High Five: Wesley Hein

What’s the biggest challenge facing the cannabis industry right now, and how are you and/or your company addressing it?

In California, which is our base, the entire market has been dropping for the past few years, largely driven by excessive taxes, overly burdensome regulations, and competition from unregulated markets (including D9 hemp).

Furthermore, California has never licensed enough retailers as 60% of jurisdictions in the state still ban dispensaries, so cultivators and brands are quite restricted in the ways that they can reach consumers. Finally, and relatedly, the entire industry has a payment problem, and accounts receivable balances just keep growing.

At Mammoth Distribution, we are in it for the long haul – which means there will be good times and there will be challenging times—like the one we are in right now. We purposely didn’t overextend ourselves during the go-go years of early legalization, and we aren’t overcorrecting during this time of industry contraction.

In fact, we are using the chaos in the market to forge deeper relationships with like-minded companies (including the brand Papa & Barkley, which just became part of Mammoth). Notably, we have stayed away from race-to-the-bottom pricing, which we believe hurts everyone.

Where do you see the most exciting opportunity for growth and innovation in cannabis?

Your question had the answer right in it – innovation. Like other industries, cannabis and cannabis products can be continually innovated and improved. This includes everything from genetics to growing techniques to consumption methods. People love cannabis and respond well to ever-improving choices for what and how they consume.

But if I were to name just one thing for continued growth, it would be the ability to deliver consistent quality. I believe consumers will seek out those responsible operators, from craft to large, whose offerings consistently delight them.

We believe that this is more important than being the cheapest or part of 2-for-1 deals, etc., and I hope we see the industry steer away from marketing on how inexpensive a product is to instead promoting how great it is (and if it isn’t great, they shouldn’t be selling it anyway, regardless of price).

What’s one piece of advice you would give to someone looking to break into the cannabis industry?

Don’t come in for the money. People see right through that. But if you truly love and respect the plant as well as believe that all the problems that we are dealing with right now are a small price to pay to be in an industry with so much potential, then people will go out of their way to help you succeed.

What is the most important thing you have learned from your experiences in the cannabis industry?

If you come into the cannabis industry thinking it is just like any other industry, or conversely if you think it is unlike any other industry, then you are likely doomed to fail. Yes cannabis is unique, and are the rules, regulations, and norms that we operate under.

But despite these differences, one can’t just ignore the well-established practices of accounting, finance, management, contract law, and most importantly the laws of economics thinking that these somehow don’t apply to weed. The companies who didn’t recognize this early are the ones that seem to be yelling loudest right now about how tough things are.

At Mammoth, we have an interesting mix of people from diverse backgrounds ranging from the legacy market to public accounting. This blend of talents is unified by a common mission to put out products of which we are proud.

It also helps that we really enjoy working with each other and feel very lucky to be in this industry – challenges notwithstanding. Working with the team at Mammoth has taught me the importance of company culture, which might have been the most important lesson of all.

What do you want your legacy to be as it relates to the cannabis industry?

Cannabis has the opportunity (destiny?) to improve the lives of so many people in so many ways. This includes everything from pain management to being a safer alternative to alcohol and everything in between.

To achieve its full potential, however, I feel that we need to evolve into a global, sustainable, and equitable industry. To get there, we must first succeed where we are already legal, and for me, that is California. Someday in the future, when I look back at this period, I would like to believe that I played some small part in fixing what was truly broken in Legalization 1.0. At least, that’s my goal.

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