The legal cannabis industry is expected to reach $76.3 billion by 2027. And yet, most consumers are left in the dark when it comes to navigating their green stash. Society has vilified THC and glorified the effects of CBD, when in actuality it is the entourage effect of cannabinoids that results in optimal healing. On a mission to de-stigmatize cannabis consumption, CEO and co-founder, Kate Miller launched Miss Grass as a contextual platform to provide weed education, and vetted products for a higher life.

“The business model was always to be a contextual commerce platform from day one. We led with education on the content side around the history of cannabis and culture. We want to cater to the conscious consumer who votes with their dollar to support this industry.” - Kate Miller.

Miss Grass launched in 2017 as a “dope” concept, and sells a curated collection of CBD products from other brands such as bath bombs, vapes, tinctures, topicals and capsules. They recently launched their own line of pre-rolled hemp joints targeting sex, calm and balance, in addition to THC pre-rolled mini joints. The brand has been featured in leading publications such as Forbes, The New York Times, and Glossy to name a few and is known as “the Goop for cannabis”.

However, the idea for Miss Grass was planted back in 2008 when Kate was working as a budtender with a dispensary in LA and purchased the domain off GoDaddy. “I was always fascinated by the different applications of this plant and the various ways it can benefit one’s life. I was also fascinated by the business opportunity of it, which at the time felt like the prohibition era of what the alcohol industry looked like. Now I believe the alcohol industry has the potential to surpass the value of the liquor industry as its usage goes way beyond.”

Kate was born and grew up in Jersey. Her parents met in high school and were high school sweethearts. Her mom worked in entertainment and her dad is a serial hustler. “I’ve always had a side hustle. When I was 11 years old my cousin and I would go down to Jersey Shore and make a stand on the beach and sell bracelets. I also developed a great relationship with the ice-cream man and would get faulty popsicles for free, where the packaging was tainted and resell it to friends for a dollar. I was always looking for the opportunity.”

“My brother had gotten caught with weed and kicked out of high school back in the day and I remember thinking that it was so messed up. I moved to LA for undergrad and attended USC. California had legalized medical weed at the time and it was the first time I became a conscious consumer of cannabis. I was suffering from psoriasis and would use topical cannabis. It really transformed my skin.”

“I used cannabis as a catalyst for creativity, inspiration and to connect with people.”

Kate ended up working in the entertainment industry upon graduation as she felt that it was too early to make a move into a career in cannabis. “In mid 2017, I launched Miss Grass as a silly SquareSpace site that I created as a side hustle and linked arms with vendors who were making cute cannabis accessories at the time. I structured the business model as using affiliate links for a percentage of the revenue. It generated basically no money!”

However, by getting her foot in the door as an early adopter of the cannabis industry, Kate was able to participate in conversations around cannabis and use Miss Grass as a tool. “I was able to meet Doug Scott who started a company called Ogilvy Entertainment which ended up getting sold to Ogilvy Ad agency. He was pivotal in the early days for introducing me to the right people, one of which was a guy who was running an activation at Coachella for a company called Weed Maps. They were looking for a brand that could cater to the female demographic, so I got asked to create a dome called the Miss Grass Lounge and bring in other cannabis brands that aligned with our values. I was still working my full-time job at this point, but I took the opportunity, met a lot of people including my business partner and co-founder Anna Duckworth.” Anna previously led content at Dosist.

“The Coachella event was a catalyst for me to validate and test the idea and demand of doing Miss Grass full-time.”

Miss Grass has raised a total of $4.65M to date with investors such as Listen Ventures, Casa Verde Capital, Advancit Capital, firstminute capital, and Third Kind Ventures Capital amongst others. Their initial round of financing consisted of $60K to get the idea up and running 1.5 years ago. Fun fact: Kate’s boss at the time put the first check into Miss Grass! Their business model? Develop content as a tool to scale the community, invest in a marketplace for consumer discovery and as a way to gather data points. Then, facilitate that data into future offerings under the Miss Grass product portfolio. Some would say it is fool proof and a dope way to own a high ecosystem.

“There is a massive void in the market when it comes to cannabis and education.”

Like the sexual pleasure industry, cannabis also has a lot of red tape when it comes to advertising. “It has been challenging to not have a straightforward channel for growth. We rely on organic growth strategies like partnerships, influencers and organic press.” In addition, payment processing can also very quickly turn into a nightmare, but the passing of the Hemp Farming Act of 2018 has really helped progress the operations of this category.

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Education 101

When it comes to hemp and marijuana, they are both derived from the cannabis plant. Hemp has below 0.3% THC in it. Anything derived from hemp, broad spectrum, full spectrum or isolate is considered federally legal and can be sold on e-commerce sites. However, any product that is above 0.3% THC cannot be legally manufactured or touched by Miss Grass since they are a non licensed entity. The workaround? They have partnered with a legal distributor and contract manufacturer to send the products directly to retail stores for sale. Genius!

The Advice

“I would love for the narrative of this industry to shift. CBD has become the most popular ingredient over the last 2 years and has brought the cannabis industry mainstream and helped normalize the conversation, but it is still dividing the plant. CBD is viewed as the good child in wellness, while THC is bad and stigmatized. This further perpetuates the stigma of this plant. The narrative should be less about specific molecules and compounds in this plant because the most effective method is full spectrum that encompasses all of the cannabinoids and terpenes to get the entourage effect versus working in isolation. The conversation should really be about cannabis as a whole.”

Kate further gives her advice to those looking to launch a D2C startup today:

Fake it till you make it. - Act like you know what you are doing to make your company successful.
Learn when and who to delegate to as the company grows.
Surround yourself with mentors, advisors, friends and people you can go to when you don’t know everything. Knowing who to call is very important.
Prioritize your to-do list.

Interested in trying out the latest cannabis product? Head on over to Miss Grass here.

Photo courtesy of Miss Grass.

Written by Alysha Malik.