Legacy California cannabis culture was about intent.
Intent to provide amazing cannabis genetics and cultivation.
Intent to provide cannabis consumers a safe, all-natural relief from medical conditions or a recreational uplift from life’s daily challenges.
An intent to do right by the plant and by the people who share your love for it.
This was the motivation for Beard Bros Pharms co-founders Bill and Jeff Levers to migrate to California and participate in the legal cannabis industry.
However, not everyone who pivoted their careers to the newly regulated cannabis industry did so with the same honorable intent. Many saw this as a new Green Rush of potential profit instead of the long-awaited and much-needed Green Renaissance of the plant and the culture at her roots.
MSO vs MSB: What’s the Difference?
Most people in the cannabis industry know what an MSO is – a Multi-State Operator – but for many outside the industry, this is new terminology.
As the term suggests, a multi-state operator (MSO) is a cannabis business that obtains the required licensing and permits to operate in more than one state at a time. While many self-funded Legacy operators struggle to stake a claim in their home state due to the incredibly high costs to do so, MSOs are deeply funded and even sometimes publicly traded corporations.
Most MSOs gain presence in multiple states by acquiring underperforming brands for cents on the dollar – this is called corporate raiding in any other industry. By stacking various license types, they often run multiple brands under a corporate structure and (try) to focus on operational efficiency and leveraging financial savings by cost-cutting what they see as redundant functions and employees. They often run on a “loss-leader” mentality, banking on their ability to bleed financially longer than their competition, buttressing their damning quarterly reports by laying off a couple of dozen employees or running another round of funding.
If that sounds like stuff that makes weed un-fun, you’re right; for MSOs, it is strictly business.
So, what is an MSB, and what is the difference between the two?
MSB stands for Multi-State Brand, and while MSOs and MSBs both aim to push their products in more than one state at a time, the similarities end there.
For a perfect blueprint of how to become an MSB, look no further than Beard Bros Pharms. Based in California, this self-built Legacy brand relies on no board of directors or financial benefactors to produce its highly sought-after RSO products. Instead, they have built their brand the old-fashioned way by refusing to sacrifice their authenticity or the quality of the products they craft, pairing their presence in cannabis media with proven grassroots marketing strategies.
By building their business on a target audience that naturally vibes with the brand’s belief system and values, Beard Bros Pharms has earned respect from connoisseurs coast to coast and even worldwide, translating into demand for their products once they become available.
Compare that to MSOs, which are driven solely by the bottom lines of spreadsheets outlining operational efficiency and financial leveraging. Is it any wonder they only produce mids?
The Beard Bros Blueprint to becoming a successful MSB is to remain consumer/patient focused first (i.e., if you wouldn’t smoke it, eat it, or rub it on your skin, don’t sell it!). By putting INTENT back into the business plan, a brand’s ability to connect with a community will invariably lead to financial success.
This can feel like a slow process, but if you are looking to provide your products to as many people as possible, the alternative is the MSO model, which has yet to be proven profitable.
The real bottom line is this: Cannabis patients and consumers don’t care about operational efficiency and financial leveraging. They care about optimizing their lives, they care about the quality of the products that support them in that goal, and they want to know that the companies that they choose have some damn ‘tegrity.
Integrity is the quality of being honest and having strong morals and principles. Ask any seasoned weed farmer, and they will tell you that the cannabis plant uptakes all the good and all the bad from the environment in which it is grown. A strictly corporate mentality will lead to a corporate grow and a flood of corporate boof flooding the market. We are watching it happen, and we are watching them fail.
Most MSOs treat cannabis like a commodity, a widget, a numbers game.
Most MSBs, on the other hand, treat cannabis as a valued and rejuvenating plant that their target audience will use on their personal path to wellness.
Beard Bros Pharms – The Grassroots MSB Blazing a New Trail in Cannabis
Beard Bros is a trusted brand built on the personal and professional values of its co-founders, Bill and Jeff Levers. They are both legacy and contemporary cannabis cultivators, manufacturers, and entrepreneurs.
As well-rooted thought leaders throughout cannabis culture, the Bros are highly respected for their knowledge, education, mentoring, extensive media coverage, authenticity, and willingness to help others without consideration of personal/professional benefit.
The Beard Bros core mission and driving commitments are:
1. Delivering safe and highest-quality cannabis products to medical patients and consumers.
2. Complete integrity in all business aspects such that our entire circle of stakeholders (which includes patients/consumers, business partners and supporting companies, Beard Bros employees, and the cannabis industry as a whole) are treated fairly, morally, and respectfully with a keen focus on increasing quality of life for all.
3. Continued help and support for communities that are underserved, including those affected by the war on drugs, those serving time for non-violent felony drug charges, military veterans, and patients who cannot afford all-natural solutions that relieve their medical symptoms.
This commitment shines through on every golden batch of cannabinoid-rich RSO that they produce and is the reason why the Beard Bros’ expansion into a multi-state brand – and perhaps soon as an MNB, or multi-nation brand – has begun.
Beard Bros products have been available in California’s adult-use recreational cannabis market for years, gaining popularity and changing lives for the better. Their best-selling RSO is now available in Massachusetts.
Additional products such as Beard Bros Pharms tinctures and gel caps will be available soon in this emerging market, and the great state of Missouri is up next! Beard Bros Pharms is even in negotiations with a potential partner in Canada that would provide distribution of Beard Bros products nationwide to our neighbors in the north.
As the federal government here in the U.S. begins to relax its stance on regulated cannabis, and as more states sensibly revise their own cannabis regulations, look for the emergence of more multi-state brands like Beard Bros Pharms that focus on demonstrating their values and integrity to drive consumer/patient demand to finally see some financial success.
