To Be Blunt

“If you create those relationships and you just show that like, Hey, I really am trying. Sometimes that's all it takes ‘cause so many people are not trying at all.” - Kim Stuck Welcome back to the To Be Blunt podcast! In this episode, Shayda Torabi welcomes Kim Stuck of Allay Consulting. As the first cannabis specialist for the Denver Department of Environmental Health and now a leading compl...

“If Germany goes recreational,  everybody's going to follow them to some extent. If the leader says, look, this is how I'm addressing the product, the issue that I see at hand, you can pretty much be sure all the bigger countries will come in line like France, Portugal… And a few others are going to really move quickly because there's no reason for them to be disadvantaged if the ru...

“You’ve probably been consuming alcohol since you were a young person and you know a lot more about how your body reacts to it than how your body's going to react to cannabis. So having that platform for new consumers to be able to be introduced to our products and then move their way up the scale so that we're kind of holding their hand a little bit and saying, ‘It's totally cool....

“People relate more to user-generated content than they do an influencer telling them they should buy a product because there's no authenticity from the brand to the influencer. When you've got a UGC creator, they make the content, give it directly to the brand, and then the brand directly puts it out.” - Maggie Wilson Welcome back to the To Be Blunt podcast! In this episode, Shayda Tora...

“Find what makes you tick. Find what's authentic to you. Focus in that world and be impactful in that world because it’s a big enough world as it is that you don't need to do everything.” - Jon Spadafora Welcome back to the To Be Blunt podcast! In this episode, Shayda Torabi welcomes Jon Spadafora of Veritas Fine Cannabis, the first recreational wholesaler in Colorado. He shares how they...

“We didn't see anybody else in the industry who was studying the effects of the product in humans. We wanted to come from a place of truth. That's always been very important to us, that we were the truth-tellers in the industry.” - Missy Bradley Welcome back to the To Be Blunt podcast! In this episode, Shayda Torabi welcomes Missy Bradley, VP of Marketing and co-founder of Ripple. She ta...

“Everyone is really dedicated to the cannabis industry as a whole and wants to advance legalization, education, and access to cannabis, and really believes in what we're doing as a brand to bring something that's really high quality, that's more premium, that's flavor first.” - Katherine Wolf Welcome back to the To Be Blunt podcast! In this episode, Shayda Torabi welcomes Kathe...

“People and consumers are getting smarter in identifying the companies that are just trying to take advantage of the situation. And I think why we've serviced millions of customers in the last seven years is because we really truly provide value. We always make it a hundred percent satisfaction guarantee.” - Bryan Gerber Welcome back to the To Be Blunt podcast! In this episode, Shayda Torabi...

“We spoke with hundreds of people and the response was overwhelming. It was like, how has this not been in my life already? How come somebody hasn't invented it? And so from that, we decided to build the product. The need is out there. We have the ability to fulfill it. Let's go for it.” - Peichen Chang Welcome back to the To Be Blunt podcast! In this episode, Shayda Torabi welcomes Peic...

“Nature is our muse. Those ratios that are found naturally in the plant, well, let's recreate that so that you can consistently have that same experience every time you have a product. so that you're not buying a product one month and then three months later, and you're like, was that the same product? And that's happening because of that lack of consistency which now we'r...

“What we felt would help legalization and move the needle with cannabis was sticking to some key tenets her and it's objectivity. It's professionalism. It's journalism ethics.” - Chris Walsh Welcome back to the To Be Blunt podcast! In this episode, Shayda Torabi welcomes Chris Walsh of MJ Biz to talk about the impact of media in the fight for legalization and how it shapes not only...

“The strategy is different for different clients because it depends on how much you're willing to push that envelope. Some are more willing. It depends on what the product is. It depends on how it's marketed because there's that tight rope between you want to get your brand out there, and you want to get market share, and you want the consumer to understand what the product is. But...

“I hope that young people and newcomers to the industry know that innovation is the way to slide in. Innovation is the way to really make a name for yourself, and these big companies are too big to do it. They can't do it, and they're never going to do it. - Olivia Alexander Welcome back to the To Be Blunt podcast! In this episode, Shayda Torabi welcomes Olivia Alexander, CEO of Kush Que...

“I'm glad that we have the innovation that we do, and I think that the process of synthesis is going to lead us to even greater discoveries.” - Tyler Roach Welcome back to the To Be Blunt podcast! In this episode, Shayda Torabi welcomes Tyler Roach, “The HHC Guy” and VP of Sales of Colorado Chromatography, to share a dialogue about synthesizing cannabinoids. Tyler goes in-depth about understa...

“Until we have either the tools to purchase these cannabinoids in different ratios in the marketplace or have the ability to have really fine-tuned science on the culinary side, it's gonna just always come down to matters of individuated preference, and personal understanding, and intolerance.” - Rachel Burkons Welcome back to the To Be Blunt podcast! In this episode, Shayda Torabi welcomes R...

“We feel really excited about the idea of people personally, empowering themselves to balance their own feminine and masculine, and for that to be reflected outside as well through social justice, creative campaigns, all the things that we love to do.” - Samantha Montanaro Welcome back to the To Be Blunt podcast! In this episode, Shayda Torabi welcomes Lisa Snyder and Samantha Montanaro, Co-Founde...

“Without question, consumers are incredibly savvy and I caution any and all brand marketers to underestimate them at their own peril. They're tuned in. They're educated. They're paying attention. They're asking questions and you never want to take consumers lightly. You want to, evoke excitement. You want to compel them to action. And that's not easy to do in this sort of...

“There are huge tropes around people of color to not look for holistic medicine. And you have to first work through the tropes, the propaganda tropes around people of color and the use of cannabis.” - Christine De La Rosa Welcome back to the To Be Blunt podcast! In this episode, Shayda Torabi welcomes Christine De La Rosa, CEO and Co-Founder of The People’s Ecosystem. Christine is a well-respected...

“Your ability to respond, your resiliency to find new avenues that aren't existent is what allows you to sustain in an industry and to create a legacy that will last forever.” - Eric Leslie Welcome back to the To Be Blunt podcast! In this episode, Shayda Torabi welcomes Eric Leslie, CMO of Cheeba Chews, to reflect on the brand's journey over the past decade and how it evolved in response...

“I think one of the things that I've learned over time is that, you know, people associate legalization with freedom with like, ‘Oh my god, we get to do this and we get to do that.’ And in reality, what's happened is legalization is a lot more regulation, and taxation, and rules, and limiting opportunity, limiting access.” - Jane West Welcome back to the To Be Blunt podcast! In this epis...

“We immediately got pigeonholed into this wellness thing which I think cannabis places women in so if you're a woman or you're a female-run brand or something, you can only really have this aesthetic of wellness…  We just happen to be women who are running this brand and, designing and producing these pieces, but it's meant for anyone.” - Lana Van Brunt Welcome back to the To Be Blu...

“If you're going to have good cannabis, why don't you have good glass, right? I mean, it just kind of goes hand in hand.” - Chris Piazza Welcome back to the To Be Blunt podcast! In this episode, Shayda Torabi welcomes CannaDevices CEO Chris Piazza to discuss the art of glass blowing and how it serves the cannabis industry. Chris believes in the need to educate consumers about ingesting c...

"If you win the competition, you get tremendous props and financial rewards coming through there. So it is friendly, but it's also become a very serious thing now, because now its business, its branding. And so it's become something that everybody really works to put their best foot forward and win." - Tim Blake In this episode, Shayda Torabi welcomes Tim Blake, the founder of...

“We have a lot of work to do to start to reintroduce society as a whole to the idea that cannabis can be a part of our daily life without it being completely monumentally destructive because it never has been, and it never will be.” - Samuel Richard In this episode, Shayda Torabi is joined by Samuel Richard of Arizona Dispensary Association as they discuss an interesting perspective of cannabis –...

“What's the most sustainable thing I can do [about packaging]? And I always like to say there is no one thing. There are many, many little things that you can do along the way.” -  Elizabeth Corbett In this episode, Shayda Torabi welcomes Elizabeth Corbett of AE Global Packaging as she shares her observations about packaging and the framework for sustainability. She uncovers the truth about b...