Finding a reputable producer/processor that grew high quality herb and cared about their craft is RARE in the recreational industry. When I would set up meetings trying to convince these license holders to give Leira a chance, I worried about the smell, taste, and quality of the flower being used to create my cannagars. Most of the owners I met with were worried about the cost of making the product and tried to lower the amount of material and degrade my brand to a point where they felt comfortable creating it. You can't create a luxury product with low quality cannabis just like you can't sugar coat shit.
After many months of meetings with gardens I finally meet Nate from Gold Leaf which is an excellent farm that produces high quality flower and understood the future of marijuana. Nate knew what I was trying to do and saw my vision. Not only was he the owner, he was a grower who still works in his garden with his family oriented business. The plan was to make a limited run for the first release because even though we both had a vision, we were still unsure if there was a market for high end luxury cannabis. The cannagar is a very unique product and we couldn't compare it to anything to get an idea of how well they would do. Trying to convince the recreational shops that there is a market for $300-$420 marijuana cigars was also a challenge.
I started working with Gold Leaf in the beginning of March and the first project was to roll up cannagars for the 4/20 release. Keep in mind that creating cannagars is a tedious job. You have to collect the nice fan leaves and produce and separate the rosin. The cannagars take around an hour or so to create and a month to cure. Luckily I had the help of my brother Brian to help me produce them. I taught him how to roll and he rolls just as good as me and sometimes checks me when he feels my work isn't quality. While he did most of the rolling, I had to work on the social media to inform and introduce the cannagar to the public. I also created this website in a week. I don't consider myself a professional photographer, graphic designer, or writer but hey I made it work.
4/20 comes and my brother and I decide to visit the stores to see how well they are doing and get some feedback. As soon as we walked in the bud tenders knew who we were and yelled "WE ARE OUT!" Most of the shops sold out within minutes and some of them had a small line of people waiting outside before the store opened just waiting to get a hand on a cannagar. The stories told by the bud tenders about the customers were amazing. Some customers were from out of state and one customer who missed out on the reserved list tried to buy his spot for $800. We asked all of the stores if they ever had a person waiting outside for any of their products and they said "NOPE." Mission accomplished.