https://youtu.be/WRiHulo7I48
Will Bowden is the Founder and Owner of Grasshopper Farms - local Michigan farmers on a mission to grow and provide high-quality cannabis. We discuss the future of cannabis farming, how to dodge shiny objects, and the difference between outdoor and indoor cannabis farming.
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Dodge Shiny Objects with Will Bowden
Our guest is Will Bowden, the founder and CEO of Grasshopper Farms with a mission to grow high quality cannabis. Will, welcome to the show.
Thank you, Steve. It’s a pleasure to be here.
You’re the first person on the show from the cannabis industry, so that is very special and I'm very curious about this whole business and I'm sure our audience are too. But let's start at the beginning where we always start is how did you get into this business? What prompted you into starting a cannabis field, a growing company? What's been your journey?
Yeah, Steve, thanks so much. And I'll try to honor the fact that I'm the first cannabis guest on your show here. So let me see if I could do okay with that. You know, my story is I actually grew up in California and quickly found myself leaning into law enforcement and military. So while the product itself wasn't unfamiliar to me and I didn't really have any issues with it. My career decisions kept me from partaking as either from a use perspective or also from a working perspective as well. And that's just my personal choices and journeys. And so as I was going through my life as a police officer and also in the military, I found myself about 10 years ago, observing and appreciating the industry as it was growing from a business perspective.
And I remember saying out loud, I'm like, “Wow, what an amazing business opportunity for other people.” And I said it like that because it was more of an appreciation than a desire to do it because at the time I was still in the midpoint of my military career and I didn't have any aspirations of retiring at that point. But wouldn't you know it that the same month that I retired, I ended up meeting this gentleman who was also former military. And when we started to get to know what we have done in life, he said, “Hey, listen, I'm starting this business and I'd really like you to consider joining me.” Well, it was a cannabis business. And so what he wanted me to do was to come on and basically be the person who went and operationalized licenses in other states. And so that's kind of how it happened. I came home to my wife and I'm like, “Wait a minute, is this really happening right now? So I'm actually eligible to, I can legally work in the industry.
There's no conflict of interest, all that kind of stuff.” We talked it over and ultimately I decided to take the position in the first state that I was sent to was Michigan. And so my job was to operationalize licenses, which means for that business model, it was retail, indoor grow and manufacturing. And as I was doing that, I came upon the other types of cultivation. So there's greenhouse as well as indoor, and then there's also outdoor. And I really liked the outdoor farming idea and I wanted to learn more about it. And once I learned more about it, I approached my previous company about possibly incorporating it for all the right reasons.
They couldn't do it because they were resourced doing other things. And I said, “All right, well, I'm just gonna investigate a little bit more.” And eventually I did, and I left that company and started Grasshopper Farms. And that's what landed me just square in the middle of the cannabis industry and outdoor farming of cannabis as well.
Well, that's fascinating. So how is outdoor farming different from indoor farming? Is it that makes the product different? Is it cheaper to do outdoor farming? How is it different?
You know, so at the broadest level, I would just say that they are different disciplines, right? So there's three different disciplines of overall growing of plants. You have indoor growing, you have greenhouse growing, and then I call the third one a little bit different. I call it outdoor farming, because indoor growing and outdoor farming are actually different disciplines. Now, what I believe, Steve, is what happened is this plant started outside. It was pretty much only grown outside. But when it became illegal, people went into basements and pole barns to continue growing it, right? And so what happened then is over a period of not just decades, but generations of knowledge changed from outdoor growing or outdoor farming to indoor growing.
And then that knowledge was further developed and passed on generationally speaking. And so people became very, very good at indoor growing. Now, the benefit of indoor growing is that you can control your environment, right? It's inside. So if you want more wind, you put up more fans. If you want more light, you put up different or more lights, right? So there's a lot of control that you can apply inside versus outside. But what did happen is that when this started becoming legal again, people started going of going outside and they were taking their indoor expertise and very, very good at growing and they were taking out for farming and they were finding, you know, “We're just having a hard time producing what the market calls a high quality smokable flour or the flour ingredients that would be meant for consumers outside of some of your manufactured products.”
A lot of folks who grow outside because of the challenges out there, started to pivot and basically just grow fields that would be for manufacturing, something that you don't ever see in the flower or plant form. So that's kind of the evolution there. I like to say it's not about which one's better or worse. I like to say it's not “Where did you grow it,” It's “What did you grow?” And I think at the end of the day that we're gonna find that as our definition of quality continues to evolve, we're going to find out there's benefits in both disciplines. And we just have yet to realize the appropriate ratio that the United States market will need, let alone the global market as well.
Ok, so let's say I'm curious about this quality thing. So how what constitutes in your definition a great quality cannabis? What makes it great quality?
Well, so in my definition, I would say that if you're very clear on why you're consuming cannabis, you're going to want to know what effects am I trying to achieve. There's so many people in this world that are really trying to achieve medicinal benefits from this plant. By and far, anxiety and sleep are probably the top two. I think that sleep often gets overlooked because it's not a diagnosed medical condition for a lot of people. A lot of people are just, hey, I'm just worried, or I'm just in the grind, or I've got new kids, or all of these legitimate reasons of why we're not getting enough quality or quantity sleep. And so they don't really think of it as a medicinal use of it that's helping them sleep. But anxiety and sleep are two of those things right there.
So I would say that the quality should focus on what are the effects that you want to achieve and how does the product help you to achieve those effects in what mechanism, right? So we all know about smoking the flower, there's ways of taking the flower and then cooking with it, there's ways then it can go to manufacturers and they can make edibles, topicals, sublinguals, there's so many different ways that we can participate with this to achieve those effects. So I think the definition really needs to evolve and the assessment of quality really needs to evolve and how do we communicate what strain this is, what's the cannabinoid profile, what's the terpene profile, and then how are those cannabinoids and terpenes going to help lead me to the effects that I desire? I think that today's market though, it's a very young market for the broad brushstroke of the United States consumer.
The quality should focus on what are the effects that you want to achieve and how does the product help you to achieve those effects in what mechanism.Share on X
And I think a lot of folks right now are focused on what does it look like, what does it smell like, and what's the THC level. And the higher the THC level goes, the first two start to become less important to a lot of people today. Now, I will tell you that folks who have been around this plant for a long time, they really know what they're doing. They know what they're looking for. So sometimes those visual and smell assessments can really get them to a high-quality assessment. But I would say, broadly speaking, there's not enough experience in the United States or globally to help people to use those three things. And we need to look beyond those three things, back to our cannabinoid profile and terpene profile.
So there's a lot in this, a lot more than meets the eye. That's fascinating. It's a little bit like wine, you know. There's a lot to wine that maybe the average person doesn't recognize. And when you get into it, then you really appreciate all these nuances about it. That's fascinating. So this podcast is not directed at cannabis. It's not a cannabis podcast. But it's very interesting to see this business evolve and how this industry is evolving and looking for ways of generating value for consumers. So let's switch gears here a little bit and let's talk about how you manage this business, how you build this business.
What is your favorite business framework, which I call management blueprint, that you applied in building Grasshopper's Farms?
Yeah, it's a great question. So for me, life and businesses, it's all about the people or the team that you build. So one of the things that I have embraced from my former career decisions, and specifically being in the military and the police department, is you really look for where are your centers of excellence and how do you build teams,
