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Boveda has been committed to protecting your passions for over 25 years with its unique two-way humidity control packets. Cannabis and cigar aficionados alike trust that the world\u2019s most iconic little brown packet will control humidity and keep valuable smokables in premium condition.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Sean Knutsen, President and CEO of Boveda, spoke to\u00a0Cannabis Now<\/em>\u2019s\u00a0<\/em>founder and CEO, Eugenio Garcia, about the company\u2019s surprise place in the legacy cannabis market and its plans to help cannabis consumers save their terps.<\/p>\n Cannabis Now: How did you get into the business?<\/strong><\/p>\n Sean Knutsen:<\/strong> Six of us got together and formed the company in 1997\u2014 last July, we celebrated our 25th anniversary, which is pretty amazing. I\u2019ve been CEO since the beginning.<\/p>\n Wow, congratulations. That\u2019s amazing. And you<\/strong>\u2019ve stood the test of time, as they say.<\/strong><\/p>\n Those early days were tough, as anybody who started a business understands.<\/em><\/p>\n One of the founding team members, David, was involved in the cigar boom during the Nineties; he was a woodworker who made humidors. In fact, he was the guy that brought the six founding members together\u2014two of whom recently retired from General Mills. Tim Swail (Executive VP, Marketing) and I were friends from college. Tim and I met David through our love for cigars and wanted one of his humidors. Long story short, we built a friendship. One day, he showed us a product that would control humidity inside containers. It was remarkable.\u00a0<\/p>\n David had a hard time controlling the humidity inside wooden humidors. A close friend of his family, Dr. Saari, was a senior chemist who had recently retired from General Mills. He was a multi-award-winning patent holder and worked in the Betty Crocker division, among other areas, including food preservation. Dr. Saari had the idea to take the technology used to control humidity in the lab at General Mills and make it portable for packaging applications. Until then, it wasn\u2019t possible because the materials that could hold the liquid solution but still allow water vapor to pass through\u2014the film, the membranes and so forth\u2014didn\u2019t exist.<\/p>\n The technology David showed us, which wasn\u2019t named at that point, controlled humidity levels inside containers. Different solutions of salt and water have inherent characteristics to regulate different humidity levels. We knew the technology transcended the cigar market. Tim and I saw an opportunity to go into business together with David. He also brought in Dr. Saari, who had invented the technology, who then brought a colleague of his from General Mills, Robert Esse, who had also recently retired. Those two were on the science side, developing and patenting the technology.<\/p>\n When did you decide to move into the cannabis market?<\/strong><\/p>\n We\u2019ve known cannabis benefited from moisture management since 1997 but didn\u2019t expect cannabis to ever come to fruition for us as an application. We knew it was a great opportunity but didn\u2019t think we would ever participate because it was illegal.\u00a0<\/p>\n Then, in 2006, we got a call from a home grower who was passionate about cannabis\u2014and I remember receiving the phone call\u2014 who had gone into a cigar store and seen one of our products to control the humidity<\/a> and he had a lightbulb moment. He thought, \u201cMy goodness, where was this when we would import cannabis off the shores of California illegally from the Far East and Central America and Mexico?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n They bought cannabis by weight, so if the weed dried out, they would lose hundreds of thousands of dollars. And now here\u2019s our product in a bag that can control humidity. So, he started buying Boveda in cigar stores for his cannabis. But his operation got shut down and he spent five years in the clink. Eventually, he got out and became an advocate for the herbal medicine concept, legitimizing it for medicinal purposes. So Boveda has been serving cannabis users since 2007.<\/p>\n So, inadvertently, Boveda was part of the legacy market before cannabis was even legal.<\/strong><\/p>\n I think it was in 2015 when I remember reading about a plane that had to make an emergency landing. And when it landed, these guys were busted because they were illegally transporting cannabis across state lines\u2014turkey bags filled with weed were in the back of their plane. I saw a picture of this plane and in every one of those bags, there\u2019s a Boveda.\u00a0<\/p>\n Another time, someone on our team was watching the reality show \u201cCops.\u201d A cop pulled over some guy and they were going through his glove box and he had this stash bag. And then the cop took out a Boveda packet and said, \u201cWhat is this thing?\u201d And the guy goes, \u201cOh, that\u2019s my Boveda for my weed.\u201d<\/p>\n What percentage of Boveda<\/strong>\u2019s business is cannabis?<\/strong><\/p>\n It\u2019s very significant\u2014just over roughly 50 percent.<\/p>\n What are some of your most significant challenges?<\/strong><\/p>\n The biggest challenge in this strategy is how to reach customers. Social media platforms, Google AdWords, Amazon\u2014you name it. If you\u2019re advertising tobacco and especially cannabis, you\u2019ll get shut down. So, we must figure out a way to meet customers directly around those obstacles.<\/p>\n Does education play a significant role in your sales proposal to customers? What<\/strong>\u2019s cutting through?<\/strong><\/p>\n We now have many other tools at our disposal to help grow a brand that we didn\u2019t have early on. But the most important thing by far is word of mouth. Just like any industry in any market\u2014guitars, cigars, cannabis or anything else\u2014people who use the product need to spread the word. In the early days, when we first launched our company and then in 2004, when we launched desktop humidors, we didn\u2019t have any advertising budget and didn\u2019t have social media the way we know it today. The brand grew phenomenally; for 18 consecutive years, the average compound growth is over 33%, which is remarkable growth. Reaching customers is like building blocks: You reach one, you reach to four, then eight, then 16, then 32. And it multiplies. It takes a while before you reach 50 million plus customers, but word of mouth is the most important way to reach them.\u00a0<\/p>\n Is the cannabis customer much different from the cigar customer?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n That\u2019s a great question. There are some differences in the market and how you reach them. A lot of it has to do with when customers experience the product. There was an explicit need for Boveda with cigars because you don\u2019t buy a cigar outside of a humidor and everybody knows that. The common thing is that we improve the customer\u2019s experience with both cigars and cannabis.<\/p>\n Who do you turn to keep your true north when it comes to cannabis? Do you have a cannabis evangelist or a cannabis guru in your company?<\/strong><\/p>\n A considerable percentage of the population smokes cannabis and we have people here that smoke cannabis. So, the answer is yes. But we also have outside people and resources that we\u2019re really connected with and have built relationships with over the years who are great resources. We have resources on the consumer side but on the technical side, too, including labs that test cannabis. A lot of the companies that we work with carry out tests on our behalf and all of that data helps from the scientific side. But we also have it from passionate people, just like people in the cigar market who are passionate about cigars, just like we do in the music industry, where we have musicians who are passionate about instruments. It\u2019s not one person necessarily\u2014it\u2019s always a team effort.<\/p>\n Why should people use Boveda as part of their complimentary cannabis experience?<\/strong><\/p>\n One reason we love to be in packaging for cannabis companies is that it\u2019s often the first entry point of exposure to the consumer that humidity\u00a0control<\/em>\u00a0matters. If we just\u00a0added<\/em>\u00a0humidity\u2014and didn\u2019t control<\/em>\u00a0humidity to the precision that we do\u2014we would be bad for cannabis, with the risk of mold and microbial growth. What our technology does so wonderfully is raise the moisture and manage it inside the container to the perfect moisture level to put the flower in so the trichomes stay healthy<\/a>. If the trichomes are healthy, the THC doesn\u2019t degrade and the terpenes don\u2019t evaporate, giving a better consumer experience.<\/p>\n There<\/strong>\u2019s a growing movement for companies to have a better work environment. Boveda is often nominated as one of the best places to work. As the CEO, how is that reflective of the company culture?<\/strong><\/p>\n That\u2019s an excellent question. It doesn\u2019t matter if it\u2019s a cannabis company; companies are the same. We\u2019re all here to work towards a vision that we have. As CEO, you need to have a clear direction of where the company is heading, so people\u2019s work has a purpose\u2014people don\u2019t like to be in a workplace where they don\u2019t know if their work has meaning. Also, you must live and abide by your values and how you behave as an individual and a company. These are foundational things, but you have to live them and communicate them regularly.<\/p>\n The other thing is that company culture reflects the people. We take a lot of time hiring the right people\u2014it\u2019s our most critical decision. It doesn\u2019t matter how good your vision is or how good your product technology is. It\u2019s not about foosball in your office. It\u2019s none of those things. The game is business; that is the game, that\u2019s the sport. And it\u2019s fun. When you have fun with that as the objective, your wins aren\u2019t on the foosball table in the break room; it\u2019s sales and the customer\u2019s experience.\u00a0<\/p>\n What are Boveda<\/strong>\u2019s goals for 2023?<\/strong><\/p>\n Up to this point, we\u2019ve spent a lot of our time focusing on the backend storage and packaging for businesses. One of the shifts we\u2019re making is focusing on the consumer and their experience with Boveda. Our goal for 2023 is to cater to the needs and the experience of the cannabis consumer and the benefits they get from Boveda: confidence, trust and passion for the product.<\/p>\n The post Boveda CEO Sean Knutsen Talks Tech, Terps and Branding\u00a0<\/a> appeared first on Cannabis Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n
Boveda has been committed to protecting your passions for over 25 years with its unique two-way humidity control packets. Cannabis and cigar aficionados alike trust that the world\u2019s most iconic little brown packet will control humidity and keep valuable smokables in premium condition.\u00a0 Sean Knutsen, President and CEO of Boveda,Continue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":61278,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[12825,50,16735,12474,10277,1383,15514,417,86],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61277"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61277"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61277\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":61279,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61277\/revisions\/61279"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61278"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Boveda](\"https:\/\/cannabisnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/Boveda-CEO-Sean-Knutsen.jpg\")
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\nRead More: Boveda CEO Sean Knutsen Talks Tech, Terps and Branding\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"