An Interview With Candice Georgiadis
Trust — not only in yourself but in the plant. There is a reason why the opportunity in cannabis is so large and it attracts those from all types of backgrounds and lifestyles.
As a part of my series about strong women leaders in the cannabis industry, I had the pleasure of interviewing Amy Bragg Maddocks.
Amy has an extensive background in making consumer product goods and services. Over the years, Amy’s creative resume has grown with professional roles in product development, branding, photography, design, marketing, and business ownership. She is passionate about CBD, reading, running and weight lifting, and living a healthy and happy life with her family and 2 dogs in Seattle.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Can you tell us the “backstory” about what brought you to the cannabis industry?
I entered the industry in 2015 with a cannabis blog that began as an online resource for women who were interested in using cannabis. The blog quickly expanded to in-home events in the Seattle area that offered a safe and private space to learn about the recreational and medicinal benefits of cannabis and try different accessories and tools for consumption. At these parties, CBD was brought up and asked about often and helped lead to the creation of Mad Ritual. Mad Ritual was launched with a single product at the end of a local 5k race in 2018 and has since grown to include 5 CBD Relief Rubs and 3 CBD Bath Bombs, available in various strengths and blends.
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?
Since Mad Ritual has been around since CBD’s rise to mainstream fame, the conversations I have with the public at events have changed drastically. In the beginning, there was a huge educational curve as the general public had not heard about CBD and for the most part, only knew about cannabis for its recreational use. With Mad Ritual only making topicals, it was easier to convince a runner at a local race to try a relief rub on their throbbing knee than to ingest something like a tincture or a gummy. Over the years, with the help of mainstream media and mass retail selling CBD products along with the federal legalization and clarifications in 2018 with the Hemp Farm Bill, almost everyone has now heard about CBD. When CBD became mainstream, the market was flooded with CBD products and brands, some offering products that were low-grade quality with off-the-shelf formulations. Unfortunately, some consumers had a poor experience with bland results and may think CBD is a scam or another trend. Now my conversations are focused on how CBD works with the body, the different types of CBD (full and broad-spectrum vs isolate), why some CBD topicals work better than others, and why it’s a good alternative to taking NSAIDs for localized and aches and pains.
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?
In the beginning, Mad Ritual’s operation was so small and the first batch of the rub was made by a friend with a skincare company. Soon after launching, I began making products at home and realized that it was quite laborious to melt, mix, pour, label, and finish all the tins of rub to then photograph and market the finished product! The relief rub has been renamed so many times over the years and it took a while to perfect the formula. Typos on printed labels happened and I quickly learned making a simple change or update to one thing would start a domino effect of updating across multiple assets and mediums. So many mistakes were made but this offered a valuable opportunity to learn the product inside and out and create procedures and processes to reduce mistakes.
Do you have a funny story about how someone you knew reacted when they first heard you were getting into the cannabis industry?
I’m from Texas, East Texas that is, so I had a lot of stereotypes to battle and I’m sure my mom wasn’t thrilled to tell her teacher friends about my new venture. I was nervous to tell my family and friends I was exploring entrepreneurship in the cannabis space but eventually, I had to trust I was making a good decision for my future, remind myself of the great opportunities that came with cannabis, and eventually, I stopped caring what people thought. Now I have a bit of a reputation as “the CBD lady” so friends of friends and acquaintances will DM with questions and ask for product recommendations.
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?
Over the last 4 years, I’ve had so many people offer support, help and encouragement. My business partner, Kate, transitioned from working with me as a contractor to having a stake in the company and has been immensely helpful in growing and strengthening the business during Covid. My husband, Jason, is responsible for planting the idea of me working with cannabis and encouraging me to take the leap into entrepreneurship. My sister-in-law, Cassie, happens to be a cosmetic chemist and helped to perfect Mad Ritual’s special formula.
Are you working on any new or exciting projects now? How do you think that will help people?
We’ve launched 3 new products so far this year and are currently in a rebranding phase. Recently we obtained our USDA Certified Organic seal and the Leaping Bunny Cruelty-Free certification, in addition to being a certified Women-owned small business, which was a goal of mine since the beginning. Although we’ve always used organically-grown and vegan ingredients, these are 2 certifications that bring authority to the product and more opportunities for larger retail placement. We pop up at events where folks are getting sore and recovery is top of mind, so we will be sampling at a lot of Seattle running events and traveling with Lagree Fitness, which hosts outdoor pilates parties.
Ok. Thank you for all that. Let’s now jump to the main core of our interview. Despite great progress that has been made we still have a lot more work to do to achieve gender parity in this industry. According to this report in Entrepreneur, less than 25 percent of cannabis businesses are run by women. In your opinion or experience, what 3 things can be done by a)individuals b)companies and/or c) society to support greater gender parity moving forward?
I was fortunate to have female and male mentors early in my career who helped develop my skill set and empower me to try new things through various opportunities presented. When learning something new, often you just need to ask the right person and they will be open to sharing their passion with you. Exploring new skills like photography, and learning to communicate well at trade shows, events and sales were all areas I was intimidated but encouraged to explore. Operating and growing a business is very challenging, especially in a brand new space like cannabis. Without access to affordable housing and support like free child care and free health care, while the cost of living is skyrocketing, it’s becoming riskier for women to make these decisions. Small businesses often can’t afford to offer paid maternity leave, great benefits, and competitive compensation so supporting both small businesses and mothers with services and grants would help to close this gap.
You are a “Cannabis Insider”. If you had to advise someone about 5 non intuitive things one should know to succeed in the cannabis industry, what would you say? Can you please give a story or an example for each.
Trust — not only in yourself but in the plant. There is a reason why the opportunity in cannabis is so large and it attracts those from all types of backgrounds and lifestyles.
Acceptance — the end consumer of cannabis products is diverse and looking for relief from all types of challenges that life presents. Showing empathy and understanding that everyone just wants to feel ok and relief from life and stress will make you a better leader and person.
Flexibility — the industry is so new and highly regulated so things are complex and changing often.
Perseverance — One of my favorite quotes is, “opportunities are usually disguised as hard work” and I’ve found this to be true and keeps me going.
Humor — there’s a lot of history that comes with cannabis and almost everyone has a “bad batch of brownies” to share.
Can you share 3 things that most excite you about the cannabis industry?
I’m excited to see products that are created to help with climate change become mainstream and more affordable. There’s a lot happening with sustainable building materials that help reduce energy consumption. Hemp plastics and hemp packaging will help reduce our reliance on plastics made from fossil fuels that cannot be recycled. I’m a big fan of the natural pain relief that hemp cannabinoids offer and love that it is becoming a household ingredient.
Can you share 3 things that most concern you about the industry? If you had the ability to implement 3 ways to reform or improve the industry, what would you suggest?
There is a premium attached to the cost of doing business across the board for cannabis companies. We pay higher processing fees, the taxes on both business and cannabis consumers is extremely high and access to traditional funding like bank loans is almost non-existent. To grow these market segments, like sustainable packaging and hemp fashion, investment in the infrastructure and manufacturing processes is a must, otherwise, it will be too expensive to be a real competitor with existing materials and products that aren’t climate-friendly.
What are your thoughts about federal legalization of cannabis? If you could speak to your Senator, what would be your most persuasive argument regarding why they should or should not pursue federal legalization?
Mad Ritual is used by so many folks looking for natural pain relief, ranging from folks who are recovering daily from their sport or activity to patients seeking relief during chemotherapy treatment to those looking to CBD for relief from anxiety. Everyone deserves access to affordable health care and medicine that is non-addictive and for a lot of the population, cannabis is the answer and solution they are seeking. Humans are designed to benefit from hemp via the cannabinoid system and limiting access or banning a plant that has been available to humans for centuries is depriving us of a key ingredient that helps the body achieve symbiosis. However, before we legalize cannabis on a national level, reconciliation of years-long racial inequity and disparity needs to be sorted out. In some states, black men sit in jail for possessing small amounts of cannabis, like a few joints, meanwhile, in other states, business owners are profiting from legal cannabis sales. Cannabis should not be a crime in one state and not the other so groups like the Last Prisoner Project are helping to advance cannabis criminal justice reform.
Today, cigarettes are legal, but they are heavily regulated, highly taxed, and they are somewhat socially marginalized. Would you like cannabis to have a similar status to cigarettes or different? Can you explain?
Cigarettes are one of the only products made and consumed that offer you absolutely no benefit. They are unhealthy, expensive, and addictive so I hope that cannabis is viewed as a value-added product that is accessible and affordable.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
Working in an industry with so many unknowns and also so much potential can sometimes have you guessing where you are headed. I recently heard, “a person with a goal is a successful person,” and that really simplified things for me and relieved some of the pressure to succeed that I was putting on myself.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the greatest amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
Part of the Mad Ritual brand is to be more than CBD. It’s a gentle reminder to take a break, tune in (or out), and take care. Our society is severely under touched so I encourage the ritual of self-massage for self-care. We put our bodies through a lot- training, running, lifting weights, sitting at a desk all day, staring at our phones, picking up toddlers, etc… it’s important to take time each day to be kind to your body.
Thank you so much for the time you spent with this. We wish you only continued success!
Wisdom From The Women Leading The Cannabis Industry, With Amy Bragg Maddocks of Mad Ritual was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.