#093 - From Wharton to Weed: Tiffany Chin's Journey with Snoop and Death Row - High Spirits: The Cannabis Business Podcast

Episode Transcript
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Tiffany Chin (00:00):
What happens when you have the night shift for 10
plus years of engineering atSnoop Studio?
You end up smoking weed withhim a lot when the nights are
slow or the work is slow.

AnnaRae Grabstein (00:17):
Hey everybody , welcome to episode 92 of High
Spirits.
I am Anna Rae Grabstein and weare recording Thursday, june
19th, 2025.
And I have a great show for youtoday, but I don't have my
regular co-host, ben Larson,today, so this is going to be an
incredible episode with anamazing guest, tiffany Chin, and

(00:38):
we're just going to get into ittogether.
But before that, I wanted toacknowledge that today is
Juneteenth, which is the daythat we commemorate the end of
slavery in the US.
It marks June 19th of 1865 whenthe Union troops arrived in
Galveston, texas, and it was twoand a half years after the
Emancipation Proclamation, butthere were still people that

(01:00):
didn't know that the slaves hadbeen freed.
So this is a holiday that hasbeen celebrated in the Black
community for generations, andit became a federal holiday in
2021.
So I wanted to call it outtoday, as we all should be
celebrating liberation andresilience.
As for Trump, he infamouslyscheduled a rally on Juneteenth

(01:21):
in 2020, saying that he madeJuneteenth famous and that
nobody had ever heard of it.
I would say that didn't reallyland so well.
Certainly didn't land so wellwith me, but anyway, today is a
day to celebrate freedom andreflect on how far we've come
and how far we still have to go,and that is certainly
indicative of what we talk abouthere on this podcast as it

(01:42):
relates to cannabis.
We've come a long way, but westill have a long way to go.
For today's show we're going tobe talking about relentless
grind in cannabis.
Our guest today isn't justsurviving in it, she's building
across retail, brand producthemp licensing and culture.
But before we bring on Tiffany,I just want to highlight two new

(02:04):
pieces of news and then we'lldive in SB Tiffany.
I just want to highlight twonew pieces of news and then
we'll dive in.
Sb3, which we've been talkingabout a lot on the pod is still
up in the air as of recording.
This is Lieutenant DanPatrick's full hemp prohibition
and criminalization measure inthe state of Texas and basically
what we're looking at is thatgovernor greg abbott has until

(02:25):
june 22nd, which is sunday, toveto this bill.
Otherwise it becomes law andthat means that the entire hemp
intoxicating thc space in texaswill become illegal.
At the same time, there is anexpansion on the table of the
medical cannabis program inTexas that is moving through the

(02:47):
legislature under HB 46.
And it could become law.
It could also be vetoed by thegovernor, and June 22nd is
really going to be an importantday as we look at what the
opportunity is in this massivemarket for consumers.
Everybody is paying attention.
The Hemp Business Council ofTexas delivered 150,000

(03:10):
signatures to urge a veto, whichis a real statement, but we'll
see if it makes a difference.
The last piece of news that I'llhighlight is that this week,
the Congressional ResearchService put out a report that
saying that Congress couldreschedule cannabis faster than
going the administrative paththrough the DEA and HHS Duh.

(03:31):
Theoretically, yes, legislationthrough Congress can definitely
make laws change a lot fasterthan what has been happening and
dragging out for years now atthe federal level, but
unfortunately, the legislaturehas continued to be no help on
cannabis reform for a while now.
So I'm not holding my breath.
And dragging out for years nowat the federal level, but
unfortunately, the legislaturehas continued to be no help on
cannabis reform for a while now,so I'm not holding my breath.
I did find it prettyinteresting, though, that the

(03:53):
Congressional Research Office isspending time putting out
reports such as this andthinking about cannabis, so I
think that that is a plus.
All right, let's bring on ourguest.
Tiffany Chin is the businessand strategic force leading
Snoop Dogg's cannabis empire,from launching Leafs by Snoop

(04:13):
and co-founding Casa VerdeCapital to overseeing Death Row
Records Cannabis division, witheverything that happens
underneath it.
That includes things like theirSwede dispensaries, their
branded products, their hempbusiness, their international
expansion.
Tiffany has redefined what itmeans to scale a celebrity
cannabis brand with integrity,humor and a lot of hustle.

(04:35):
She's a Wharton grad with deeproots in entertainment and in
legacy cannabis, and she bringsfluency across licensing,
product development, retail opsand cultural storytelling
without ever losing sight of theconsumer or the culture.
So I'm really stoked to bringon my new friend, tiffany Chin.
Welcome, tiffany.

Thank you so much.
What a wonderful introduction.
Thank you so much, Anna.
It's great to be here today?

Yeah, awesome Welcome.
My understanding is that you'rejoining us from Germany today.
What are you doing in Germany?

So this weekend is the Mary Jane Festival here in
Berlin, so we are actually outhere.
We landed yesterday and we areexhibiting this weekend.
Today's the B2B day, friday,saturday, sunday are the
consumer facing or public facingdays, and I think it's a lot
about just discovery and seeinghow we can close or shrink the

(05:28):
world a little more with what wehave with this plant and
understanding what brandinglooks like here, where it's a
medical market.
But yeah, so it's reallyexciting to see all the
different brands pop up that wenormally see in this space.

Yeah, yeah, I mean, you and I are from the U?
S and have first built ourcannabis experience in the U?
S, but it's pretty awesome tosee the whole world turning on,
and the truth is is that peoplehave been loving and consuming
cannabis all over the world forquite some time now.

Forever, I mean for for millennia.
I mean I'm I'm Chinese and Ithink you know that's where.
Call it Dama, like that's wherefarms and fields and acres of
cannabis you know have come fromin the past, and it's
definitely been used as medicinefor much longer than we've ever
used it recreationally.

So, yeah, I'm glad to see that things are
kind of turning around andturning on for thousands of
years is kind of what I alwayscome back to when the times are
so tough right now in certainparts of the industry.
It's like what I know to betrue is that people are not
going to stop consuming cannabis.

People will not stop.

Yeah, the struggles will be different and
the economic environment willshift and change, but people
love weed and that isn't goingto shift and change Exactly.
So if we center on the consumer, you know it's a good place to
start.
So I want to dive in to all thestuff that you are doing in
cannabis, because it is wide andas I was going through it,

(06:56):
learning about what you're up to, at first it seemed a little
bit chaotic in that, like you'vegot stores and brands and
online presence and differentcountries and states and all
this stuff, but at the same time, it's all unified around Snoop
and I would just love it if youcould give us an idea of what
are all the things that you'reworking on in Canada.

Yeah, that's a great question.
So things kind of really startoff with, I would say, death row
records, right, when Snooppurchased Death Row Records in
2022, that's right around whenhe called me and mentioned that
and I saw I understood why hetold me that there was a vision
for what to do with this brand,which was not just a record
label but had become larger thanthat over the 30 years of the

(07:39):
existence of that record labelright, and having such a for
lack of a better term notorioustype of past.
When Snoop purchased it, hewanted to revitalize and shed
that notoriety, even though thebrand name is Death Row.
It's more about transparencyand moving forward in a unified
sense, right, and not havingblue or red or West or East or

(08:01):
whatever else, but really comingtogether.
And one of the first things heactually said to me was he was
like I don't know how to do thisin cannabis.
This is my vision in music, inrecords, cause I know what that
looks like.
Right, I want to be able to useweb three technology to
essentially provide transparencyof people's work and have them
compensated in a very fair way,and I'm like oh, interesting,
he's like so.

(08:22):
So, for example, I can tellthrough this technology how long
Anna Rae worked on thisparticular record and then if
Tiffany spent two times theamount working on that record,
she would get two times theroyalties or the splits.
And I'm like, I hear whatyou're saying, I know what
you're trying to do.
We want to do the same thing incannabis and so with the death
row records brand, it isdefinitely a nostalgia brand.
It's from the 90s and the waythat we used to consume cannabis

(08:45):
in the nineties was.
I hate using this like thisphrase.
It's definitely a littlecliched, but it's like you know
everyone's putting five on itand you're maybe buying, like
you know, an ounce, maybe aneighth or whatever else, at the
party, at the house party, andyou're rolling maybe three to
five blunts.
You're passing around, you'rehaving a great time with friends
and you're having a great timewith friends and you're not out
a crazy amount of money.
Right and um.

(09:06):
Something that one of my my headof ops likes to say about what
we're trying to do is unboof,celebrity cannabis Cause, the,
the play that we've seen, and Iwill say that you know the prior
manager before me, my boss, wasa little um also fell victim to
this right when it's like, oh,like, people are just gonna love
buying Snoop's weed.
Like the quality is not gonnamatter.

(09:28):
We gotta find the Walmarts andthe Costcos of cannabis
production and I'm like, givenmy limited knowledge in actual
cultivation and growing, that'snot gonna yield the best quality
product and people are gonna belike what is this?
Like, Snoop is not smoking this.
And even though we made a bigsplash maybe 10 years ago with
the Leafs by Snoop brand we wereone of the first market.

(09:50):
We worked some really greatdeals with wonderful partners.
I have nothing bad to say aboutour partners.
The cannabis just wasn't at theSnoop level.
Right, like I would say maybeat the level of the average
smoker, but was Snoop smoking it?

No, yeah, one definitely, and quality, like
they just you know to go backand you want repeat purchasing.
You want people to be loyal,like they'll try anything once
but to come back as a whole,nother deal.

Exactly and just to make sure that we are
actually standing behind thetenant of like hey I, I put my
face on this, but I actuallysmoke it Right.
And so one of the proudestmoments and things that I can
say is, in in the search forstuff that we were doing in 2022
, before we launched in 2023 wasthat Snoop actually smokes this
weed right.
We, we, we just we worked withhim to figure out like we I mean

(10:39):
, we've known for a long timewhile he smokes Right.
And then we're we're trying towork with the actual growers or
we're growing it ourselves orwe're consulting with the grow
in particularly anotherterritory that we're working
with.
This is how you have to get yourcannabis grown to get it up to
this level.
This is how you have to cure it.
This is how it was in thehumidity levels.
These are the um, you know,flowering, whatever else, all

(10:59):
the stressing that you need todo Right.
So there have been quite a fewgrows that we were like we're
not ready to do a deal with youyet, but if you in the next six
weeks, if you implement thesedifferences and we see the
change, so two of them have madethose changes and then we
subsequently did sign with them,because their weed went from B
plus to A A plus and so it'salways I'm picturing this like

(11:21):
quality spectrum of like snooplevels all the way on one side.

It's pretty awesome and I have to say, the
fangirl in me is like how coolis it that when Snoop wants to
start a cannabis business, thatyou're the call that he makes to
be like?
Here's my idea, tiffany.
This is what I want to do.
So what was it that led to thatmoment in 2022 that you had
that relationship with Snoop?

Yeah, so in 2020, I had a baby and so I took some
time off to be at home.
That was the height of COVID.
We were all working from homeas well and I ended up leaving
the company the managementcompany that was managing Snoop
at the time.
I ended up finding a completelydifferent job in fitness and
technology, which are some of myother passions, and literally

(12:10):
four days before I was supposedto start that job, like the
Thursday before, snoop called meand he was like hey, I know you
left the management company,but I wanted to see and I knew
what he was going to ask.
When his number came up on myphone and I was like what is
this call?

Like I, I'm I'm a little nervous, but I know
when Snoop calls right.

Yeah.
So I pick up and I'm like, hey,what's going on?
He was just like I know, I knowyou left, but would you like to
come back and work for medirectly?
There are some people that I'veI've tried, like you know I I
have a lot of people on my team.
They've they know good weed,but they don't know the industry
Right and they don't have thecontext that you do.

(12:48):
And I just feel like I trustyou with stuff that you've done
for me in the past.
And I was like I have, I'mstarting a new job in four days.
And he was like, damn, what's,what's the contract on that?
I'm like one year.
He's like then I went silentfor like a good five or 10,
which is a long time on a phonecall, Right, he was, I'm going

(13:12):
to keep, I'm going to call youevery couple of months and see
what you're doing and see howyou're doing, Right, so like,
literally to like to the date.
I'm going to imagine he must'vehad like a calendar reminder for
himself hit up Tiffany to thedate.
Like three months later hecalls me.
Six months later, he calls menine months later.
Finally, he's like okay, it'snow or never.
It's okay If you don't want tocome back, I get it, but if you
do, now is the time.
If you don't, I need to go findearnestly someone who can
replace you.
So he actually waited for aboutnine months for me to say yes,

(13:34):
and for those last like two orthree months, I was working two
jobs.
But I did come back with him,and that was the nine month mark
was right in 2022 January, whenhe had purchased Defo Records.
So it was that in that moment,as I was getting to the backend
of my contract, as well as thatlittle note of like this is the,
this is the brand behind it,this is what I want you to do,

(13:55):
and I think it's going to beamazing, I could see the vision
and that's when I jumped and Iwas like, yeah, I'm with you,
I'm with you and you talkedabout all these different places
that you're playing kind of ata high level.

It seems like you're taking on a lot and this
is a really volatile space andall these markets have all these
different nuances.
Do you think that the choice tobe building multiple businesses
at once and going into multipledifferent channels is the right
path?

So I think that's a really good question, because
a lot of people kind of see thevariety of what we're doing, or
what you might call breadth, aspotentially damaging.
For like breadth instead ofdepth, right, you know, in lieu
of depth I'd say like wideversus deep, yeah.
And I think, I think the theissue with such a I know we're

(14:50):
15 years, 10 years in.
You know when.
When?
When did Colorado andWashington first legalized 2014?
When did they first startcommercializing 2015, right,
2015, 2016 for Canada,respectively?
We're really early into this,into this industry, right.
If you think about prohibition,it took like 80 years for us to
really get into the swing ofthis three-tiered system of

(15:11):
alcohol and beverages and stufflike that.
And so bets are being made,lots of bets, lots of money is
being placed on these bets, and80, 90% of the time, the bets do
not come through.
And so this is the generaladvice when it comes to
investing or when you're playingI don't know, roulette or craps

(15:35):
is diversify, right.
And when the time comes toconsolidate in the right way and
to make sure that you have amore clear vision moving forward
, once the industry makes someregulations, or like, for
example, like you just said inyour intro, make some
regulations.
Or like, for example, like youjust said in your intro, sb3,
right, like that is a hugedecision around anyone's hemp
business.
Texas is giant.

It's the biggest market in the yeah, and
maybe in the world, I don't know.

And it was almost designed that way because of
like no cannabis but farm bill.
Okay, right, it was almostdesigned that way.

Yeah.

And so, with all that, we just have to make sure
that, whatever bets we areplacing, we are able to move
forward and consolidate if thebets we made are not correct.
Does that make sense?
Like I'm not.

I'm not trying to, and I know that you
have background in actuallyworking with Casa Verde capital,
which is a venture fund that'sinvested into cannabis, and so
you're used to looking at dealsand using that kind of VC
mentality of you.
Know, I'm lucky if 10 to 20% ofthese investments pay off, and
hopefully they pay off at like a10 to 20 X, because all the

(16:41):
other ones are going to die.
I just don't often hear aboutan operator thinking about their
businesses that way, and itmakes sense.
But how do you choose what toprioritize on?
I mean, you're one person, Iknow that you have a team.
I'd love to hear about them,but I know it's also not a huge
team, correct?
So how do you choose what tofocus?

on.
We do like to stay lean and alot of what we like to focus on
we do like to stay lean and alot of what we like to focus on

(17:24):
honestly really depends on whatSnoop likes to see, Right and
what makes him happy.
Obviously, bottom line matters.
Obviously, you know right,they're near LAX in Inglewood
and there's another one inAmsterdam that he has yet to go
to.
But because everyone from KevinHart to Taleb Kwale have been
rolling through and just hittinghim up saying your shop is
amazing, he is now trying tofigure out a way to just go out
there by himself without gettinglike usually he doesn't move

(17:48):
for less than X, Y, Z number ofdollars, Right, but he is trying
to figure out a way to go outthere Cause he's like everyone
keeps telling me I got to go, Igot to go Tiffany, and I'm like
it's better that other peopleare telling him this than me.
Right, Cause I can hype up thestore as much as I want to, but
when his friends, his buddies,are going through and seeing
what they've experiencedpersonally from him translated

(18:10):
to this other location, they'relike this is, this is him, this
is Snoop, this is what hisactual compound, his studios
feel like and smell like andsound like.
So yeah, I would say the stores,the Swede brand.
That is something that he'sreally, really interested in.
The hemp side of things, he isa how do I put it Like
magnanimous every person man.

(18:31):
Right, he is not trying to sellyou a $400 pair of shoe.
He is trying to sell you an $80pair, like a regular priced
pair of shoe.
Right, he is not trying to sellart for a crazy.
Anyway, in that sense, he wantsto democratize access,
essentially to cannabis, and so,over Father's Day, we launched
our home version of all of ourcannabis excuse me, hemp

(18:55):
products, right, technically,hemp products.

Can I have a moment?
You can say that.

Yeah, we all know that.
We all know what happens andwhat the difference is and
everything if there is one.
But essentially we're doingbogos.
We're doing like promos andstuff that we might not be able
to actually advertise on Meta.
That actually has changedrecently, hasn't it, anna Rae?
I don't know if you saw thatrecently, but Meta has slowly
allowed yeah yeah, but then theyalso.

they said that you could advertise, but
then they also went and shutdown a whole bunch of accounts,
like in the last couple of weeks.

Yeah.
So it's like I'm not sure whichwriting or verbiage or
guidelines we're supposed toabide by.
But maybe that'll shake outquicker in the next week or two.
But you know, like workingthrough that and having him say
hey, people in 32 plus statescan now access my stuff Right.
At the same time, with ourregulated market partners, we

(19:45):
understand that this is hurtingthem and so we don't want to
cannibalize our own business orbe bad partners.
So, for example, ourpartnerships in New Mexico,
michigan, ohio, california,nevada we are not going to.
I mean, a lot of those statesalready don't allow hemp to be
delivered, but we are not goingto allow delivery into those
states because you can get itdelivered, you can buy it in the

(20:06):
store and you can try out ouramazing product for yourself.

Yeah, so yeah , that's a common strategy that
companies that started in theregulated cannabis market, who
have expanded into hemp, aretaking, and I think that that
makes a lot of sense just tonavigate the complexity of
keeping your partners happy and,at the same time, I think that
the data tells us that thecustomers that are buying hemp

(20:32):
products online are not the samepeople that are going into
dispensaries, and especiallybecause I know you guys launched
a beverage as well in the hempspace and and that's like a
completely different consumerbase than dispensaries.

It's.
I would love to talk about thatin a second, but, like, that in
and of itself is anotherportion that, like me and Snoop
and our team are very bullish on, just because of A the hemp
thing, right, like theaccessibility and the ability to
proliferate it, distribute itin 32, 438, however many states
there are that allow it, butthen, on top of that, like being

(21:08):
a beverage, right, I often saythis we're not born knowing how
to eat, we are most definitelynot born knowing how to smoke,
but we are all born knowing howto drink.
And so, like it's the easiest,there's no hump, there's no hill
, there's no barrier to entry interms of, hey, try it.
Right, like most people willgladly try a drink that is
correctly and appropriatelylabeled and has all the

(21:29):
information on it.
And so, anna Rae, if you don'tmind, like, maybe last Monday we
had Snoop won the BET IconAward and we had an after party
for him, and I was notified,maybe only 36 hours prior to
that, that we were having thisparty, and so it was the weekend
.
A lot of distros are closed, ifnot all the distros are closed,

(21:49):
you're going to get the flowerfor 800 people, right?
So instead I was like you knowwhat?
We have a thousand cans, wehave more than a thousand hands,
so we brought those to theparty and the amount of people
who actually would in lieu of ajoint cause we had we still had
some loose joints in lieu of ajoint would take a beverage.
It was 50, 50 an array and thatto me was so surprising and so

(22:13):
great to see.
And there were people therethat had never smoked, never,
ever consumed cannabis, thatwere coming back for like second
, third.
He was like I just don't drink,I don't like the way alcohol
makes me feel.
This makes me feel great andcalm, engaged, but not like I
can't drive home and I'm like,oh, don't say that out loud, but
, yeah, sure, great, you knowlike you know, like that, I'm so
glad that this is something.

(22:34):
This is your first foray intothe, into this world.

Yeah, I mean we talked about the history of
how long people have beenconsuming cannabis for 1000s of
years at the beginning, but onething that I think that the hemp
space is proving is how manymore consumers there are to come
into the market if we can justreach them in the right way and
with the right products.
So, yeah, I'm excited aboutthat and I think it's really fun

(23:20):
.

I think about my parents a lot, who are very like
, no, no, like anything that youhave to combust, like anything
that's a narcotic.
Everything's a narcotic,everything's a narcotic right,
Everything from nicotine,tobacco all the way to cannabis.
To like, obviously, any of theharder stuff right.
For them.
I've always been excited.
I'm like I was like edibles.
Like you guys can just eat achocolate and feel it, You'll be

(23:41):
fine, but I think the beverageis going to especially a low
dose beverage.
That's going to be the way togo because that's something
they're familiar with.
Like once I drink three to fiveminutes, I should feel a little
drunk or a little tipsy, Like Ishould feel that Right.
And so to have that moreinstantaneous response rather
than the delayed onset of aregular edible, I think that's

(24:02):
going to get my parents likemore interested, and a lot of
people who are in their sixties,sevents, 80s were interested in
this space Totally.

Well, so I want to pivot a little bit and
talk about Snoop's brand and howwhat you guys are doing with
cannabis really is a licensingmachine of putting the different
brands that have Snoop behindthem out into the world in all
different types of ways, whetherit be in a in a store
environment or or in a jar and acan or whatever.

(24:34):
But one of the things that I'venoticed about Snoop over the
past couple years is that hisbrand has really evolved Like as
as someone that has it'sprobably like he's a little
older than me probably, but I'velike watched Snoop for much of
my life and gone from being acharacter that was, I think,
like a lot more hard and edgy tosomebody that's a teddy bear.

(24:56):
He hangs out with MarthaStewart, he's on the today show
Even.
Even his style has kind ofsoftened.
Um, and yet I think that thebrands that you guys are putting
forward Death Row, cannabisthey're kind of carrying forward
this vision into the mainstreamof cannabis just by being him,

(25:34):
and that seems pretty powerfuland I'm wondering it like how
you see that and if you guys arelooking to to bring more kind
of teddy bear snoop brands andmarket to appeal to those people
that see him on the today showor on the Olympics.

So I would say that there are a couple of
things I want to touch on with.
This is cause.
This is a really good questionand you're, you're right, the
brands are not synonymous, right?
Snoop Dogg is Snoop Dogg.
Snoop Dogg, the man owns deathrow records, but death row
records is not the same as SnoopDogg, right Like?
They are two separate brands.

(26:12):
Death row records is a 30 plusyear legacy brand in terms of
like having existed in the earlynineties and kind of being
notorious, like we had talkedabout earlier.
Right, like a lot of violence,a lot of negativity, you know.
However, because it's from backthen and we're trying to
recreate the nostalgia it's morearound the good times of like

(26:34):
really good West coast hip hop.
That's what we're trying tofocus on, as opposed to like
guns and cars, right, like.
I don't want to get too deepinto that, but like yeah, so, in
that sense, we are trading onthe name.
We are.
We are utilizing this 30 plusyear old name, which I also want
to talk a little bit about.
There's a reason why on ourpackaging, on our branding and
everything, the word cannabis isnot on the product, right?

(26:57):
It looks like I wish I was athome because I could show you
our vanity packaging.
But it says Death Row Recordsand it's the man in the chair
with an updated logo.
Just a little bit right, hishis hood is pulled up a little
bit, the rag over his head andthen his right wrist is actually
breaking free from hisrestraints, pulled up to his
mouth with a little cherry onthe end of a J.

(27:18):
So there's that update that issupposed to be a little
friendlier as opposed to, likeyou know, the full on covered
head and like black and white orlike very flat.
But there there's the the.
The one of the other main pointsis that there's no other,
there's no brand in cannabisthat's been around for 30 years.
Right Like, I would say, maybemaybe some other, like really

(27:41):
old legacy brands or even mediabrands.
Right Like, maybe a high times,which is interesting around
that story, you know what I mean.
Like maybe one of the maybe raw, maybe future.
All right, like ocb or you know.
But at the same time, when youthink about like new actual
cannabis brands, right like whenyou're cheaters, kiva, um, you
know, heavy hitters or stizzy orwhatever they don't, they don't

(28:04):
have the ability to trade likethey've done great, they've done
amazing.
Their brand recognition is topnotch, but they created it from
the ground up.

You're leaning on something that
already.

We're lucky we get to start five steps up.
Right, and why not utilizesomething that has that
connotation attached to it?
At the same time, NRA, we'retrying to stay away from
anything to like.
Snoop has a kid's show it'scalled Doggyland, where he's a
cartoon and he's rapping aboutlike affirmations and loving
yourself and being kind.

I love that shit, by the way.

Me too Like that stuff, like, and you see the
kids dancing to it, it's reallyamazing.
But I also want to make surethat we're confident that if we
ever make a misstep, we aregoing to be made an example out
of right, More so than I thinkeven these multi-million,
multi-billion dollar companiesSnoop Dogg will bring headlines
in for anything that somefederal or state agency wants to

(28:56):
smack against us, and so wereally try to not do anything
too like happy-go-lucky teddybear, like fun for kids type
thing on any branding we'redoing cannabis-wise.
Because we we know that, we knowthat someone will eventually be
like this man is promoting hisweed and his kids show and his

(29:17):
Snoop youth football league andkids stuff all together and it's
like no, no, no, no.
These things are very separate,very demarcated, and like we
want to be very clear about that.
So hopefully that answers alittle bit of your question, but
I hear there's a.
There was a schism between hiscurrent brand, who he is.

Yeah, I totally respect realizing and I
certainly would never suggestthat anybody markets weed to
kids.
That's not the point.
But you know, when I saw Snoopat the Olympics, I thought that
that was maybe doing more forthe movement and of normalizing
cannabis than anything that Ihad seen in mainstream media in
a really long time.

(29:55):
It was so awesome and it wasjust one of those things of like
, like, look, look where we'vecome, like having having him be
this ambassador for the U Sinternationally and what his
brand has represented, I think Ithink it probably meant a lot
to a lot of people.
So it was really cool and I I'mjust glad to see him out there.

(30:18):
And I mean, who doesn't love,who doesn't love Snoop?
Right?

Yes, yes.

Well, so you know, there's some things, as
I've been learning about you,that that you and I have in
common, which is that we bothwent to business school, but we
stale narrative about the rootsversus the suits in Canada, and

(30:56):
I just think that it's such BS,because I think that, like you
can be a root and you can be asuit, and that that's pretty
effing cool if you can be both,and the people that really are
the ones that win are the onesthat understand the culture,
understand where we've been, butalso can negotiate a deal or
read a P and L and understand abalance sheet, and it's really

(31:19):
the coming together that creates, like, the real superpowers.
So I'd love to like talk alittle bit about where you came
from, how you, how you see, likewhat the skills are that are
most beneficial for you, reallywherever you want to take it in
terms of your story.

Yeah, sure.
So most people that go toWharton end up doing banking or
consulting, so they're either inNew York, san Francisco, maybe
they'll go to a BC, right, somaybe Bay Area.
But hardly anyone goes intoentertainment, and so there
weren't a lot of like people inLos Angeles that I knew I could
hit up.
I knew I wanted to be inentertainment because I think at
the time it was like therecession it was 2009,.

(31:54):
Right, the recession and I waslike the one thing that I think
really is recession proof isentertainment, and I know it
sounds a little silly, butregardless of how well or little
you're doing or how poorlyyou're doing, you always
continue watching movies, maybeat home, maybe a theater.
You'll continue watching movies, maybe at home, maybe a theater
.
You'll continue watching sports.
You'll continue playing videogames Right, and you'll continue

(32:15):
watching TV and listening tomusic.
So in that way, I really wantedto be in entertainment.
Right, I basically learned withmy then boyfriend, now husband,
how to grow cannabis.
I was definitely not the grower,I was helping him.
You know, I was the worsttrimmer in the world because I
wasn't doing it for a month.
I should have been doing it formoney, but I was slow, right,
like after a while he was like Ican't pay you hourly babe, like
I got to pay you by the weightCause you're really slacking.

(32:37):
Look at these guys and I'm justlike, oh, but it was an
experience building Like that.
That wasn't maybe something Iloved doing, but I did love like
bucking and I loved likehanging the things up to you
know, like all the otherprocesses, the watering, the,
the ability to watch thingsstart, budding, the um, what he
taught me about being able toidentify, like the boys versus
the girls, right, like where tolook, right, all those little

(32:59):
things.
And that I think happened priorto me getting this role in 2014
or 2015 with Snoop, and so itprepped me a lot with actually
touring facilities.
Even if my personal experiencewas only out of 10, 15 light
facility right or grow, I wasstill able to ask what

(33:20):
everything was in the old days.

It was like, yeah, people just had their home
, home grows and you can make alot of money off 10 or 15 lights
back in the day, yeah exactly.

I mean, those are the days when you could get like
38, 4,000 a pound.
You know, crazy, over thedecade we saw the prices dip all
the way down to about like1,800, 2,000, right, and so,
without that background of howyour product is grown and
produced, I think that managers,or dealmakers, or brand,

(33:51):
whoever you are in the industry,as a business person, you lack
the knowledge of understandingthat this is truly a commodity.
Right Like a blight, can wipeout your entire crop, like the
thrips, like any, like anylittle thing, like it's a
sensitive, it is a weed.
Right Like so.
It's strong and resilient, butthere's PM there's all these
different things.

Like you know Very sensitive weed, a very,
very sensitive weed, yeah.

And so all these little things.
I remember going to a growrecently and being like because
I have never seen this in a growand I've seen so many grows
there was a water, not filter,but a sprayer on the canopy and
I'm like why, why, why, why?
Right, and luckily I was withAK and Shag and I want to get to
them in a moment, but, um, myteam and he's like I'm gonna

(34:38):
tell you in a second why we getout and Shaggy's like it's a
forceful way to get rid of PM uh, powdery mildew.

And I'm like what?

And they're like yeah, if you just rub it off you
can't see it.
And I was like, well, whydidn't he do that before we came
?
He knew we were coming andthey're like that's how bad of a
grower he is.
Like unfortunately he couldn'tmanage that particular facility
in the time it took for us toget there and I was like, oh,
okay, and so then you talked,talked a's what I mean.

(35:14):
I know a lot of wonderful bradsand chads.
So essentially I would say I'mthe chattiest or braddiest of
the three of us.
Right, because I did get adegree in business.
I have the traditional retailbackground, having worked at
Target corporate, but I've grownweed.
I smoke every day, like I am apart of the culture.

(35:34):
I'm a minority, right, and atthe same time, like the other
two guys have, all three of ushas varying levels of experience
growing.
I am by far the lowest right,like Shaggy, I would say, who
has been Snoop's longtime soundengineer.
He has operated his own smallwarehouse grow.
Ak is kind of like on anotherlevel, he's our head of ops and

(35:54):
he has consulted at over ahundred different grows,
essentially saving them right,like helping turn stuff around,
and then more recently hemanaged over, I think, like
350,000 square feet of facility,maybe, maybe like 150,000
square feet of canopy in Floridafor a really, really big brand

(36:15):
name that I'm sure you can guess.
So you know, we, we all kind ofwork together.
He's had 25 years of growexperience.
Shaggy's obviously had 15.
Me, like I haven't grown in thelast 10 years, so I would say
maybe I only have two or threeyears, but like when it comes to
the culture, right, shaggy hasbeen recording Snoop for 16
years, 15 years now.
Some of the some of the trackson the new album, like he's

(36:36):
credited.
And so what happens?
When you'd have the night shiftfor 10 plus years of
engineering at Snoop studio, youend up smoking weed with him a
lot when the nights are slow orthe work is slow, right.
And so out of anyone on thisplanet, he has the best
understanding of what he likes,what is quality to him.
But he's also understanding of,like, the different palettes of

(37:00):
what fans or consumers mightlike, right.
So he just gets product that weknow will be on his level, that
Snoop would be proud of handingto friends, right.
And then AK is kind of like he'sour rain man.
When we go into a facility,when we go into a grow house,
it's just beautiful watching himwork.
He's just like that's 50 K onthe floor right there.
A month that's 10 K right there, like he's just calculating and

(37:22):
he's just figuring out like,what are you using here?
Why are you using thisfertilizer?
Because it has it createscardboard turps, like it's like
stuff like that.
That's really.
It's really fun to kind of likego and tour with them.
So I think the three of us as ateam we're really a great
balance of what what you calledlike suits and roots Right, and
and I think that we've builtsuch a really symbiotic and

(37:45):
beneficial like relationship asa team.

That's amazing.
And and is it just the three ofyou doing death row cannabis
and all the different stuffunderneath it?

I mean we have.
I would like to say our team isdefinitely obviously more than
that, but under my directleadership and our group and our
organization, it is the threeof us right.
Obviously Snoop too, so maybefour right, but all of our
partners, I consider them to bea part of our team as well.
Right, the Pleasantries folksin Michigan, the Waves here guys
in Nevada.
Right, like the P37 guys in NewMexico.

(38:15):
We're about to re-sign with agroup in Canada, so we're super
excited about that.
We love all of our partners andI do consider them as part of
our team.

Nice, that's awesome.
Well, so you're talking aboutbuilding something that lasts
beyond trends, that'smulti-generational, that's
shaping culture, and I'mwondering kind of like, within
all the things that you'reworking on right now, what are
you most excited about?

I would say imminently the expansion of
Swede stores, and the reason whyis because our strategy is more
around.
This is not a great example,but I think it drives home the
point.
It's more like a hard rock cafemodel as opposed to a
McDonald's or Starbucks model.

(39:04):
Right, we're not trying toflood the market.
We are more so indicating thatif you are able to go to a
territory that has rich cannabisculture or has close tie to
something of snoop's past, youcan experience that right so, um
so big destinations over justevery, on every corner exactly,

(39:25):
and so it's more so that, like,if you're not from, like I'm
originally from Illinois and ifI fly to LA we're not going to,
we're not going to open one inIllinois there's not a lot of
tie to him there, right, butMichigan he actually spent a
summer out in Michigan workingat a McDonald's when his dad was
out there.
So, like, that is whyMichigan's important to him,
right, new York's important tohim.

(39:46):
Why?
Because a lot of death row stuff, a lot of death row stuff a lot
of performances, a lot like NewYork is another place where he
loves to go, obviously Amsterdam, obviously looking at other
spaces in the EU and the UK.
But we're not trying to have 10stores in the Los Angeles area,

(40:07):
we're not trying to have one inevery single state, like it
just doesn't make sensesometimes.
And so I'm most excited aboutthe expansion of the stores
because it looks like in about18 months I don't want to eat my
words here, anna Rae buthopefully in about 18 months
we'll have another four or fivecoming up Nice and retail is
tough and like what is it that'sgoing to make the Swede stores

(40:30):
be able to make it through thiscrazy reckoning that we're
seeing across the industry andbe competitive?

Like some of the markets you mentioned, um
have a lot of a lot ofcompetition in them already.
Like Michigan is a wild market.
Prices are in the doldrums.
New York is is just like themost expensive real estate
market in the world.
You can't fuck around in amarket like that.
What's going to be the magicsauce for the Swede stores?

Yeah, so in a lot of these territories.
I don't want to say that theexperience of retail is hyper
important because sometimes it'snot.
There are a lot of customersthat just want to buy their
product and leave right.
Important because sometimesit's not.
There are a lot of customersthat just want to buy their
product and leave right.
They see the dressing up of aretail store as that's why I'm
paying extra $5 here, that's whyI'm paying an extra XYZ or

(41:18):
whatever it is right.
But our products, at least thedeath row products and I'm
confident because we work allthese things out when we're
talking about pricing with ouroperator partner on the retail
side is a perpetual likeeveryday kind of like Walmart
right, Like everyday low price.
Right, Like we're not.
We're not going to sling youleft and right with sales and

(41:40):
then full price or whatever else, but like what is the general,
normal, acceptable low pricethat we can give you every day.
And when you, when you come tothe store, I guarantee you you
will be pleasantly surprised byhow not gougy sweet stores are
right, Like they are, if notlike commensurate, just a little
cheaper than other stores.

(42:01):
And it's because we're tryingto draw you in with the
experience, but not not make itfeel as though like, oh, Snoop
is getting a giant check everytime.
No, that's not happening.
Right, Like, he wants, heactually like sends people to
the store, sometimes to buy hisown weed, when he knows that
time is of the essence and he heneeds me to come down from the

(42:21):
Valley all the way to Inglewoodfor him.
Right Like, he knows that I'mnot going to be able to do that
in an hour, but then I can helpLike he'll be like, oh yeah, no
worries, I'm going to send, I'mgoing to send my guy over to the
store and buy Tiffany.
What do they have, what's instock?
And I'll be like, yeah, this iswhat they have in stock.
I'll tell your assistantexactly what to pick up and I'll
probably go to the seven 11 andpick up some of your, some of
your backwoods too, or some ofyour blunt rolls.

(42:42):
Right, Like, like Snoop lovesthe store and he's been there
and he like sent, he keepssending people there, so it's
really really, really great tosee his like support backing
around it.
Watch this space, NRA.
But essentially, sometime inthe next month or so, he's going
to be bud tending at the Swedestore in LAX.
Oh, that sounds fun, but wewon't announce it, so you kind

(43:03):
of just gotta be.
You gotta be there andexperience it when he is there.

Well, speaking of fun, it seems like
you're having fun.
Are you still enjoying yourselfon this wild ride in the
industry?

I am.
I mean, I've been doing this Iguess for 11 years now, like
maybe 10.
And it's a roller coaster forsure, right, like there are ups
and downs.
There are days and months whereI'm like, yeah, we're killing
it, and there's other timeswhere I'm like, oh, we're
stagnating or we got to figureout how else we are moving
forward or continuing ourbusiness, and so it's it's super

(43:40):
fun, because I pinch myself allthe time Like I can't, I can't
believe that this is my job.
Like I can't believe that I amhelping the biggest cannabis
personality in the world withhis cannabis business.
However, I just have to leavethat out of my head, because if
I do, then it ends up like itjust it, just, it's noise, it's
just extra noise that ends upclouding my day or whatever else

(44:03):
.
I just have to keep my mind tothe task at hand.

Totally.
I hear that Well.
So I think that we're gettingcloser to the end of the show,
and one thing that Ben and I andI know he would ask if he was
here is that we'd like to talkabout leadership and what it
really does mean to leadpersonally and as an industry,
and I'd love for you to justshare riff on like what it means

(44:28):
to you to be a leader in thisspace and what are the things
that you're doing to grow as aleader today and that have kind
of been helpful for you in yourjourney so far.

Yeah, that's that's another great question.
It's interesting to think ofmyself as a leader, cause you
know, when you look at the faceof it, I'm I'm only working with
two other people.
I don't even like calling themmy I don't know subordinates
direct.
I don't.
I don't even like they're myteam, right, like I they're my
team.
I love them.
Um, I feel like I could trustmy life with them.
I hope, and I know, that theyfeel the same way about me.

(45:01):
But I think part of being a goodleader is knowing what you know
and what you don't know, andthat's also really helpful when
you're talking about the peoplewho look up to you, or are your
direct reports right?
I know what AK and Shaggy knowand what they don't know, and so
I will often have them on callswith me when I know they're not
going to say much because theydon't know what's happening, but

(45:22):
they can listen and reallyabsorb things via like osmosis.
When maybe it would take me twohours to explain, they can come
on, jump on two or three callsand then they'll get it Right
and and it's that experience isso much more educational and
then they'll get it Right andand it's that experience is so
much more educational than likeme explaining certain things,
right, and they'll they'll pickup on little things that I say

(45:44):
or do and they'll be like Icaught that and I'll be like
great Cause, you didn't catch itbefore, but now you do, that's
amazing, right.
And so I think that's a bigpart of leadership is maybe
showing and not telling right,and having them kind of
understand why you do things andmaybe even express how they
would do things differently Inthe industry.
I would say my biggest concernaround being a leader in this

(46:06):
space is this sounds reallystrange, but follow me here.
When I say the perception ofthe industry of you, I don't
mean so much like oh, how dopeople see me?
Like I'm concerned, I'm, I'm alittle insecure.
It's not like that, it's moreso.
I want to make sure people knowthat I am not a bad actor in
this space, because there havebeen so many and a lot of people

(46:29):
around.
Celebrities in cannabis areoften construed as such.
It's because of maybe some oftheir actions, maybe some of the
things that they've done orsaid or how they've slighted
other people.
But I just want to make surethat people know that this team
myself and the two other guysthat are with me are not in any
way.
We are very understanding,we're fair.

(46:49):
We're not trying to like grab acheck and run away with it.
We are trying to lift all boatswith the tide, right, and so I
wish other people would takethat to heart, right, like being
being being not just honest buttrying to be a good business
person and steward of this plantand this industry.
Right, as opposed to um.

(47:12):
I hate to say this, but therewas a pretty big brand owner
recently that said, like I wantto get paid, I want to be cashed
out, I want, I want, like oh,who did he say?
I want, like Bristol Myerssquid to buy me out, I want,
like I want the cash.
And I was like, oh, oh, okay,like, so.
It's not for the culture, then,and you know like we always
hear it for the culture andwhatever else, but it's like you

(47:32):
see where the true tendenciesand motives lie, you know.

For sure.
Yeah, Kind of underlying, likeI'm hearing you say, like being
willing to do the hard thing,and and I think that that that
really is an important part ofleadership and and it's when
it's fun, it's it's not hard,it's when you have to be face to
face with people that aren'taligned with you and you have to
say the hard thing and realizelike, oh, maybe, maybe this is

(47:59):
an opportunity for me to cashout, but it's not aligned with
what we're trying to do.

Yeah.

Or or to help help someone else realize that
that they're not ever going toget to cash out.
Yeah, I mean.
People in cannabis, I thinkmore and more different from 10
years ago, realized that theycould probably make like two to
10 times more working in otherindustries.
And if you're here, it'sbecause you love the plant.
You're a crazy entrepreneurialrebel.
You're trying to do somethingdifferent, but you're not going

(48:26):
to make as much money as youcould at a hedge fund or in
banking or at a VC firm.
Yeah, exactly, you're in thewrong place.
If that's what you're trying todo, amazing.
Well, oh my gosh, I have lovedhaving this conversation with
you.
It is so fun.
I love to just talk with otherpeople that are building and

(48:47):
creating and navigating theirway through all of this, because
it's constant, like there is anendless change and shift going
on in this space, and and that'swhat I keep coming back to is
that, like that's the one thingthat I know that we can all
depend on as leaders is thatit's going to keep changing and
if we're ready for that, then wecan get through it.
Not only will can we getthrough it, but we can create

(49:09):
and do some cool new shit in itand it sounds like that's really
what you're doing.
So thank you so much.
Well, I hope that Germany isamazing.
And as we wrap, it is time forour last call.
And so, Tiffany, this is youropportunity to leave our
listeners with the final messageadvice, call to action,
whatever you want.
So what is your last call?

Cannabis smokers, hemp smokers in Texas, call your
representatives and make surethat they put pressure on Abbott
to not sign SB3.
I know we are only three daysbefore the deadline, but that is
if you want access, if you wantfreedom of access, please,
please, please, call yourrepresentatives in Texas or at
least vote them out, maybe nexttime for people who are in your

(49:54):
corner, for your freedoms.
I would also say I knowFather's Day was this last
weekend, but if you are in astate where hemp is legal,
please go to try death rowcom.
This is some of the same stuffthat Snoop smokes.
Sometimes we tell him that it'sTHCA, sometimes we don't, just
to get his reactions, and heloves some of the product that
we've given him.
So please go ahead and try itout.

(50:14):
I think there's some BOGO dealsand free shipping over a certain
amount of money right now, sofeel free to go on and write a
review if you like it, and evenif you don't, we'd love to hear
from you.
But yeah, I think that's aboutit.
Thank you so much, anna Rae.
This was amazing.
It was really great chattingwith you and I'm sorry Ben
couldn't be here.

I know he's jealous.
He really wanted to be here inJapan.
It's like two in the morning.
I was going to join therecording but he I told him it
was all good and he was like Idon't think I can pull it off,
my wife will be pissed.
Anyway, thank you so much.
Have an amazing day.
And if people want to get intouch with you, what's the best
way?
How can they reach out?

I'm on LinkedIn, so I think it's at Tiffany tin,
I think I'm not.
I'm actually not quite sure,but I'm on Instagram.
I am also Tiffany tin, so thisis a spoonerism.
It's Tiffany chin, but the CHand the T are swapped.
I'm not really on anything else, so those are the two.

Yeah, yeah, cool.
Well, have a great day and weand we'll see you later.
Thank you, she is so cool.
I am so glad that I got to justhang out with Tiffany Chin, and
I can't wait to do it in person, and I feel like she's someone
that I definitely want to sharea joint with.
So, tiffany, the invitation isopen.
Folks, thank you so much forengaging.

(51:30):
If you joined our liverecording, you are awesome.
If you're listening later, wereally appreciate leaving a
review on Apple Podcasts,spotify or wherever you listen
to this to help make sure thatlisteners like you get access to
our content.
Thank you to our teams atVertosa and Wolfmeyer and to our
amazing producer, eric Rossetti.

(51:51):
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Please like, subscribe andshare High Spirits with your
colleagues, your friends andyour family, and always, folks
stay curious, stay informed and,most importantly, keep your
spirits high.
That's the show.

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#093 - From Wharton to Weed: Tiffany Chin's Journey with Snoop and Death Row

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}#093 - From Wharton to Weed: Tiffany Chin's Journey with Snoop and Death Row