02:10
for you, Will, but before I ask it, I want to do 2 things.
1:02:13
First, everyone listening, pause for just a second.
1:02:16
Open up that podcast app that you're using right now and hit
1:02:20
the follow or subscribe button. That is going to allow you to
1:02:22
get more great content like we've had today with Will Brophy
1:02:25
from Nabis. I also am going to tell you
1:02:28
folks best ways to get in touch with Will and his company.
1:02:33
So for Will himself, you can reach out on LinkedIn.
1:02:38
His name is Will Brophy. Brophy Nabis is an ABIS and if
1:02:43
you want to get in touch with the company, their website is
1:02:45
nabis.com and abis.com or you can reach out to via e-mail
1:02:52
partnerships@nabis.com. And that's specifically for
1:02:55
folks that are looking to do what with you Will.
1:02:58
Yeah, Retailers or brands that are looking to partner with us,
1:03:02
particularly brands interested in getting on our platform, but
1:03:06
really anyone that's you know, keen to work with us, feel free
1:03:08
to reach out. Great.
1:03:10
The last question for you, Will a year from now, you and I
1:03:13
reconnect and you were super excited because you're
1:03:16
celebrating something big. What's that big thing you're
1:03:19
celebrating one year from today? That's a good question.
1:03:24
My hope is that we're celebrating a pretty massive
1:03:28
proliferation of the number of retailers in New York and the
1:03:31
size of the business. I think it could also be
1:03:35
exciting for us to be in new states, but you know, most
1:03:39
excited about doubling the size of the New York market over the
1:03:42
next year. I think it's possible, certainly
1:03:45
not guaranteed, but there's there's still a tremendous
1:03:49
amount of untapped potential in the New York market.
1:03:51
So excited to see that continue to grow.
1:03:56
Excellent. Well, Will Brophy from Nabis,
1:03:58
I'm going to be the first to thank you for sharing both your
1:04:00
time and your story with us today.
1:04:02
I really appreciate it. Yeah.
1:04:04
Thanks for having me. Pleasure to talk to you,
1:04:06
Anthony. Folks, that's a wrap on another
1:04:08
episode of the Inspired Stories podcast.
1:04:10
Thanks for learning with us today.