Billy Kim Of 5to9 Wellness: 5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started Leading a Cannabis or CBD Business
An Interview With Candice Georgiadis
Lack of Regulation in the CBD industry — This was quite the shock for me to realize there were a lot of shady companies out there taking advantage of this, especially after having worked in a highly regulated pharmaceutical industry. It’s a bit of an honor system to uphold good manufacturing practices and do proper quality control and testing on your products, but it’s something that everybody should strive for to push the industry forward. Plus, consumers are getting smarter about recognizing trustworthy brands that can demonstrate this commitment.
As part of my series about “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started Leading a Cannabis Business” I had the pleasure of interviewing Billy Kim.
Billy graduated with a BS in Neuroscience from Duke and a Joint Master’s in Translational Medicine from UC Berkeley and UCSF. Prior to founding 5to9 Wellness, Billy was a commercial strategy consultant serving big pharma and biotech clients, and previously worked as a research assistant in esteemed molecular biology and biochemistry labs at Duke and Scripps Research.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Can you share with us the story about what brought you to this specific career path?
I’ve actually always wanted to start my own business, and I finally made the leap after coming up with a business idea that I was passionate about.
I quit my job working as a consultant for big pharma clients to promote plant-based wellness instead. When it comes to our daily health and wellness, pharmaceuticals leave a gap that I believe herbal remedies could help cover. I was guided by the scientific evidence.
I have always had a passion for science and its betterment of society, and was trained as a scientist in biomedical research labs before my pharma gig. Having always been an avid user of herbal supplements as well, I kept close track of the scientific literature surrounding plant remedies and noticed an explosion of compelling research in just the past decade supporting their health benefits. Though these benefits have been known since ancient times, it seemed like forgotten knowledge in the modern world.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began leading your company? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
In the very early stages of building the business, my original herbal wellness product idea actually did not include any CBD. What happened was: I knew a cannabis entrepreneur who invited me to move to St. Louis so that he could provide some mentorship and resources like R&D lab space for my original idea. However, while working day to day in a shared space, I realized the stuff that he was working on was truly revolutionary. They were leveraging pharmaceutical grade technology and manufacturing expertise to develop multiple patents involved with cannabis product development. I was so amazed that I actually ended up briefly putting my own project on hold in order to help his business out and learn more about the cannabis industry.
I’m actually now licensing some of the aforementioned technology to manufacture our herbal tincture Mind Unwind. Because of my little venture into the cannabis industry, I learned to create an even better product than what I had originally planned. It just goes to show that an entrepreneur’s journey can be quite windy!
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
I accidentally spelled “green tea” incorrectly on the first set of Mind Unwind’s box packaging. Because the font was so small where the word is used, it took me weeks to notice. I first started selling Mind Unwind at the local farmer’s market before launching online, and I’m pretty sure every customer from the market bought my product with this typo on it. I’m definitely more careful now with reviewing art files for packaging and labels, but I think this also had to do with my tendency to overwork myself and not get enough sleep. I need to remind myself trying to be hyperproductive can actually be counterproductive if you aren’t getting proper rest and your brain isn’t functioning optimally!
Are you working on any exciting projects now? How do you think that will help people?
We’ve recently launched with our debut product: Mind Unwind. It’s an advanced herbal concentrate containing CBD, Lion’s Mane Extract, and L-theanine. All three of these plant ingredients have unique biological mechanisms that can help people with anxiety, pain, sleep, and more. In addition to having this amazing blend of herbal compounds, we utilize a new cutting-edge technology to make it water-soluble. This means that it can be mixed into drinks (unlike CBD oil) and starts working within minutes due to the much higher bioavailability.
Nothing else like Mind Unwind exists, and it was quite technically challenging to develop. I certainly think that all that extra R&D work was worth it — I’m convinced Mind Unwind is one of the most effective CBD wellness products on the market. Not just my own words, but also what I’m regularly told by customers!
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story?
There’s multiple people:
There is obviously the cannabis entrepreneur I mentioned earlier who provided me with the resources that helped get my business where it’s at today. His support has helped me build a strong foundation to get my business off the ground. I can only hope to pay it forward one day if I also find myself in a position to guide younger entrepreneurs.
I also need to thank my parents, who were open-minded and trusting enough of me to quit a career with a good trajectory and build a hemp-related business. Being that they had always been pretty conservative when it comes to cannabis, I appreciate that they did research on CBD health benefits enough to see it in a positive light.
Lastly I need to thank my good friend from college and now business partner Mike. He quit his job to work on his own set of hustles, but still enthusiastically agreed to help me build 5to9 Wellness. I feel like I would have gone crazy from stress and overworking had he not joined the team. It’s also been valuable for me to have a highly competent colleague to bounce ideas off of and help me make tough decisions.
This industry is young dynamic and creative. Do you use any clever and innovative marketing strategies that you think large legacy companies should consider adopting?
When it comes to CBD Ecommerce brands, I feel like everybody needs to be a little creative due to all the advertising restrictions for CBD. The approach we are investing most heavily into is creating bite-sized educational content via social media content or blog posts — an indirect way of creating brand awareness, but more importantly to gain the trust of our potential consumers as an intellectual authority. We’ve posted educational bits about CBD and our other herbal ingredients, as well as the research and biology behind mind and body wellness in general. People really appreciate this type of content and it’s helped us gain our first 2k instagram followers within just a few weeks!
Can you share 3 things that most excite you about the Cannabis industry? Can you share 3 things that most concern you?
Exciting:
Rapid growth and no signs of slowing down
More legalization in the US and around the world.
New innovations providing higher quality products
Concerning
Federally illegal
CBD products being sold in gas stations, which include a lot of crap products that tarnish the value of CBD
On the flip side — The market prices for Premium CBD products such as ours might not be the most financially accessible to many Americans. In the pharma world, patient access programs are standard across drug companies to help the underprivileged pay for their treatments. I’m hoping to one day figure out how to implement a system like this for 5to9!
Can you share your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started Leading a Cannabis Business”? Please share a story or example for each.
Lack of Regulation in the CBD industry
This was quite the shock for me to realize there were a lot of shady companies out there taking advantage of this, especially after having worked in a highly regulated pharmaceutical industry. It’s a bit of an honor system to uphold good manufacturing practices and do proper quality control and testing on your products, but it’s something that everybody should strive for to push the industry forward. Plus, consumers are getting smarter about recognizing trustworthy brands that can demonstrate this commitment.
Education is important — There’s still a lot of learning to be done by consumers!
We’ve come a long way as a society in accepting cannabis and hemp as having legitimate therapeutic uses, but people still have a lot to learn. When I was selling Mind Unwind at the farmer’s market, I had many more people than expected ask me if CBD would get them high (it will not). I also found that many of those I spoke with who had taken CBD products before couldn’t recall what doses they’ve tried!
Advertising will be tricky
There’s a lot of restrictions with online advertising when selling an ingestible CBD product. There are workarounds, some riskier than others. Keep yourself up to date on the policies on Facebook and Instagram to keep your ad accounts from being suspended or disabled. Also, know that even when you are compliant you might still get flagged and have to deal with an annoying appeal process.
Banking will be tricky
If you try to open up a business bank account at any major bank, you’ll get turned away as soon as you mention hemp or CBD. Also, only a handful of payment processors will want to work with you.
Not all 3rd Party Testing labs are equal
We get all our batches tested for quality and safety measures by a third party lab, and publish their data on our website for transparency. However, it can take time to find the right partner. Testing results can vary considerably depending on the lab, and some labs can be completely unreliable. We had to learn this the hard way.
What advice would you give to other CEOs or founders to help their employees to thrive?
N/A. I don’t have enough experience with employees yet to speak on this.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
In general, I think everybody should strive to be more open-minded with different people or ideas. The world isn’t as black and white as much as people make it out to be, but it’s easier for us to think in those terms. Our brain is biologically wired to take mental shortcuts for processing efficiency. It’s easy to label and be quick to judge, but a commitment to learn and understand will be better for the growth of your spirit and your intellect.
What is the best way our readers can follow you on social media?
Definitely our instagram! @5to9.wellness
This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!
Billy Kim Of 5to9 Wellness: 5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started Leading a Cannabis or… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.