Miss Grass: A Community to Brand Masterclass ft. Kate Miller

Miss Grass: A Community to Brand Masterclass ft. Kate Miller

Kate Miller: We've always been really focused on education and distilling what can be really complex scientific verbiage into somewhat layman's terms, so that people can digest it and understand how best to apply that in their lives. Bryan Fields: What's up guys, welcome back to another episode of The Dime. I'm Bryan Fields, with me as always is Kellen Finney, and this week we've got a very special guest, Kate Miller, co-founder and CEO of Miss Grass. Kate, thanks for taking the time — how are you doing today? Kate Miller: Great, how about you guys? I'm doing really well. Kellen, how are you doing? Kellen Finney: I'm doing really well, really excited to talk about Kate's brand, really excited to learn more about her East Coast love — but more excited to know that she did spend a lot of time out here on the West Coast. So how are you doing today, Bryan? Bryan Fields: Yeah, I just wanted to clarify that it's not East Coast love — she's got East Coast roots, she's from the East Coast and currently lives on the East Coast, and maybe ventured out to the West Coast to learn some stuff about cannabis that she's bringing back to the East Coast. Kellen Finney: So you're saying the West Coast is providing some information for the East Coast — is that what I heard? Bryan Fields: I think that's fair. Everyone got their shots in first, so Kate, we'll let you clarify for the record — a little East Coast/West Coast battle — where would you say you currently reside? Kate Miller: On the record, I live in New York and I'm a Jersey girl, and I rep Jersey till I die. I am an East Coaster, but I did have an 11-year stint — five of those years were in New York — but I had an 11-year stint in Southern California, in Los Angeles, four of which were college. So I think it still counts. Bryan Fields: That's fair, let the record reflect that. So Kate, before we dive in, can you give your listeners a little background about yourself, and then the approach you took to building Miss Grass, which I know is a little more unconventional than some of the other brands out in the space? Kate Miller: Background on myself — as I mentioned, born and raised Jersey girl. Personally have always loved weed from the second blunt I ever smoked, and the rest has been history since then. Have always been around it — my brother sold it and ultimately got arrested for doing so. But fast forward, moved out to attend university in Los Angeles, California. Had a medical cannabis program at the time, personally loved weed, walked into a dispensary my first time and was blown away with lollipops and all the different strain options — kid in a candy shop the first time. But also have always been super entrepreneurial, finding areas where I felt there were voids to build businesses around, or little side hustles, and ultimately that's what cannabis was for me at the beginning. Landed up working as a medical bud tender my junior and senior year of college in 2007-2008 in the medical cannabis California program. Planted the seed then, bought Missgrass.com on GoDaddy in 2008, ultimately sat on it for over a decade before it launched. I was one of those people who'd get high with my girlfriend, come up with business ideas, and immediately go to GoDaddy to secure the URL — no idea why I thought that meant you had a business. But ultimately launched it a decade later. Had a decade-long career in the entertainment industry, was living in New York at the time, California had just voted or was about to vote for adult-use cannabis, so I started looking back into the space. I've always been a brand-building person, loving the idea of the value that really valuable brand IP can create and that you can ultimately monetize around — and that's what Miss Grass was for us, a brand-building exercise. To your question, we took a bit of a different approach than a lot of other brands in the space who launch product and then turn their attention to building community — which, especially in this space, is a challenging approach given the state-by-state framework that is cannabis. For us, we launched as an online community platform, which allowed us to scale nationwide and even globally. We have customers who purchased things on our e-commerce site, all federally legal in all 50 states, and we did that focusing on building and scaling a community for close to the first three years of the business before we ultimately launched our first product. So from day one of having product on shelves, we already had a 990,000-plus email subscriber base — close to 880,000 at the time — social following. So we had people show up from day one who knew about our brand and already had brand loyalty. Kellen Finney: Did you always have the idea to kind of start the community and then launch a cannabis brand, or was that created during the early stages when you guys were building the community and getting feedback from community members? Kate Miller: Yeah, it was in our very first business overview — create a community. We took a page out of Glossier's book, if you know that beauty brand that started with an online media platform, scaled community, collected a ton of first-party data, and then used that to inform what became their first product. So the approach is not unique to us by any means; many brands beyond Glossier have taken that approach. That being said, I thought we would have a first product within year one of this business. I think, as a first-time entrepreneur, I underestimated the time it takes to get traction and scale, as well as definitely underestimated how long it would take for the cannabis industry to evolve. So it took us about two and a half, close to three years, before we launched our first product. Bryan Fields: As someone who's gotten high and purchased many GoDaddy domains before, I got to know — were there other domains that you had purchased and other concepts you'd kicked around, and did you apply any of those earlier on, or did you know right away Miss Grass was it, and that was the informational platform you wanted to start to build the community? Kate Miller: Great question. I had close to 30 GoDaddy domains, and none have seen the light of day except for Miss Grass. I now no longer pay for the annual subscription on all of them — a couple years ago I did a clean slate. None were in the cannabis space; they'd be somewhat funny domains. Miss Grass was really the one, and to be honest, when I purchased it while working as a bud tender, I didn't fully conceptualize what it would ultimately become. It was more that I felt there was a void and a need for a brand that authentically represented myself and the many people in my life who were consuming cannabis more consciously than it was being portrayed in the dispensary I worked at, and in pop culture at the time, which leaned really heavily into that stoner-bro, lazy stigma we're all familiar with. There wasn't anyone leading on the education side, so it planted the seed, and then a decade later I started looking back into it when I could justify devoting my life and career to it, because cannabis reform started to sweep our nation and I felt like it was the perfect intersection of my passion and the business opportunity. Bryan Fields: I love it, and building traction with 990,000 email subs is not an easy feat, especially in our niche — incredibly impressive. What was the value you were providing to people in order for them to subscribe to the email, and then obviously there had to be a certain number in your mind where you realized, okay, I found something here and this is a niche we can target. Take us through that process. Kate Miller: From day one, the product we had was our online magazine. We still have it — over 2,000 pieces of editorial content that have been written, many of which are education-led. It was somewhat luck that we were ready to launch at a time cannabis had a lot of mojo and momentum, and there was a lot of press writing about it, because we launched January 2018, which was when California went adult-use. It was also at the height of the MeToo movement, so we were two female founders in cannabis, and there was a ton of media writing about it at that time. From month one we had so many users driven to our site — right place, right time. It was also around the height of the CBD craze, where CBD was put in every product, including CBD leggings that were pitched to us once. A lot of people were driven to our website who were either new to, or for the first time ever had access to, educational material on cannabis so they could get good at weed. We had email capture everywhere, from our online magazine to a ton of events — early days we did events with Beats by Dre, Alo Yoga, Lululemon, and Soho Houses around the country, which was also a great way to capture and scale our email newsletter list. Bryan Fields: I think that's so powerfully said, and one of the things that helped conversion rates is that the messaging and imagery on your website are extremely clear about who the target audience is — you feel at home immediately. I want you to take us through the branding aspects, knowing that you built around the concept that there wasn't a product category for someone like yourself, so that someone like you could find a safe haven when they saw the product. Take us through the branding and the iterations that came to where you are today. Kate Miller: I'll emphasize the word iterations, because that's exactly what it was — it has evolved. What the brand identity looked like from day one is not what it looks like today. What you see today is actually something we launched about two years ago, when we finally, for the first time in this close to six-year journey, brought on a head of creative in-house. Prior to that, from a visual perspective, we've always owned voice in-house — how we sound, what we report on — and that was created by my business partner, Anna Duckworth, who started the brand with me. But we always outsourced design, from managing freelance graphic designers to working with creative agencies that built the first brand identity system. Today we brought that person in-house — her name is Priyanka Pujara — and she has created the visual world that is Miss Grass across all of our brand touchpoints. So much thought and attention has gone into it; she used color psychology to decide the color of our Fast Times boxes, because the energy of that color inspires an uplifting, creative effect, which is ultimately what the high is. Really intentional and thought out, and that launched about two years ago. Bryan Fields: You could feel that, and I think that's the most impressive part — some other companies send it off to an agency and there's no real feel behind it, but yours very clearly connects and speaks to people. Fast Times, Quiet Times, Half Times, All Times — very intentional. Take us through the idea and intention behind that. Kate Miller: It started when we were developing our first product, the Miss Grass Minis. That was very much informed by our community — one example of a data capture point is that we sent out a Google survey to our email subscriber list, and overnight 7,000 people responded, answering everything from their preferred method of consumption to more granular things like the specific moments throughout the day they're consuming, and the percentage of our community that would smoke a joint but never get through a full gram, which ultimately informed the mini sizes. That's one example of how we leveraged our first-party data to inform the product we came out with. We also knew that sativa/indica/hybrid is very antiquated nomenclature — so many people say 'I smoked an indica and I just felt wired' without looking at the terpene profile. We wanted consumers to know when they're reaching for the Fast Times what they should feel — that's our sativa — while being true and authentic to what it is, focusing on terpene profiles. A lot of times we'll actually blend two strains together to get a consistent terpene profile for the Fast Times. That solved for consumers telling us they'd get a super silver haze one time and it would feel totally different the next — we wanted a consistent experience from batch to batch, production to production, state to state. That was our approach, not only with naming Fast Times, Quiet Times, All Times, but with what product goes into each one. Kellen Finney: Is there ever a balancing act of taking the survey data suggesting consumers want X, but you personally prefer Y? How do you balance personal preference with the survey data? Kate Miller: Great question, and a real-life example — right now we're R&D-ing an edible, and we did a similar thing. The consumer and market data shows gummy, gummy, gummy, gummy is everyone's favorite thing. It's a question of, do you like a gummy the most just because that's what exists and everyone has a gummy? But wearing our business hat, we didn't want to enter a space that's extremely saturated, where a handful of brands already own the majority of that pie. That's an example of the data steering us one way, but we decided to go a different way. Kellen Finney: Could it be that people are anti-smoking and looking for an alternative way of consuming — was that the intention behind edibles, or were there additional format options? Kate Miller: That specific survey was a deep dive on edibles specifically, so we'd already filtered for that. Overall, our community's preferred method is number one a pre-roll, and a close second is edibles. Bryan Fields: What are you seeing as the biggest questions or hurdles for women specifically to adopt cannabis into their life? Kate Miller: Women make up the fastest-growing demographic in all legal states — we're already a major consumer base, and looking at other industries, women purchase about 80% of household items, so all things point to, win the woman category and you're going to be a really successful company. From our first-party data, a lot of women in our community don't like smoking something, don't like putting it in their lungs — some are mothers, and it's not as discreet as taking an edible. I think with legalization and the opportunity for consumers to go into a legal store and have options for the first time, that's normalizing and bringing new consumers into this market. The educational side is also so important — just yesterday I was at a non-cannabis conference and founders and investors outside the space were saying things like 'I don't consume cannabis, it freaks me out, someone gave me a chocolate and I had so much anxiety' — the educational piece equips consumers to know what to look for, how to read a label, what the right dose is for them, to help them get good at weed, and for women especially to choose the product that suits their specific needs. Kellen Finney: Are there certain prerequisites or guidelines you follow in terms of tone and message when communicating educational content directly to women consumers, or is it more one-size-fits-all? Kate Miller: Honestly, we are not just for women — the majority of our consumer base is women on our brand channels, 76% of our community on Instagram and our email subscriber list, though in-store purchasing isn't as weighted, though it's still majority women. Our voice goes back to our brand identity and what we represent — we've always been focused on education, distilling complex scientific verbiage into layman's terms so people can digest and apply it in their lives. Bryan Fields: I want to go back to the terpene-rich formula, because I think that's very important to the continuity of someone picking up the product each time and feeling that same feel. How did you come up with the terpene-rich formula, how hard is that, and how do you communicate that to someone who doesn't understand all the aspects of cannabis? Kate Miller: The latter question is one we're still trying to figure out — how much we should share, versus just letting people feel the same thing each time they grab the Fast Times. Not every consumer cares about the specific terpene breakdown, but a large consumer base does. For us, the terpene profiles we look for were a little bit of trial and error from our own team, as well as working with our chief scientific advisor, Amanda Ryman, who helps inform the terpene profiles. On the production side, we get strains full-panel tested so we get full terpene testing back in the COAs prior to production, which helps us decide, take 75% of this and 25% of that and blend it together — sometimes one strain comes back with the perfect profile and we'll just do a single strain that production run. We always list the strains and terpene profiles on our labels for consumers who care about that. Bryan Fields: How much added challenge does that create for managing your supply chain, needing a supply chain in every single state? Kate Miller: It's damn tough, but we have a chief product officer, Tiana Araga, who has a 20-plus-year career in the cannabis space. Prior to us she was SVP of Business Development and Product Ops at Papa & Barkley, where she created and led their Papa Select line, a really high-end line — her passion is hash, solventless, all of that. She's really a terp queen, knows her stuff on strains and genetics and terpene profiles, and she works very closely with our supply chain partners, reviewing and approving COAs. We've got a good flow going now. Bryan Fields: Has there ever been a state where you couldn't nail a certain blend right away, or a product you couldn't get the consistent terpene-rich combination for? Kate Miller: Never that we launched and couldn't figure out — we've explored states and production partners before and decided it's not the time to launch, because the flower quality isn't there or they don't have enough strain diversity. By the time we're live and in production, that diligence has already happened. We're actually now getting to a point where we're bringing over our own genetics to a lot of our states — building equity around some of our own genetics will be the next evolution for Miss Grass. Bryan Fields: New York is a great example — you wanted to be one of the earliest brands there. What happened? Kate Miller: We explored the state; we wanted to be one of the earliest brands, and frankly we are one of the earliest established brands in the market — we just launched last week. Early on we didn't feel the flower quality coming out of New York was quite there yet, so now we're actually sourcing from the very few operational greenhouse facilities in the state. I love outdoor, especially some Cali outdoor that's so terp-rich, no shade to outdoor producers, but I hadn't seen incredible product coming out of the first year's harvest — it was harvested last October — so we didn't want to launch in this market without fresh product. That informed the timing of our launch and who we partnered with, so we can have consistent harvests every two and a half to three months and keep the product fresh. Bryan Fields: Is there a state that operates smoother than the rest for you, where you wish other states would operate like it? And it's not California. Kate Miller: Honestly, I'd say Jersey — and I know I'm a Jersey girl, but Jersey is a really good market right now, and I'm not the only one who says that. Every state has room for optimization, but in New Jersey, the operators operating right now, the economics along the supply chain make sense, and it feels regulated in terms of the flow of people coming online, unlike New York, which has been really messy. Bryan Fields: Is there any plan to make a Mr. Grass and pair it with Miss Grass in a package? Kate Miller: I cannot tell you how many people have asked me that question throughout this journey. I actually went back to GoDaddy to see if Mr. Grass was available, and it isn't — it's a lawn-mowing company that owns Mr. Grass. So I'm going to let that keep thriving and stick to Miss Grass. Kellen Finney: Are there potential collaborations or partnerships on the horizon for Miss Grass, especially with other women-led brands and initiatives? Kate Miller: Nothing I can announce, but we are a very big partnership company — it's how we scaled our community. Most recently we partnered with a woman named Jasmine Mans and her company By Weed For Women — over last Women's Month we launched a custom collab tote. More things like that will be on the horizon. Bryan Fields: You guys just launched in New York — where are you now focusing most of your energy? Kate Miller: It's a constant internal question of going deeper versus wider, and right now the answer is a little bit of both. We're in really strong markets, but there are still a few states we want to turn on because we have a strong community base there and the market economics justify getting in. We do have a couple more states on our horizon, including one we'll launch in December. Next year we'll also focus a lot on going deeper in our current states with expansion of our product line — bringing SKUs we have in California over to East Coast states, plus some new development and other launches. Bryan Fields: Can you share the state you're expanding to in December, and how long the process takes to get to launch? Kate Miller: We'll be launching in the Arizona market — you heard it here first. It starts with an internal scorecard for the majority of states, including ones not at all on our radar, where we rate states against certain metrics. Arizona has been on our radar — we have a strong community base there, the market is somewhat stable in cannabis terms, and typically we look to get into states on the earlier side of adult-use, which wouldn't be the case in Arizona. But we've explored multiple supply chain partners there, and it was the right time with the right group — we're partnering with Sorse Roots, who have the best flower in the state in my opinion, and I don't think I'm alone in that. It was the right partner, the right deal, and the right time from a bandwidth perspective — we're a small but mighty team, so we space out our state launches to make sure we can run the playbook and execute in all our markets. Kellen Finney: When you go into a state, is it just the main product SKU and then expand from there, or is it tailored to each state based on what consumers there prefer? Kate Miller: We have kind of a product playbook that evolves depending on the state. In a nascent market, some of the infusions or solventless products we have in other markets aren't available yet, so it's about looking at the market and production capabilities. For us, we tend to always launch with the Miss Grass Minis — it's our hero SKU, the one our community knows, loves, and always asks for. We start there, work out the kinks, and then look to launch subsequent products depending on where that market and consumer are. Bryan Fields: What's the most expensive lesson you've ever learned? Kate Miller: How important it is to collect money from people before they go bankrupt, so you don't have to write it off as bad debt. We learned that the hard way last year in the California market, and now we're very focused on collections. Bryan Fields: Dream smoking session, three people, dead or alive — who are they? Kate Miller: Marley, Rihanna, Martin Luther King. Bryan Fields: If you could put anything on a billboard, metaphorically speaking, to get a message to billions of people — image, quote, word, whatever inspired you — what comes to mind? Kate Miller: In the words of Snoop — smoke weed every day. Kellen Finney: What would you do if you had to do another startup, not in cannabis? Kate Miller: Oh my God, I live under a cannabis plant, I can't think of anything beyond cannabis. I love business and the idea of creating something, so not to say I wouldn't be a founder again in another life or in the future, but I don't see myself founding something I don't have extreme passion for — right now I don't have a lot of passions outside of cannabis, business, friendships, and family. Maybe if cannabis weren't in my life, something else would come in. Bryan Fields: We're sitting here one year from now — what have you accomplished? Kate Miller: A lot of scale — we've scaled the business 250 to 300% year-over-year, and we want to keep that going, in a position where this is a good financial outcome for everyone involved, internally and externally. So continuing to scale, but in a good business way, running a profitable business, not scaling the way we've seen a lot of other companies in the space scale. Bryan Fields: When you got started in the cannabis industry, what did you get right, and most importantly, what did you get wrong? Kate Miller: I still think there's such a need for a brand serving a community, particularly women, who have been historically underserved in this space, even today — that idea I identified back in 2008 I still think is correct and needed, so I'd say that's something I got right. Something I got wrong was the timing — when we first launched, I expected so much more to have happened from a federal legalization and movement perspective. We launched January 2018, and I said we're three to five years out from federal legalization, and I'm still saying five years out today. So I definitely got the timing wrong. Bryan Fields: The crystal ball always looks weird looking back — 2024 for sure, we've had conversations predicting it. Kate Miller: Literally, someone predicted that to me a bunch of times. Kellen Finney: One more quick question before predictions — have you ever considered taking just hemp flower and selling it nationally in your pre-rolls? Kate Miller: Great question — we used to actually have a Hemp and Herb Mini, using other botanical herbs mixed with CBD-rich hemp, mainly as a DTC play sold through our e-commerce site. Scaling an e-commerce marketplace and scaling wholesale into retail are two completely different business models, so in the spirit of being focused, we decided to sunset that line. But now, with everything we're seeing in the beverage and manufactured space with hemp-derived THC, I've started thinking through it again — if we had a product that translated into that non-inhalable space with the same compounds, I'd more seriously entertain it. But right now we're mainly focused on the cannabis THC side. Kellen Finney: I was curious because it fits especially with that 990,000-person email list — that's an asset that isn't cheap to hold from a month-to-month basis. Kate Miller: Yeah, that's a real asset too. Bryan Fields: All right, Kate, prediction time. What's the next big trend in the cannabis industry, especially in relation to female customers? Kate Miller: Not just related to females, but them in particular too — the evolution of this space where brands are driving more and more value, and we're starting to really see valuable brands with true brand equity and loyalty. Several years ago we didn't see as much of that, because if you owned the shelf space, consumers bought whatever they could buy — now we're definitely seeing the rise of, and shift to, more brand value. Bryan Fields: Kellen, what's your prediction? Kellen Finney: I'll say you're going to see a huge shift in cultural stigma. Right now when the general American thinks of someone who consumes cannabis daily, they picture a middle-aged white male stoner. I think over the next couple years that'll shift toward a more accepted, mainstream image — like how people think of alcohol, both a dive bar drinking beer and a group of ladies at brunch drinking champagne. I think you'll see that transition away from the old stereotype toward someone who fits the mainstream everyday person. Bryan Fields: Those are well said, especially the alcohol comparison. A lot of people lean on alcohol as their relaxing drug, and if they've had a prior negative experience with cannabis, it takes slow stigma replacement for them to find a brand that connects with them, have a repeatable good experience, and slowly become comfortable trusting cannabis over time. I think it starts with education, messaging, and repeatable experience, exactly like you said, Kate — necessary steps for mass adoption, especially among women, the fastest-growing segment, and it's exciting to see friends who don't currently consume cannabis look to add it back into their repertoire, not associated with the old stoner-on-the-couch image. Bryan Fields: Kate, for our listeners who want to get in touch or buy Miss Grass products, where can they find you? Kate Miller: Probably the easiest way is to go to our site, MissGrass.com — we have a stockist page that's always updated, so that's the easiest way to find available stores. We're in California, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and New York. Bryan Fields: Awesome, we'll get that in the show notes. Thanks for taking the time, this was fun. Kate Miller: Thank you so much.