Joe Frey and Adrienne Snow of Western States Hemp: 5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started Leading a Cannabis or CBD Business
Adrienne: I am a firm believer that everything connects. I am not trying to “just build a business”, I am trying to improve myself and trying to improve the lives of the people who work in connection to me.
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 Joe Frey and Adrienne Snow — Western States Hemp.
Western States Hemp is Nevada’s most diverse, long-standing, and well-known hemp cultivation operation. Multigenerational Nevadans Adrienne Snow and Joe Frey lead the only company in the silver state to have cultivated both CBD and Fiber hemp since cultivation became legal. Adrienne Snow combined a decade of Eco-focused business innovation with Joe Frey’s extensive large scale farming experience in an effort to lead the charge of industrial hemp possibilities.
What sets them apart even further today isn’t just how many types of hemp they’ve cultivated, but the manner in which they do it. In an effort to take their operation to an entirely new level, they instated regenerative agricultural practices in their operations in an effort to cultivate a crop that will capture carbon, heal the soil, and provide a bio-degradable ingredient option to manufacturers and retailers that are serious about buying sustainably sources materials.
With a giver’s gain motto, and a strong belief that everything connects, the team at Western States Hemp is dedicated to delivering CBD, fiber and grain products that heal people and the planet.
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?
Joe: The most interesting thing for me has been learning about regenerative ag, which came about at a hemp conference. I am interested in Regenerative Agriculture across all of my farming. It’s changed my mind set completely. Hemp led me to regenerative ag and I find it fascinating the amount of carbon that can be sequestered through hemp. Carbon Sequestration was the catalyst for changing how I farm.
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.
Joe 1: That in a new industry like hemp and cannabis, there is a lot of opportunity for people to take advantage of others.
Joe 2: How hard it was going to be and how long it was going to take to establish our business and niche.
Adrienne 3: I wish someone would have told me how critical it was to have a marketing plan and strategic vision in place because A) differentiating yourself is critical but then letting the public know about why you are different and why your product is superior is crucial.
Adrienne 4: I wish I had known that I should set the bar incredibly high when hiring employees instead of setting the bar low and then moving the bar up.
Adrienne 5: My last thing I wish I had known was to scale slowly instead of scale exponentially year over year. I wish we would have scaled more slowly between particularly between year 2 and 3.
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting?
Joe: It was not really our mistake, but it is still funny. When we ordered our first load of seed from Bulgaria, it came shipped as Cannabis Sativa. It was excessively, randomly sampled. We only ended up with about 50% of it. About 300 kilos was missing, for sampling by the DEA and customs agents. We also got a letter from Fed Ex saying the bag was accidently hit with a forklift and they tried to repair it. It looked like it had been hit in about 10 spots. The funniest park was that the people who took it thought they were getting marijuana. Not only were they not getting marijuana, they got hemp that wasn’t even getting high CBD. If they planted it in with their own marijuana it was going to be ruined.
Are you working on any exciting projects now?
Adrienne: We are working with the NASC (National Animal Supplement Council) to be the first animal supplement manufacturer to develop equine supplements made from whole hemp, not post extracted materials and not just isolates or distillates. Not only will we be bringing a first to market product in the equine space. We will be bringing a first to market using regeneratively grown product that captures carbon, that is also backed and formulated by an animal nutritionist. Where a lot of products on the market are just thrown together by salespeople. Our supplement has been developed by a collective of farmers and horse breeders. It is the real deal. It is a real supplement made from untouched, naturally grown hemp.
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. 🙂
Adrienne: I am a firm believer that everything connects. I am not trying to “just build a business”, I am trying to improve myself and trying to improve the lives of the people who work in connection to me. Everyone who works for us has their own space, essentially to create their own job and their own livelihood within the bubble that Joe and I started. The movement for me would be that we are trying to create space for people to grow. I do it with people, Joe does it with plants. He tries to create a space and a place on the land that everything can thrive through the path of least resistance. As above, so below. Cultivation of people, cultivation of plants.
Joe: I want to change the world through regenerative ag and change the way people look at the land. I saw a quote the other day that went something like “to really be in tune with the land you need to feel like you’re owned by the land not that the land is owned by you”. To take that land and nurture and sustain it, and have a symbiotic relationship that is sustainable and can continue without input other than sunlight and water, is my goal.
Adrienne: We are both people who are passionate about who we are and what we’re doing here on the planet.
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?
Joe: I could not have done this without Adrienne. I probably would not have gotten the seed the first year. If I tried again the second year and got seed, I probably would have bought the wrong seed, would not have been profitable and would have given up as with most of the other farmers that I have seen.
What advice would you give to other CEOs or founders to help their employees to thrive?
Adrienne: Me personally I have learned a lot about the fact that I know I need to give direction, but one of the things I know that Joe and I do as partners is we try to hire people that can manage their own lives. That want to manage their own lives. Nobody wants to have a boss breathing down their neck. I feel like if you can hire people that you know need to be done to make sure the success of the company goes forward so that we all have jobs. Then I do not need to know that they were gone two hours to lunch with a friend or that they needed to leave early on a Thursday. I think that kind of freedom and flexibility creates employees who appreciate the team their on.
This was very meaningful, thank you so much! We wish you continued success!
Joe Frey and Adrienne Snow of Western States Hemp: 5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.