Grenco Science, the company behind the G Pen, is celebrating its 10-year anniversary this year since the company's founding in 2012.

Not only is Grenco Science celebrating its decade milestone, but company founder and CEO Chris Folkerts also recently celebrated his 40th birthday earlier this month. As he reaches new milestones both professionally and personally, Folkerts sat down with Cannabis Business Times to reflect on his company’s history, his career in cannabis, the California market, and more.

Zach Mentz: How did you get your start in this industry and how did you end up here as founder and CEO of Grenco Science?

© Grenco Science

Chris Folkerts: Not only did my company turn 10 [in February], but I turned 40 [in March], so it's kind of an interesting moment … I think it's a nice intersection of where I expected I would be in life and where I thought the company (Grenco Science) would be.

There was this ‘it’ moment in a dispensary called LA Confidential in Los Angeles that was very known as an epicenter for a lot of the culture and lifestyle that happened. They had a hash bar, and they did jazz and comedy nights, things like that, and so this became very much of a hangout for me and a lot of people. The (California) market was still medicinal, shops were plentiful, it was pretty easy to get yourself into a space and it was pretty easy to get yourself set up. That was the landscape for the industry. You had growers and you had shops and you had middlemen in between.

As I was hanging out and being there, I saw the very first product where somebody figured out how to utilize e-cig technology that was currently available. I saw somebody that figured it out, a guy out of the Bay Area with a product called the “Vape Pen,” literally. It came with little prefilled cotton cartomizer that had been filled with some sort of a tincture which has some sort of either an ethanol or a glycerin mix and could be vaporized. So I screwed that in, I hit the device, vapor came out, and there was an ever-so-faint taste of cannabis. And I thought that was a lightbulb going off over my head.

I was like, “This is the moment, I want to sell these things.” This is the digitization of cannabis, as I always like to call it, and I knew this is something that I could sell to people. I've always been involved in the (cannabis) industry one way or the other, regulated or not. And so that was the moment for me saying, “Okay, I believe that I could sell this to people, and all of my stores that I deal with would love that.”

That was just where my mind was at initially. As I began down the journey of trying to find these products through my attorney [and] everything else, I ultimately realized the product did not exist. Even that group Vape Pen that did it, it was really available in minimal quantities. I could buy four or eight of them at a time. There was nothing at scale. I was buying low quantities of these vape pens that were probably pretty expensive at the time, then taking them and then refilling them, so that was kind of how it started.

When I figured out that the products did not exist, I went through the process of locating groups that could assist with that [and] went through a lot of trials and tribulations with those group. After about a year or a year-and-a-half of either selling other people's products … I ultimately landed into the conclusion that my particular skill set, which was relationships with both the dispensaries and the producers, put me in a unique position … my rolodex was and has always been my biggest asset. So I looked at the business side of this and said, “Hey, I could do this. If I did it myself, I could do it better.” So G Pen was born.

ZM: What inspired the company name Grenco Science?

CF: So Grenco Science is a company name that came from a branding agency that gave us options and logos and things like that. It doesn’t mean anything, it's not a real word, I looked it up 10 ways to Tuesday. It didn’t come up with anything SEO, so I thought, “Hey, if I could just get people to start saying it, I don't have to fight anybody for the SEO.”

And this is when it gets even better. The first product was to be named the G-O. Our branding and packaging [was] inspired by Apple and the cleanness of the logo in that it was meant to have the logo on the product, the logo on the box, and nothing else.

The first 15,000 units that we made, basically 100% of them were defective and [we] sold them all. It shows how tenacious we are, and then also the demand for the product. Once people had tried it [and] used it, [they were] like, “I don't care if it's broke, give me another one.” That just goes to show that we were onto something; if you sell 15,000 of something that's broken and people want more of it, then you know you're on the right path.

Maybe one out of five just didn't work out of the box ever. Some of them would work out of the box, but after that, maybe they didn't connect with the charger, so you got to use it for the duration of the first full charge, and then that’s it. And then your atomizer could go out so you could lose a piece. And then if somebody lost something, we only had complete sets, we hadn't ordered ancillary items.

Some call it the school of hard knocks. I call it trial by fire.

ZM: Your company, Grenco Science, is best known for the G Pen. Where did that product name and branding come from?

CF: One very key, funny story at the beginning is that those first 15,000 units that we made, not only were they defective, but they didn't have an instruction manual. So most people would call and say, “Hey, it doesn't work.” You go “press the button five times,” and they'd be like, “oh, right.” So it didn't even tell you that you needed to press it five times, and unless somebody told you, you couldn't even know. Not only did the manual not exist, but nowhere on the product or the box did it say it was called the G-O. It had the G (logo) on the pen, it had a G on the box because the Grenco Science G was going to be our brand, but each product was going to have its own SKU name.

And then people started calling it the G Pen. I was like, “Okay, so that's it. We have a letter, this is cool, the people have spoken.” The way that it came about was very serendipitous. It just kind of came into existence. We were like, “Listen, everybody calls it the G Pen, so we're calling it the G Pen. It's got a G on it and it's Grenco Science.” And we meant the branding to be about the G, we just didn’t think to call it the G Pen. It was gonna be called the G-O. What we did from there was just the first one was called G Pen, and then after that it was G Pen Micro, and everything's a G Pen then since. Grenco Science is the company, G Pen is the product.

ZM: When was that moment where you felt like boom, this is starting to work?

© Grenco Science

CF: I had connections on the distribution side of things from the smoke shop industry, which is fortunately a very well-established method of distribution. Pipes, bongs, rolling papers, things like that–it's one of the most widely distributed as far as brick and mortar goes. And not that you can't buy any of these things digitally, but when somebody goes and buys a bag and they want to stop to grab a bong or they need some papers, they're not waiting [until] the next day to get them.

So we had rapid growth. We were, by the end of our first year, probably in a couple thousand stores because of the distribution.

We're in every [legal] state. I think we're in something around 60 countries at this point, too. A lot of what we do comes from the distributors who are already established in those regions. And look, that's great. If distributors are doing their job, then they're an essential part of the company because they have years of relationships, the time, logistics worked out–all that.

ZM: What is the current state of the California market from your perspective? And how do you think it can be improved?

CF: I'm going to come to probably the first answer that everybody else is, which is taxes. When you've got people that are struggling as hard as they are right now, financially, it is difficult. And for an industry that actually is recession proof, which cannabis is, I see that people are struggling. You can’t have the kind of taxation on this product, versus having a 10% tax on alcohol that people can walk into a store, buy a handle of alcohol, and that be something that gets them through, versus something like cannabis that's a medicine. No doctor's ever going to prescribe you to go get that handle of vodka, but there are doctors all throughout the state of California that have been [prescribing cannabis] since 1996. So why is it that I'm taxed differently because of that?

It still baffles me and a lot of other people, and I think we all agree that it all starts with taxes. … What's wrong with California's market is that (the state) is allowing the people who have laid the foundation of this industry to be robbed of their intellectual property, and they’re forcing those people to be taxed at such a ridiculous rate?

ZM: What would be your advice to new or existing operators in the cannabis industry?

CF: If anybody wants to take anything from this … partnerships are one of the most important decisions you're ever going to have to make in your life. It is very difficult to predict the future. But what you can do is understand that a lot of businesses fail, and a lot of things fail for a lot of different reasons. Not having sound operating agreements, not having your business in order, and not understanding the contract, what you're doing, what you're signing without having really good people around you to advise you can be extremely costly in a world where the lessons that I got to learn 10 years ago would kill a company dead in its tracks today. You’d never be able to survive the stuff that we were able to survive because it was different times.

I cannot emphasize enough that a partnership is filling a void, right? You're filling voids for each other. You can have duplicities, but if you create all these duplicities and you're the same person trying to do the same thing, or you have bad actors, or you have people that you haven't properly vetted and you go into a business with your heart and you act emotionally, either in the business or as an individual, be careful. Speaking strictly from experience, these are the type of situations where you're dealing with uncomfortable conversations and you're dealing with extremely complex litigations that if you're not prepared for–financially, mentally, et cetera–is something I just don't wish people to go through.

When you're making decisions upon going into partnerships with people, you should always think of it as just like saying, ‘Hey, will you marry me?’ to somebody and, in a lot of cases, [it’s] way worse than asking somebody to marry you. Because if [a business partner] says yes, now you're in business. … It’s so important for people to think about it like that. And I don't think people do. It's all gung-ho, let's start a business, we're going to be partners, we're boys now, we're best buddies forever. That is not how life works.

© TOQi Fellowship for Cannabis Amnesty

Cannabis Amnesty, a Canadian non-profit advocacy group, and TOQi Technologies have partnered to launch the TOQi Fellowship for Cannabis Amnesty program.

The fellowship program will support two salaried internship positions during the summer of 2022, with support from Aurora Cannabis. The internships were designed to create economic opportunities for those from communities most impacted by decades of cannabis prohibition.

Throughout the program, fellows will gain experience in advocacy and communications through mentorship, networking opportunities, and additional perspective on the cannabis industry and Cannabis Amnesty's mission. 

"Historically, cannabis laws were unequally enforced by law enforcement in Canada, disproportionately impacting Black, Indigenous and under-resourced communities," said Annamaria Enenajor, executive director of Cannabis Amnesty. "Cannabis convictions limit economic opportunities for people from these communities, thus further entrenching systemic racism through poverty and disenfranchisement. We are grateful to TOQi and Aurora Cannabis for their leadership in supporting our efforts to dismantle these economic barriers, and look forward to welcoming more cannabis brands to our shared vision of justice and equality in the cannabis industry."

The program will run from May through August, and prospective applicants can apply here. Applications will be accepted through April 19.

"As a proudly Canadian company, Aurora values our roots in advocating for cannabis record pardons with Cannabis Amnesty," said Miguel Martin, CEO of Aurora Cannabis. "We have a responsibility to those who have been disproportionately impacted and commit to doing our part. Canadians, or anyone for that matter, shouldn't be burdened with a criminal record for a minor, non-harmful act that is no longer a crime. We deeply admire the team at Cannabis Amnesty for their relentless pursuit of fairness and are honored to be a part of affording others the opportunity to also be a part of this critical cause."

"People of today should not bear the burden of the laws of yesterday; while the world has changed and we are able to profit from the industry, it is our civic duty to liberate those who do not enjoy this privilege," said Drew Henson, founder and CEO of TOQi Technologies. "The hard-working and passionate advocates at Cannabis Amnesty have set the stage to right some of these wrongs, and we are honored to support their cause."

Editor's Note: This article was updated March 30, 2022.

In October 2021, Canadian LP Canopy Growth Corporation announced its plan to acquire cannabis-infused edibles company Wana Brands for $297.5 million cash upfront, though the deal hinges upon federal permissibility of cannabis. But Wana is not waiting in the wings. The Colorado-based company, co-founded by CEO Nancy Whiteman, remains independent, has continued to launch new products and has intentions to expand beyond its footprint of 13 state markets.

In addition, Wana announced two pivotal hires on its executive team in March, most recently naming Sandy Li, who previously served as vice president of finance for multistate cannabis operator Parallel, as CFO. Earlier this month, the company announced Kelly Flores’ appointment as chief operating officer, a leadership role she previously had at the cannabis brand dosist.

Three women are now at the helm of one of the largest cannabis companies in an industry where men occupy a vast majority of leadership roles, and the C-suite announcements happened to be made during Women’s History Month. Cannabis Business Times caught up with Whiteman to get an update on what’s happened since the Canopy deal and how she has navigated more than a decade in the cannabis industry.

Editor’s note: This interview has been edited for length and clarity. An except of this interview also will appear in the April issue of CBT. 

Michelle Simakis: It has been more than six months since the Canopy Growth deal was announced. Though it’s not final, have there been changes at the company relative to that agreement?

Nancy Whiteman: Yes and no. I’m still running the company. I don’t think things feel especially different here than they did. On the other hand, one of the reasons we signed the deal with Canopy is that we really saw them as a valuable partner to us. They’re much larger than we are so they have a lot of resources that we don’t have. There are a number of things that we can do legally with them still as two separate companies where we can learn what it’s like to work with each other as partners before we’re working with each other as one entity.

MS: What does that look like?

NW: There are things that we can do now to think about how we are going to align for the future. Those are the kinds of discussions we are having now. How do we each continue to add value to each other in ways that make sense now, and how [do we] set up for the future? I can’t be super specific about that.

MS: You announced recently that you hired Kelly Flores as COO, highlighting her consumer packaged goods background, and you also talked in recent interviews about how Canopy could strengthen your distribution once federal legalization happens. Editor’s Note: The interview was after Flores’ appointment was made public but before Wana announced it hired Li as CFO. CBT followed up with Whiteman after the initial interview.

NW: I think that she would have been an amazing candidate and an amazing addition to the company even if the Canopy deal had not taken place. While I think there are some very significant differences between cannabis and the edibles category and CPG category, there are also some things that are similar. Having someone with the strength of Kelly’s background from the CPG perspective, it’s just very helpful to us as we start thinking about, what is the world going to look like post legalization? I think that distribution will look very different than it looks today, and it may have more of a CPG flavor to it in terms of having opportunities to sell in different kinds of distribution channels.

MS: Do you feel a role and/or responsibility to make space for other women in the industry? 

MS: What led to the decision to make those changes in the C-suite?

MS: What are the big opportunities?

NW: That [the direct-to-consumer] model, we’re already starting to see it emerge in cannabis, and I think that it will just become stronger and stronger over time. [For example,] will Amazon get into selling cannabis? In some ways there are some things they are doing that may signal a change of policy at some point. I think their recent decision to not have [employees] be drug tested, for example, for cannabis was an interesting and perhaps a leading indicator. At some point in time a regulated environment like a liquor store is actually a real possibility. I think we are going to baby step into all of those things, but the current environment where the vast majority of sales goes through dispensaries is a time-limited model.

MS: What does that mean for the industry?

NW: I think the good thing is that more people will have access to cannabis in controlled and protected environments, which is of course what we want. But, of course, what it’s going to mean is that there will be more competition. More people will enter the marketplace, and so it’s even more important for brands like Wana now to be figuring out what it means to be developing a national footprint and what it means to be a national brand.

There’s sort of an illusion that being an entrepreneur somehow means that you’re fearless or somehow means that you’re confident every moment of the day, and that’s just nonsense. Having moments of anxiety and doubt and fear are just part of the journey.

MS: Some founders build companies with the intention of selling down the road. Did you build Wana with that vision?

NW: Honestly, I wasn’t smart enough to have figured that out. You have to remember 11 years ago, when Wana was founded, the industry was so different than it is now. It really was just a lot of really small players. Whenever you start a business, there’s part of your brain that’s always trying to figure out “what does the end result of this business look like?” I don’t think what I could have anticipated at that time was the rise of the larger cannabis organizations, be it the MSOs in the United States or the LPs in Canada. In the last couple of years … I really started to feel we were going it alone, and trying to grow a small brand on our own was perhaps not the most effective way to grow for the future. The dynamics of the industry had changed sufficiently that I felt aligning Wana with a larger entity made a lot of sense.

MS: Leadership roles in the industry are still very male-dominated. What advice would you have for women who are wanting to build a company from the ground up, as you did? Where do you start?

NW: It will be best if it’s an outgrowth of a real genuine passion and interest in the plant and the industry. It can be a really hard industry, and if there isn’t some sort of bigger picture or bigger mission that you bring to starting the company, it’s hard to stick with this industry sometimes and not get discouraged because there are so many ups and downs with it. So, really tap into that passion that you have for the industry and for the plant.

Certainly, if it’s an edibles company, my advice to everybody, male and female, is make sure you have a really great product that is highly differentiated or as differentiated as you can make it. The industry has become highly competitive, and I think the time of “me too” product has largely come to an end. In brand new markets, there’s still probably room for brands to get a foothold, but it has become harder to get into the industry. Don’t worry about how beautiful your packaging is. Make sure you have something really great. This is quite a male-dominated industry, and it’s important for women to resource themselves with relationships and connections and partnerships in general but also specifically with other women. I think that there’s just a tremendous power and a lot of incredibly talented women in this industry. Make sure that you are meeting them and cultivating those friendships and those partnerships and looking to add value to each other. I think that’s just critically important for women to get the support from other women to keep going because sometimes it can be hard.

MS: You’ve noted before in other interviews the importance of normalizing the fact that leaders struggle and being up front about that.

NW: There’s sort of an illusion that being an entrepreneur somehow means that you’re fearless or somehow means that you’re confident every moment of the day, and that’s just nonsense. Having moments of anxiety and doubt and fear are just part of the journey. And I think that normalizing that and letting people know that there’s nothing wrong with them or what they’re doing because they are feeling those things is really, really important. They should just be focusing on the support systems that allow them to be resilient and allow them to be persistent and allow them to move forward rather than holding themselves up to some absurd standard of what an entrepreneur is supposed to be like.

MS: Is there a specific moment you can share in your journey that was the most challenging?

NW: When we first started Wana, a lot of those moments came from external things. Major regulatory changes were pretty commonplace every six months. [There was] no third-party testing, which in fact we did right from the get-go. There was no childproof packaging, no having to imprint the product with the THC logo. There were no constraints on whether the product had been grown using pesticides, for example. It seemed like every couple of months, some new regulatory changes came into play, and for little companies just getting their hold in the marketplace, it was really hard to keep up with that. Lots of companies just dropped out along the way. So, we didn’t have seed-to-sale tracking initially in Colorado, so a lot of the newer markets came on board with many of the regulations that we had to adapt to along the way.  And then as we began our market expansion, [we had to decide] how do we choose the right partners? How do we choose the right model?  Those were also times when I was awake at 3 o’clock in the morning, looking at the ceiling, wondering, “Gosh, why did I make that decision? That was such a dumb thing to do.” There have been a lot of those moments through my tenure with Wana.

MS: When you think of those sleepless nights, what specifically was keeping you up?

NW: The one that pops into my mind is actually Nevada, where we have just relaunched for the third time in the last several months. Now we’re back in the market with a great partner and doing extremely well, but that’s probably my most extreme example of a market that was really rocky and took some work to get it right. We were out of market for maybe a year and half, two years before we reentered [after the second attempt], so sometimes it takes a while to get it right.

I do think that this is one of those corny things that people say but it’s true, that you really do learn the most from your mistakes. You learn the most both practically as a businessperson, but also just emotionally, you have the resilience to get through hard situations and come through on the other end.