Cookies: The Only Global Cannabis Brand Ft. Crystal Millican

Cookies: The Only Global Cannabis Brand Ft. Crystal Millican

Bryan Fields: What's up, guys? Welcome back to an episode of The Dime. I'm Bryan Fields, and with me as always is Kellan Finney. This week we've got a very special guest, Crystal Millican, Head of Marketing and Retail for Cookies. Crystal, thanks for taking the time. How you doing today? Crystal Millican: I'm doing well. Thanks for having me, Bryan and Kellan. Good to be here. Bryan Fields: Good to see you. Kellan, how are you doing? Kellan Finney: I'm doing really well, really excited to talk to Crystal, really excited to dig into the Cookies brand. I think it's one of the most well-known, if not the only truly known, brand in the cannabis space. I'm even more excited because I think it's another West Coaster for us West Coasters out here. How are you doing today, Bryan? Bryan Fields: Yeah, I'm doing good, and I'm very excited to talk Cookies and marketing and brand building — we can get into all those fun things. And you're right, Crystal may live on the West Coast, but I think Cookies specifically is, as most of my friends believe, a very East Coast brand because it's very, very popular here. So Crystal, I guess if we had to put you on the record — East Coast, West Coast — where would your allegiance be? Crystal Millican: Our heart is always in the city of San Francisco at Cookies, but I will tell you we have enjoyed building our brand on the East Coast, and if there's a second home for Berner, it is New York City all the way. So we have our heart in both places. Bryan Fields: Let the record reflect. So Crystal, for our listeners, can you give a little background about yourself and how you went from management consulting to Cookies? Crystal Millican: Yeah, it's an interesting path through cannabis. I grew up in a pretty religious community — I wasn't part of a religious family, but I grew up in a very conservative place with a dad who was growing cannabis in the backyard. So I was the kid writing my economics high school term paper on legalizing marijuana and the War on Drugs at a really young age, technically before I even smoked a joint. I went to college at Arizona — Go Cats — expanded my horizons a bit, grew up in tech, spent some time at Google, left and did management consulting. I was there for a couple decades, so I'm aging myself a little bit there. But while I was there I always had my own experiences with the plant, always stayed connected to what was going on in the industry, took on emerging verticals — new industries where you could see cannabis coming together in a legal way. I was the person who said, "We have to do some discovery on this, we have to be ready for cannabis," because at the end of the day brands win, whether you're a CPG company, a retail company, or in the cannabis space. Cookies actually came to us as a client first. At the time, Cookies had a couple products they were working on in California and the idea of being a retail company, and needed a roadmap on how to build the people, processes, and tools you need to really blitz-scale in the retail space for cannabis. I was putting that roadmap together and was actually hiring the head of retail for Cookies at the time when, thankfully, Parker and Berner took me aside and said, "We actually think it should be you — would you be willing to jump ship and join us on this rocket ship?" I knew it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, absolutely loved working with Parker and Berner, and knew I was going to learn more in this role than I had in the prior two decades in a very short period of time. All of that has been true, and I feel very grateful and blessed for making the leap over, every day. Bryan Fields: Love it. So let's uncover how big Cookies actually is. Everyone knows the brand, which is incredible to even say and have real meaning behind it. But how big is Cookies, and what's underneath it? Crystal Millican: There's a lot. If you go back, I think it's 15-plus years now — Cookies at the time was our two founders: Jai, who's kind of our plant whisperer, participated in the genetics and became Girl Scout Cookies; and Berner was a bud tender — probably the best bud tender at the time, and probably still is the best bud tender today — and an aspiring rapper in San Francisco. Initially, Berner was making sure other rappers in the Bay Area had the products they needed for their time, which inspired him to enter clothing as his music career grew, and so did the Cookies name. Cookies Clothing has been around about 15 years, and then about five years ago is when Cookies made the leap into the legal cannabis space. When I joined five years ago, the first event I went to was Hippie Hill in San Francisco — Berner was performing there, there was a very modest Cookies tent and a jar full of blue gumballs, and that was it, that was Cookies at the time. Five years later, we are very proud to say we're in 26 markets across the U.S. and Puerto Rico, we're in six different countries, and we're opening our 70th store today in Tampa. We've grown a lot, and a lot of people are grinding day in and day out to make it all happen. Bryan Fields: That's incredible, and a very diverse company. So how do you guys manage the retail division with the cannabis division? Are they co-mingling, sharing ideas back and forth? What's that dynamic like? Crystal Millican: We work incredibly closely together, we're very integrated — I call us sister companies. For reasons we all know about, the Cookies Clothing company is its own entity with its own management structure and its own team, and the cannabis side of the company runs separately. But we work really well together — if you go into any of our Cookies dispensaries, you'll have your own, what we call, Local Reserve clothing line from the Cookies SF team. So every store gets its own tailored Cookies clothing experience, and we work on events together. We all work very, very closely together. Bryan Fields: Is the clothing sometimes used to prime the market — to see if it's worthwhile to move a dispensary in there? For example, if you're going into a newer market and you're not sure if the Cookies brand pops, can you do an activation with the clothing and see, based on the consumer response, whether this might be an under-the-radar market you need to get into? Crystal Millican: Yeah, definitely. Looking at where our clothing does well helps give us an indication of how we will do as a cannabis company or a cannabis retail store in that city or space. So it's a lot of good data and information sharing and cross-pollination between the Cookies cannabis side of the business and the clothing side. Bryan Fields: With Cookies, is there ever a time when the clothing division says, "Hey, this is really popular, maybe we should create a cannabis product emphasizing some of these branding features that have taken off on the clothing side"? Or is it vice versa — you see trends in the cannabis space that feed into the clothing space? Crystal Millican: It's a two-way street. We've been really working on the marketing side to connect the ecosystem. At the end of the day, on both sides of the business we have the same DNA — it's about the culture that is Cookies. We're all looking at the same trends and also looking at setting some trends ourselves. So it's definitely a two-way street in terms of what on the cannabis side might be inspiring for the rest of the Cookies ecosystem, and honestly with Berner's music too — a lot of ideas come from a lot of different places. On the marketing side, it's a big opportunity for us to connect that full ecosystem and get the right Cookies product — whether it's clothing, cannabis, or at a show where Berner's performing — to the right person at the right time. Bryan Fields: It's spectacular that you have all those tools at your disposal because most companies don't have that kind of visibility, or Berner's reach, or the brand building that Cookies has. But at the same time, that's a very challenging opportunity, because while you want to do certain activations, I'm sure you're hamstrung by limitations and obstacles that seem kind of silly at first — but this is cannabis, and that's how the game works. Crystal Millican: Sure, we are always hurdle-jumping and running through flaming hoops. The cannabis side of the business is a huge opportunity, but it also comes with a lot of pressure, because you think of a brand that's been built over decades — I think there are very high expectations for how we show up for our customers and consumers. It's a blessing every day, but we also have a lot of pressure on ourselves to make sure we're staying true to the brand, and that isn't always easy given the way the cannabis industry is set up today. Bryan Fields: One area I definitely want to get into is New York — everyone saw that massive billboard outside Macy's, which from a visibility standpoint was incredible. What was the approach to getting something like that, and internally, was it discussed that this would be an awareness piece to prime the market for future growth? Crystal Millican: Berner's always had his eyes on having a clothing store in New York City — it's decades in the making. The opportunity presented itself, and it was a lot of fun getting our clothing store in Herald Square, and that billboard was incredible as well. Bryan Fields: Was it possible to gauge how many people potentially saw it? And was it understood internally that this was solely an awareness piece, because I'd assume some people walked into that store expecting to purchase cannabis products? Crystal Millican: I'm sure people walk into the store every day expecting to purchase Cookies cannabis products, and then they learn it's just clothing. But we do have clothing stores in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and New York, so a lot of people go to the Cookies store knowing it's clothing. It was also an awareness play — it's just the right spot. There's no better city to be in on the East Coast than New York — a high-visibility market that's near and dear to Berner's heart. We knew we had to get a presence there. We're also really lucky because sometimes Berner will ask on social media where he should put a clothing store, and we get to see how many people tell us where to go. In addition to what we see in the data, we do a lot of customer listening, and New York was always at the top when we said we were going there. When we opened the store there, we had a grand opening with about 6,000 RSVPs — 6,000 people wanted to know when the store would open and how they could show up for it. Bryan Fields: That's incredible. I was just wondering, though — you have customers walk in with the concept that maybe they can buy cannabis there. What was that conversation like with regulators when you said, "No, it's just a clothing store," given that the media conflates the two? Crystal Millican: We didn't really have to do any conversations with regulators ahead of time for opening the clothing store — there wasn't really any confusion there. I will say, we have Cookies University in California — I don't know if you guys know about this — but another thing near and dear to all of us at Cookies is that every year we do a cohort in Humboldt where we have our full seed-to-sale supply chain, and a bunch of people apply. We take social equity individuals and those impacted by the War on Drugs and walk them through what it might be like to explore a career on the legal side of the cannabis business. We had a couple of alums from New York, and I know the OCM — the Office of Cannabis Management — was interested when we did a social impact learning session driven by our Cookies University alum who wanted to share their experience with a community. We heard from them that they're interested in social equity and curious about Cookies University, so even though it's happening at a clothing store, they do notice us. Bryan Fields: It's hard not to, because if you go into any of the illegal dispensaries — according to my friends — you are the most popular brand in New York, which is exciting but also challenging, because as a marketer you want your products displayed a certain way. Is that a challenge internally? On one hand it's priming the market, but on the other, there's concern it might make the brand look a certain way that isn't in line with what Cookies wants. Crystal Millican: You're hitting both sides of it perfectly. When I wear my brand hat, in terms of brand awareness, there's no higher form of compliment than that type of product being out in the market. With my business hat on, obviously I have big goals to hit, and those products do not hit my P&L at the end of the day, and probably take away from what I can achieve once we're legally in a market. So we invest in a brand protection agency that supports us in identifying counterfeit products, and we do our best to direct customers to legal Cookies products — go to our website, look at our store locators, check cannabis menu platforms, and that's where you'll find legal product being sold in your city. Bryan Fields: Do you anticipate legal products in New York anytime soon? Crystal Millican: There are legal products in New York, Bryan, for Cookies — we launched. It's a limited line of Cookies products in New York right now. We don't have flower in market yet, but we have some infused pre-rolls, and some of our dual-chamber vapes and 510 vapes are in New York today. Bryan Fields: What does that kind of launch look like? Do you guys always do a soft launch in new markets, or is it more pick-and-choose? How does that work? Crystal Millican: The Cookies brand is not super into soft-launching — we're definitely into more of a flex when it comes to entering a place. Usually when we're opening a market, we do our best to time our products coming down with an exciting retail store location. If you look at Albuquerque, which was the big new market that came on for us in November, it was, "The weed is here, the store is here, Berner is here," lots of long lines — real retail theater. I call it the hero moment of "Cookies is here to stay." In New York, we're entering the market the way New York is asking us to — right now that means we'll enter with our manufactured products, a more limited product line, and we'll show up in New York how New York demands we show up. Bryan Fields: That was a good answer. I mean, social media — you see the openings of the stores, they're not soft openings, or maybe they're intended to be, but there are long lines, and I'm sure there are expectations from everyone showing up. They want to see Berner, they want to get a product, and that's got to be really difficult from a marketing sense, because if it's everyone's first day, there's a chance you might run out of product, and people don't understand there's a first-time experience. Crystal Millican: It's a lot of pressure. A few things always make it go pretty well — Berner shows up and he authentically cares about our retail stores, they are a home, the physical expression of the experience he wants people to have with our products. So he'll be there, and at the very least he makes sure he walks by everyone and gets time with anyone showing up in line. Our lines are super friendly — they're prepared, they've got their chairs, they're ready to camp. We've had so few issues with our lines, with a couple of exceptions when we do seed drops — sometimes the people who show up for seed drops are a little different than for cannabis. And there's a neighboring market to New York where we had a bit of a rowdy line, but for the most part everyone's there, it's a good vibe, they're in good spirits, they know what they're signing up for, and we do everything we can to deliver the best experience that day. Bryan Fields: Do you guys typically try to launch with specific genetics? Crystal Millican: It's not going to be the same every time. We have our core lineup — we do menu planning, essentially figuring out our product assortment going into a market. There's always the core staples people want to see — London Pound Cake 75, Gary Payton, our typical lineup — and then we always want to bring some new and exciting bangers to market as well. Some markets we're launching soon will see new flavors we've been rolling with in California, extending out to other markets as we're able to. The menu planning starts in California and is only going to get better now that our R&D facility is fully running in Humboldt — something we're all very proud of, connected to our core values around the plant. The genetic story of Cookies is just going to continue to evolve. Bryan Fields: As a marketer, are you involved in the entire process, from origin to release? Crystal Millican: I'd say almost everyone at Cookies is aware of that entire pipeline. Two of our core values are centered around the plant and the seed side of the supply chain — the legacy of the cannabis market. So even if you're crunching numbers during part of your day, you're going to know what's coming and understand the importance of every step in that process. Bryan Fields: When you go into a new state and pick your partner, it's almost like asking someone to join your little family. How's that whole screening process work, since you have to give them the genetics well before launch so they can grow it? Crystal Millican: It takes a really long time to go from seed to sale in every market, so yeah, partner selection is mission-critical for us. Our partnerships are the foundation of our business — we're really grateful for all of our partners. That's what helps us get into 26 markets and move faster than some other companies are able to. We have a long lead time and a lot of onboarding, a lot of QC, whether it's on the cultivation side or the retail side. We're day-in, day-out working with our partners to make sure we're living up to the Cookies reputation in every market. Bryan Fields: What's been your favorite marketing event or effort? Crystal Millican: I'll say the New York clothing opening was incredible. I remember the first people in line were the same first two people in line we had for our first store in Worcester, Massachusetts. It was just a beautiful day, a historic moment for us at Cookies to have that presence on the East Coast, and the rooftop — you can't beat that location. Bryan Fields: What's one marketing effort you thought would flop but was actually successful? Crystal Millican: This isn't really a flop, but something that became a marketing effort we didn't plan on. Berner wants to be involved in hiring for our retail stores, but he's a busy person and can't travel everywhere. During full COVID, everything shut down, and Berner still wanted to hire people, so I was trying to figure out how to do that — Zoom, IT issues, how do we get 100 people through this virtual hiring event? What I didn't know was how valuable that would be from a marketing perspective: one, it gets everyone excited about the market; two, it helps us hire the right people who represent the brand well; and three, it leads to a massive amount of lead generation for people who already love Cookies and become our best customers with the best customer LTV. So it wasn't a flop — it's in the marketing playbook now, and it's a really important part of what we do for retail store openings. Bryan Fields: I can only imagine someone showing up for an interview, getting to speak with Berner, and then that first phone call to a friend being like, "You're not going to believe who interviewed me," and it spreading virally. Crystal Millican: Yeah, it's been incredible — it's what we're here for. Bryan Fields: Let's talk about the cover of Forbes. How does something like that transpire? Was it a longer process? Take us through that period. Crystal Millican: It's actually a quicker process than some press opportunities, but it was inbound — a journalist was doing an article on the most influential leaders in the space and asked to talk to Berner. Forbes doesn't mess around, unlike some other journalistic entities we've bumped elbows with — there was a lot condensed into a short period of time. The journalist wanted to spend time with Berner, and he ended up on the cover of Forbes. I think a lot of that has to do with Berner and his deep ties to the cannabis space and his influential nature in the industry. Bryan Fields: Did the response from the industry surprise you, and the value it demonstrated? Crystal Millican: We knew it was huge the second we found out about it. It was top secret, only a couple of us knew, and we were coordinating all the chats and dealing with all the extra fact-checking. We all knew it was a big moment — not just for Berner and Cookies, but for the cannabis industry. I think it was even bigger than we realized it would be, but we all had a sense while waiting in anticipation for that Forbes cover that it was going to be a big deal. Bryan Fields: Was the waiting part the hardest part of the process, and then making sure you put everything in place to capture that momentum? Crystal Millican: We were really lucky — sometimes the stars align. It was a sprint the whole time; it wasn't like they reached out eight months earlier. It ended up lining up with our New Jersey market entry, which was completely perfect. I remember we were trying to get 50 copies for the New Jersey opening so Berner could sign them, and I literally landed at LaGuardia and was taking 15 copies of Forbes from the airport shop on my way to Lodi, New Jersey, for the day. So there was a lot of anticipation while waiting for it, but then we went right into how do we use it and what's coming next — a lot of action and work around it. Bryan Fields: I can only imagine how exciting that first day was. Did Berner also recognize the paramount accomplishment that is for the cannabis industry, to be on a magazine cover like that? Crystal Millican: One hundred percent. We work with a lot of different folks, and there's a lot of different celebrities in cannabis and music, and I've had my own experiences with influential people, and it can be interesting working with those types of individuals. Berner is incredible in these moments because he knows how big it is, he realizes the awe in it, and he's worked insanely hard to be where he is. At the same time, he recognizes it's a big deal and gets it. Bryan Fields: I think that authentic nature is what makes Cookies and Berner so attractive to the masses — he's just an everyday guy, relatable, and the bud tender experience on top of that. How do you take that and help fuel the brand? Crystal Millican: It's the lifeblood of the brand — infused into everything we do. Berner is the best bud tender on the planet, and he's built an incredible platform to share his experiences with people who are learning about cannabis, using it for medicinal purposes, needing to laugh, or needing to relax. He's the ultimate bud tender, and firmly believes the bud tender should be the guide of the experience. He's been involved from the start — what the retail experience looks like, what our menu planning looks like in California, he names every strain, he works on the artwork with us. He's hands-on in the perfect way for the brand. Bryan Fields: How does the conversation work with people outside the cannabis industry — influencers or celebrities who are friends with Berner and interested in partnering, given the global reach Cookies has? That must be an ongoing influx of people wanting to test the waters. How does that work, and how do you vet for fit? Crystal Millican: It starts with honesty. A lot of people think they're going to come into the cannabis industry, put their name on something, and have an immediate revenue stream flowing in — it is not that. That upfront honesty is really important — if you're going to come in and we're going to help you launch a product or do a collab or build a brand, it's hard work, it's a grind, it takes time. It's like the plant — you have to nurture it, give it every nutrient it needs at the exact moment it's needed. There's a lot of inbound interest in collabs and brand building with us, and some of it is really exciting, but we always start with honesty — if you want to lose sleep and have gray hair, let's talk about it. Bryan Fields: Any partnerships you can tease for 2024? Crystal Millican: We do have one that's not yet announced, that we're working on for 2024. I can't hint without giving it away, but if we can bring it to life in 2024, I think a lot of people will be really into it — it's another one that's kind of a full ecosystem builder for us. Bryan Fields: What's been your favorite partnership or collab from the past? Crystal Millican: For me it's the Erykah Badu collaboration — working with Ms. Badu and her team. That collab kicked off about a year ago and was an incredible experience, working with a woman who is unapologetically herself, pioneering in so many ways, and bringing that energy and expertise to life in cannabis was an honor. It's been a very successful partnership in addition to being incredibly enjoyable. Bryan Fields: Girl Scout Cookies is the most popular strain of all time for Cookies, right? Crystal Millican: We no longer have a Girl Scout Cookies strain out in the market in that way. What's been tried and true for us over the last few years — another incredible partnership — is Gary Payton. It continues to be a top-five strain in every market it's in, a strain so many people enjoy, including myself. Bryan Fields: What does Cookies internally believe should be more popular? Crystal Millican: I'll say we have another very enjoyable partnership with the Ridgeline Farms crew in California — we have a strain, Ridgeline Lens, that's a hometown favorite and performs well, but I think it's a sleeper strain more people should be talking about, and we're extending it to more markets hoping people catch on to how delicious it is. Bryan Fields: What's your favorite product in the Cookies portfolio? Crystal Millican: I do love our That Badu line — everything in it. Outside of THC, I think our caps do a good enough job — we have functional mushroom CBD and functional mushroom THC caps for daytime and nighttime, and that's probably the product I personally use most often to give me a bit of a boost during the day and help me get to sleep at night. That's another sleeper product more people should know about. Bryan Fields: I read a quote that Berner says he has enough strain genetics to drop until 2080. What is that like? Crystal Millican: We've been hard at work in our R&D facility. It's everything. Berner went through an incredibly impactful personal health moment as we've been building and scaling this business, and I think for him and for us, we're thinking about Cookies 100 years out. As many fires as we have to put out in the present and as many important goals as we have to hit for 2023, 2024, 2025, we're also talking about the genetics portfolio that's going to get us to 2080 and beyond — how are we going to be here for 100 years past any of us? We're working on it. Bryan Fields: Did that health scare shift his mindset internally — making longevity more of a focus, for his kids and beyond? Crystal Millican: I think so. A lot of things were happening at the same time for us around then — full COVID, a ton of growth — it was a moment for reflection and also an inflection point. We knew we had to keep our eye on what we needed to do every day in the moment to hit our goals, but we also needed to do it in a way that sets us up to live up to what Cookies means to so many people, thinking about it much further out. Bryan Fields: How has the global response been? We've seen some of the public social media stuff, and it's incredible to watch. Is the growth surprising, and how do you as a marketer educate an audience that's a bit more distant, with a different marketing style? Crystal Millican: It can be complex and challenging. That's where social media is a really helpful channel — also a very frustrating part of marketing in cannabis — but it's where we get a good sense of who's thinking about us, who's talking about us, what they're saying, what they're looking for. On top of that, we have Berner's social presence — we're able to build deep connections and do a lot of customer listening through social media. Bryan Fields: Social media is hard in the cannabis space, but you guys have clearly navigated it successfully. What approaches have you taken that other organizations haven't, that have helped you build your brand nationally? Crystal Millican: It's challenging across the board for cannabis businesses, and every marketing dollar has to be really hardworking — constantly asking, was that incremental, can I attribute sales to the marketing effort? Where we've landed is a big focus on our own channels — our website, who's going there, what are they clicking on, what are they looking for, how do we turn that interested visitor into a customer and hopefully a long-term Cookies loyalist. The other piece is letting customers know we care about how they want us talking to them — email, text, or just social — and making sure we're teeing up that individual with what they're looking for on the medium they want. We're not doing it perfectly today, but that's what we're working on getting right, because I think it helps us get around some of the other challenging aspects of marketing in cannabis. Bryan Fields: What's the most expensive lesson you've ever learned? Crystal Millican: We've started down some paths building store and/or cultivation relationships that we've had to switch gears on — those are always expensive lessons. But honestly, sometimes in the short term it's better to take a little loss before it becomes a bigger loss. Bryan Fields: Well said. Are there any underrated elements you think your team deserves more attention for? Crystal Millican: Just all the hard work. Even today there was a little bit of a bobble on something we were working on, and at the same time, we're at the end of 2023, opening our 70th store today, we entered seven new markets this year — it's been a hustle, a grind. People have lost holidays, lost weekends to make it all possible, and I want everyone in the Cookies fam to know the hard work is seen and appreciated, and it's why we're able to put the wins up on the board. Bryan Fields: What is one aspect about Cookies that most people wouldn't know? Crystal Millican: That's an interesting one, because I think we're pretty much an open book at Cookies. Hopefully everyone knows how much care is taken throughout the entire seed-to-sale process, but maybe it's a reiteration of that — we truly care about everyone touching the plant along the way and how our customers are experiencing it. Hopefully that's known, but maybe not how deeply we really care about it. Bryan Fields: Dream smoking session — three people, dead or alive? Crystal Millican: That's amazing. I'd put my dad in there for sure, and I'd run it back with Erykah Badu any day — that's an experience I'd love to have again. And I'd add someone who might not be around — Gloria Steinem. Let's smoke weed with her today. Bryan Fields: If you could put anything on a billboard, metaphorically, to get a message out to billions of people — an image, a quote, a word, something that inspired you — what's the first thing that comes to mind? Crystal Millican: I'd probably do some image around growth through learning. I'd have to sit down with my creative team to get a better image, but I'm a learner — that's why I'm happy to be in this industry every day, wanting to keep learning and growing, and there's just never-ending amounts of that at Cookies and in cannabis. Bryan Fields: Well said. When you got started on your cannabis journey, what did you get right, and what did you get wrong? Crystal Millican: What did I get wrong — I'm a very goal-focused person, always focused on the next improvement, and given the speed at which this industry and the brand move, if you're a person who's like "great, that's done, next, next, next," I think what I've missed is sometimes taking a breath and soaking in what's been accomplished, making sure every person who's been part of it understands the milestone we've met. That's something I've gotten wrong and want to keep working on. What we got right — we figured out how to get Cookies products to the most people as quickly as we can, while living up to our quality standards and staying true to our core values. I think we've, for the most part, gotten that right. Bryan Fields: All right, prediction time, Crystal — five years from now, what has Cookies done to leverage its lifestyle brand to unlock a wider global cannabis market? Crystal Millican: It's connecting our ecosystem fully. Today there's clothing and there's cannabis — we're sisters, but there's still separation. In five years, when our ecosystem is fully connected, I think that's when we're hitting that global point where we're really able to meet our customers' demands of us. It's still a challenge to do that given how the cannabis industry is set up today — hopefully in five years things are different and we've really connected that full ecosystem. Kellan Finney: I have to piggyback on what Crystal says — I think it's also going to be really big for the industry if you can merge clothing, music, and cannabis. It brings cannabis out of the closet into a mainstream, accepted entity that's part of global society, and that'll be good for everyone. What do you think, Bryan? Bryan Fields: I would love to see a concert with Cookies headlining it from a marketing standpoint, as a consumption-based concert — more activations where events combine the audience and the skill set Berner has. It seems like the perfect intersection to unlock the stigma and let a music fan who hasn't experienced cannabis come to an event like that and realize, "Hey, it's not like I thought, it's a little different," and maybe be willing to give it a try. I think that approach helps unlock what so many people believe is going to be an exploding industry, and knocks down the barriers going forward. Crystal Millican: Yeah, I'm with you, Bryan — more consumption-friendly music experiences would be good for the world, for sure. Good for everybody. Bryan Fields: Crystal, for our listeners who want to get in touch, want to purchase Cookies products, where can they find you? Crystal Millican: Cookies.co — come to our website every day, you'll be able to see the products we have and the stores where you can buy your Cookies products. Bryan Fields: Thank you so much — this was a lot of fun, we'll get it all up in the show notes. Crystal Millican: Thank you both.