We got a chance to interview Marvin Wilcher, CEO & Co-founder at CampNova during Mjbizcon 2021 in Las Vegas. Who is Marvin and CampNova?
CampNova is an e-commerce, technology marketing platform developed by experienced cannabis entrepreneurs. A premier cannabis and CBD destination, CampNova is a direct-to-consumers platform featuring delivery partners throughout the state of California. CampNova features brands, bonus limited edition exclusive releases from celebrities featuring pro-athletes, actors and influencers. Its headquarters are in Los Angeles and Oakland, California.
CampNova also partnered with an impressive roster of cannabis brands associated with Tommy Chong, Julian Marley, The Game, Santana—and Mickey Hart of Grateful Dead fame, to name a few of the brands. You can buy the best influencer cannabis brands. Check out this episode to learn more about their influencer cannabis brands....
Connect w/ Marvin:
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Ronjini Joshua (00:05):
Today we got to interview Marvin Wilcher, the
CEO of Camp Nova. And if youremember, we did talk to Emery
Morrison, quite a few episodesago about what they're doing
with camp green and camp Nova.
But he kind of takes us back tothe beginning of how he got
lucky by getting into thecannabis industry kind of just
by happenstance. So here, Marvinstory. And let's dive into the
(00:25):
green room now. We are heretoday with Marvin Wilcher, the
CEO and founder of Camp Nova.
Hi, Marvin, how you how youdoing? Good, good. I'm excited
to have you here and talk about,um, you know, mjbizcon, but also
just kind of kept Nova and whatyou guys are doing with
(00:47):
influencers? So first, I'd liketo kind of start off your
journey, how you got here, howyou got started, and kind of
tell us a little bit about yourexperience your cannabis
experience?
Marvin Wilcher (00:58):
Yeah, well, you know, many years ago, back in
like, 2005, I bought a propertyup in Yolo. County. And it was
just sort of a place for us tokind of hang out on the weekend
or whatever. It's like 20 acres.
And, you know, had just beenusing it for those purposes. One
of my neighbors came across tome, and he said, Hey, look, you
know, I was thinking aboutmoving these cultivators who are
(01:19):
on my property, I got to movethem because I've leased my
property out to somebody else.
Do you mind taking these guys?
And I was like, Well, sure. Butyou know, is this legal? And he
was like, Yeah, of course. It'slegal. No, no problem. I'm like,
Are you sure? He's like, Yeah,of course, I'm sure. And I'm
like, okay, so came over,started talking with the guys.
And then I was like, Well, whatare we going to charge it? And
(01:39):
of course, he says, well, let'scharge him. $80,000. I was like,
what? $80,000? Like, what do youmean to say, they're gonna
they're gonna own my property?
Yeah. Oh, yeah. selling thehouse, right? And he's like, no,
no, no, is and they only need uslike four or five acres. I was
like, Oh, my God. So once thathappened, I was in the cannabis
(02:02):
business, right. So we did leasethat the property that year was
a successful grow. And then westarted looking into it. And so
ultimately, what we ended updoing was, we made sure that
those guys got legal, we endedup with nine licenses. And that
was back at the beginning ofwhen legalization was taking
place. So that was sort of myentry point into the cannabis
(02:24):
business.
Ronjini Joshua (02:25):
And then from there, you guys did some other
things around. So like, you'redeveloping a influencer program,
basically, around cam Nova, tellus a little bit about how that
kind of picked up and gotstarted?
Marvin Wilcher (02:36):
Yes, we'll see.
To really understand how thatflow goes. You have to go back
to almost 2015. In 2015, Emoryand I, my partner, we had a
company that we founded calledWild stop, right. And that
company was about mobiledevices. So we had designed the
program where we were going toliterally have influencers,
Justin Bieber, pretty much highprofile guys, that would have
(02:59):
their own phones, right? Yeah.
So we designed to deal we workedit out with HTC. We were gearing
up for it. It was prettyexciting. And were
Ronjini Joshua (03:10):
you guys like taking a beat from like Nike? Is
it kind of like, you know, howathletes partnered with shoes,
it's kind of the same.
Marvin Wilcher (03:17):
That really does have sort of the same vibe.
Yeah. And we looked at that wedid even some research on that.
And we're like, Okay, we'll bethe first ones here. Yeah, this
and you know, at some point inthe future, everybody will have,
you know, the influencer phone.
Right, right. So we were like,Okay, let's roll. And we started
things moving. And it was almostready to the point where we're
about ready to launch. And thenthat was when HTC was having
(03:38):
some challenges. And they soldthat whole operation to Google.
So once they sold that wholeoperation to Google, then we
were left with very littleoptions, because they sort of
came to us at that point said,we're not going to be able to
make the phone that we agreed tomake, because we just sold this
operation. Right. So what do youwant to do? Right? It's like,
okay, so you know, obviously,Emory and I were a little
(04:01):
disappointed. We had put inactually years into putting that
together, of course. And thatwas where we were like, well,
you know what, Marvin, you're inthe cannabis business. Now. How
about if we just kind of figureout how to do this in the
cannabis space. And that reallywas where we started thinking
about how to do it. And that'swhen sort of the idea of Camp
Nova was born.
Ronjini Joshua (04:22):
Yeah. So I really love that like the brands
like how you're bringing thebrands and the influencers
together. And obviouslyinfluencer relations, especially
in PR and marketing is like abig thing. So tell us, how do
you work with the brands? Like,what kind of brands are you
developing? And then how are yougetting them to partner with the
Marvin Wilcher (04:40):
so so we we approach this in a couple of
different ways? Like let's justtalk for a moment about
influencers, right? So theinfluencer side of the business
here is really about we do acouple of things. One, we can
take any product that inexistence right now, and we can
put it on our platform, sort ofto create a profile where they
have their product for sale,they have a video, which is sort
(05:04):
of their pitch to the customerto get the vibe or whatever it
is, they have photos, they havemusic, whatever it is that they
want sorted represent theirbrand, you know, they can do
this right here on the platform.
So
Ronjini Joshua (05:15):
it's like a fan site,
Marvin Wilcher (05:16):
it is more right with a call to action to buy
their specific product. Got it,right. So if you were to go and
you look at meth man or somebodyand you said, hey, look, here it
is, look at the product. Andthen now just buy it that that
platform does allow for that.
That's what we've done there onthat side. So we can bring on
almost anybody in that regard.
(05:40):
On the flip side, we're actuallydeveloping direct partnerships,
right? So we signed to deal withtwo chains. So we'll help
develop the brand from squareone. Okay, okay, like everything
that we can do from, you know,taking the logo and taking
whatever is already there, andputting the packaging together
and doing all that. And thensetting up relationships with
(06:02):
delivery operations, retailers,you know, distributors, all that
stuff, we're sort of bringingsomebody who's an influencer
that has a market, bringing theminto the business, right? And we
handle all of it's kind of keepthe paperwork minimal for them.
Right. So that's really sort ofthe the two different sides and
existing brands and we bring onand the ones that we help
(06:24):
develop and bring them about.
Ronjini Joshua (06:26):
Okay, so you're basically saying like, let's say
I was a, an entertainmententertainer. Yeah. And I come to
you and say, hey, you know, I'mreally interested in in
developing a cannabis brand thatfrom there. Yes, sir. From
there?
Marvin Wilcher (06:39):
Yes, we would start from exactly that moment,
we talked about your fan base,we talked about the kind of
things that you want to do tokind of figure out the mood,
yes. And then sort of understandyour profile, okay. And then
because there are some peoplewho are like, Well, I only want
to do CBD, I don't want to dothe THC. I only want to do
health products. I don't want todo high products, right? I want
(07:02):
to do beauty or this or that.
There's different sort of modelsbased on the personality. And
then we help develop that outand then build all of the
marketing pieces around that.
Ronjini Joshua (07:14):
So what about on the other side? Like the product
side? What products do you workwith? To? Like, how do you match
them up with a product? That'sright for them?
Marvin Wilcher (07:22):
Yeah, well, that that's that is really sort of,
like as an example, what ifsomebody says they only want to
do super, super premium stuff,right? That's my brand. I'm
like, top of the line kind ofguy or girl, and I don't want to
deal with anything less than,you know, Rolls Royce quality.
So then what we would do is wewould go out and find partners
(07:44):
in the cannabis business thatare cultivators or whatever,
that are actually making premiumproducts. Okay, right. There's
where we then connect with them,bring them together and say,
look, here's the most premium wecan get. Here's all the
marketing is does this work? Andwe bring those pieces together.
Ronjini Joshua (08:03):
Okay. So I mean, I think, you know, we're in an
industry conference, obviously,this con. So, from a brand
perspective, if I wanted to saylike, Hey, Marvin matched me up
with an influencer? Yeah. Like,is that an opportunity as well?
Marvin Wilcher (08:16):
So yeah, there's, there's also sort of
like, what you would consider,you know, like, a representative
of a brand. Right? Right. So ifyou want it to rep brand, yeah,
and be out there and promote andhelp support a brand, then we
would find some way for matchingyou with somebody who wanted a
(08:37):
rep. And we would just figurethat out, work out the deal,
work out the paperwork, and youwould be sort of one of the reps
for that particular brand. It's
Ronjini Joshua (08:45):
kind of like, you know, when you go to the
airport, and you see all thelike, ads for like perfume and
watches, you see all thecelebrities and you're like,
Okay, this person's with Rolex,or with Chanel, or whatever.
Yeah, okay. Okay. That's verycool. I mean, like, I know, I
remember speaking with Emery onthe podcast before, and he's
talking about his background inentertainment. So um, how do you
(09:06):
guys I mean, that seems reallylike the influences you you're
using are obviously like, reallytop tier like entertainers. So
how do you guys like navigatethat relationship? And how do
you find out who wants to dowhat?
Marvin Wilcher (09:18):
What we do have a team? Yeah, of course. Yeah,
we have. We have quite a fewpeople who put the time effort
and energy in sort of on a dailybasis to not only market but to
sort of create somerelationships. Emrys focuses
more on the marketing side.
Yeah, I'm more sort of focusedon the operational side of the
business. Gotcha. But you know,what that team is really trying
to do is keep their eyes opentheir ears open, reaching out,
(09:41):
making connections, talkingwith, you know, whoever their
representatives might be, andjust trying to feel it out and
see where it is. Sometimes youjust run across people like we
run across some skaters. Andthey're sort of they don't have
to have like a huge following,but they You may have a very
loyal following. And so we thenstart to learn about him and,
(10:03):
you know, follow up until we puta deal together. But just
generally, we've got a team offolks that are out there
knocking on doors, talking topeople trying to find sort of
the right match of influencers.
And of course, here's theinteresting thing about you
know, once you get into this,you find yourself almost as
artists management, yeah, right.
Yeah, that's this is a, this isa part that, you know, Emery is
(10:26):
always reminding me about, like,what you're kind of getting in
here to being, you know, artistsmanager, potentially a
babysitter, all kinds of thingsthat you could do here, when you
when you go down this path,right? And that's sort of
fortunately for me, that's sortof their side,
Ronjini Joshua (10:43):
you're like, I'm not touching it.
Marvin Wilcher (10:44):
Exactly. I'm gonna do that stuff. But you
know, that's one of the thingsplus and minus about being in
the space is that you reallywill have to manage
relationships with people whoare creative and dynamic and
unique and sometimes evenstrange, right? That that, but
(11:04):
that's what makes themincredible sometimes, right?
Yeah. So you know, that is areal business in itself? Well, I
Ronjini Joshua (11:11):
mean, I, this is really interesting, because we
talk a lot about the future ofmarketing, PR. I mean,
obviously, I'm a PR person. Sowe talk a lot about what that's
gonna look like what influencerrelations look like. We've been
talking about, like professionalentertainers that are kind of
well known in the musicindustry. But what about like,
influencers that are like ticktock influencers and Instagram
(11:31):
influencers? I imagine theycould be doing the same stuff
with the brand, too,
Marvin Wilcher (11:34):
they absolutely could. So one of the cores of
what Wildstar was about was isabout fans equals fanatics,
right? And the fans, theabbreviation of that right
fanatics is really about peopleand their, their sort of loyalty
to you and their willingness tobuy your products. Right. And so
(11:58):
from that standpoint, you know,you can have people who have
lots and lots and lots offollowers, but sometimes those
followers are not willing to buyproduct, right? Yeah, then you
could have people that just havelike 30,000 followers, and every
single one of those follow, buysomething or buy something. And
so now you're really trying tojudge and figure out which one
(12:20):
of the ones that you want to goafter. But you know, that is
again, part of it. And that'swhere, since you've got tick
tock, and people like that, andthere's all these different
platforms tick tock says newones, some of those people have
345 million people. Yeah, youknow, or more. Yeah, right, who
are really following them?
There's no reason why we can'tgo to some of those people.
(12:42):
Yeah. And bring those peopleover. Yeah. But the process of
developing brands is not onethat just happens overnight. You
know what I'm saying? So yes, wewill definitely be looking at
that as one of the spaces. Ifyou're a tick tock person, you
want to call us and see aboutthe opportunity? Absolutely.
Ronjini Joshua (13:00):
Well, that's from the like the camp Nova, or
for those from the influencerperspective, but from the brand
perspective, because there's somany regulations in cannabis,
too. And there's so manychallenges in marketing. Yeah, I
find that like, I mean, thiswould be a great opportunity for
any brands to say, hey, I wantto partner with these people to
(13:20):
get our brand a little bit morerecognized, you know, whether
it's through a partnership,whether it's through like white
label branding, or whatever, youknow, because you, I mean, the
the fact of the matter is, it'sfederally illegal. So like, we
still have those, that red tapeto deal with rotate. So you
know, so that they can grow thebrand until everything becomes
(13:41):
clear for them. You feel likethis is a great opportunity for
brands as
Marvin Wilcher (13:44):
well. Yeah. Just brands in general. Yeah, yeah.
Whether you're a shoe brand.
Yeah. Any brand. Yeah, right,brand, whatever you are, I mean,
this is sort of your opportunityto have somebody handle all of
the pieces for you. Yeah, right.
And you don't have to deal withthat. You just have to continue
to be your brand, be willing topromote the product that you're
(14:06):
getting into, and just reallyconnect with all of the fans and
people that you're alreadydealing with. And that's us
connecting.
Ronjini Joshua (14:14):
Right. So I mean, essentially, like you were
saying before, it's really atechnology platform to kind of
enable business. Yes, yes. Whatdo you see is kind of like the
next step for camp Nov as youkind of keep going into this
industry and maybe otherindustries. What is kind of
like, the future of theMichigan?
Marvin Wilcher (14:31):
Yeah, yeah. So so if you look at where we are
now, our primary focus isCalifornia. Yeah, Northern and
Southern. We're going to beexpanding more and more in
California. So that the oneclick experience because this is
sort of what it's about. You'rea fan. You're like the brand.
Yeah, you do one click and youget your product delivered.
We're going to be moving acrossthe country. So what we're going
(14:53):
to be doing is going state bystate until we get all the way
across to every legal state. Andthat way, any fans that are like
if you're a significantinfluence, and you have people
in one state but not in another,you're able to take advantage of
that, because we'll be sort oflike Amazon. Yeah, you're kind
of all over the place. Andyou've got that whole
(15:14):
distribution network lit, setset up. That's where we're
really trying to go. Is thattake it nationwide? And then
ultimately, worldwide? Yeah,because cannabis is legalization
is happening globally, andyou've got fans and influencers
and other places, you know,whatever we may think about, you
know, our influencers here.
Yeah. And some other countries,you know, influencers almost
(15:37):
gods, right. And so there areways to connect up.
Additionally, we'll be movingaway from just exclusively
excuse me, cannabis products,but we'll be moving into other
areas. Yeah, a lot of a lot ofmerchandise, things that relate
to cannabis, but are part of thesort of the social connection
Yeah. Of that relationship withthe fan.
Ronjini Joshua (16:01):
It'll kind of be like a hub for fans, right?
Like, so anybody who's a fan of,let's say, two Chainz. You get
any product that he represents?
Yes. Where he wants to promotethat he
Marvin Wilcher (16:10):
wants to promote on our platform, that's for
sure.
Ronjini Joshua (16:13):
Yeah, that's really cool.
Ben Michaels (16:14):
Yeah. What I'm curious about is so with the
influencers, and especially theinfluencer marketing, especially
with cannabis, in the Instagram,and Tiktok community, have you
had any big successes oranything to kind of navigate
because I understand like thatalgorithm for Instagram is
(16:34):
already trying to show less ofthe influencers, content to the
to the people, because, youknow, they're not monetizing
that as much. And then also, ontop of that, the cannabis stuff,
especially like, um, like TikTok, and stuff is getting really
limited. So have you all had anysuccess navigating, you know,
that aspect forward of how tohow to connect, you know, to
(16:56):
those 3 million followers ofthis awesome, you know, premium,
great cannabis, yes, making thatconnection for them?
Marvin Wilcher (17:03):
Well, that that is part of the challenge. A lot
of people have used Instagram totry to market until Instagram
figures out what they're doing,which could be one day or one
year, and then they're gonnajust kind of close you down and
wipe you out. And you're gonnabe back to scratch. Which is
kind of scary, right? Yeah. Andso that means we get a chance to
(17:24):
sort of fill a void. Right? Soso the real, the real challenge
of all this is transitioning,right? The transitioning of
whatever your fan base might beon whatever the platform is, and
moving them over. And, you know,like, on site, maybe, right?
Because you're really eventhough you're accessing sort of
your fans, you're not reallyhaving any direct information
(17:47):
about those people. Right? Yeah,very limited information,
Instagram, and otherwise,they're keeping that. So that's
where we're building out wherewe're doing marketing, all
around those platforms, tryingto bring those people across
over to our platform. And oncethey identify our platform, and
see that that influencer, who'sselling whatever that product
(18:07):
is, has this sort of depth ofother things that they're doing,
which they might not be able todeal with at all. Because if you
push it just a tad much, yeah,on Instagram, you're done yet.
Right. You're done. Right. Andso as a result, we are working
strategies to sort of helpwhoever that influencers, you
(18:30):
know, bridge over that fan baseover to camp Noah, that's part
of what we're doing as part ofour marketing strategies.
Ronjini Joshua (18:38):
Yeah, I mean, yeah, I can see I just lining up
all the all the things thatyou're saying and definitely
artists management is, is rightthere. Like, it's like, that's
the artist page is like theyhave all these things that they
aligned with. And here's theirInstagram feed, here's their,
you know, tick tock, and thenhere's all the products that
they love, you know, so like, Ican totally see that it's such a
(18:59):
fine line that you guys arespreading, yes. But better than
you better you than, than me. SoI appreciate that. Well, this is
really exciting. I love thedirection that this is going in.
And I think this offers a lot ofopportunities in the cannabis
industry, as well as anybody whowants to like align with brands
in general. Have you guys madeany other headways into non
(19:20):
cannabis? Like, I guess noncannabis brand partnerships yet
or not
Marvin Wilcher (19:25):
yet? We are we're in process with a number
of them right now. Okay. I mean,one of the things that you're
going to see in the future isyou're going to see a lot of
sort of standard beveragebrands. Yeah. Because this to me
is one of the biggestopportunities for beverage
companies. Like right nowbeverages don't make up a huge
percentage of cannabis sells.
But if you look out to thefuture, you can say, Wow, that's
(19:48):
going to be a big business,right? Yeah. Because what's
gonna happen is we are used tosort of drinking our highs,
right? That's that's sort of allof us right? You You know that
you go and you manage how muchwine you're going to drink or
you manage how much liquoryou're going to drink, or
whatever it is. And, and youknow, as a result, you're able
to get that high, nobodytypically lets you over drink
(20:10):
and get too much liquor spilledon your shirt or something. Most
people don't realize that you'vesort of got that buzz until they
see it in your eye, right.
Whereas the you know, the thingabout smoking weed, everybody
knows that you're smoking itwhen you're smoking it. So
that's what's made gummies and awhole bunch of other things, and
edibles. Sort of right. But thenthat also means that there are
(20:32):
sort of like standard consumerpackaged goods products, that
are really having an opportunityto sort of bridge across. And so
it's wide open in terms of thebrand universe.
Ronjini Joshua (20:45):
So if you had any tips, we like to try to kind
of close this out with tips, anytips for influencers or brands
of like, kind of how to get morebuzz as as they're kind of
trying to establish their brand?
What kind of tip would you havefor people?
Marvin Wilcher (21:02):
Yeah, well, one of the things is don't rely on
Instagram. Yeah, you know, that,that that can lead to, you know,
your page getting shut down orwhatever. But you're really
gonna end up having to do moredirect sort of connectivity.
Outside of Instagram and otherplatforms, you really do need to
find delivery partners, retailpartners and other partners.
(21:26):
Yeah, to help push products,more than just what's happening
on Instagram or some of thoseplaces, right? Yeah. Um, you
know, we do see ourselvesslightly as a competitor to
Weedmaps. We're a littledifferent from that. But the
idea is, is that you're going tohave to really open up open your
mind, look across all platforms,look across the internet in
(21:49):
every possible way, and do amuch broader marketing to
Ronjini Joshua (21:53):
customers.
Perfect. Thank you so much. Thishas been a great interview.
Absolutely. love to have you andhopefully we can have you guys
back next time. You have a biginfluencer. Yeah, let us know
who.
Marvin Wilcher (22:04):
Okay, well, we were doing it all the time.
Ronjini Joshua (22:07):
All right.
Perfect. All right, so much.
Thank you.
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hyphen green hyphen room. Thanksfor listening and be well
Today we got to interview Marvin Wilcher, the
CEO of Camp Nova. And if youremember, we did talk to Emery
Morrison, quite a few episodesago about what they're doing
with camp green and camp Nova.
But he kind of takes us back tothe beginning of how he got
lucky by getting into thecannabis industry kind of just
by happenstance. So here, Marvinstory. And let's dive into the
(00:25):
green room now. We are heretoday with Marvin Wilcher, the
CEO and founder of Camp Nova.
Hi, Marvin, how you how youdoing? Good, good. I'm excited
to have you here and talk about,um, you know, mjbizcon, but also
just kind of kept Nova and whatyou guys are doing with
(00:47):
influencers? So first, I'd liketo kind of start off your
journey, how you got here, howyou got started, and kind of
tell us a little bit about yourexperience your cannabis
experience?
Marvin Wilcher (00:58):
Yeah, well, you know, many years ago, back in
like, 2005, I bought a propertyup in Yolo. County. And it was
just sort of a place for us tokind of hang out on the weekend
or whatever. It's like 20 acres.
And, you know, had just beenusing it for those purposes. One
of my neighbors came across tome, and he said, Hey, look, you
know, I was thinking aboutmoving these cultivators who are
(01:19):
on my property, I got to movethem because I've leased my
property out to somebody else.
Do you mind taking these guys?
And I was like, Well, sure. Butyou know, is this legal? And he
was like, Yeah, of course. It'slegal. No, no problem. I'm like,
Are you sure? He's like, Yeah,of course, I'm sure. And I'm
like, okay, so came over,started talking with the guys.
And then I was like, Well, whatare we going to charge it? And
(01:39):
of course, he says, well, let'scharge him. $80,000. I was like,
what? $80,000? Like, what do youmean to say, they're gonna
they're gonna own my property?
Yeah. Oh, yeah. selling thehouse, right? And he's like, no,
no, no, is and they only need uslike four or five acres. I was
like, Oh, my God. So once thathappened, I was in the cannabis
(02:02):
business, right. So we did leasethat the property that year was
a successful grow. And then westarted looking into it. And so
ultimately, what we ended updoing was, we made sure that
those guys got legal, we endedup with nine licenses. And that
was back at the beginning ofwhen legalization was taking
place. So that was sort of myentry point into the cannabis
(02:24):
business.
Ronjini Joshua (02:25):
And then from there, you guys did some other
things around. So like, you'redeveloping a influencer program,
basically, around cam Nova, tellus a little bit about how that
kind of picked up and gotstarted?
Marvin Wilcher (02:36):
Yes, we'll see.
To really understand how thatflow goes. You have to go back
to almost 2015. In 2015, Emoryand I, my partner, we had a
company that we founded calledWild stop, right. And that
company was about mobiledevices. So we had designed the
program where we were going toliterally have influencers,
Justin Bieber, pretty much highprofile guys, that would have
(02:59):
their own phones, right? Yeah.
So we designed to deal we workedit out with HTC. We were gearing
up for it. It was prettyexciting. And were
Ronjini Joshua (03:10):
you guys like taking a beat from like Nike? Is
it kind of like, you know, howathletes partnered with shoes,
it's kind of the same.
Marvin Wilcher (03:17):
That really does have sort of the same vibe.
Yeah. And we looked at that wedid even some research on that.
And we're like, Okay, we'll bethe first ones here. Yeah, this
and you know, at some point inthe future, everybody will have,
you know, the influencer phone.
Right, right. So we were like,Okay, let's roll. And we started
things moving. And it was almostready to the point where we're
about ready to launch. And thenthat was when HTC was having
(03:38):
some challenges. And they soldthat whole operation to Google.
So once they sold that wholeoperation to Google, then we
were left with very littleoptions, because they sort of
came to us at that point said,we're not going to be able to
make the phone that we agreed tomake, because we just sold this
operation. Right. So what do youwant to do? Right? It's like,
okay, so you know, obviously,Emory and I were a little
(04:01):
disappointed. We had put inactually years into putting that
together, of course. And thatwas where we were like, well,
you know what, Marvin, you're inthe cannabis business. Now. How
about if we just kind of figureout how to do this in the
cannabis space. And that reallywas where we started thinking
about how to do it. And that'swhen sort of the idea of Camp
Nova was born.
Ronjini Joshua (04:22):
Yeah. So I really love that like the brands
like how you're bringing thebrands and the influencers
together. And obviouslyinfluencer relations, especially
in PR and marketing is like abig thing. So tell us, how do
you work with the brands? Like,what kind of brands are you
developing? And then how are yougetting them to partner with the
Marvin Wilcher (04:40):
so so we we approach this in a couple of
different ways? Like let's justtalk for a moment about
influencers, right? So theinfluencer side of the business
here is really about we do acouple of things. One, we can
take any product that inexistence right now, and we can
put it on our platform, sort ofto create a profile where they
have their product for sale,they have a video, which is sort
(05:04):
of their pitch to the customerto get the vibe or whatever it
is, they have photos, they havemusic, whatever it is that they
want sorted represent theirbrand, you know, they can do
this right here on the platform.
So
Ronjini Joshua (05:15):
it's like a fan site,
Marvin Wilcher (05:16):
it is more right with a call to action to buy
their specific product. Got it,right. So if you were to go and
you look at meth man or somebodyand you said, hey, look, here it
is, look at the product. Andthen now just buy it that that
platform does allow for that.
That's what we've done there onthat side. So we can bring on
almost anybody in that regard.
(05:40):
On the flip side, we're actuallydeveloping direct partnerships,
right? So we signed to deal withtwo chains. So we'll help
develop the brand from squareone. Okay, okay, like everything
that we can do from, you know,taking the logo and taking
whatever is already there, andputting the packaging together
and doing all that. And thensetting up relationships with
(06:02):
delivery operations, retailers,you know, distributors, all that
stuff, we're sort of bringingsomebody who's an influencer
that has a market, bringing theminto the business, right? And we
handle all of it's kind of keepthe paperwork minimal for them.
Right. So that's really sort ofthe the two different sides and
existing brands and we bring onand the ones that we help
(06:24):
develop and bring them about.
Ronjini Joshua (06:26):
Okay, so you're basically saying like, let's say
I was a, an entertainmententertainer. Yeah. And I come to
you and say, hey, you know, I'mreally interested in in
developing a cannabis brand thatfrom there. Yes, sir. From
there?
Marvin Wilcher (06:39):
Yes, we would start from exactly that moment,
we talked about your fan base,we talked about the kind of
things that you want to do tokind of figure out the mood,
yes. And then sort of understandyour profile, okay. And then
because there are some peoplewho are like, Well, I only want
to do CBD, I don't want to dothe THC. I only want to do
health products. I don't want todo high products, right? I want
(07:02):
to do beauty or this or that.
There's different sort of modelsbased on the personality. And
then we help develop that outand then build all of the
marketing pieces around that.
Ronjini Joshua (07:14):
So what about on the other side? Like the product
side? What products do you workwith? To? Like, how do you match
them up with a product? That'sright for them?
Marvin Wilcher (07:22):
Yeah, well, that that's that is really sort of,
like as an example, what ifsomebody says they only want to
do super, super premium stuff,right? That's my brand. I'm
like, top of the line kind ofguy or girl, and I don't want to
deal with anything less than,you know, Rolls Royce quality.
So then what we would do is wewould go out and find partners
(07:44):
in the cannabis business thatare cultivators or whatever,
that are actually making premiumproducts. Okay, right. There's
where we then connect with them,bring them together and say,
look, here's the most premium wecan get. Here's all the
marketing is does this work? Andwe bring those pieces together.
Ronjini Joshua (08:03):
Okay. So I mean, I think, you know, we're in an
industry conference, obviously,this con. So, from a brand
perspective, if I wanted to saylike, Hey, Marvin matched me up
with an influencer? Yeah. Like,is that an opportunity as well?
Marvin Wilcher (08:16):
So yeah, there's, there's also sort of
like, what you would consider,you know, like, a representative
of a brand. Right? Right. So ifyou want it to rep brand, yeah,
and be out there and promote andhelp support a brand, then we
would find some way for matchingyou with somebody who wanted a
(08:37):
rep. And we would just figurethat out, work out the deal,
work out the paperwork, and youwould be sort of one of the reps
for that particular brand. It's
Ronjini Joshua (08:45):
kind of like, you know, when you go to the
airport, and you see all thelike, ads for like perfume and
watches, you see all thecelebrities and you're like,
Okay, this person's with Rolex,or with Chanel, or whatever.
Yeah, okay. Okay. That's verycool. I mean, like, I know, I
remember speaking with Emery onthe podcast before, and he's
talking about his background inentertainment. So um, how do you
(09:06):
guys I mean, that seems reallylike the influences you you're
using are obviously like, reallytop tier like entertainers. So
how do you guys like navigatethat relationship? And how do
you find out who wants to dowhat?
Marvin Wilcher (09:18):
What we do have a team? Yeah, of course. Yeah,
we have. We have quite a fewpeople who put the time effort
and energy in sort of on a dailybasis to not only market but to
sort of create somerelationships. Emrys focuses
more on the marketing side.
Yeah, I'm more sort of focusedon the operational side of the
business. Gotcha. But you know,what that team is really trying
to do is keep their eyes opentheir ears open, reaching out,
(09:41):
making connections, talkingwith, you know, whoever their
representatives might be, andjust trying to feel it out and
see where it is. Sometimes youjust run across people like we
run across some skaters. Andthey're sort of they don't have
to have like a huge following,but they You may have a very
loyal following. And so we thenstart to learn about him and,
(10:03):
you know, follow up until we puta deal together. But just
generally, we've got a team offolks that are out there
knocking on doors, talking topeople trying to find sort of
the right match of influencers.
And of course, here's theinteresting thing about you
know, once you get into this,you find yourself almost as
artists management, yeah, right.
Yeah, that's this is a, this isa part that, you know, Emery is
(10:26):
always reminding me about, like,what you're kind of getting in
here to being, you know, artistsmanager, potentially a
babysitter, all kinds of thingsthat you could do here, when you
when you go down this path,right? And that's sort of
fortunately for me, that's sortof their side,
Ronjini Joshua (10:43):
you're like, I'm not touching it.
Marvin Wilcher (10:44):
Exactly. I'm gonna do that stuff. But you
know, that's one of the thingsplus and minus about being in
the space is that you reallywill have to manage
relationships with people whoare creative and dynamic and
unique and sometimes evenstrange, right? That that, but
(11:04):
that's what makes themincredible sometimes, right?
Yeah. So you know, that is areal business in itself? Well, I
Ronjini Joshua (11:11):
mean, I, this is really interesting, because we
talk a lot about the future ofmarketing, PR. I mean,
obviously, I'm a PR person. Sowe talk a lot about what that's
gonna look like what influencerrelations look like. We've been
talking about, like professionalentertainers that are kind of
well known in the musicindustry. But what about like,
influencers that are like ticktock influencers and Instagram
(11:31):
influencers? I imagine theycould be doing the same stuff
with the brand, too,
Marvin Wilcher (11:34):
they absolutely could. So one of the cores of
what Wildstar was about was isabout fans equals fanatics,
right? And the fans, theabbreviation of that right
fanatics is really about peopleand their, their sort of loyalty
to you and their willingness tobuy your products. Right. And so
(11:58):
from that standpoint, you know,you can have people who have
lots and lots and lots offollowers, but sometimes those
followers are not willing to buyproduct, right? Yeah, then you
could have people that just havelike 30,000 followers, and every
single one of those follow, buysomething or buy something. And
so now you're really trying tojudge and figure out which one
(12:20):
of the ones that you want to goafter. But you know, that is
again, part of it. And that'swhere, since you've got tick
tock, and people like that, andthere's all these different
platforms tick tock says newones, some of those people have
345 million people. Yeah, youknow, or more. Yeah, right, who
are really following them?
There's no reason why we can'tgo to some of those people.
(12:42):
Yeah. And bring those peopleover. Yeah. But the process of
developing brands is not onethat just happens overnight. You
know what I'm saying? So yes, wewill definitely be looking at
that as one of the spaces. Ifyou're a tick tock person, you
want to call us and see aboutthe opportunity? Absolutely.
Ronjini Joshua (13:00):
Well, that's from the like the camp Nova, or
for those from the influencerperspective, but from the brand
perspective, because there's somany regulations in cannabis,
too. And there's so manychallenges in marketing. Yeah, I
find that like, I mean, thiswould be a great opportunity for
any brands to say, hey, I wantto partner with these people to
(13:20):
get our brand a little bit morerecognized, you know, whether
it's through a partnership,whether it's through like white
label branding, or whatever, youknow, because you, I mean, the
the fact of the matter is, it'sfederally illegal. So like, we
still have those, that red tapeto deal with rotate. So you
know, so that they can grow thebrand until everything becomes
(13:41):
clear for them. You feel likethis is a great opportunity for
brands as
Marvin Wilcher (13:44):
well. Yeah. Just brands in general. Yeah, yeah.
Whether you're a shoe brand.
Yeah. Any brand. Yeah, right,brand, whatever you are, I mean,
this is sort of your opportunityto have somebody handle all of
the pieces for you. Yeah, right.
And you don't have to deal withthat. You just have to continue
to be your brand, be willing topromote the product that you're
(14:06):
getting into, and just reallyconnect with all of the fans and
people that you're alreadydealing with. And that's us
connecting.
Ronjini Joshua (14:14):
Right. So I mean, essentially, like you were
saying before, it's really atechnology platform to kind of
enable business. Yes, yes. Whatdo you see is kind of like the
next step for camp Nov as youkind of keep going into this
industry and maybe otherindustries. What is kind of
like, the future of theMichigan?
Marvin Wilcher (14:31):
Yeah, yeah. So so if you look at where we are
now, our primary focus isCalifornia. Yeah, Northern and
Southern. We're going to beexpanding more and more in
California. So that the oneclick experience because this is
sort of what it's about. You'rea fan. You're like the brand.
Yeah, you do one click and youget your product delivered.
We're going to be moving acrossthe country. So what we're going
(14:53):
to be doing is going state bystate until we get all the way
across to every legal state. Andthat way, any fans that are like
if you're a significantinfluence, and you have people
in one state but not in another,you're able to take advantage of
that, because we'll be sort oflike Amazon. Yeah, you're kind
of all over the place. Andyou've got that whole
(15:14):
distribution network lit, setset up. That's where we're
really trying to go. Is thattake it nationwide? And then
ultimately, worldwide? Yeah,because cannabis is legalization
is happening globally, andyou've got fans and influencers
and other places, you know,whatever we may think about, you
know, our influencers here.
Yeah. And some other countries,you know, influencers almost
(15:37):
gods, right. And so there areways to connect up.
Additionally, we'll be movingaway from just exclusively
excuse me, cannabis products,but we'll be moving into other
areas. Yeah, a lot of a lot ofmerchandise, things that relate
to cannabis, but are part of thesort of the social connection
Yeah. Of that relationship withthe fan.
Ronjini Joshua (16:01):
It'll kind of be like a hub for fans, right?
Like, so anybody who's a fan of,let's say, two Chainz. You get
any product that he represents?
Yes. Where he wants to promotethat he
Marvin Wilcher (16:10):
wants to promote on our platform, that's for
sure.
Ronjini Joshua (16:13):
Yeah, that's really cool.
Ben Michaels (16:14):
Yeah. What I'm curious about is so with the
influencers, and especially theinfluencer marketing, especially
with cannabis, in the Instagram,and Tiktok community, have you
had any big successes oranything to kind of navigate
because I understand like thatalgorithm for Instagram is
(16:34):
already trying to show less ofthe influencers, content to the
to the people, because, youknow, they're not monetizing
that as much. And then also, ontop of that, the cannabis stuff,
especially like, um, like TikTok, and stuff is getting really
limited. So have you all had anysuccess navigating, you know,
that aspect forward of how tohow to connect, you know, to
(16:56):
those 3 million followers ofthis awesome, you know, premium,
great cannabis, yes, making thatconnection for them?
Marvin Wilcher (17:03):
Well, that that is part of the challenge. A lot
of people have used Instagram totry to market until Instagram
figures out what they're doing,which could be one day or one
year, and then they're gonnajust kind of close you down and
wipe you out. And you're gonnabe back to scratch. Which is
kind of scary, right? Yeah. Andso that means we get a chance to
(17:24):
sort of fill a void. Right? Soso the real, the real challenge
of all this is transitioning,right? The transitioning of
whatever your fan base might beon whatever the platform is, and
moving them over. And, you know,like, on site, maybe, right?
Because you're really eventhough you're accessing sort of
your fans, you're not reallyhaving any direct information
(17:47):
about those people. Right? Yeah,very limited information,
Instagram, and otherwise,they're keeping that. So that's
where we're building out wherewe're doing marketing, all
around those platforms, tryingto bring those people across
over to our platform. And oncethey identify our platform, and
see that that influencer, who'sselling whatever that product
(18:07):
is, has this sort of depth ofother things that they're doing,
which they might not be able todeal with at all. Because if you
push it just a tad much, yeah,on Instagram, you're done yet.
Right. You're done. Right. Andso as a result, we are working
strategies to sort of helpwhoever that influencers, you
(18:30):
know, bridge over that fan baseover to camp Noah, that's part
of what we're doing as part ofour marketing strategies.
Ronjini Joshua (18:38):
Yeah, I mean, yeah, I can see I just lining up
all the all the things thatyou're saying and definitely
artists management is, is rightthere. Like, it's like, that's
the artist page is like theyhave all these things that they
aligned with. And here's theirInstagram feed, here's their,
you know, tick tock, and thenhere's all the products that
they love, you know, so like, Ican totally see that it's such a
(18:59):
fine line that you guys arespreading, yes. But better than
you better you than, than me. SoI appreciate that. Well, this is
really exciting. I love thedirection that this is going in.
And I think this offers a lot ofopportunities in the cannabis
industry, as well as anybody whowants to like align with brands
in general. Have you guys madeany other headways into non
(19:20):
cannabis? Like, I guess noncannabis brand partnerships yet
or not
Marvin Wilcher (19:25):
yet? We are we're in process with a number
of them right now. Okay. I mean,one of the things that you're
going to see in the future isyou're going to see a lot of
sort of standard beveragebrands. Yeah. Because this to me
is one of the biggestopportunities for beverage
companies. Like right nowbeverages don't make up a huge
percentage of cannabis sells.
But if you look out to thefuture, you can say, Wow, that's
(19:48):
going to be a big business,right? Yeah. Because what's
gonna happen is we are used tosort of drinking our highs,
right? That's that's sort of allof us right? You You know that
you go and you manage how muchwine you're going to drink or
you manage how much liquoryou're going to drink, or
whatever it is. And, and youknow, as a result, you're able
to get that high, nobodytypically lets you over drink
(20:10):
and get too much liquor spilledon your shirt or something. Most
people don't realize that you'vesort of got that buzz until they
see it in your eye, right.
Whereas the you know, the thingabout smoking weed, everybody
knows that you're smoking itwhen you're smoking it. So
that's what's made gummies and awhole bunch of other things, and
edibles. Sort of right. But thenthat also means that there are
(20:32):
sort of like standard consumerpackaged goods products, that
are really having an opportunityto sort of bridge across. And so
it's wide open in terms of thebrand universe.
Ronjini Joshua (20:45):
So if you had any tips, we like to try to kind
of close this out with tips, anytips for influencers or brands
of like, kind of how to get morebuzz as as they're kind of
trying to establish their brand?
What kind of tip would you havefor people?
Marvin Wilcher (21:02):
Yeah, well, one of the things is don't rely on
Instagram. Yeah, you know, that,that that can lead to, you know,
your page getting shut down orwhatever. But you're really
gonna end up having to do moredirect sort of connectivity.
Outside of Instagram and otherplatforms, you really do need to
find delivery partners, retailpartners and other partners.
(21:26):
Yeah, to help push products,more than just what's happening
on Instagram or some of thoseplaces, right? Yeah. Um, you
know, we do see ourselvesslightly as a competitor to
Weedmaps. We're a littledifferent from that. But the
idea is, is that you're going tohave to really open up open your
mind, look across all platforms,look across the internet in
(21:49):
every possible way, and do amuch broader marketing to
Ronjini Joshua (21:53):
customers.
Perfect. Thank you so much. Thishas been a great interview.
Absolutely. love to have you andhopefully we can have you guys
back next time. You have a biginfluencer. Yeah, let us know
who.
Marvin Wilcher (22:04):
Okay, well, we were doing it all the time.
Ronjini Joshua (22:07):
All right.
Perfect. All right, so much.
Thank you.
The Green Room podcast isbrought to life by green seed
PR, the cannabis green techfocus PR agency, and a dedicated
production team of editorsmixers and show Booker's. A huge
thank you to the vessel team forproviding their studio for our
recordings. Don't forget tosubscribe and share the
(22:28):
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(22:50):
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