In this special episode of High Spirits, we share with you AnnaRae's guest appearance on Practical Politics with friend and Lobbyist Lady Sabrina Noah.
From brewing espresso during California's groundbreaking Prop 215 campaign to revolutionizing cannabis quality standards, AnnaRae Grabstein's journey through the cannabis industry offers a masterclass in purpose-driven leadership. Her story begins in the Castro district of San Francisco, where as a teenager she witnessed the birth of medical cannabis advocacy from the AIDS crisis—planting seeds that would later blossom into pioneering entrepreneurship.
Combining her natural business acumen with formal education, she co-founded Steep Hill Lab—the world's first cannabis testing laboratory—while simultaneously pursuing her MBA. This groundbreaking venture not only introduced scientific methodology to cannabis evaluation but created an entirely new sector within the industry.
The conversation reveals profound insights about the delicate balance between ambitious vision and practical execution that defines successful cannabis leadership. AnnaRae candidly shares how early leadership challenges taught her the importance of mentorship and honest feedback—experiences that now inform her work as a strategic advisor through her firm Wolf Meyer. Her three-pillared approach helps cannabis companies define their purpose, establish clear objectives with quantifiable goals, and develop aligned KPIs that enable everyone in the organization to understand what winning looks like.
Perhaps most valuable is AnnaRae's perspective on being a "truth teller" in an industry where executive teams often lack honest outside voices. Whether helping companies transition to employee ownership or realigning compensation structures for profitability, her ability to deliver difficult messages while driving meaningful transformation demonstrates the unique value strategic advisors bring to cannabis businesses navigating complex challenges.
--
High Spirits is brought to you by Vertosa and Wolf Meyer.
Your hosts are Ben Larson and AnnaRae Grabstein.
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We'd love to hear your thoughts. Who would you like to see on the show? What topics would you like to have us cover?
Visit our website www.highspirits.media and listen to all of our past shows.
THANK YOU to our audience. Your engagement encourages us to keep bringing you these thought-provoking conversations.
Remember to always stay curious, stay informed, and most importantly, keep your spirits high.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Welcome to episode 94 of High Spirits.
I'm your co-host, anna RaeGrabstein, and it's Thursday,
june 26th 2025.
Today we are sharing an episodeof the Practical Politics
podcast hosted by my friend,sabrina Noah, that I recently
recorded with her while we wereboth in Denver.
We talk about my origin storyin cannabis and a whole lot more
(00:40):
.
I hope you enjoy it Withoutfurther ado.
Here's Practical Politics.
We have to have our eyes onthings that are truly ambitious,
purpose-oriented and visionary,and just drive towards the
ambitious while we push thelevers of what's still
achievable.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
Welcome to Practical Politics, the podcast that takes
you inside the room wheredecisions actually happen.
I'm Sabrina Noah, the lobbyist.
Takes you inside the room wheredecisions actually happen.
I'm Sabrina Noah, the lobbyistlady bringing you conversations
with the people who live andbreathe the politics and
policymaking process.
We're here at the InternationalCannabis Bar Association
meeting and I'm so excited to bejoined by Anna Rae Gravstein.
Anna Rae is currently astrategic advisor in the
(01:21):
industry and we are so excitedthat she's here.
Anna Rae and I have beenfriends now since oh my gosh
2013 or 16, when you came backinto the industry Longtime
leader, huge binder nerd likemyself in regulations and just
we're really excited to have herhere to talk about her new
business, a strategic advisoryfirm.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
I'm the founder and CEO of Wolfmeyer and we are a
strategic advisory firm.
I work with cannabis operatorsand ancillary businesses who are
working across the cannabissupply chain in various ways.
We solve big problems andcreate growth to help companies
accelerate from where they areand also to do transformation
(01:59):
work, to fix big problems, to bedriving towards profitability.
And my origin story in cannabisis really it goes deep.
I grew up in San Francisco.
I got my first job at a coffeeshop at the corner of 18th and
Castro when I was 15 years old,and that was 1996.
(02:20):
And 1996 was the year that Prop215 was on the ballot yeah, and
Prop 215 really was burst outof of the gay AIDS crisis that
was centered in the Castro, andthat was where I happened to be
working center and while Iwasn't old enough to vote.
This was long before socialmedia and when people were
(02:43):
organizing, they were organizingon the streets and coffee shops
were the center of all of that,and so I was working behind the
espresso machine, but I waswitness to an incredible social
movement, one that was at myfingertips, and so I wouldn't
say that I became an activist.
I was really more a witness,but it planted a seed that I
(03:05):
didn't even realize was a seedthat was in me.
That really became activatedmany years later, in 2004, when
I finished up at UC Santa Cruzand was trying to figure out
what my next thing that I wasgoing to do after college was,
and a friend invited me to comeand participate in harvest in
Mendocino at a Prop 215 farm,and I met friends that fall that
(03:32):
became my chosen family, likemy community truly Can you
describe what a Prop 215 farmand a harvest looks like?
Speaker 2 (03:39):
Just for totally question.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
So Willits, california, small rural
community in Mendocino County.
The 101 is the freeway thatgoes through town, but it's
really just a one-lane road inboth directions and Dirt Road
deep deep into the hills up ontop of a ridge because that's
(04:03):
where cannabis grows best facingthe southern sun, and the
property was probably about 80acres, but the farm was not the
farm you know, just probablytook up, I don't know, maybe two
acres up at the top of theridge and so a lot of rugged
terrain.
You'd get there.
You'd need to leave your carsort of at a clearing at the
(04:24):
entrance to the property and youdrive up to where the farm and
all the activities were in afour wheeler and there were a
few structures but there wasn'ta house, there wasn't
traditional running water, itwas all totally off the grid.
And we're camping this entiretime.
You camped the whole time andthere were about 40 people that
(04:46):
were there for harvest and mostof them were trimmers and there
was probably about three to fourpeople that had worked on the
farm and whose farm it was, thathad been there throughout the
whole growing cycle.
But come October, when it'stime to harvest all the plants,
they'd bring all of thesetrimmers up and all the trimmers
would have a tent and theywould set up a camp and nobody
(05:07):
would leave the mountain andeveryone would spend all day
trimming and the trimmers weregetting paid $200 a pound cash
and you could probably trim.
If you were a really badtrimmer, you could trim a pound
a day, but the good trimmerscould trim up to four pounds a
day.
So it was pretty sweet, youknow, tax free cash.
Yeah, I actually was invited tobe what they called the trim mom
(05:31):
because I grew up in thehospitality industry.
My family owned a restaurantand all through college I was
always really into cooking andso my friend who invited me to
the farm said you were reallygreat at cooking.
This farm I'm going to go be atrimmer at is looking for
someone to cook for the trimmersand to be the supply person.
That is the only one thatleaves the mountain.
Yeah, and um wow, and they'llgive you ten thousand dollars of
(05:52):
cash at six weeks camping, andI was fresh out of college and
didn't have a job yet andthought that sounds fun summer
camp for weed trimmers?
yeah, like why not?
Um?
And I didn't really realizethat it would change the
trajectory of my life and mycareer, but it seemed like a
great thing to do while I triedto figure out the rest of my
life.
Yeah, and so I went up thereand I did all the cooking for
(06:18):
all the trimmers and I was theone that left the mountain and
went to get supplies.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
You grew up in San Francisco.
You see the movement at thebeginning from the Castro
district.
You have this really organic,almost summer camp experience.
How do you turn that into anMBA and be a fabulous
businesswoman?
Speaker 1 (06:34):
Yeah Well, so I grew up with a mom who was a
bookkeeper and she had an innatesense of just business all the
time, of, like, creating formand function within chaos.
That was her role in her, withher clients, and I think that
she gave that to me in terms ofthe way that she raised me.
And so when I started to getexposed to cannabis, I started
(06:57):
paying attention of, like, whatis going on.
There's a lot of cash, seemslike everyone is doing so well,
but nobody seems to be payingattention to anything.
Nobody's bills are getting paid, yeah, yeah, yeah.
And so I realized that therewas this massive opportunity.
The entrepreneur in me was like, wow, people are doing really
well, but nobody seems to knowwhat the heck is going on.
(07:20):
And I was very early in my owndevelopment.
Like I said, I was fresh out ofcollege trying to figure out
what I wanted to do, and so Iended up leaving the mountain
and I got a job in workforcedevelopment, working for a
nonprofit, and I very quicklyrealized that nonprofits weren't
for me.
And at the same time, I hadthis new, established community
of cannabis cultivation andpeople that were cultivating all
(07:43):
over the Bay Area.
From my experience in Mendocinoand I was just saying, loosely
engaged with those friends, andthrough all of that I was like,
wow, there is somethinghappening here, there is more
business happening in cannabis,and I really wanted to explore
that some more.
And so I decided that I wantedto go to grad school for
business and I wanted to be ableto bring business acumen to
(08:06):
cannabis, and so I went on thislittle journey of trying to
figure out what that would looklike, and while I was doing that
, I was trying to talk to peoplethat were doing more than grow
within the cannabis space, andthat landed me.
I moved to Oakland because Idecided I was going to go to
grad school in San Francisco andjust was doing all the
networking that I could withinthe cannabis advocacy community.
(08:29):
Within the businesses thatexisted At that time, the
growers were deep, deep in theshadows, so it wasn't like there
were brands like there are now,but the businesses that were
out of the shadows were thedispensaries, and it was still
very clandestine in terms of thestructure of which they all
operated in, because therewasn't a regulatory framework.
It was this very loose Prop 215.
(08:49):
Yeah, time, yeah, I just madesure that I understood what was
happening in that space andthrough that I met the two guys
who became my co founders atsteep hill lab, and they had the
idea already and they also hadcome out of the cannabis
cultivation community.
One of them had been a longtime cultivator, the other was
(09:10):
really just a broker hustlerwho'd been moving cannabis
throughout the state for a longtime and and everybody had
friends that thought they hadthe best cannabis.
Everybody and, um, and nobodyreally had any information by
which to tell you whose cannabiswas actually the best.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
It was all anecdotal.
It would just be like oneperson would smoke it and have
an opinion.
There was no analytics, therewasn't potency, there were no
labels 100%.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
And so these guys had come up with the idea of we
need to start the first cannabislab.
And I met them and I was in theprocess of applying to business
school I hadn't even gotten inyet but they immediately
identified in me that I was.
I was the business mind of thethree of us.
One of them was the science guy, the other one was more the
sales guy and all of a suddenthey found me and I was the
(09:58):
business mind.
Yeah, and within a few days ofmeeting them they said come be
the CEO.
We need to start this business.
That's pretty cool and I thoughtI'm not ready to be a CEO.
What the heck, I can't be a CEO.
I've never been a CEO.
And I went home and I slept onit and I talked to who was at
(10:19):
the time my boyfriend, who's nowmy husband, and my baby daddy
and I thought you know when inyour life do you get an
opportunity like this to dosomething that nobody has ever
done before?
At that time, the only labsthat were doing any type of
cannabis testing in the worldwere law enforcement labs that
were in existence to confirmthat, when someone was arrested,
(10:39):
that what they were actuallyarrested for was actually
cannabis, and so a lab needed tocertify that it wasn't oregano,
that it was in fact acontrolled substance that they
were now a criminal for, andthere was no data available.
No, and they weren't quantifyinganything.
They were just saying, yes, thc, yeah, yeah, yes, weed, and.
And so I said you know what?
(11:00):
Yes, let's do this.
And I had also, at the sametime, just gotten accepted to
the business school program thatI had been planning to go full
time to, and I called them upand I said, hey, any way that I
can go part time for year one, Ineed to start a business.
Yeah, and they said, sure, noproblem, really, and that's
pretty cool.
There was already a part timeMBA program, but I just hadn't
(11:23):
applied for that one, I hadapplied for the full time
program.
And they said you're incannabis, right?
Speaker 2 (11:28):
Yeah, go from being coffee shop to trim to.
Ceo.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
Part time grad student yes, and so I I took
that first year of reallyincubating the business yeah,
and utilizing all the tools thatwere at my disposal while I was
in grad school and I had my mom, who was this incredible career
bookkeeper who showed me how toset up QuickBooks and taught me
how to be a bookkeeper so thatI could set up the first books
(11:52):
for the business and learn howto do payroll and all of the
basic things that you do, and wehad access to zero capital.
I mean, we raised $84,000 tostart the business all from
friends and family, and that isan incredible feat to start an
analytical lab with.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
What did you spend that money on?
Do you remember?
Speaker 1 (12:14):
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean it was to secure thelease on the space, to put the
down payment on the scientificequipment that we also leased,
and that's basically it.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
Yeah, that's all you need.
Speaker 1 (12:26):
And right, she figured out just straight up
sweat and hustle to open ourfirst accounts, and you know the
space that we rented to startsteep hill was right across the
street the street fromHarborside Health Center and
very quickly we formed apartnership with Harborside and
with Steve D'Angelo to testevery single product that was
(12:49):
coming through Harborside, whichwas an incredibly important
on-ramp for us to have enoughvariety and diversity of
cannabis to actually createvalid scientific methods.
Because, even if we knew a lotof people, we needed tons of
different cannabis to be able tomake sure that the scientific
methodology was correct.
And so Harborside had morecannabis coming through its
(13:13):
doors and more growers thanreally anywhere in the world.
If you ever went to the buyer'swaiting room at Harborside in
those years around 2009, at anygiven day, you'd probably have
50 different growers with duffelbags coming through that room
to show their cannabis to thebuyers, and at that time, all of
the cannabis that was coming todispensaries coming in turkey
(13:36):
bags.
It wasn't in final form product, it was deli style, right?
Yeah, and so they would bringcannabis in and then they would
hold it and give us a sample ofit.
Yeah, and we would test it,give them the test results, and
then they would put it out ontothe dispensary floor, the
original quarantine hold fortesting and to set the stage.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
Harborside legacy.
Other than the Berkeley patientgroup, I'm not aware of a more
historic and importantdispensary retail operator.
I agree with that.
You know, continuouslyoperating Steve D'Angelo father.
You know of California,cannabis legalization and
advocacy right, but that'sreally cool.
I mean the image you gave thereof you know prior to this
regulated model, and talkingabout how far we've come.
(14:15):
Right, got these guys coming inwith duffel bags.
You're putting it in like, I'massuming, a locked cage, taking
a sample.
Then they take that duffel bag,put it out on the floor and
tell, I mean, talk aboutcompared to where we are today.
Oh yeah, astronomically, what agreat um that's.
I can imagine.
How does it feel to walk intodispensaries these days?
Honestly, yeah.
Speaker 1 (14:37):
You know, I, I, I give us a lot of credit for
being the early movers thatintroduced potency testing for
the first time, and that washugely momentous, and I've said
it before, I said it on stageyesterday like we absolutely
changed the trajectory of theindustry and changed the world.
(14:57):
It was still a really hardbusiness and I also am very sad
of what a currency THC hasbecome at this point and how
focused consumers are on potencyas a way to create value for
products, and I wish that wecould have a more robust
methodology for consumers tocreate value for products than
(15:19):
just looking at THC.
Yeah, that said, we created thefirst THC testing.
We identified the first CVCstrains in the market.
We I, we created the first waysto do microbiological and
pesticide testing.
Um, was it perfect?
Is it perfect?
No, um, but I am really proudto see of all of the labs that
(15:43):
came after us and and the entiresector that we created.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
Yeah, so an entire sector?
Yeah, spanned, I mean it's.
It's really impressive.
Um, on practical politics, wereally do like to focus on some
of those like origin stories andthose key characteristics.
Right, we like to think, asyou've identified, you as a
person, started a sector, anindustry.
Right, lab testing within thiscannabis space.
You've talked about growing upwith a mom who was a bookkeeper.
(16:12):
You talked about your earlyactivism in the Castro District
in San Francisco at the heightof the AIDS movement in 1996.
Talked about starting the firstcannabis testing lab.
And now you know you obviouslyhave your strategic advisory
firm.
If you look at the continuum,like what are the values or
skills, like what are the thingsyou think that you utilize
every day that have helped youin that journey?
Speaker 1 (16:32):
Yeah, it's.
It's about problem solving andleadership and how, how we lead
through challenge and hard timesand how we identify what the
opportunities and the levers are, the options that are in front
of us.
I really look at making surethat I'm accepting the reality
of the market and theenvironment, be it the
(16:55):
legislative environment, theregulatory environment, the
market environment, getting outof denial about what the hopes
and dreams are, of what weaspire to be, and figuring out
how to make things manageableright right in front, while
still walking this line betweenambitious and achievable.
(17:16):
Um, like just just just settingour sights on things that are
achievable isn't good enough.
Like we have to have our eyeson things that are achievable
isn't good enough.
Like we have to have our eyeson things that are truly
ambitious, right Purposeoriented and visionary, and just
drive towards the ambitiouswhile we push the levers of
what's still achievable, yeah,every day.
(17:39):
And what I learned at Steep Hillthe biggest lessons for myself
there was that I didn't know howto be a CEO yet, yeah, and I
didn't have a mentor that showedme the way, and I hadn't worked
under a leader that had givenme the tools that I could take
(17:59):
and model when I became a leadermyself Because I was willing to
raise my hand and do somethingthat nobody had ever done before
and enter a space that wasbrand new.
I put myself in a leadershipposition before I was really
ready to be a leader, and thatmeant that when I decided to
move on from that role, that wasmy number one priority was to
(18:24):
figure out how to bolster my ownleadership, to find a CEO that
could mentor me and show me howhow to fill in the holes that I
found myself facing when I wasin a leadership role.
And that actually took me outof cannabis for a couple years,
yeah, but I ultimately came backto the space, thankful yeah, in
(18:46):
2016.
And a lot of that had to dowith another realization that I
had at steep hill early on.
That, I think, is relevant,especially within the political
realm that we're dealing withtoday, which was in 2010,.
There was an early legalizationmeasure in California that
failed Prop 19.
Yeah, and we started Steep Hillat the end of 2008, beginning
(19:08):
of 2009.
And we were sellingself-regulation.
We were going to dispensariesand trying to convince them to
do testing, because we wereshowing them that they could
show the world that they weretrying to be the best possible
player in an unregulatedenvironment, and that was great,
and some people raised theirhand and said, hey, we want to
(19:30):
be the best possible provider ofmedicine and we want to do
testing.
But the truth is is that, assoon as things get tough, people
cut the expenses that are notnecessary, that are the nice to
have Not required, and theylooked at testing as a nice to
have not a requirement, and wesee that today.
Now, fast forward all of thistime, you've got the 2014 and
(19:52):
2018 Farm Bill that opened up anew sector for hemp-derived
cannabinoids, and there is not alot of regulation yet in most
markets where hemp iscommercialized.
More and more, we're startingto see state-level kind of
patchwork of certain types ofregulations, but, largely,
looking at the federal landscape, no regulations specifically
(20:14):
for hemp, and the hemp industryis doing its best to try to
create a narrative about howthey're great players and how
they deserve to be there forbetter or for worse, like kind
of wherever you fall on that.
And there is this underlyingnarrative about self-regulation
and I appreciate it.
I appreciate that they'resaying, hey, we're creating this
(20:35):
manifesto of if you are a goodoperator, these are the things
that you do, and if you jointhis certain trade association,
you are pledging that you'regoing to be doing all of these
things.
And this is self-regulation atwork.
See, it works.
Look how great we are.
And I totally get why they'redoing it, and I also have a
healthy level of skepticism fromreal life experience.
(20:57):
We've been there before.
That's saying that, actually,when things are getting tough
and they're tough right now lookat what's happening in Texas
Companies who are at fear fortheir livelihood because they
might be shut down due to newprohibitions, I'm sure, are
saying well, is that last COEgood enough for us just to use
again?
Right, because I don't know if Ireally want to spend $1,200 on
(21:20):
a test right now.
Right, when all this inventorymight get embargoed because of a
potential legislative changethat's going to shut down this
whole state opportunity?
Yeah, that is whenself-regulation starts to
crumble and it's the reason whyregulation is so important,
right?
So, anyway, that's kind of thefast forward of like the lesson
(21:42):
from then to the lesson from now.
In between, there's lots ofother lessons that have been
learned, for sure, but this isdefinitely a lens that I wear
and it's interesting.
Over the years I've had a lotof people talk to me about lab
testing and even like privateequity has been really
interested in lab testingbecause it is something that
(22:02):
private equity understands.
There should be stable, shouldbe.
Yeah like they invest inpharmaceutical labs or in blood
testing labs and they're like,oh, maybe this is a safe way for
us to get into cannabis.
So I've done some discoverycalls with private equity over
the years and in the end, therewas a really good reason for me,
(22:23):
early on, to be excited aboutlab testing.
Ultimately, is that an areathat I think is still very
interesting?
Absolutely not.
I think it's very transactional.
It was really sexy back in theday.
We were doing something thatnobody had ever done before.
We were building accountability, yeah, and we were creating new
knowledge that nobody had.
Now it's a marketing tactic,yeah, and now it's a transaction
(22:48):
.
There isn't a lot ofdifferentiation between labs and
there's a lot of challenges,ultimately because of this
misplaced value on high potencyproducts, and so brands have
this terrible incentive to beworking with labs that will
inflate results and it's just.
It's a very, it's a veryunfortunate where the lab
(23:09):
testing world has gone, which isultimately why I didn't.
When I came back to cannabis,that wasn't an area that I
wanted to stick in and and Iknew that if I when I came back
to cannabis, that what I wantedto do was build and operate an
actual cannabis company, and sothat's what I did in 2016.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
So here we are and obviously you've got this
tremendous experience You've nowcultivated.
I love a good week and I'msorry you've cultivated this
leadership experience.
You have your MBA.
How have you transitioned yourearly ownership skills, operator
skills, and where are you atnow?
Speaker 1 (23:40):
Yeah, so, when I left NorCal Cannabis at the end of
2021, I was really excited aboutall of the different states
that were emerging with newlabel programs and I explored
actually moving to New YorkState and starting a company
there, because I was excitedabout the MRTA and what had
happened, but at the time itwasn't really clear how it was
(24:04):
going to be commercialized andwhat the licensing process was.
There was no regulatory rolloutat that point and I was just
sort of waiting, and so duringthat waiting period, as I was
thinking about if I wanted topick up my family and move to
the East Coast, I just leanedinto this tremendous network of
cannabis leaders and businessesthat I have accumulated over all
(24:26):
these years in the space andjust were people in my network
that asked me to help them withdifferent strategic issues or
challenges that they were havinginside their company, but also
outside, and my experience isreally both.
(24:47):
I worked on a lot of bothexternal affairs and corporate
development stuff, but I alsobuilt and scaled the
infrastructure of a company fromnothing to 1200 people and then
went through like a majordownsizing activity as well, and
so I just know about all thepains.
I know about building a company, figuring out how to structure
teams, and I also know aboutlike sitting at the table with
(25:08):
investors how to figure out howto mutually align everybody's
incentives together, becauseI've been through it all.
I've been through veryunmutually aligned processes and
fixing those things, andsometimes the biggest mistakes
that we've made are the biggestlessons.
The things that I can raise myhand at and say were the biggest
(25:29):
wins aren't the things that Iuse every day in my work, but
it's the mistakes that I madealong the way.
And so I just started helpingpeople in my network and then I
thought, wow, I really love thisand I love the relationship
that I'm getting to have withCEOs and boards from the outside
of being a mirror, holding upan honest truth, an honest truth
back to them.
(25:49):
Yeah, because what happensinside of companies often is
that there's a lot of yes peoplethat surround executive teams
and certainly CEOs, becausethey're looking out for
themselves or they bought intothe CEO's vision.
I mean, sometimes it's trulyauthentic that they are really
yes people because they've comeup with a vision together and
they believe in it and they'redriving towards it.
But it gets vacuous and Irealized pretty quickly that I
(26:13):
felt really comfortable beingtruly honest about what I was
seeing in the marketplace andall the other cannabis companies
that I was seeing the ones thatI had worked in, the others in
the market or is it the same?
Or how are they looking attheir own internal business
(26:41):
systems compared to what Ithought maybe they could do
instead and just being a truthteller, really driving forward,
being a person that was willingto say the things to a CEO that
their team wouldn't?
Speaker 2 (26:55):
Sounds like you were trying to find feel what you
needed when you were a CEO.
Speaker 1 (27:00):
Yeah, absolutely Like I realized that I needed
mentorship when I was inleadership roles and it's not
always easy to find it and whenI started working with different
clients, I realized that whatthey were doing was asking me to
be that person.
Yeah, and it's a hard thing toexplain of what that
relationship is like.
Yeah, oh, it's kind of like afractional chief strategy
(27:23):
officer and a business coach forthe CEO.
Yeah, and it changes dependingon the person and and what it is
that they're looking for andwhat the company needs.
Yeah, but quickly it evolvedfrom just being someone that
could give the CEO advice toactually building on and
(27:44):
developing the frameworks that Isee as my approach towards
solving big problems and what mystrategy process is for helping
companies to figure out whattheir purpose is at the highest
level, but then also what theirexecution focused objectives and
goals are that can then tailordown to helping every single
(28:05):
person in a company understandwhat winning is, and I know from
my own experience that it canbe really challenging to win
when only the executive teamknows what winning is and that
downstream in the company,people are just so caught up in
the hamster wheel of their microactions that they don't
understand the bigger picture.
So I've really taken anapproach that's sort of this
(28:28):
three-pillared approach tostrategy that starts with
encouraging and facilitating andhelping leadership teams which
I see as both the board but alsothe executive management team,
which is different structuresand different companies
depending on where they are intheir progression of startup to
more fully developed toidentifying what their
(28:51):
foundational brand pillars arewhat is their purpose, their
mission, their values, right,and then from that that's kind
of step one.
That's your foundation.
Then you can build the buildingright on top.
The structure is the objectives, that's who you want to be in
the market, what are the thingsthat you're really going to go
and tackle in the next 12 to 24months and actually do, and what
(29:14):
are the numbers that you canput behind them in terms of the
quantitative goals that you'regoing to reach.
Interesting, and if you can getto this place of three to six
quantitative goals that mean thecompany is actualizing its
objectives in the market, thenyou can take those goals and you
can start building structuresof what is the third step of
strategy, which is thedownstream goals and KPIs that
(29:38):
are much more focused onindividual business units, be it
the cultivation, or the brandactivities, the sales activities
and also the other moreinternal activities, be it HR,
hiring and accounting and andall those things.
And so I can I help facilitatethat whole process and all of
those things.
And so I can I help facilitatethat whole process and I can run
(29:59):
behind the companies andactually help them execute it,
depending on what their internalresources are.
Sometimes it's about coachingtheir directors and managers
about how to decide what thoseKPIs are with their teams, or
sometimes it's actuallyfacilitating those processes
together and then often thosehigh level goals.
The output is that they want todo something big and expansive
(30:20):
that they've never done before.
Like I have a client right nowthat, through that facilitated
strategic process, has decidedthat they want to become an
employee owned company and theywant to become an ESOC team, and
it's really exciting and so.
So now I'm working onassembling kind of what that
team might be like and trying toput a plan together, because
they don't have anyone on theirteam that is equipped to do that
(30:42):
and I can assemble that action.
Or similarly, I've got anotherclient that is working on trying
to move their whole companytowards profitability, and so we
are figuring out how to aligncompensation incentives across
their whole company toprofitability, starting with how
they look at wholesalecompensation.
(31:03):
What is commission now?
Well, it's top line, and sosalespeople are making sales
that are negative margin, butthey're still getting commission
on them.
That doesn't make sense.
How do we create a newstructure?
And sometimes that needs to bedone more from the outside.
I can be this person that'slike hey, I want to help empower
you, but I also want to just behonest with you that I'm seeing
(31:23):
that this isn't necessarily anaction that's serving you right
now, and let's think about howelse we can get there and be
that outside voice in the roomthat's willing to be a truth
teller and also willing to helppush forward decision making,
and that's willing to be a truthteller and also willing to help
push forward decision making,and I think if you were to give
a couple of quick pieces ofadvice for our listeners.
Speaker 2 (31:41):
how do you coach CEOs to give bad news?
That's a hard thing to do.
Speaker 1 (31:53):
Yeah, I think that, as leaders, people often think
of themselves as having acertain archetype.
Maybe they're a visionaryleader, maybe they're a very
directive leader.
But as a CEO especially asyou're facing having to give bad
news, sometimes like we need todownsize or we have to close a
market or things just aren'tgoing the way that we want
there's this framework that Ilove.
Daniel Goleman is a wonderfulwriter who writes about
leadership and he talks aboutthe six different types of
(32:16):
leaders and the idea is that asleaders, we can switch and flow
to meet the moment, and it'sreally important to meet the
moment.
And if you're going to tellpeople something that is really
challenging and really hard, youneed to think about who they
need you to be as a leader tohear that information.
And that might mean that youhave to put on a different hat
(32:41):
of go outside of your regularrepertoire, which might be
highly collaborative.
But if you are highlycollaborative but yet have made
a decision that you're going toshut down a market or downsize a
company 20% and you need todeliver that news, you need to
be firm, clear and directive,showing that there has been a
(33:03):
tremendous amount of thought andthat the decision is made and
that there's no going back.
And yeah, that is the advicethat I give CEOs is to figure
out how to meet the moment andand to be there for the people
the way that they, the way thatthey need to be met.
Speaker 2 (33:20):
And I love how you talk about winning right, I
don't.
You have to wait.
You have to celebrate every winin any space, especially in
emerging markets, where we'rebuilding the plane as we're
flying it.
Any tips on how to celebrate awin?
Speaker 1 (33:31):
Loudly and all the time, like creating space for it
.
You know, I I talk a lot aboutcreating a rhythm of business
and I teach leaders to do thatand starting with CEOs and then
downstream, of the way that wecreate meetings inside of our
teams, whether it be the one onones or the department meetings
(33:52):
or the quarterly and monthlybusiness reviews but that those
meetings should all fall intosome sort of predictable
framework that the people whoparticipate in them kind of know
what they're coming to.
It's like an agenda that existsahead of time and that
different people have differentlevels of accountability within
that agenda.
And there should always bespace for celebrating wins every
(34:12):
single time, so that people getused to thinking about wins as
they come, because often we justsail past them.
Oh, that thing worked.
But if people know that once aweek on their weekly sales
meeting, their national salesmeeting call, there's going to
be a five minute block wherethere's a space where everyone
is encouraged to share a win,then people are going to think
(34:33):
of those wins, and often thewins are small, yeah, but just
thinking.
But we have to stack them andwe have to make space for them
all of the time, especially in atransparent, collaborative way,
so that we're seeing who theother people are that we're
winning with and that inspiresus to also, like, want to meet
that moment and to win ourselveswhat still shocks you about
what you have to explain aboutthe industry.
Speaker 2 (34:53):
I mean, you're such a longstanding leader, you've got
such a network right.
You've talked about that, likewhen you meet normies, as Jordan
Wellington calls them, whatstill shocks you?
That you have to explain topeople about regulated state,
legal or even hemp Like whatstill shocks people.
Speaker 1 (35:10):
In general, the people that don't work in the
industry just absolutely have noidea how the industry works.
They don't understand thatthere is an interstate commerce,
that there is not the abilityto bank in basic ways.
It's that there is not aconsumer and a broad sense of
(35:36):
what we face as cannabisbusinesses.
And so you really just have tostart at the basics every single
time in a real business.
Yeah, yeah, we have to start atthe basics, and it surprises me
, but also it actually hasgotten me to a place that I have
stopped being surprised,because it's helped me to
understand that.
Actually, of course, why do wein the industry have an
(35:59):
expectation that the consumersor the people that work in other
sectors are going to understandthe challenges that we face or
that the way that our supplychain works?
Just as much as I don'tunderstand the Cheetos supply
chain and how it works for themto make that that cheesy crunchy
thing in a plastic bag, that Iwould probably surprise.
It would probably surprise meto learn about how that all
comes together.
(36:19):
But when people are looking,especially like I talked to I
talked to financial analystsfrom around the world often that
are looking at differentopportunities for investment as
part of a diligence process,like somebody might call me up
and and often it's like explainto me how this works.
And they really need me tostart at the very beginning,
yeah, and explaining that inevery state there's licensing,
(36:42):
and even within each state, thatthe way that the transactions
move are different.
Some have required distributionand some don't.
Oh, yeah, yeah, the whole thing.
And and then what I have beenmost surprised by which you
didn't ask, but that I have beenmost surprised by over the last
year is is not just hempbroadly, but but really what
(37:06):
hemp has proven and the lessonthat hemp has has helped me to
understand, which is just thatthere is an enormous amount of
opportunity in front of us inthe cannabinoid space, because
there's still today, after allof these years, is an enormous
amount of unmet demand all overthe place, and the fact that
(37:30):
hemp has gotten the amount oftraction that it has just proves
that there is a tremendousamount of people that aren't
being served by the medical andthe adult use markets that exist
in states for some reason oranother, be it that the channel
isn't the right fit.
They don't want to go to adispensary.
There isn't a dispensary,whatever it is.
There's a huge amount ofexcitement around trying these
(37:52):
products and that keeps mereally excited about the future.
Yeah, and resolute to keepsolving the biggest problems and
to building businesses that areimbued with a sense of purpose
and leadership truly likebuilding to long term,
sustainable success in theindustry.
Speaker 2 (38:08):
Thank you so much.
And for our listeners, wherecan they find your podcast and
get more information about you?
Speaker 1 (38:12):
Oh, yeah, and so in addition to Wolfmeyer, I have a
weekly podcast called HighSpirits that I do with Ben
Larson, who's a close friend,and we are on all of the podcast
platforms, so you just look forus there and we also record
live on LinkedIn.
So if you want to hang out withus while we record and comment,
you can find us there at theHigh Spirits LinkedIn page.
(38:33):
I'm extremely easy to find onLinkedIn.
That's the easiest place youcan message me if you want to
get to know me, andwolf-meyercom is my website and
there's a contact form and youcan reach out about anything
that you want to know.
Speaker 2 (38:45):
Thank you for joining me today on Practical Politics.
If you enjoyed thisconversation, be sure to like
and subscribe.
I'm Sabrina, your lobbyist ladyreminding you that every policy
has a person behind it.
Thanks for listening.
Welcome to episode 94 of High Spirits.
I'm your co-host, anna RaeGrabstein, and it's Thursday,
june 26th 2025.
Today we are sharing an episodeof the Practical Politics
podcast hosted by my friend,sabrina Noah, that I recently
recorded with her while we wereboth in Denver.
We talk about my origin storyin cannabis and a whole lot more
(00:40):
.
I hope you enjoy it Withoutfurther ado.
Here's Practical Politics.
We have to have our eyes onthings that are truly ambitious,
purpose-oriented and visionary,and just drive towards the
ambitious while we push thelevers of what's still
achievable.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
Welcome to Practical Politics, the podcast that takes
you inside the room wheredecisions actually happen.
I'm Sabrina Noah, the lobbyist.
Takes you inside the room wheredecisions actually happen.
I'm Sabrina Noah, the lobbyistlady bringing you conversations
with the people who live andbreathe the politics and
policymaking process.
We're here at the InternationalCannabis Bar Association
meeting and I'm so excited to bejoined by Anna Rae Gravstein.
Anna Rae is currently astrategic advisor in the
(01:21):
industry and we are so excitedthat she's here.
Anna Rae and I have beenfriends now since oh my gosh
2013 or 16, when you came backinto the industry Longtime
leader, huge binder nerd likemyself in regulations and just
we're really excited to have herhere to talk about her new
business, a strategic advisoryfirm.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
I'm the founder and CEO of Wolfmeyer and we are a
strategic advisory firm.
I work with cannabis operatorsand ancillary businesses who are
working across the cannabissupply chain in various ways.
We solve big problems andcreate growth to help companies
accelerate from where they areand also to do transformation
(01:59):
work, to fix big problems, to bedriving towards profitability.
And my origin story in cannabisis really it goes deep.
I grew up in San Francisco.
I got my first job at a coffeeshop at the corner of 18th and
Castro when I was 15 years old,and that was 1996.
(02:20):
And 1996 was the year that Prop215 was on the ballot yeah, and
Prop 215 really was burst outof of the gay AIDS crisis that
was centered in the Castro, andthat was where I happened to be
working center and while Iwasn't old enough to vote.
This was long before socialmedia and when people were
(02:43):
organizing, they were organizingon the streets and coffee shops
were the center of all of that,and so I was working behind the
espresso machine, but I waswitness to an incredible social
movement, one that was at myfingertips, and so I wouldn't
say that I became an activist.
I was really more a witness,but it planted a seed that I
(03:05):
didn't even realize was a seedthat was in me.
That really became activatedmany years later, in 2004, when
I finished up at UC Santa Cruzand was trying to figure out
what my next thing that I wasgoing to do after college was,
and a friend invited me to comeand participate in harvest in
Mendocino at a Prop 215 farm,and I met friends that fall that
(03:32):
became my chosen family, likemy community truly Can you
describe what a Prop 215 farmand a harvest looks like?
Speaker 2 (03:39):
Just for totally question.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
So Willits, california, small rural
community in Mendocino County.
The 101 is the freeway thatgoes through town, but it's
really just a one-lane road inboth directions and Dirt Road
deep deep into the hills up ontop of a ridge because that's
(04:03):
where cannabis grows best facingthe southern sun, and the
property was probably about 80acres, but the farm was not the
farm you know, just probablytook up, I don't know, maybe two
acres up at the top of theridge and so a lot of rugged
terrain.
You'd get there.
You'd need to leave your carsort of at a clearing at the
(04:24):
entrance to the property and youdrive up to where the farm and
all the activities were in afour wheeler and there were a
few structures but there wasn'ta house, there wasn't
traditional running water, itwas all totally off the grid.
And we're camping this entiretime.
You camped the whole time andthere were about 40 people that
(04:46):
were there for harvest and mostof them were trimmers and there
was probably about three to fourpeople that had worked on the
farm and whose farm it was, thathad been there throughout the
whole growing cycle.
But come October, when it'stime to harvest all the plants,
they'd bring all of thesetrimmers up and all the trimmers
would have a tent and theywould set up a camp and nobody
(05:07):
would leave the mountain andeveryone would spend all day
trimming and the trimmers weregetting paid $200 a pound cash
and you could probably trim.
If you were a really badtrimmer, you could trim a pound
a day, but the good trimmerscould trim up to four pounds a
day.
So it was pretty sweet, youknow, tax free cash.
Yeah, I actually was invited tobe what they called the trim mom
(05:31):
because I grew up in thehospitality industry.
My family owned a restaurantand all through college I was
always really into cooking andso my friend who invited me to
the farm said you were reallygreat at cooking.
This farm I'm going to go be atrimmer at is looking for
someone to cook for the trimmersand to be the supply person.
That is the only one thatleaves the mountain.
Yeah, and um wow, and they'llgive you ten thousand dollars of
(05:52):
cash at six weeks camping, andI was fresh out of college and
didn't have a job yet andthought that sounds fun summer
camp for weed trimmers?
yeah, like why not?
Um?
And I didn't really realizethat it would change the
trajectory of my life and mycareer, but it seemed like a
great thing to do while I triedto figure out the rest of my
life.
Yeah, and so I went up thereand I did all the cooking for
(06:18):
all the trimmers and I was theone that left the mountain and
went to get supplies.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
You grew up in San Francisco.
You see the movement at thebeginning from the Castro
district.
You have this really organic,almost summer camp experience.
How do you turn that into anMBA and be a fabulous
businesswoman?
Speaker 1 (06:34):
Yeah Well, so I grew up with a mom who was a
bookkeeper and she had an innatesense of just business all the
time, of, like, creating formand function within chaos.
That was her role in her, withher clients, and I think that
she gave that to me in terms ofthe way that she raised me.
And so when I started to getexposed to cannabis, I started
(06:57):
paying attention of, like, whatis going on.
There's a lot of cash, seemslike everyone is doing so well,
but nobody seems to be payingattention to anything.
Nobody's bills are getting paid, yeah, yeah, yeah.
And so I realized that therewas this massive opportunity.
The entrepreneur in me was like, wow, people are doing really
well, but nobody seems to knowwhat the heck is going on.
(07:20):
And I was very early in my owndevelopment.
Like I said, I was fresh out ofcollege trying to figure out
what I wanted to do, and so Iended up leaving the mountain
and I got a job in workforcedevelopment, working for a
nonprofit, and I very quicklyrealized that nonprofits weren't
for me.
And at the same time, I hadthis new, established community
of cannabis cultivation andpeople that were cultivating all
(07:43):
over the Bay Area.
From my experience in Mendocinoand I was just saying, loosely
engaged with those friends, andthrough all of that I was like,
wow, there is somethinghappening here, there is more
business happening in cannabis,and I really wanted to explore
that some more.
And so I decided that I wantedto go to grad school for
business and I wanted to be ableto bring business acumen to
(08:06):
cannabis, and so I went on thislittle journey of trying to
figure out what that would looklike, and while I was doing that
, I was trying to talk to peoplethat were doing more than grow
within the cannabis space, andthat landed me.
I moved to Oakland because Idecided I was going to go to
grad school in San Francisco andjust was doing all the
networking that I could withinthe cannabis advocacy community.
(08:29):
Within the businesses thatexisted At that time, the
growers were deep, deep in theshadows, so it wasn't like there
were brands like there are now,but the businesses that were
out of the shadows were thedispensaries, and it was still
very clandestine in terms of thestructure of which they all
operated in, because therewasn't a regulatory framework.
It was this very loose Prop 215.
(08:49):
Yeah, time, yeah, I just madesure that I understood what was
happening in that space andthrough that I met the two guys
who became my co founders atsteep hill lab, and they had the
idea already and they also hadcome out of the cannabis
cultivation community.
One of them had been a longtime cultivator, the other was
(09:10):
really just a broker hustlerwho'd been moving cannabis
throughout the state for a longtime and and everybody had
friends that thought they hadthe best cannabis.
Everybody and, um, and nobodyreally had any information by
which to tell you whose cannabiswas actually the best.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
It was all anecdotal.
It would just be like oneperson would smoke it and have
an opinion.
There was no analytics, therewasn't potency, there were no
labels 100%.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
And so these guys had come up with the idea of we
need to start the first cannabislab.
And I met them and I was in theprocess of applying to business
school I hadn't even gotten inyet but they immediately
identified in me that I was.
I was the business mind of thethree of us.
One of them was the science guy, the other one was more the
sales guy and all of a suddenthey found me and I was the
(09:58):
business mind.
Yeah, and within a few days ofmeeting them they said come be
the CEO.
We need to start this business.
That's pretty cool and I thoughtI'm not ready to be a CEO.
What the heck, I can't be a CEO.
I've never been a CEO.
And I went home and I slept onit and I talked to who was at
(10:19):
the time my boyfriend, who's nowmy husband, and my baby daddy
and I thought you know when inyour life do you get an
opportunity like this to dosomething that nobody has ever
done before?
At that time, the only labsthat were doing any type of
cannabis testing in the worldwere law enforcement labs that
were in existence to confirmthat, when someone was arrested,
(10:39):
that what they were actuallyarrested for was actually
cannabis, and so a lab needed tocertify that it wasn't oregano,
that it was in fact acontrolled substance that they
were now a criminal for, andthere was no data available.
No, and they weren't quantifyinganything.
They were just saying, yes, thc, yeah, yeah, yes, weed, and.
And so I said you know what?
(11:00):
Yes, let's do this.
And I had also, at the sametime, just gotten accepted to
the business school program thatI had been planning to go full
time to, and I called them upand I said, hey, any way that I
can go part time for year one, Ineed to start a business.
Yeah, and they said, sure, noproblem, really, and that's
pretty cool.
There was already a part timeMBA program, but I just hadn't
(11:23):
applied for that one, I hadapplied for the full time
program.
And they said you're incannabis, right?
Speaker 2 (11:28):
Yeah, go from being coffee shop to trim to.
Ceo.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
Part time grad student yes, and so I I took
that first year of reallyincubating the business yeah,
and utilizing all the tools thatwere at my disposal while I was
in grad school and I had my mom, who was this incredible career
bookkeeper who showed me how toset up QuickBooks and taught me
how to be a bookkeeper so thatI could set up the first books
(11:52):
for the business and learn howto do payroll and all of the
basic things that you do, and wehad access to zero capital.
I mean, we raised $84,000 tostart the business all from
friends and family, and that isan incredible feat to start an
analytical lab with.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
What did you spend that money on?
Do you remember?
Speaker 1 (12:14):
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean it was to secure thelease on the space, to put the
down payment on the scientificequipment that we also leased,
and that's basically it.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
Yeah, that's all you need.
Speaker 1 (12:26):
And right, she figured out just straight up
sweat and hustle to open ourfirst accounts, and you know the
space that we rented to startsteep hill was right across the
street the street fromHarborside Health Center and
very quickly we formed apartnership with Harborside and
with Steve D'Angelo to testevery single product that was
(12:49):
coming through Harborside, whichwas an incredibly important
on-ramp for us to have enoughvariety and diversity of
cannabis to actually createvalid scientific methods.
Because, even if we knew a lotof people, we needed tons of
different cannabis to be able tomake sure that the scientific
methodology was correct.
And so Harborside had morecannabis coming through its
(13:13):
doors and more growers thanreally anywhere in the world.
If you ever went to the buyer'swaiting room at Harborside in
those years around 2009, at anygiven day, you'd probably have
50 different growers with duffelbags coming through that room
to show their cannabis to thebuyers, and at that time, all of
the cannabis that was coming todispensaries coming in turkey
(13:36):
bags.
It wasn't in final form product, it was deli style, right?
Yeah, and so they would bringcannabis in and then they would
hold it and give us a sample ofit.
Yeah, and we would test it,give them the test results, and
then they would put it out ontothe dispensary floor, the
original quarantine hold fortesting and to set the stage.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
Harborside legacy.
Other than the Berkeley patientgroup, I'm not aware of a more
historic and importantdispensary retail operator.
I agree with that.
You know, continuouslyoperating Steve D'Angelo father.
You know of California,cannabis legalization and
advocacy right, but that'sreally cool.
I mean the image you gave thereof you know prior to this
regulated model, and talkingabout how far we've come.
(14:15):
Right, got these guys coming inwith duffel bags.
You're putting it in like, I'massuming, a locked cage, taking
a sample.
Then they take that duffel bag,put it out on the floor and
tell, I mean, talk aboutcompared to where we are today.
Oh yeah, astronomically, what agreat um that's.
I can imagine.
How does it feel to walk intodispensaries these days?
Honestly, yeah.
Speaker 1 (14:37):
You know, I, I, I give us a lot of credit for
being the early movers thatintroduced potency testing for
the first time, and that washugely momentous, and I've said
it before, I said it on stageyesterday like we absolutely
changed the trajectory of theindustry and changed the world.
(14:57):
It was still a really hardbusiness and I also am very sad
of what a currency THC hasbecome at this point and how
focused consumers are on potencyas a way to create value for
products, and I wish that wecould have a more robust
methodology for consumers tocreate value for products than
(15:19):
just looking at THC.
Yeah, that said, we created thefirst THC testing.
We identified the first CVCstrains in the market.
We I, we created the first waysto do microbiological and
pesticide testing.
Um, was it perfect?
Is it perfect?
No, um, but I am really proudto see of all of the labs that
(15:43):
came after us and and the entiresector that we created.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
Yeah, so an entire sector?
Yeah, spanned, I mean it's.
It's really impressive.
Um, on practical politics, wereally do like to focus on some
of those like origin stories andthose key characteristics.
Right, we like to think, asyou've identified, you as a
person, started a sector, anindustry.
Right, lab testing within thiscannabis space.
You've talked about growing upwith a mom who was a bookkeeper.
(16:12):
You talked about your earlyactivism in the Castro District
in San Francisco at the heightof the AIDS movement in 1996.
Talked about starting the firstcannabis testing lab.
And now you know you obviouslyhave your strategic advisory
firm.
If you look at the continuum,like what are the values or
skills, like what are the thingsyou think that you utilize
every day that have helped youin that journey?
Speaker 1 (16:32):
Yeah, it's.
It's about problem solving andleadership and how, how we lead
through challenge and hard timesand how we identify what the
opportunities and the levers are, the options that are in front
of us.
I really look at making surethat I'm accepting the reality
of the market and theenvironment, be it the
(16:55):
legislative environment, theregulatory environment, the
market environment, getting outof denial about what the hopes
and dreams are, of what weaspire to be, and figuring out
how to make things manageableright right in front, while
still walking this line betweenambitious and achievable.
(17:16):
Um, like just just just settingour sights on things that are
achievable isn't good enough.
Like we have to have our eyeson things that are achievable
isn't good enough.
Like we have to have our eyeson things that are truly
ambitious, right Purposeoriented and visionary, and just
drive towards the ambitiouswhile we push the levers of
what's still achievable, yeah,every day.
(17:39):
And what I learned at Steep Hillthe biggest lessons for myself
there was that I didn't know howto be a CEO yet, yeah, and I
didn't have a mentor that showedme the way, and I hadn't worked
under a leader that had givenme the tools that I could take
(17:59):
and model when I became a leadermyself Because I was willing to
raise my hand and do somethingthat nobody had ever done before
and enter a space that wasbrand new.
I put myself in a leadershipposition before I was really
ready to be a leader, and thatmeant that when I decided to
move on from that role, that wasmy number one priority was to
(18:24):
figure out how to bolster my ownleadership, to find a CEO that
could mentor me and show me howhow to fill in the holes that I
found myself facing when I wasin a leadership role.
And that actually took me outof cannabis for a couple years,
yeah, but I ultimately came backto the space, thankful yeah, in
(18:46):
2016.
And a lot of that had to dowith another realization that I
had at steep hill early on.
That, I think, is relevant,especially within the political
realm that we're dealing withtoday, which was in 2010,.
There was an early legalizationmeasure in California that
failed Prop 19.
Yeah, and we started Steep Hillat the end of 2008, beginning
(19:08):
of 2009.
And we were sellingself-regulation.
We were going to dispensariesand trying to convince them to
do testing, because we wereshowing them that they could
show the world that they weretrying to be the best possible
player in an unregulatedenvironment, and that was great,
and some people raised theirhand and said, hey, we want to
(19:30):
be the best possible provider ofmedicine and we want to do
testing.
But the truth is is that, assoon as things get tough, people
cut the expenses that are notnecessary, that are the nice to
have Not required, and theylooked at testing as a nice to
have not a requirement, and wesee that today.
Now, fast forward all of thistime, you've got the 2014 and
(19:52):
2018 Farm Bill that opened up anew sector for hemp-derived
cannabinoids, and there is not alot of regulation yet in most
markets where hemp iscommercialized.
More and more, we're startingto see state-level kind of
patchwork of certain types ofregulations, but, largely,
looking at the federal landscape, no regulations specifically
(20:14):
for hemp, and the hemp industryis doing its best to try to
create a narrative about howthey're great players and how
they deserve to be there forbetter or for worse, like kind
of wherever you fall on that.
And there is this underlyingnarrative about self-regulation
and I appreciate it.
I appreciate that they'resaying, hey, we're creating this
(20:35):
manifesto of if you are a goodoperator, these are the things
that you do, and if you jointhis certain trade association,
you are pledging that you'regoing to be doing all of these
things.
And this is self-regulation atwork.
See, it works.
Look how great we are.
And I totally get why they'redoing it, and I also have a
healthy level of skepticism fromreal life experience.
(20:57):
We've been there before.
That's saying that, actually,when things are getting tough
and they're tough right now lookat what's happening in Texas
Companies who are at fear fortheir livelihood because they
might be shut down due to newprohibitions, I'm sure, are
saying well, is that last COEgood enough for us just to use
again?
Right, because I don't know if Ireally want to spend $1,200 on
(21:20):
a test right now.
Right, when all this inventorymight get embargoed because of a
potential legislative changethat's going to shut down this
whole state opportunity?
Yeah, that is whenself-regulation starts to
crumble and it's the reason whyregulation is so important,
right?
So, anyway, that's kind of thefast forward of like the lesson
(21:42):
from then to the lesson from now.
In between, there's lots ofother lessons that have been
learned, for sure, but this isdefinitely a lens that I wear
and it's interesting.
Over the years I've had a lotof people talk to me about lab
testing and even like privateequity has been really
interested in lab testingbecause it is something that
(22:02):
private equity understands.
There should be stable, shouldbe.
Yeah like they invest inpharmaceutical labs or in blood
testing labs and they're like,oh, maybe this is a safe way for
us to get into cannabis.
So I've done some discoverycalls with private equity over
the years and in the end, therewas a really good reason for me,
(22:23):
early on, to be excited aboutlab testing.
Ultimately, is that an areathat I think is still very
interesting?
Absolutely not.
I think it's very transactional.
It was really sexy back in theday.
We were doing something thatnobody had ever done before.
We were building accountability, yeah, and we were creating new
knowledge that nobody had.
Now it's a marketing tactic,yeah, and now it's a transaction
(22:48):
.
There isn't a lot ofdifferentiation between labs and
there's a lot of challenges,ultimately because of this
misplaced value on high potencyproducts, and so brands have
this terrible incentive to beworking with labs that will
inflate results and it's just.
It's a very, it's a veryunfortunate where the lab
(23:09):
testing world has gone, which isultimately why I didn't.
When I came back to cannabis,that wasn't an area that I
wanted to stick in and and Iknew that if I when I came back
to cannabis, that what I wantedto do was build and operate an
actual cannabis company, and sothat's what I did in 2016.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
So here we are and obviously you've got this
tremendous experience You've nowcultivated.
I love a good week and I'msorry you've cultivated this
leadership experience.
You have your MBA.
How have you transitioned yourearly ownership skills, operator
skills, and where are you atnow?
Speaker 1 (23:40):
Yeah, so, when I left NorCal Cannabis at the end of
2021, I was really excited aboutall of the different states
that were emerging with newlabel programs and I explored
actually moving to New YorkState and starting a company
there, because I was excitedabout the MRTA and what had
happened, but at the time itwasn't really clear how it was
(24:04):
going to be commercialized andwhat the licensing process was.
There was no regulatory rolloutat that point and I was just
sort of waiting, and so duringthat waiting period, as I was
thinking about if I wanted topick up my family and move to
the East Coast, I just leanedinto this tremendous network of
cannabis leaders and businessesthat I have accumulated over all
(24:26):
these years in the space andjust were people in my network
that asked me to help them withdifferent strategic issues or
challenges that they were havinginside their company, but also
outside, and my experience isreally both.
(24:47):
I worked on a lot of bothexternal affairs and corporate
development stuff, but I alsobuilt and scaled the
infrastructure of a company fromnothing to 1200 people and then
went through like a majordownsizing activity as well, and
so I just know about all thepains.
I know about building a company, figuring out how to structure
teams, and I also know aboutlike sitting at the table with
(25:08):
investors how to figure out howto mutually align everybody's
incentives together, becauseI've been through it all.
I've been through veryunmutually aligned processes and
fixing those things, andsometimes the biggest mistakes
that we've made are the biggestlessons.
The things that I can raise myhand at and say were the biggest
(25:29):
wins aren't the things that Iuse every day in my work, but
it's the mistakes that I madealong the way.
And so I just started helpingpeople in my network and then I
thought, wow, I really love thisand I love the relationship
that I'm getting to have withCEOs and boards from the outside
of being a mirror, holding upan honest truth, an honest truth
back to them.
(25:49):
Yeah, because what happensinside of companies often is
that there's a lot of yes peoplethat surround executive teams
and certainly CEOs, becausethey're looking out for
themselves or they bought intothe CEO's vision.
I mean, sometimes it's trulyauthentic that they are really
yes people because they've comeup with a vision together and
they believe in it and they'redriving towards it.
But it gets vacuous and Irealized pretty quickly that I
(26:13):
felt really comfortable beingtruly honest about what I was
seeing in the marketplace andall the other cannabis companies
that I was seeing the ones thatI had worked in, the others in
the market or is it the same?
Or how are they looking attheir own internal business
(26:41):
systems compared to what Ithought maybe they could do
instead and just being a truthteller, really driving forward,
being a person that was willingto say the things to a CEO that
their team wouldn't?
Speaker 2 (26:55):
Sounds like you were trying to find feel what you
needed when you were a CEO.
Speaker 1 (27:00):
Yeah, absolutely Like I realized that I needed
mentorship when I was inleadership roles and it's not
always easy to find it and whenI started working with different
clients, I realized that whatthey were doing was asking me to
be that person.
Yeah, and it's a hard thing toexplain of what that
relationship is like.
Yeah, oh, it's kind of like afractional chief strategy
(27:23):
officer and a business coach forthe CEO.
Yeah, and it changes dependingon the person and and what it is
that they're looking for andwhat the company needs.
Yeah, but quickly it evolvedfrom just being someone that
could give the CEO advice toactually building on and
(27:44):
developing the frameworks that Isee as my approach towards
solving big problems and what mystrategy process is for helping
companies to figure out whattheir purpose is at the highest
level, but then also what theirexecution focused objectives and
goals are that can then tailordown to helping every single
(28:05):
person in a company understandwhat winning is, and I know from
my own experience that it canbe really challenging to win
when only the executive teamknows what winning is and that
downstream in the company,people are just so caught up in
the hamster wheel of their microactions that they don't
understand the bigger picture.
So I've really taken anapproach that's sort of this
(28:28):
three-pillared approach tostrategy that starts with
encouraging and facilitating andhelping leadership teams which
I see as both the board but alsothe executive management team,
which is different structuresand different companies
depending on where they are intheir progression of startup to
more fully developed toidentifying what their
(28:51):
foundational brand pillars arewhat is their purpose, their
mission, their values, right,and then from that that's kind
of step one.
That's your foundation.
Then you can build the buildingright on top.
The structure is the objectives, that's who you want to be in
the market, what are the thingsthat you're really going to go
and tackle in the next 12 to 24months and actually do, and what
(29:14):
are the numbers that you canput behind them in terms of the
quantitative goals that you'regoing to reach.
Interesting, and if you can getto this place of three to six
quantitative goals that mean thecompany is actualizing its
objectives in the market, thenyou can take those goals and you
can start building structuresof what is the third step of
strategy, which is thedownstream goals and KPIs that
(29:38):
are much more focused onindividual business units, be it
the cultivation, or the brandactivities, the sales activities
and also the other moreinternal activities, be it HR,
hiring and accounting and andall those things.
And so I can I help facilitatethat whole process and all of
those things.
And so I can I help facilitatethat whole process and I can run
(29:59):
behind the companies andactually help them execute it,
depending on what their internalresources are.
Sometimes it's about coachingtheir directors and managers
about how to decide what thoseKPIs are with their teams, or
sometimes it's actuallyfacilitating those processes
together and then often thosehigh level goals.
The output is that they want todo something big and expansive
(30:20):
that they've never done before.
Like I have a client right nowthat, through that facilitated
strategic process, has decidedthat they want to become an
employee owned company and theywant to become an ESOC team, and
it's really exciting and so.
So now I'm working onassembling kind of what that
team might be like and trying toput a plan together, because
they don't have anyone on theirteam that is equipped to do that
(30:42):
and I can assemble that action.
Or similarly, I've got anotherclient that is working on trying
to move their whole companytowards profitability, and so we
are figuring out how to aligncompensation incentives across
their whole company toprofitability, starting with how
they look at wholesalecompensation.
(31:03):
What is commission now?
Well, it's top line, and sosalespeople are making sales
that are negative margin, butthey're still getting commission
on them.
That doesn't make sense.
How do we create a newstructure?
And sometimes that needs to bedone more from the outside.
I can be this person that'slike hey, I want to help empower
you, but I also want to just behonest with you that I'm seeing
(31:23):
that this isn't necessarily anaction that's serving you right
now, and let's think about howelse we can get there and be
that outside voice in the roomthat's willing to be a truth
teller and also willing to helppush forward decision making,
and that's willing to be a truthteller and also willing to help
push forward decision making,and I think if you were to give
a couple of quick pieces ofadvice for our listeners.
Speaker 2 (31:41):
how do you coach CEOs to give bad news?
That's a hard thing to do.
Speaker 1 (31:53):
Yeah, I think that, as leaders, people often think
of themselves as having acertain archetype.
Maybe they're a visionaryleader, maybe they're a very
directive leader.
But as a CEO especially asyou're facing having to give bad
news, sometimes like we need todownsize or we have to close a
market or things just aren'tgoing the way that we want
there's this framework that Ilove.
Daniel Goleman is a wonderfulwriter who writes about
leadership and he talks aboutthe six different types of
(32:16):
leaders and the idea is that asleaders, we can switch and flow
to meet the moment, and it'sreally important to meet the
moment.
And if you're going to tellpeople something that is really
challenging and really hard, youneed to think about who they
need you to be as a leader tohear that information.
And that might mean that youhave to put on a different hat
(32:41):
of go outside of your regularrepertoire, which might be
highly collaborative.
But if you are highlycollaborative but yet have made
a decision that you're going toshut down a market or downsize a
company 20% and you need todeliver that news, you need to
be firm, clear and directive,showing that there has been a
(33:03):
tremendous amount of thought andthat the decision is made and
that there's no going back.
And yeah, that is the advicethat I give CEOs is to figure
out how to meet the moment andand to be there for the people
the way that they, the way thatthey need to be met.
Speaker 2 (33:20):
And I love how you talk about winning right, I
don't.
You have to wait.
You have to celebrate every winin any space, especially in
emerging markets, where we'rebuilding the plane as we're
flying it.
Any tips on how to celebrate awin?
Speaker 1 (33:31):
Loudly and all the time, like creating space for it
.
You know, I I talk a lot aboutcreating a rhythm of business
and I teach leaders to do thatand starting with CEOs and then
downstream, of the way that wecreate meetings inside of our
teams, whether it be the one onones or the department meetings
(33:52):
or the quarterly and monthlybusiness reviews but that those
meetings should all fall intosome sort of predictable
framework that the people whoparticipate in them kind of know
what they're coming to.
It's like an agenda that existsahead of time and that
different people have differentlevels of accountability within
that agenda.
And there should always bespace for celebrating wins every
(34:12):
single time, so that people getused to thinking about wins as
they come, because often we justsail past them.
Oh, that thing worked.
But if people know that once aweek on their weekly sales
meeting, their national salesmeeting call, there's going to
be a five minute block wherethere's a space where everyone
is encouraged to share a win,then people are going to think
(34:33):
of those wins, and often thewins are small, yeah, but just
thinking.
But we have to stack them andwe have to make space for them
all of the time, especially in atransparent, collaborative way,
so that we're seeing who theother people are that we're
winning with and that inspiresus to also, like, want to meet
that moment and to win ourselveswhat still shocks you about
what you have to explain aboutthe industry.
Speaker 2 (34:53):
I mean, you're such a longstanding leader, you've got
such a network right.
You've talked about that, likewhen you meet normies, as Jordan
Wellington calls them, whatstill shocks you?
That you have to explain topeople about regulated state,
legal or even hemp Like whatstill shocks people.
Speaker 1 (35:10):
In general, the people that don't work in the
industry just absolutely have noidea how the industry works.
They don't understand thatthere is an interstate commerce,
that there is not the abilityto bank in basic ways.
It's that there is not aconsumer and a broad sense of
(35:36):
what we face as cannabisbusinesses.
And so you really just have tostart at the basics every single
time in a real business.
Yeah, yeah, we have to start atthe basics, and it surprises me
, but also it actually hasgotten me to a place that I have
stopped being surprised,because it's helped me to
understand that.
Actually, of course, why do wein the industry have an
(35:59):
expectation that the consumersor the people that work in other
sectors are going to understandthe challenges that we face or
that the way that our supplychain works?
Just as much as I don'tunderstand the Cheetos supply
chain and how it works for themto make that that cheesy crunchy
thing in a plastic bag, that Iwould probably surprise.
It would probably surprise meto learn about how that all
comes together.
(36:19):
But when people are looking,especially like I talked to I
talked to financial analystsfrom around the world often that
are looking at differentopportunities for investment as
part of a diligence process,like somebody might call me up
and and often it's like explainto me how this works.
And they really need me tostart at the very beginning,
yeah, and explaining that inevery state there's licensing,
(36:42):
and even within each state, thatthe way that the transactions
move are different.
Some have required distributionand some don't.
Oh, yeah, yeah, the whole thing.
And and then what I have beenmost surprised by which you
didn't ask, but that I have beenmost surprised by over the last
year is is not just hempbroadly, but but really what
(37:06):
hemp has proven and the lessonthat hemp has has helped me to
understand, which is just thatthere is an enormous amount of
opportunity in front of us inthe cannabinoid space, because
there's still today, after allof these years, is an enormous
amount of unmet demand all overthe place, and the fact that
(37:30):
hemp has gotten the amount oftraction that it has just proves
that there is a tremendousamount of people that aren't
being served by the medical andthe adult use markets that exist
in states for some reason oranother, be it that the channel
isn't the right fit.
They don't want to go to adispensary.
There isn't a dispensary,whatever it is.
There's a huge amount ofexcitement around trying these
(37:52):
products and that keeps mereally excited about the future.
Yeah, and resolute to keepsolving the biggest problems and
to building businesses that areimbued with a sense of purpose
and leadership truly likebuilding to long term,
sustainable success in theindustry.
Speaker 2 (38:08):
Thank you so much.
And for our listeners, wherecan they find your podcast and
get more information about you?
Speaker 1 (38:12):
Oh, yeah, and so in addition to Wolfmeyer, I have a
weekly podcast called HighSpirits that I do with Ben
Larson, who's a close friend,and we are on all of the podcast
platforms, so you just look forus there and we also record
live on LinkedIn.
So if you want to hang out withus while we record and comment,
you can find us there at theHigh Spirits LinkedIn page.
(38:33):
I'm extremely easy to find onLinkedIn.
That's the easiest place youcan message me if you want to
get to know me, andwolf-meyercom is my website and
there's a contact form and youcan reach out about anything
that you want to know.
Speaker 2 (38:45):
Thank you for joining me today on Practical Politics.
If you enjoyed thisconversation, be sure to like
and subscribe.
I'm Sabrina, your lobbyist ladyreminding you that every policy
has a person behind it.
Thanks for listening.
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