Intro: [00:00:00] Welcome to Kaya Cast the podcast for cannabis businesses looking to launch, grow, and scale their operations.
Tommy Truong: I know a little bit about your background. You worked for Intel, massive semiconductor place. Then you transitioned over into marketing. And I'm sure that that marketing background has served you well in your cannabis journey, but starting a cultivation, a cultivator, without any background in that, what made you decide to do that instead of a dispensary where that seems like it's within the realms of kind of what, what a normal person would be familiar with.
Marianne Cursetjee: Yeah. So, um, so years and years ago, so very long time ago, um, now almost 25 years ago, I owned an e-commerce company and ran that for 10 years while my kids were little. And so that was, that was not, you know, in person retail, but it was still retail. And after [00:01:00] 10 years of being on the e-commerce side end.
Figuring out how to build systems that really keep customers happy and provide customers with what they need. I, I realized that, that I wanted to be a little bit higher up the supply chain. The, the challenges are different, but um, having that customer focus is really important for retail. But I wanted to do something different.
Tommy Truong: Ah, got it. So you decided to come up the value chain and solve different problems and have different problems. What was that journey like? You started cultivation? I, I, I don't know where to start.
Marianne Cursetjee: Um, it was really just dumb luck. Um, we had, we, we got an opportunity to buy some property, so we bought 30 acres and really didn't even have a plan, you know, and in business school as working on my MBA, you're always taught, you know, have a business plan, have, you know, the next five years, all figured out.
But that's, that's not what we did. And so we just kind of like rolled the dice and bought some property. [00:02:00] Built a building and we figured it out along the way. So certainly don't advise that. But what was important for us is having the right people on our team and the right people that we had on our team initially are not the same people that are on the team today.
So we've learned, like some people don't have the ability to to grow with the business and that's fine, but it really was, um, just having the right people and being able to think on the fly.
Tommy Truong: Yeah. You know, I, that's an understatement, having the right people, and I find as though, as an entrepreneur, you change too, your role in the business, and I'm sure that when you first started, you were the jack of all trades. You started most of the projects and you had your toes dipped in. In everywhere.
How did you begin to learn what is required to start cultivation and to run, to manage a cultivation site?
Marianne Cursetjee: Yeah, so it's, um, you're totally [00:03:00] right. Where we, where I am today is not at all where we started. When we very first started, my intention was to be the silent partner. Um, you know, kind of the behind the scenes, managing the money, managing the business, compliance, that sort of stuff. And, um, we had someone who was managing the cultivation side and then another partner who was doing the sales.
And we learned pretty quickly that we needed to make some changes on the cultivation side. So. Brought in some new people and that team has changed over and. The longer I've been in the business, the more I changed from being the silent partner to being the loud partner. I feel kind of like, like I'm the one who's out there.
Um, clearly we're talking today, I have no hesitations at all about telling people I'm in the cannabis business and hey, this is what I do. But it, it's taken a long time to get there. So I, I get the journey that the advocates have put in for years and years trying to normalize the plant. But, um. Yeah, to answer your direct question about building a building and how we do it, [00:04:00] we're fortunate that we have someone on our team who's an engineer, so all the systems are designed properly with what we need and inexpensively, so we didn't have to go out and hire consultants.
So all of that on the cultivation side, we know how to do that in house. And then with my business background, I know how to set up all the financial systems. Monitor things from a business perspective. So we just use our skills and talents and put it all together and hope for some magic.
Tommy Truong: Did you have to, what was the recruiting like to find your head of Grow grower and that side of that equation? Because they're, they're a unique breed.
Marianne Cursetjee: hard. Oh, it is so hard. Um, and it's one of the more important decisions, you know, if you don't have the right fit, like for any key. Person on your team, if it's not the right fit, it can really drag you down. So it, it is taken us a couple iterations and I'm not gonna knock the people who brought us here because we wouldn't be here without the other people that have helped us along the way.
But, um, [00:05:00] recruiting is hard because as you know, I'm sure you know from being in the industry for so long, there's a lot of people who appear to be something that they're not. So figuring out who is. Legitimately telling you the truth versus who's just blowing smoke and it's, it's hard. So what we chose to do is to reach out to some of our key partners in the Oregon market, um, distributors who see a lot of flower and who see a lot of farms and who kind of know people on the distribution side.
We said, Hey, we're looking, whose flower do you see? That looks really nice. Because you know, as a craft indoor farm, we have to have really high standards. And so we just kind of put like, who's flower? Not even saying that we're recruiting a person, but which farms grow the best flower. And then, you know, we started our recruiting process there.
I.
Tommy Truong: Wow. That's brilliant. That's really brilliant. When you, looking back now and I, I do this [00:06:00] exercise all the time and it's really helpful for me, but also helpful for everybody that's listening. What were some of the initial mistakes that you made when you're starting your cultivation business that you would, you know, now you would do things completely different.
Marianne Cursetjee: So many, so many. Um, the first thing is on our, the physical design. The person who was. Running the cultivation initially had only grown in their, and this sounds so bad, like, like you think about this, the mistakes we make, right? But he had only grown in his parents' basement, so, or in his parents' barn. So that's all he knew was kind of small.
A small scale cultivation facility, like the vision of having an actual production facility just completely escaped him. So our first rooms were built very small because that's what he was used to, and looking back. So all of our subsequent rooms have been much [00:07:00] bigger, but it's one of these things that, well, we don't know until, you know.
And then also we're able to use those rooms for r and d now. So if we need to isolate something or put something in quarantine, we can use those smaller rooms. So we take what, what could have been a mistake and we just make something good out of it.
Tommy Truong: That's, that's interesting. It's interesting you say it's, it's really the people at this stage of the business. In the beginning when you are, I, I can't imagine you. You don't really have a business until your first crop as a cultivator, right?
Marianne Cursetjee: Yep. Until you've sold it and collected the cash on the first half. Gotta have a cash in the bank.
Tommy Truong: So what, how did you, I mean, you have a, a numbers background, and you probably budgeted this in terms of, you know, when you first start, you, you don't know what, how much are you gonna produce, how much of it is. Is there gonna be mold? How much do you have to throw away? All of those things that you factor, you factor in. [00:08:00] What was that journey like?
Marianne Cursetjee: Boy, I haven't thought about those years in so long, but, um, you know, talking about the first harvest. And this is ga gonna sound so funny, but, or maybe not funny, but it sounds bad. I'm sharing things with you I don't normally share. So, um, hopefully people enjoy it. But our, our first harvest, um, my cultivator had quit.
He up and left, refused to answer any texts or emails, stuff was ready to get harvested like in two weeks. And the, I am not a cultivator, I've never pretended to be, I know, just enough to be dangerous and just enough to. Be somewhat competent, but I'm not a cultivator. But here we were in there watering crops by hand, going in every single weekend, every day, making it happen.
Um, figuring out how we're gonna harvest, like that whole, that whole process. And he abandoned us. And so when it's, when it's my business and my money on the line, like you just show up and you [00:09:00] do it. And that's, that's how it works.
Tommy Truong: Wow. Talk about learning by fire. So how, how big was this operation? How, how many plants or how many lights did you have?
Marianne Cursetjee: Um, at the time we started with 60 lights.
Tommy Truong: Oh, that's still pretty big.
Marianne Cursetjee: Yeah. So it was small, but it was, it was, it was a good thing. We kinda limped into it because, you know, you can make all your mistakes at a 60 light grow and it's not that big of a deal. But if you're, you know, a couple hundred lights, then it, it definitely makes a big difference.
Tommy Truong: You know, when you are first starting out, how, what does the, what comes first, the product and then the sale or your, I would imagine that you are out there trying to get shelf space immediately when, when you bought. you started the cultivation, do you, is it a kind of, 'cause you don't know what the product's gonna look like, you can't really give any samples
Marianne Cursetjee: Mm-hmm.
Tommy Truong: and it's a chicken or egg type of problem that you're trying to solve.
Marianne Cursetjee: It is [00:10:00] totally that, and we, and that's still a challenge today is, is, um, fortunately the, the story's a bit different because we have our years of experience and our award-winning flower. And, you know, it's a little bit in our reputation so people know of us and it's a bit easier sell, but still we have to wait for test results.
Oregon, we pretty much can't give samples, so it's very restricted in, um. In what we're able to do to sell a product. Because you're right, it is based on of, well, I think it's gonna be this or it might be that. And what buyer wants to buy on a hope and a dream. You know, you're you, you wanna buy an actual product, and that's the constant dilemma when you're selling flower.
That's different from selling other CPG, like if we were selling. Gummies or vapes or, or whatever that looks like, you know, that's very different 'cause you, there's some predictability to that. Whereas with flower, it's, it's agriculture, so it's different every time. And even if you try to make it consistent, there's still stuff and you, and you can't predict [00:11:00] lab results.
Um, you've just gotta wait for the lab to come back with their results. And then it is what it is.
Tommy Truong: So do you, do you sell at um. Kind of, what is that called? Where you are not really selling, but you're just boring shelf space or to you that you sell at a discount in the beginning just to get, uh, product out there.
Marianne Cursetjee: Actually, in the beginning it was so much easier because there were so few producers. Um, Oregon's mistake has been that over time, you know, the nine years of doing this, there's been so many more licenses issued, but at the beginning it was pretty easy. You show up with halfway decent flower and prices were higher.
Um, we were getting twice as much per pound for less for a lower quality flower eight years ago than we're getting today. So, um, you know, so now, so today we're growing much better quality. Much, um, higher [00:12:00] volume and getting about half the price.
Tommy Truong: I was gonna ask you that is, you've been through the really good and then now you're going through the price suppression. How have you really, how have you navigated or, or what has the business done to adapt to this new environment? Uh.
Marianne Cursetjee: Well, I think that's where my business background, um, really comes into play and 'cause I've, I've done accounting for years. My undergrad was in accounting, so give me some numbers and we can make a spreadsheet and we can talk about it all day long. But if you don't know what your numbers are and you don't actually know what your cost of goods is, then it's hard to make decisions.
And so what, what one of our superpowers is having data available and making decisions based on data. And so we really focus on our costs and there's, there's a limited number of things that drive cost of goods. You know, there's payroll, there's rent, utilities. Trimming and those are the big ones.
Everything else is pretty [00:13:00] minor. And once you figure that out, then you can have some real conversations about what SOPs make sense and what processes make sense so that you can really drive costs. And I think that's one of the big differences where we're in Oregon and then also we're in New York now and New York has not hit price compression.
So people are still. Spending money like, like there's no tomorrow, just like, woo-hoo and whoa, there's so much volume. But I come at it a bit more conservatively, like, okay, yes, today there's money, but you have to plan for two years from now, 18 months from now when price compression's gonna happen. You have to know what your costs are, get it dialed and, and stay focused.
Tommy Truong: Has that, this experience in Oregon and now you're going to New York. New York. Are you a lot more cautious now on the overhead costs? Like just making sure that hey, there's gonna be a time that comes where bigger is not better.
Marianne Cursetjee: It's always been [00:14:00] our mantra and it's. That's the challenge with growth, um, is one of the things I studied when I was working on my MBA was, was companies that have longevity and how companies grow and what the success metrics are for the ones who have succeeded versus the ones who have failed. And so I'm always mindful about how you scale effectively and it's hard.
Um, it is, it is so hard because you're absolutely right. If we had, if we had. Like what my, you know, my, my dream, I would love to have a full-time designer on staff. I would love to have a full-time person designing our packaging, managing our inventory, doing our social media. But those are non-deductible expenses, so it hits me directly in our tax bill if we do that.
So what that means is that we just suck it up and do as much as we can ourselves, which. Is fine until it's not. So that's part of scaling is at what point does it make sense to bring on another person and add this, you [00:15:00] know, additional cost versus just either not doing it or, or doing it poorly to get by.
Tommy Truong: Yeah. So what made you guys decide, Hey, we, we've been doing it in Oregon for so many years, let's increase the complexity and go into a new state.
Marianne Cursetjee: It's, um, you know, it's, it started about five years ago. I was looking at the market five years ago and, you know, after seeing a few cycles of the ups and downs every year, just kind of seeing the trajectory and knowing what was happening in the Oregon economy, it became really apparent to me that for actual real growth.
We needed to extend beyond the state borders. And so of course, you know, the only way to do that legally within our regulated space is to set up a completely new operation. And, um, we tried a couple other states. I started talking to people and building my network, but. Really quickly, it became apparent that New York was where we, [00:16:00] where we wanted to be.
I had a really good community, lots of connections, and we were able to find a manufacturing partner there that is fantastic. And so we were able to launch and it's, um, my hope is that by the end of the year, our New York business will be equal or greater to our Oregon business, and I think we should be able to get there.
Tommy Truong: Wow,
Marianne Cursetjee: Yeah,
Tommy Truong: that's amazing.
Marianne Cursetjee: it's kind of crazy.
Tommy Truong: you Yeah. So are in New York, are you, you're going through. I think, I think that's the better, better route is to, I forgot the, the word is low capital growth.
Marianne Cursetjee: Yeah. Um, yeah, we have, we have a licensing deal, so it's asset light.
Tommy Truong: Asset light. There you go.
Marianne Cursetjee: so asset light expansion. So I'm not building another facility because that requires a lot of capital investment and in New York [00:17:00] especially, licenses are hard to, to get and expensive. So, you know, you're already in, like, that's, that's a huge, huge investment.
But, so we're expanding asset light where I provide the packaging and the marketing and the ip and um, then my business partner there, uh, they handle all the manufacturing and sales and distribution.
Tommy Truong: Wow. That's amazing.
Marianne Cursetjee: Yeah,
Tommy Truong: That's, that's a, for me, that's a preferred way to grow. So where do you spend your time now that, do you spend your time in the newer market or in the Oregon market? Um.
Marianne Cursetjee: Um, it's been so far about one week a month in New York, so, um, but a lot of my time is spent on New York, so it's, um, you know, still doing what I need to do to manage the Oregon business. But because we have a good team that handles all the day-to-day stuff, I'm not. Quite as needed in Oregon so I can focus my attention on on our team in New York.
Tommy Truong: Yeah, new York's not a bad spot to be
Marianne Cursetjee: Yeah,
Tommy Truong: right. A lot of [00:18:00] distractions there.
Marianne Cursetjee: I don't, yeah, I mean, I last, the last time I was there I didn't get to see a show, which I was kind of sad about. 'cause I love, I love Broadway and I love that, that excitement of being in a big city. But I was there to hustle and there to work. So you just gotta focus and do
Tommy Truong: I mean, there's always time in the future. Right? So I, you mentioned something that I think, um, is really valuable to drive, dive into in the, in, excuse me. In the software world, we have MVP minimum viable product, and it's a little bit easier in our space. Excuse me, unless you're. You're doing the add of light model in your space, because in our space you talk to a bunch of prospects, you find out what their problem is, you validate whether or not, Hey, if I do this, are you gonna pay for my product?
You create a a minimum viable product, and there you go. In your space, you don't have that luxury. You have to, in your instance, buy a 25 acre [00:19:00] farm, build the facility. Invest all of this capital and then start selling. Um, can you, let's talk a little bit about kind of your experience in the Oregon market.
You mentioned things were way better nine years ago and obviously in any mature market there's gonna be more and more and more supply and the price compression just, just happens and there's consolidation and some businesses don't make it.
Marianne Cursetjee: Yeah. It is, um, it is real challenging and to me this year feels really pivotable fit, pivotal because a lot of businesses have gone out of business this year, especially on the cultivation and retail side. And it's, it's an interesting conundrum because I. Think that the, the regulators have chosen to take a hands-off approach to this.
And a lot of people in the industry wish that the regulators would kind of step in and pull back some of the licenses [00:20:00] and, and allow for a process where, where licenses would be reduced. And, you know, we don't want any of our friends or colleagues to go outta business because you don't wish, you know, I don't wanna wish that on anybody.
That's heartbreaking. And it. People have invested their life savings. But the reality is, is that the Oregon consumer base is not large enough to consume all the products that are being grown here. I did the math about a year ago, and there are, there is enough canopy space licensed in Oregon to supply the entire country.
Tommy Truong: Wow.
Marianne Cursetjee: So it just, it just doesn't math like you just do the basic back of the envelope math and, and the system that has been created is. Is not a system that's setting anybody up for success.
Tommy Truong: And then now you're, now you're seeing the market just normalize. Right? And hopefully it can happen faster, but, or it can happen in a, in a disastrous wildfire where the good [00:21:00] trees survive. You're gonna see a bunch of trees burn.
Marianne Cursetjee: Yeah. And that's kind of what it feels like sometimes. And um, it's hard, but it's, it's one of these things where I think. You know, we were talking a little bit before about, about some of the values, and I think that if you have to be able to pivot and to be able to not be stuck, you have to constantly learn and constantly grow and, and be humble about what you don't know.
And that's, that's hard for a lot of people who come at this like, I know how to do this. I've been doing this for 20 years, you know, and it's like, if you can't adapt, then, then, then that's, that's fine, but I, I'm gonna adapt and I'm gonna get better.
Tommy Truong: Yeah. How has, what, I'm sure that you face a lot of, a lot of hurdles, um, in just being a cultivator in Oregon. When I found out that you've been doing this for nine years. There were so many thoughts that came through my head, you know, [00:22:00] like she's been through a lot.
Marianne Cursetjee: Yeah.
Tommy Truong: Right. Ups and downs. What were some of the, the big challenges that you've had to face as a business, and how did you guys navigate around that?
Marianne Cursetjee: So the biggest thing, um, and I kind of alluded to it earlier, was staff changes and really finding the right fit for key staff. And this was one of my biggest learnings personally in that I kept. I kept buying this dream of, oh, we're going to next month. It's gonna be better. Oh, this is the best crop ever.
Oh, this is so awesome. So it's constantly being told a story without the actual, without it actually getting better. And it was easy for me because I wanna believe the best in people to get sucked into that. And it was a huge learning as a, as a leader to. To in fact, like, no, actually we, we should have parted way years ago because this is not actually getting [00:23:00] better and it's not actually working.
And so that looking back, if we would've made those changes two or three years ago, it would've made such huge differences on our bottom line. But I think that. You know, if there's good that we're gonna take out of it, it's that I've now recognize that pattern and know that when it's time to let somebody go, it's time to let somebody go And, um, and just be ready for that.
So it's, it's, it's tough, but it was, it's a good lesson.
Tommy Truong: That is such an entrepreneur journey,
Marianne Cursetjee: Mm-hmm.
Tommy Truong: you know, unless you're a solopreneur. Uh, and it's difficult because these are people's lives and.
Marianne Cursetjee: Yeah.
Tommy Truong: You know, you become friends. I've, I, I always get reminded on Elon Musk's quote, which is, so, I, I listen to a lot of biographies, right? Biographies of people that have, uh, that have grown in scale.
And el this is very extreme, by the way, and it's not normal, [00:24:00] but, uh, his approach is he doesn't ever make friends at work. And it's hard not to, if you spend so much time with an individual, you naturally become friends because you start making decisions that are best for the relationship versus for the business.
And that one struck me. I'm like, oh, every entrepreneur goes through that.
Marianne Cursetjee: Yep. Yeah. Especially when you're on a small team and, um, I, I, I want to be, to give people second chances. I want to give opportunities, so it's like, Hey, do you wanna go to a class? Or, Hey, can we do this? After a time, I realized, no, they never actually showed any interest in getting better, and no, there was actually never acknowledgement that that improvements needed to make.
I was like, oh, okay. It's obvious now. I should have picked up on this a long time ago, but I didn't.
Tommy Truong: So now do you have you, um, how has your, I mean, with your accounting background things, have you probably dialed [00:25:00] this in? Are there leading indicators that you look at on how well the business is doing outside of just the bottom line?
Marianne Cursetjee: The biggest, the biggest metric we look at every month is yield. I wanna know how many pounds of a bud we produced every month. And at the end of the day, that's, we have so much data and we track so many things, and we've, we've talked about d like looking at things from a different lens, but at the end of the day, yield is the only thing that matters.
Tommy Truong: Yeah, that's, that's true. It's, you guys are farmers. You right? How much did we crop? So how do you measure the quality? I guess you send it to a lab and it comes back and you kind of figure, figure that out.
Marianne Cursetjee: So quality is hard because it's, it's subjective. And so when you ask how you measure quality, those two words don't even really go together. I would say, how do you judge [00:26:00] quality or how do you like figure out what you think quality is? But um, yeah, so there certainly are lab tests, but, but. Quality, and this is, this conversation we have all the time in the farm is quality is not THC score.
Um, my, like, as, as a non cultivator, what I've, what I've come to understand is that like 75% of the THC score is genetic and then the remaining 25% is, is environmental and how well you grew it. But if something's gonna test at 15%, it's just, you might be able to get it to 20%, but it's never gonna be a 25 or 30% or.
And so, um, measuring quality is, it doesn't work like that. It's really about what does it look like and what does the market think, and it's different. And so that's one of these interesting things because there's cycles to what genetics people like. So they might like something really gassy that might be in vogue for six months, and then they'll move [00:27:00] to something that smells like a runts, and then that'll be all the, all what's in vogue and figuring out.
What the sales team can move versus what we like is, is a constant push and pull.
Tommy Truong: That's what I was gonna ask you is how do you decide what to grow and how long do you stick with a string?
Marianne Cursetjee: This is, I wish there were better answers, but this is constantly the discussion. This is what we do to try to improve and to get better. And if my cultivation team had their. We would have five strains that we grew, the same five strains over and over and over, and they would, they would really hone their craft and get good at those.
But sadly, the market gets bored or they're like, oh yeah, we saw that last month. Do you have anything else? And so there's this constant need for something new and something fresh and, and it's a balancing act between the sales team always hearing from customers of, Hey, what do you have new What? What do you got for me this month?
Versus, [00:28:00] um, patients like medical patients who kind of want some consistency and also the cultivation team wants some consult consistency so that they're not figuring things out ev, you know, new every time. So it's, there isn't one right answer. It's, it's, uh, it's a fluid flow state.
Tommy Truong: Do you find, I mean now that you're in two different markets, what is your approach in Oregon that's, is it any different than your approach in New York?
Marianne Cursetjee: It is so different. It's like running two separate, completely separate businesses. Um, in Oregon, our primary product is bulk flower, so we sell bulk flower every day. Um, and because we're. In indoor cultivator, we have to focus on quality, so we know how to grow the best and all of that. But, um, in New York, because we're not doing the cultivation, we have, I mean the, we are partners, or not partners, but you know, we're, uh, colleagues and we have the cultivation team as part of [00:29:00] the, the supply chain.
But we're not selling flower, we're selling products. So we sell pre-rolls, infused pre-rolls and vapes. So it's very much on the CPG side of. Of things, partly because that's the way the New York market is, but also because. I don't feel comfortable saying we've got really top quality indoor flower in Oregon and then, hey, we've got great product, but it's greenhouse and may not always be the most consistent in New York.
So it's, it was hard figuring out how one brand cohesively fits into those two paradigms. So it's been a juggling act, but I think we've nailed it.
Tommy Truong: Wow that. I never really thought of that. That's so true because you guys have an identity of winning awards with your flower and you can't really replicate that unless you are the ones that are growing in New York as well.
Marianne Cursetjee: Exactly. And [00:30:00] yeah, so from a branding journey, it was, it was really interesting. It took us about a year to figure that out, like have all that conversation of teasing apart the brand and what we stand for from. The mechanics of what happens at the farm in Oregon.
Tommy Truong: So how do you choose, um, what products to back in New York? What was that process like on Okay, well, I mean essentially you guys are a brand, but you guys are a product company, and.
Marianne Cursetjee: Yeah.
Tommy Truong: a tough decision. It's a big decision I would say.
Marianne Cursetjee: Yeah, so what we did is we, we leaned on our experience here in Oregon, so our, our package product here in Oregon is pre-rolls. And so we, we do know how to sell pre-rolls. We have some experience in the market, and so we're like, you know what? Let's do pre-rolls. We know how, we know how that works.
We've got some good experience and it actually makes sense. It's, it's like part of the brand story that translates from, from market to market. And so we picked, um, working with my partner out there. [00:31:00] We picked three different strains. We, um, we got some exclusivity on their menu for those three strains and, and went for.
Tommy Truong: Oh wow. Do you find the market itself different too? The consumer market in New York? 'cause New York is a relatively new recreational market, but it's a, it's an old market. They, they know, they've been around the block.
Marianne Cursetjee: exactly. Yeah, it's, um, it is very different. Um. Oregon's, CPG, so like vapes and brownies and gummies, and they're just so cheap and that's why we don't do them. That's why we don't offer that form factor here in Oregon. It's because they're really big companies who have been doing this a long time and have their costs down really low, and it just doesn't make sense to have a craft brand come in and Hey, we're gonna make the latest.
I don't know, beverage and it's gonna be so great and wonderful. It takes a lot of, a lot of effort and a lot of money to [00:32:00] break into a new form factor like that. So in Oregon, we stick to flower and pre-rolls, and that's, that's just what we do. Um, even, even infused pre-rolls, we don't do them. 'cause people, we ran the cost a couple years ago and by the time we used our flower, had somebody extract our trim so that it was the same extract with the same flower.
Make it for us. Um, our costs would be so high that we're not competitive in the market. And so if there's no money in it, why would, why would we do it? But, um, now that we've learned all of that, we took those learnings to New York and were able to craft some carefully chosen products that fit into categories.
On the shelf. Um, the other thing on that is we're, because we're very data focused, we looked at a lot of data to figure out what products we're selling and what gaps we thought that there might be in the New York market.
Tommy Truong: Ah, are you in, are you distributed? Distributed, all of all across the state?
Marianne Cursetjee: Yeah. Yeah. [00:33:00] We're in a over a hundred, probably 120 stores all the way from Syracuse all the way down to Long Island.
Tommy Truong: Oh, that's amazing
Marianne Cursetjee: Yeah.
Tommy Truong: that it, and it's you. So essentially you started another business.
Marianne Cursetjee: Yeah, totally. It's exactly what
Tommy Truong: same brand, but it's a completely different business.
Marianne Cursetjee: Yeah. And it has to be, I mean, you know, both for compliance reasons, because you know, our Oregon business, we have our license and everything stays within the borders of our state. And then New York, everything, you know, we have a brand license for New York. Everything has to stay there.
So it just, it we, we have to do it, keep it separate.
Tommy Truong: I forgot to ask you this. Where did the, the NA name alibi come from?
Marianne Cursetjee: So it's interesting, I've, we've brainstormed this name several years ago, but the definition of alibi, it's, you know, it's usually used in a legal connotation, but it really just means being somewhere else. And for us, that's, that's what cannabis [00:34:00] brings, is takes you out of maybe the struggles that you have today.
Maybe you're. Fighting with your partner. Maybe you're frustrated with this or that, whatever it is, and just takes you to a moment, a different place where there's some peace, where there's some joy, where there's some beauty. Just enjoy it and then, um, you know, try to integrate that with your life. So that's, that's really what alibi all is, is about, is creating, is finding that beautiful space that, that we can all be together.
Tommy Truong: Oh, that's beautiful. And how did you come up with the branding?
Marianne Cursetjee: I spotted this through, um, there's an artist in LA and she's done a bunch of other similar art, and she posted this one and she's like, Hey guys, this is sneak preview. This is what's coming out next week. And I saw it. I called her up. I'm like, Lisa, let's talk. I I love that image. I want it. So we, um. Yeah, we bought it from her and [00:35:00] are just so thrilled that, that we were able to, to work with her and, and create a, an artistic, it's kind of edgy, you know, it's a sexy fairy.
Not a whole lot of people are, are pushing the envelope that far, but it, it's part of that alibi of right, of being somewhere else and this, this beautiful butterfly that is maybe stuck inside that needs to escape and just let it, let it fly free. And that's what cannabis does.
Tommy Truong: Marianne, I have to ask you this. As a cultivator, when you, you probably smoke so many different types of flowers. What goes through your mind when you're smoking flower, yours or anybody else's? And how do you grade? Is this good or is this bad?
Marianne Cursetjee: Ooh, that's a tough one. So I.
I don't ever put myself out as being a flower connoisseur. And the [00:36:00] reason for that is because I like, I like to enjoy every moment. It's not, I don't want to be sitting here picking it apart. So like, if we were to go out to dinner and I'm gonna order my whatever, I wanna enjoy that because I'm here in this moment, I'm present.
This is, this is what we're doing together and. You know, if, if I come at it with an attitude of, oh, it's got parsing on, or Oh, this isn't cooked exactly the way I want to, or, oh, you know, it's, it's like that's just an approach to life that I, I don't choose to approach life to that way. I, I wanna come at it with looking for joy and looking for abundance and, and so, um, so I enjoy every experience.
I'll put it that way.
Tommy Truong: No, that's, that's awesome. Yeah. Uh, you know, my, my relationship with smoking weed has changed so much throughout the
Marianne Cursetjee: Mm-hmm.
Tommy Truong: Uh, it has evolved from, in my teenage years where. You know, you, you probably smoke more than what you [00:37:00] should. And to now where I, I had an epiphany once where I was serving the plant. I was just really serving the plant and, um, I was really dependent on it to now where the plant serves me and, and, and enhances my life.
Marianne Cursetjee: Hmm
Tommy Truong: So I've never really cared much about what anything tastes like. It's just more on how I feel. And so I do have favorite strains. And, you know, you mentioned that, um, your, your struggles of having, of creating different strains.
For me that's, I'm the complete opposite. I want the exact same strain all the time. I have my favorite one. Do you guys have, you guys don't have it all. What gives you the same effect?
Marianne Cursetjee: yeah. Yeah. So I wish, I wish that buyers in shops had that same idea that you do, because we hear that from customers that they, they have their favorite strain they want, like in New York, it's crazy to me. Over what a quarter to a third of [00:38:00] sale flower sales are. Blue Dream. We couldn't sell Blue Dream to save our lives in Oregon, but it is the most popular strain in New York.
But if you like Blue Dream and that's what fits your needs, you want Blue Dream. And the buyers here in Oregon don't, don't operate that way. And I, I do think it's a mismatch. I think it's a mismatch of, of the is feeling to serve the customer.
Tommy Truong: Yeah, it's, it's fascinating though, how there are, the culture of consumption is so different. I mean, obviously it's thousands of kilometers or miles apart, but it's always fascinating to me and that's why when you've started the other side of the country to to extend your brand, you've come at it with very unique perspective.
Marianne Cursetjee: Yeah, we try to. Um, and that's, so one area specifically that we've been able to bring our, our learnings is that in Oregon, our pre-roll pacs, [00:39:00] having been doing them for several years, we found that customers really lack a variety. So we've, we launched a variety pack. It was maybe a year, year and a half ago.
And so they get a couple different strains, two or three different strains in the same pack. You know, one for now, one for later, or one for the evening, one for the morning, whatever it is that you're, that you're looking for. And virtually nobody is doing that in New York. So it felt pretty lucky when we were able to launch our variety pack about six weeks ago and it's just taken off because people are, are excited about that.
So I think. So yes. I mean, we, we have some really cool product and I think that we're gonna be able to, to gain some market share because of being a first mover, but also it, it compresses that horizon of product development because what took us five years to figure out in Oregon now, we made happen in New York in six months.
And so it's, it's a little bit scary because the, the acceleration seems like it's. Getting fit [00:40:00] faster and faster, but then also that's, that's part of the business.
Tommy Truong: Yeah. So tell me, is there anything that you're come coming out with in the near future that you wanna share?
Marianne Cursetjee: So last week we just launched a seasonal vape in New York. I'm pretty excited about it. It's a spiced Apple vape. We wanted to do something in New York that really connected with the local culture and represented what the state is to people and. Um, you know, really it's, it's fall and autumn and the spiced apple and the harvest and apple cider and all of that.
So we, we, we crafted, um, an apple cider, so it's apples and cinnamon and clove, all of those spices and call it spiced apple, and that's, that's our product that we just launched. I'm pretty excited about it. We've gotten some really great reviews and we're excited to, to continue to, to grow that.
Tommy Truong: Oh, I love that. It's, I, I love that that's coming out in our industry. It reminds me of, you know, you go to Starbucks for their pumpkin latte.
Marianne Cursetjee: Exactly.
Tommy Truong: And you know, [00:41:00] that's the fall. It just smells like fall, right?
Marianne Cursetjee: That's the idea. And I think, I think the cannabis, I dunno, I think it's a cool thing is to have, to have these seasonal, seasonal, um, products. I think it's good to have both, both the evergreen products and the seasonal products.
Tommy Truong: Mm-hmm. Maryanne, before I let you go, how can our listeners find you?
Marianne Cursetjee: I'm pretty easy to find on Instagram. We're at alibi dot ny and Alibi dot Oregon, and our website is alibi.co.
Tommy Truong: Thank you so much for joining me today.
Marianne Cursetjee: Thank you so much. It's been great chatting, Tommy.
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