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REMIX: Album 4 Track 9 – Kieve Huffman, Chief Executive Officer, Engager Brands
Hey Brand Nerds! We have a first for our podcast in today's episode - we are talking cannabis - along with a wide range of experiences from our guest Kieve Huffman. From his first brand love experience that inspired him into a career in the music industry through a journey of start-ups, Kieve brings great conversations around being early to industry trends and how to prioritize a work-life balance.
Interesting people, insightful points of view and incredible stories on what’s popping and not popping in marketing, tech, and culture you can use to win immediately. Brands, Beats and Bytes boldly stands at the intersection of brand, tech and culture. DC and Larry are fascinated with stories and people behind some of the best marketing in the business. No matter how dope your product, if your marketing sucks your company may suck too. #dontsuck
DC: What's happening Brand Nerds? Coming at you with another podcast Brands, Beats, and Bytes right after the NCAA tournament. I know my, my boy and business partner LT is having some problems right now. Havin' some problems.
LT: No problems.
DC: Great game. Great game. Great final four, great game. But we back at you here after that, epic weekend and, Brand Nerds, you know, the name of the podcast, but we don't often talk with people who are clearly able to discuss the second "B" in the name "beats."
I am a music guy. If I didn't have music in my life, I'm not doing this podcast. So whenever we get a chance to talk with someone who has a vast amount of experience across a range of different things, but there's also intimately involved with music, creation, and artistry. I get excited. So LT, let us know who we have in the virtual Brands, Beats, and Bytes building on this auspicious occasion.
LT: Oh yeah. We're, we're really excited today, DC. We have Kieve Huffman in the house today. Welcome Kieve.
Kieve Huffman: Hey, thanks for having me guys.
LT: And Kieve I told you when we were prepping for this, that DC loves havin' music folks. Right? So this is great. So let me walk everyone through what let's walk the Brand Nerds through Kieve's wonderful background.
So after earning his undergrad degree at the University of michigan, Kieve got his start in the music business, where he was with Sony BMG Records that had multiple iterations with different companies buying and selling and he eventually worked his way up. He was working his way up to VP and GM of the Global Digital Business Group, which is, which is pretty high up there and highlights for that wonderful stint for Kieve include initiating and running their ColumbiaHouse.com, customer acquisition and membership retention efforts.
D, remember Columbia House?
DC: All right. Oh yeah. Okay. Kieve is an OG in this game.
LT: That's right.
Kieve Huffman: How many times have you signed your, your neighbor or your dog up, you know.
LT: I'd love to hear about more of that Kieve, and also he was crafting award-winning digital campaigns for many artists well ranging from a plethora of all their wonderful artists, including Elvis Presley and the Dave Matthews Band. And then listen to this D, he grew annual digital revenues from $1 million to $125 million.
How about that?
DC: Okay. Now, Larry. I know like I, I never interrupted the flowers cause that's what's happening now Kieve, is you're getting your flowers, but I ha I just, I'm sorry, Larry. I just gotta have one quick question for my brother, Kieve, before you keep going.
LT: Yup.
DC: You're starting in the area of digital revenue and you're doing a million dollars inside of a big company like you were in. That's basically nothing. So like I'm curious brother, how you get treated when you go from 1 million to 125 million, like what? What's that transformation like internally? Cause at one point, dude, you're like, get there, like get out of here, Kieve, and now you got 125 million, you know, just a little bit on that. I'm sorry, Larry.
Kieve Huffman: Yeah, so, well, it's interesting you bring that up because it was great. When I, when I actually took over that business, it was even under, it was actually under a million, you know, it was, it was like, so I had come from, I w I'd helped launch the .com business at Columbia House.
And so they brought me over to run, to start, the new media department at RCA records. And because of my background in direct response, I was able to really just move up the ranks very quickly. So I was a pretty young guy where they said, you know what? This guy seems to know what he's doing. So let's, let's give him this little piece of business here and just see what, what he can do.
Right. And so what was really incredible about that from a timing perspective was what they were already in the process of negotiating was the first iTunes Music Store deal.
DC: wow.
Kieve Huffman: So I got to help launch iTunes, you know, from that perspective. And that was really the beginning of things, really going to a whole different level, which I don't know how much you guys remember, but in the early, early days in digital they, the record companies required all the digital services to sell albums only they wouldn't unbundle.
So Steve Jobs was the first guy that was able to say, "Hey, listen, guys, you're not listening to your customers here, who, they want to just listen to the songs. You know, they just want to buy the songs that they want", you know, And so it was incredibly, you know, ended up being incredibly disruptive to the industry for a short period of time.
But getting back to your original question, is that okay, so early on, it was, it was amazing because I was flying under the radar. I was this young guy who was like, Hey, you know, we trust you as long as you're continuing to grow this, just do your thing, do your thing. And then what started to happen is as it started to get bigger and bigger and bigger, it actually became a little less fun because all of a sudden that all these people were like, oh, wait a minute.
Well, maybe we need to get involved in this digital thing. And it became more political and it became more, and also quite frankly, and then we, you know, and this was all at BMG. So at BMG, what was amazing is we're owned by Bertelsmann, which was a German company. Their whole philosophy was built around, Hey, you know what, we're here to support you, but we want you to kind of run your business. We're not going to kind of get into the middle of it as long as you're doing, doing well. Well, we merged with Sony and the Sony philosophy was very different, it was like, it was very top-down. The lawyers really drove things a lot more. And that also made it a lot less interesting for me because there were, at that time trying to figure out how to put the genie back in the bottle, right. It was all about copy protection on CDs. It was about suing the customers for illegal downloads and find a shut down Napster and all these different things. And so that's part of what ended up like, so we had this incredible run and then when we merged with Sony was actually 250 million in revenue that I was running, but it was so much less fun for me that I actually left the industry.
DC: Wow.
LT: Really interesting. And that's a good segue cause I got to keep going with your wonderful background, Kieve. And what's interesting about that. What Kieve just said D, is that you'll see in Kieve's jobs, a wonderful experience. Did he's always seen at least one or two steps ahead. So he leaves. And here's what happens. So it's the mid two thousands and all of what Kieve just set up for us.
Right? And remember, this is before the iPhone and Kieve decides to move over to InfoSpace as VP of Media Content, where at the time they were the largest mobile content and technology company in North America, where they generate more than $200 million in annual revenue and he oversees more than 600 licensing arrangements.
So a lot of big business. So again, here's Kieve again, making another move where he's seeing one or two steps ahead. He sees gaming really taking off and in 2008 now think about that in oh eight, he joined the championship gaming series as SVP of BizDev, where he creates and implements the sales, distribution partnership and licensing strategy for the first worldwide professional video game league, you get it's oh eight, and it was by DirecTV, BSkyB, and Star. So highlights there include successfully managing all sponsorship and partnership relationships, including Pepsi with Mountain Dew, Dell, X-Box Nokia and Creative Labs, and overseeing the TV distribution agreements to more than 300 million households worldwide.
So now Kieve again, he's still seeing around the corner, one or two steps ahead. He decides to co-found Dather, a social media platform for event sponsors and organizers. The suite of solutions raise awareness pre-event, engages audiences during the event, and provides a post event activation platform along with analytics. As the co-founder, Kieve serves as the lead on all business development, sales, operations, product development, and fundraising efforts. Clients include Samsung/AT&T Glee Live Tour, Jagermeister Music Tour, Remy Cointreau, John Lennon Educational Tour, Juntobox Films, Rihanna, and more. And while at dagger as a side gig in 2012, Kieve joins, I Vote as Head of Digital where they connect America's youth to the power of the vote, cutting edge culture, digital outreach, and grassroots events.
So now it's 2014 and here we go again, D, Kieve is seeing around the corner, ahead of the curve. And he, once again, jumps into, in 2014, the cannabis business where he co-founded, what was then prohibited media is now known as Future State Brands. FSB is a global consumer goods and marketing company with a mission to lead cannabis from the black market to the super market.
The Future State Brand's portfolio includes lifestyle and wellness brands across hemp, CBD, and THC, including flagship icon PRØHBTD, Hempathy, Ceeby Dee’s, Hot Nife, The Patch Co., and Heavy Grass. Building off the Future States Brand's experience in 2020 keeps starts another cannabis based business called Engager Brands, and that's where he is today, where they build it own and operate a portfolio of authentic cannabis brands targeting underserved demographics. Another interesting fact is Engager Brands creates markets and licenses, their brands starting in California, and then takes them out to the rest of the world.
Also. Kieve is co-founder and board member of Heavy Brands who owns and operates the Heavy Grass Brand. He's also on board of advisors at Bee-Nails, and he's been on Board of Advisors of Creative Money Works where their mission is to help meet the needs of low-income children, work to create a better financial future for them and conduct research to improve financial literacy content for children.
In closing Brand Nerds, we have a great marketer who has a very cool mix of Brands, Beats, and Bytes and is in, in a really exciting, great new field we think he has lots to share. Welcome to Brands, Beats, and Bytes, Kieve Huffman.
Kieve Huffman: Thanks, Larry. Wow. I didn't expect such an intro. That was, that was a mouthful, but I appreciate it. It's a lot, a lot of fun, a lot of fun stories to be able to share today. So I will look excited to get into it.
LT: Yeah. Great.
DC: All right, brother, next section is called, "Get Comfy." We talk about something that kind of get you started off. And then we hit into the the next section. Here, brother, Larry mentioned this, and this is clear throughout your career.
You have an ability to see what may be coming next before others see what may be coming next. And this is consistent. This cannabis deal, you've been in this thing early. And I'm, I'm, I'm curious: one, this is about the cannabis you, you being in a cannabis space specifically, but also more general.
How do you describe your ability to see what's coming? What, what what's going on in this noggin of yours that you can describe to our Brand Nerds, that says these are the things I look for that indicate to me this could be next. Cannabis just being one example.
Kieve Huffman: Yeah, well, I guess it's, it's both a blessing and a curse to say being, being early on things. Cause you know, it's like the the early pioneers, you know, you take, you w you end up taking the arrows in the front end in the back. You know, because you're out paving the way you're kind of figuring out, you know, how to do things. Cause like that's, that's, what's been pretty incredible, you know, experience in all, pretty much every single one of those things that you just kind of went over it, LT.
There was no rule book, you know, there was no like play by play of like, oh, here's how you do this. It was like, literally we had to make up the rules as we were going along. And so I've always just kind of gravitated towards that. I mean, you know, I, it's hard, it's, it's hard to really pin down, like, okay, what goes into my, you know, through my brain to kind of like, assess exactly, you know, what is what's coming next.
But I think part of, I think part of what has always been a big, you know, Aspect of, of my makeup is just, I have this insatiable appetite for learning and I have a very open mind to what is possible. Right. And so, you know, I take a perfect example. It's like, you know, we're talking about digital music in the early days.
It's like, oh no, one's no one's ever going to want to listen to music on a, on a device. No one's ever gonna want to just put, you know, put one, you know, but just buy one song. Of course they want the whole album. No one's ever going to want to sign up for a service where they can, where they don't own the music at all. And they just listened to it. It's like every single one of these things, there was a point in time where it's like, It wasn't obvious right. To everyone that this was coming. And so for me, it's, it's always just starting to put myself into the shoes of, okay, what, what, what's the power, what's the power of what's going on here and just based on my knowledge of human behavior is like, do I think that this has a chance of really taken shape and taking root and really moving forward. And so I actually see things pretty far in advance and I can see where things are going, unfortunately, where my crystal ball doesn't come in is the timing, you know?
And I've been so early on so many things that sometimes, you know, I'm too early in a way, like for instance, my first startup, which was the Dather, I was too early, I was like two, three years too early. I came in, you know, well, in the early internet days, even with the digital, I feel like in some ways was interesting.
I remember all these companies coming through my door and they were always pitching like all of these great new video services, like video. And I was like, you know what? You're right. Video is where this is eventually going. All this money was going in all these new visual video services. And then what, no one really took a look at was like, well, wait a minute, the pipes actually aren't built yet for this.
Right? So like all of those early video, like rich media, it was as it was kind of called that and back in those days, it was too early. And so I saw so many people raise a bunch of money, get these amazing services, and then it was over, but then what you would see was the retread like Spotify, wasn't the first subscription service, right? Vivo was not the first like, you know music video service, but they came in sort of the next wave and were able to kind of finally take advantage. First of all, they were able to learn from the mistakes from the early guys.
Then they also were able to take advantage of the fact that actually the underlying infrastructure was there and the consumer behavior patterns had changed where people were willing to start to like consume content on their phones or on their laptops. Or
DC: They were like the second mouse, the first mouse goes, eats the cheese gets clapped and the second mouse it says, okay, thank you. Thank you, man. I'll take the rest of it. So a couple of things here, brother, a couple of things that I'm taking from this before we move to the next section, the first one is when you talked about and Larry started by interrupting the introduction brother.
I never do that. I appreciate you. When you talked about growing revenue in the digital media space from a million dollars to 125, and then you started to get a lot of help. This is what I call. You get a lot of help. So what comes to mind? There is a quote that I've heard. And I think I've said it on our podcast.
A couple of times that failure isn't orphan, success has many fathers and mothers. Once you, once you start succeeding, everybody kind of wants to come and help you out. The other thing that you talked about here, in your ability to see things is that, and being too early is that you're comfortable with, Kieve, defining a territory.
You don't necessarily need a map. Once the territory starts to get worked out, other people can start to figure out the mapping of the territory. And that reminds me of something else that I was talking to some folks the other day. And one of the gentlemen mentioned something I thought was profound.
He said the difference between a startup or being early in something and doing something established is that when you're in a startup or you're early days into something. You can see and feel the arrows and bullets coming through the tent. Once it's established, they're hitting walls. So you're not quite sure exactly what's happening out there on the battlefield.
So you have been out on the battlefield, seeing bullets fly through the tent, arrows come through the tent. So this, okay. That's cool. All right. We're going to go to five questions now. So here's how this goes. I hit you with a question. LT hits you with the question. We go back and forth until we reach five. So I'm gonna I'm gonna kick this thing off.
Here's what we want to know, bro. A branding experience. The first one for you in your, in your life, where you thought, oh man, I love this brand. Into this brand. I want to spend time with this brand. I'm thinking I've spent 10 minutes with this brand. I've spent two hours with this brand. I just loved this, like, like a crush, like a first love.
What, what was, what was that for you?
Kieve Huffman: Well, I'm going to bring it back cause I I'm a music fan. Like what got me, you know, my first love has always been music. And as it's been a continuing sort of thread throughout my career of kind of gone in and out of it. So, you know, when I was, when I was growing up, I grew up in and the suburbs of Detroit and listened to the radio was always in the music, and, but like, you know, I was listening to like a lot of like at the time, what was really popular was just like a lot of the classic art classic classic rock classic, you know, R&B, you know, and I was like, kind of bringing that all in. And so one of the big classic rock bands came into town, they played The Silver Dome, you know they have called The Who, right.
So I'm like, a big Who fan? Like, I'm going to go check these guys out. So I show up early, I get there and there's this band that I've kind of heard of, but I don't know anything about, and they played this first set. And they just blew me away. And I was at, there was so much power and energy and there was messaging and there was attitude. And I was, I think I was as one of the first concert. I think I was like 14, 15 years old. And the band was, was named The Clash. I came away from that completely inspired. And all of a sudden, I got rid of all my classic rock albums and I became a punk rocker and a mood shocker. That's what they kinda, it was one of their albums. And, and what, what really drew me to them is that they, they had attitude, they had energy, they were political, and they also were inclusive because, you know, one of their big albums was an album called Sandinista, which was bringing in all this reggae influence. You know, I'm a very, I've always been like, very interested in like multiculturalism.
Like I'm just like very inclusive person. Wow. This band speaks to me. And what I realized is that really what was speaking to me was that it was a brand like that, the Clash presented something to me, right where my first brand that I was like, I will follow them through thick and thin. I will do whatever.
Wherever they take me, unfortunately, they, there, they didn't have a long career, but I was fortunate enough to be able to actually meet Joe Strummer, who was the one who lead singers later in my life and had an incredible experience, hung out with them at a bar in The East Village, for a night.
But you know, for me, that was when I realized the power of branding and music and also the power of music to make change. And that's why I was like, you know what, that's, this is pretty cool. I think I want to, I think I want to get into music. And so, you know, I ended up going to, oh, I went to University of Michigan and I got into the college radio station. I started managing bands. I started promoting concerts there and then I moved to New York and started working doing promotions and got my first job at Columbia House and sort of, that's kind of how I got my whole career. So that experience with that, you know, I don't think it's probably the more traditional brand that most people think of, you know, when you, when they come on the show, but for me, that was, that's what, that's what inspired me. And it's really, to this day, I can, you know, I get inspired when I think back about that experience.
DC: Yeah. So Brand Nerds, you can have a we can have a branding experience, and we may think it's just about that brand and then I'm gonna give it to Larry, but it could, it can be an experience that can in some way shape your life. And that's what that's, what's happening Kieve. But Larry, you got anything brother?
LT: No. Other than what you said, D you know, you never know. I love the way Kieve explained it, told the story, even I was back in The Silver Dome, right, and D and by the way, Kieve, DC has Detroit roots too so you guys share that in common.
But I love the way he told that story and it, you can see how that has not only catapulted his career, but manifests itself in, I Vote and a lot of things that Kieve has done in his life. So I think it's a wonderful, not only example of, of a great first brand love, but how it really has, as you alluded to, it impacts his entire life and career. So...
DC: My man!
LT: That's it. Awesome, Kieve. D, we ready for the next question?
DC: Yes.
LT: So Kieve, who has had, or is having the most influence on your career?
Kieve Huffman: That's a, that's a, that's a challenging one because there've been so many people. Right? I mean
DC: Just give us a couple.
Kieve Huffman: Okay. Well, you know, how about this? I've got, I've got another story for you. I'm running digital at RCA Records and uh, you know, this was the first time that there really was, it was actually at the time was called the new new media department.
Right? Like that's what, that's what it was called. And so, we needed to start doing some of these online campaigns to start to promote our artists. And I had, I had a staff of zero, you know, cause I was like the redheaded stepchild at the industry. Literally the first day that I showed up at my job at RCA Records, the Head of Sales came into my office and asked if I, if I could help him fix his computer. Cause that's literally what he felt like the Head of New Media did.
So anyway, I, I So I needed to find some help. So I actually, I was in New York at the time. And I found out about this company out here in LA, which is where I am now. And it was a little company called Fanscape. And so I went out and I'm like, you know what, I'm going to go visit these guys and see what's going on.
And I went and I, and I went and visited these guys and they're working out of this house. And it's like, it seemed like, well, this seems like pretty cool. And I met the two founders and their whole thing was they'd come from the music industry. And they're like, we're going to become the, the digital marketing agency for music.
And I was like, wow, that's, that's pretty impressive and bold. And I started to get to know them. And one of the guys who I really got to know, you know, I got to know both of them very well, but one of them, his name's Terry Dry. He really inspired me because, you know, first of all, he showed, he showed me the pathways.
Like, you know, you don't have to work for the big company. You know, you can, there's a, there's the opportunity to leave the, you know, the safety net, where the arrows and the bullets hit the walls that you can go out and you can do your own thing. And they took this little company and they ended up selling it to Omnicom eventually.
And Terry went on to be the CEO of the marketing arm, which was, you know, a big, you know, agency within Omnicom and ended up finally leaving that. He's, he's, he's a serial entrepreneur now completely most down to earth guy. And he's one of these guys that I have lunch with probably every six months. And he is really an incredibly influential person in my career because he helps me sort of focus on what's important.
And, and I think more importantly, the guy he's incredibly humble, he's incredibly giving. And I, I, what I really admire about him and what's really helped me is like the whole pay it forward attitude. Right? Like I it's, he's made me want to help others, you know? So I mentor, I mentor young men, entrepreneurs, I mentor different people.
I help, I want to give back, you know, because I know how hard it is. So that's the guy who's probably had, you know, the most impact on my career because he's kind of helped me navigate the waters and, you know, and some of it's just leading by example. Right. It's just showing, it's like, oh, wait a minute, Terry could do that.
So it's like, I can do that too.
DC: Shout Terry?
LT: Yes. Did you say, is his last name Dry, D R Y. Did I get that right?
Kieve Huffman: Yeah. He now runs a company called Future Proof Advisors and he basically helps companies future-proof their businesses.
LT: Ooh, I love that. That's awesome. D, any follow up, you ready for the next question?
DC: The next one, brother.
LT: That's great stuff. By the way, Kieve.
DC: Kieve in your long story career. You've had many wins. For this particular question, I have no interest at all in any of those wins. I only want to know in this question, your biggest F-Up and what you learned from it.
Kieve Huffman: Well, the biggest F-Up. Well, that's, that's a, that's a challenging one too, because there's been many. Anyone who, you know, goes through life and goes through a career. They're gonna, they're gonna have a lot for sure. Whether they'll admit to that or not. But I will give you what I consider to be my biggest.
DC: We admit them on this podcast.
Kieve Huffman: There we go. All right. So, you know, when I finally made the leap to become an entrepreneur, which was late in life, you know, I kind of crazy when I think back on it, it's like, you know, my, my son was just being born at the time and little did I know a recession was right around the corner.
But I started this business Dather, which was the social media platform for events, around this concept of, you know, there's all this social media content that's being generated out there. And this is 2008. Right. And my son had just been born and my mother asked me, she's like, Hey, can you send me some pictures from, you know, that, that event that you just had?
And I was thinking, you know, how cool would it be if I could actually send her a link that actually had all the pictures from everyone that was at the event and the tweets and the, you know, and all that. And, and so that's kind of where I was. So another guy from the music industry came to me with this idea about creating sort of a timeline around doing something very similar to this.
So I was really drawn to it and I was so drawn to the idea and I was so excited to kind of finally go off and do my own thing. That the one thing that I didn't do was really take a look at who my business partner was going to be and who I was getting married to. Right. And to this day, I w I love the guy, you know, and we're we're, but the F up was that he's too much like I am. Compliment each other. And when you're going to war in a battle with a startup and you're fighting it out every day you need a little bit of that yin and yang, right? If it's a two person startup or, you know, I've had experience actually with the successful three person startup where we all brought something different to the table, right.
And we all knew our lanes and we all kind of kind of work together. Well, I would say that was, that was an incredibly valuable and incredibly painful lesson because I ended up putting pretty much, you know, three, four years of my life into that business. Most of my life savings into that business and it ended up ultimately not being successful.
We kinda got left at the altar. We transitioned it into a a platform for, for events for businesses because we had to start making money because we ran out of our funding. And so we turned it into a B2B thing. So that's what we did. The Glee Live Tour, we did the Yeager Meister Music Tour. We did a whole bunch of different events with different sponsors and that's kind of what got us through. And then Disney came and said, Hey, you know what? We really love your platform. We want to buy it. And so I went through five months of negotiations, went through multiple iterations of contracts, and then I got a call and it was like, Hey, thank you.
Just wanted to let you know that we've, we've had a reorg over here. I'm going to be moving on. Don't worry about it. Totally set you up with the new guys.
LT: That's never a good call. That's never a good stuff. No.
Kieve Huffman: And so, and you know, within two months it was like, oh, we love you. We love what you're doing, but we've had a change in strategy.
And so after all that, you know, I had no who was not, you know, I ended up getting left with nothing, but I can kind of, you know, goes all the way back to had I had I picked my business partner. In a, in a smarter way, I would have potentially never even been in that position where I, that that was my all or nothing moment.
I had no plan B. I had no backups. I had no, and at that point he had left two years earlier and I just kept it going because I still believed in it. But you know it, so to me, I think, you know, look in business, it's like, you're getting married, right? It's it's like, you should, you should date before you get married.
Right. And we didn't and we just jumped into business together and it was a, it was a, it was a very valuable and painful lesson to learn.
DC: So, so Brand Nerds, what you're hearing the brotha say is when you are starting a business, don't look for your, don't look in the mirror to find the person that person's looking like you, thinking like you, that's not the one you want to be with.
You want to have somebody complimentary that's that's dope. Larry, anything from your brother before I give the next question?
LT: Just to add to what I'm thankful to Kieve for sharing that story. I don't think anybody has been as blunt about that be on the show. And I think it's a, it's a huge point to make. And and one that I think if you listen to take heed.
DC: Agreed brother.
LT: Okay. So next question, Kieve. So this is in you know, everything you've done and everything we all do now in marketing, there's a technology component. So when you think about technology and marketing, can you tell us where you think marketers should lean in or best leveraged tech versus areas that they should be leery about?
Kieve Huffman: Well, I'll tell you an area that they should definitely be leery about, and we were leery about it and I'm thankful that we were leery about it because it was a rabbit hole that could have really sent my current company into you know, into a bad position. So we, so basically right now my company, we, we create these, these lifestyle brands, primarily around music lifestyles for the cannabis consumers within that lifestyle.
And we are the IP holders. And so what we do is we license these these rights out to different, you know third-party partners. So in cannabis, you know, it'll be, you know, we don't hold any licenses. We don't quote unquote, touch the plant per se. So we look at it from like, whatever, you know, the lifestyle opportunities are.
So we've got, you know, we, we sell, we sell t-shirts, you know, we sell hoodies, we sell hats, we sell accessories, we sell merchandise all different kinds of things. So I'd say, you know, probably nine months ago we had all these people coming to us saying, all you guys gotta do NFTs, you know, it's all about NFTs and get in, get into it.
And I had a, thankfully I had a friend who had been really digging deep into the NFTs and the whole crypto world. And he's like, he's like, Kieve, he's like, if you try to get into NFTs, I'm just telling you right now, it's going to be, it's going to suck the life out of you because it's its own thing with so much, you have to learn so much.
And he's like, in his, my opinion right now for your audience, not the right market, you know, it's like, everyone has all these stories about like, oh, you're going to make. And you know, when you see all the headlines, right? Like, oh, this artist made, you know, millions of dollars. Meanwhile, I just got pitched for an NFT again.
And I went back and looked under the hood and I found these guys have been losing money, hand over fist, you know, they have not gotten anything. So for me, I would say, you know, I mean, like I've dodged, some bullets have made some mistakes, but I've also dodged some bullets because you can also get, it's very easy to get pulled into chasing that next shiny object.
Right. And, and the shiny object right now, I think is crypto and NFTs. And I do believe that there will be a world I fully believe in smart contracts. Like the underpinnings of like what, what, you know, what NFTs represent. I believe there's a huge opportunity, but it's, I learned my lesson about being too early.
I finally only, maybe it finally came in, but like though NFTs definitely definitely, you know, lean against. And so, you know, as far as technologies like that, you know, that, that, you know, I think you should lean into, it's tough to say right now, I want one particular technology that I would I will be focused on with respect to that.
You know, I do believe that there's going to be a lot going on with AI, you know? And, and I do believe that there's a lot of opportunities. And so I, I, I, you know, I would say lean in, on AI, be aware of NFTs.
LT: That's a great headline. D, you have any follow up?
DC: I do not.
LT: I, I do. And I wanna, I want to follow up in this way, Kieve. I love that you said that we've had one podcast episode, specifically dedicated to NFTs. We had a gentlemen, who who runs a company in Utah who was, and he was awesome and we've...
DC: He was really good.
LT: Broke it down. And we've personally been involved through clients with not, not just dabbling our toes in, but diving into this and everything you described is incredibly accurate in the sense of there's, yes, there's the headlines of gold, but when you, when you dig into it and when you, when you go further into it, into it, just like anything else, it's never as easy as it seems.
So I'll leave it with that right, D?
DC: Yes, brotha'.
LT: You want to take the next question?
DC: Final one Kieve, what are you most proud of?
Kieve Huffman: So the single thing that now can, is this something, is this for my career or is this for my personal life, is it anything?
DC: Give us one and it's whatever you want, but just one.
Kieve Huffman: All right. Well, what I'm most proud of then is I gotta bring it back. I I'm I have a 13 year old son. I am, I am proud of being what I would consider to be a good dad, you know, because at the end of the day, I'm very busy. I'm running a lot of businesses. I've got a lot going on, but I go to every soccer practice, you know, I go to, I go to every soccer game.
I make sure that I fly back. I, you know, he's big and he's in club soccer. So like, you know, which, I don't know if either of you had kids of that age, but like that's, it's a serious commitment. Right. There's, there's traveling. There's like, you know, there's, you know I feel like I'm a, I'm a chauffer of like, okay, where are we going to this weekend?
You know, it's like, oh great. I get to spend, you know, labor day weekend in beautiful San Bernardino, California in the desert. But I wouldn't, I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world. And so, you know, you know, I hope he feels the same way, but for me, it's like, you know, making sure that that's a priority and, you know, and being a good dad that's what I'm proud of it. And I think it kind of hearkens to. What I'm proud of is having a good work-life balance, you know, because if you don't have that, that you can't be a good dad and be, and be a successful business person. And I, and I don't buy into the whole, you know, the whole Elon Musk, you know, approach of, you know, managing, you know, if, if you're not working, you know, a hundred hours a week, you know then, then you're not putting in all your efforts in, in micro-managing and then, you know, every 10 minutes of productivity of your schedule and all that.
Yeah, I guess I'm a, more of a Tim Ferriss kind of guy, right? Like the, the, you know, like, you know, work smarter, you know, and you'll have a more, you know a more fulfilling life, I think, overall.
DC: So Kieve, here's what I'd like you to do, bro. Let's look at this as a rapid fire thing. You mentioned being a good dad.
So here's what I'd like you to do. Just a rapid fire deal. In your mind, being a good dad means doing what? Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. What, what are some of the things that you want to share about what it means for you to be a good dad? And what's your son's name by the way?
Kieve Huffman: His name is Sebastian.
DC: Sebastian.
Okay. So, so you're, let's, let's, let's set it up like this. Sebastian is 13 now. Let's go 20 years out. He's 33. He's looking back at you, Kieve, as his father. And he says my father was a good dad because he BA BA BA, BA BA, what do you want him to say?
Kieve Huffman: The most important one is, is that he was there. He was present.
DC: He was present.
Kieve Huffman: It's it's the one thing, you know, I learned it also from Terry, you know, Dry who I mentioned before influential person. But, and I, and I know it from my own childhood. It's like, you don't remember the gifts you got, you don't remember, you don't remember the, you know, the things that are at the time may seem important to someone, but what he do you remember is like, well, you know, like my dad worked a lot.
He worked for IBM. And at that time, actually at that time, we called it "I've Been Moved."
LT: "I Be Moving."
Kieve Huffman: I'd be moving. Exactly. We moved before we moved to the Detroit area, we lived in like five places, you know? So I was very disruptive kind of, and my father, you know, like towards the end of it, he was, he was the account lead on the, on the GM account, Detroit. .So like he, you know, he had a good run.
LT: What's your father's name?
Kieve Huffman: He is Roy Huffman.
DC: Shout out to Roy.
Kieve Huffman: Yeah, he so one of the things that, you know, that Roy did for me is like, you know what, he, he coached my little league team, you know, he coached my basketball team. He he traveled a lot. He worked long hours, but he, in his way, he showed that I was important to him and that he was there for me.
So that's something that I learned from him and that I'm passing out now. I don't know, I don't know enough about soccer to be a coach. So I, I'm not coaching the team, but I'm there, you know, and, and I, and I think that that's again, and I, and I don't know DC, if there's really like a huge, like, list of like dot, dot, dot, dot, because to me, cause to me, that's the, if you're not present, then the other kind of fill in the blanks below. It don't really matter. And so and I really valued and as hard as COVID was, and it was really hard on my son. Like he had a really hard time with virtual school.
LT: My son as well, by the way, it's hard on a lot of kids.
Kieve Huffman: It was really, really tough on him, but, but I'm just thankful that I was able to be there. Right. And, and help him through it. And, you know I I'm, I'm really grateful. I mean, as hard as all that time was on everyone, you know, and it's like, that was one of the good things is that I actually got to spend more time with my son, you know, because I was forced to, but I welcome it. And to me, it was one of the. One of the real pros and, you know, it's like, it's like in anything with, with life, right? It's like, well even when things are going wrong, there's something to be learned from it or something, the good to come of it. So it's like, okay, the pandemic was horrible for everyone, but you know what?
It was actually good for me because it allowed me to get even closer to my son than I already was.
DC: Oh man. That's what's your father's name again?
Kieve Huffman: Roy.
DC: Roy that's right. Okay, Roy, got it. Wow. You know what? You don't have to have a list of things, brother. Presence being present. That's it. All right.
That, that concludes the five questions. Now we go to you LT.
LT: Yes, sir. So, D, what's popping?
DC: What's Poppin?
LT: So Kieve, this is our chance to shout out, shout down, or simply air something in and around marketing today that we think is good fodder for discussion. So D, do you want to lead off or shall I?
DC: You know, based on what you said earlier and the fact that what you have might be a good segue into Kieve, why don't you start then we go Kieve and then we go me.
LT: Okay. Cool. All right, thanks.
Go. All right. So it feels like the wild west for cannabis companies and consumers to really understand what they are looking for and Kieve and I are in California. So, you know, it's been a present here for quite some time. And obviously it's not the case yet elsewhere, but I want to give a, I I've thought about this in in my what's popping, you know D, you know this, that Kieve you did not.
I started my career at Seagram, which interesting that that company no longer exists, but the brands do. And back in the day though, the company lawyer for Seagram was that Sam Bronfman, who had bought this Canadian whiskey, a brand named Seagram yet, well, prohibition was going on. He literally had trucks waiting at the US border from Canada to go into the US when prohibition was repealed.
And honestly the success of that, of that company. And it was a Fortune 50 company goes back to that happening. That's what he actually did. So with that backdrop, when I Googled, I just Googled it this morning, top cannabis brands. And here's the preamble to that. I don't know if this is correct, cause I'm just Googling, but I got this top five list and it was rhythm, R Y T H M, Cresco Cannabis, Stiiizy, which is three "i"s, Select, and Wyld with a Y.
So as I look at this, this list of brands and in your mind, You know, we know you have your own brands in the mix here when you hear that list. And as legalization spreads to more states, and we know there's a federal bill, that's passed the house, but from what I read much more, it's going to be much more difficult in the Senate.
Can you help us with a few questions? So I have a few questions, with that as a backdrop with, will this be the same list a year from now and five years from now? What are your thoughts on that?
Kieve Huffman: Well, definitely not be the same list. So it's, it's very interesting. When I first got into this industry, I actually read a bunch of books about the transition from the alcohol prohibition, because, and so I learned about that story with Seagram's in a Homeland, because I thought there was a lot, there were a lot of lessons that could be learned.
And and I think a lot of, I think a lot of people felt that that's what was gonna happen. And, you know, we got to see because of the Canadian legalization happening and all these Canadian companies being able to go on the publicly traded markets they were able to raise a lot of capital from retail investors and it ended up being again, talk about like the, the timing of things to, or right.
Because, well, everyone was betting on cannabis becoming legal in the US and you know, at the end of the day, there's not that many Canadians. And so if you're a Canadian company. But, but getting back to your, to your point, is that the difference though, that I've started to learn is that because of the way things have rolled out here in the US is there, is this state driven agenda now, right.
And so what you've got now are you've got different brands in different states, right? So like,
LT: because of regulation, Kieve, I'm sorry to interrupt you. Is that why? Or what's the, what's the, the reason behind it?
Kieve Huffman: Primarily. So first of all, yeah, there's no, so there's no interstate commerce, right? So if you create a product in one state, you can't transport it to another state.
So what happens is most of the early cannabis brands were created in a way that actually is backwards because they were created from like, oh, I've got this amazing cultivation. I've got this amazing manufacturing facility. I've got and everyone in cannabis has got the best.
LT: So it's all product centric, is what you're saying, right?
Kieve Huffman: Best of this, the best of that, but then ultimately what they have to do. And the reason I learned this, I got a front row seat for this cause of my last company. We had an agency arm, we worked on over 60 different brand projects and people would come in and say, hey, you know what? We've got this great product and here's our, here's our name. And and we just need a logo so that we can get up on the shelves. You know, and it wasn't like, well, well, who's your target audience, you know? And it's like you know, and what does your brand mean? What's the story? And so what ended up happening is that all these brands have been created. That don't really mean anything.
So what's starting to happen now is some brands, that do mean a little something, are starting to be able to take their brands and licensing to other states. But that's like bit by bit, you know, and starting to happen. And, but even still a lot of these brands, ultimately don't really have a meaningful story yet.
So I think it's super early. I think we're going to see a whole new batch of names. And, you know, I plan on my brands being part of that because we have created our brands from a national and an international perspective. It's like there's music fans everywhere in the world. So I've got a hard rock, heavy metal brand called Heavy Grass.
I've got an EDM rate brand called Neon Roots. We've got co-labs, we're doing with different artists for all these different things. Those fans exist everywhere. And so I think ultimately what you're going to start to see is that. That's the brands that start taking a national approach will be the ultimate winners.
So, but today a and it's for legitimate business reasons, right? It's like, Hey, I just need, I can only sell in my local market. So well, I'm going to name my brand after my farm. And this farm is meaningful to my local community, but that's going to take a lot of consumer education and marketing to have that farm mean anything to anywhere else in the world.
LT: Really interesting. D, do you have a follow up to that?
DC: I definitely have a follow up to this.
LT: Please go.
DC: It amazes me how a collection of really smart people can have a corollary right in front of them and totally miss what that corollary did to become successful then and successful now. It just blows my mind sometimes.
So let's go to the corollary. There isn't a person that's in the cannabis business here in the U S or around the world that does not point to alcohol, liquor, and prohibition. They all point to that. Hey, there was a time where alcohol was not legal and then it became legal. And so they point to that as an industry.
So they all do it now. Larry, can you list the top five brands again, brother? Can you just list those again? You've got the, you got that up.
LT: I do have it up. So the top five brands, and again, this was Googling.
Now it's Rhythm, Cresco Cannabis, CRESCO, Stiiizy, Select and Wyld.
DC: Got it. All right. Here's my,
Kieve Huffman: Just to jump in. I'm sorry, but I've never even heard of Rhythm. So to me, I would put Cookies. Cookies is, I don't know if you've heard of cookies or not, but that's gotta be a classified branch.
DC: Okay. Let's put that in there. That's not the point I'm trying to make, let me get, yeah, let me get to the point that I want to make here.
Is that a, is that what all of those brands and even a lot of the ones you mentioned a Kieve, they were talking about they're about the product, some description, clever way to describe the product. Like I get Cookies. I could get that to, oh, when I'm smoking or whatever. I get the munchies. I might want to munch on cookies.
Like I get a it's about the product, but check out, check out the brands, the alcohol brands, the big ones, the ones that's kind of started a big, Jack Daniels. That's a dude, Johnny Walker. It's a person. Jim Beam is a person. Budweiser is a person. Jamison is a person. Hennessy is a person. They are people. And somehow during prohibition, these people said, I'm putting my name on this thing.
I, the person had a thought about what I want this to be what I want it to mean. And these people then became brands that now are global brands. Here's the difference for me? This is what's popping for me. Yo cannabis industry, get out of your own shorts on this product stuff. Start thinking about the people behind it.
And then maybe you might be able to do something equivalent to what happened during that prohibition. So that's what's poppin for me.
LT: And I'll add to that D and I'm going to shut up. I want to hear from Kieve. Sam Bronfman bought, it was Joseph D Seagram and Sons, to your point. It's like, so it's, it's incredible that you're right. That there's, there's the, the model for you. And obviously, Kieve, you heard him, he'd read about it, Kieve, your floor.
What we'd love to hear your thoughts about this,
Kieve Huffman: About what we, so we look, so I have the way that people are trying to approach it from a person standpoint. I, in the cannabis industry to date has been not the correct way. Cause all those people that you're talking about They were the genuine, like they were the creators.
Right. So what everyone's been trying to do in cannabis has been celebrity driven, right? It's like, so, but to me, we never created, and we had the opportunities in my last company to get involved with celebrities and, and you know, I never want, we never wanted, we always wanted our brand to be Prohibited Media.
That was the name of the company. He didn't want it to be. So we, we had actually an early investor advisor of ours was Donald Glover. And at my last company, Childish Gambino. And and we were trying to figure out like, well, how do we get him involved? You know? But, but we, we decided that. It w whatever we were going to do it, we had to make sure that it wasn't going to be seen as Childish Gambino's brand.
Right. Because, you know, I, having worked in the music industry for as long as I have, it's, it's very dangerous to be celebrity brand. Right. Because, you know, you're, you're at the mercy of that. What that, what that celebrity does, you know, or they do something wrong or they be, and, and ultimately the reason why I'd say the vast majority of the celebrity brands fail is because it gets back to the essence of what is the brand story.
It's like, it's not, they're not created authentically. Right? So like, those people in those families, like that was their essence. They created, this was their blood, sweat, and tears. This was their, this was what they believed in, you know? And so. We haven't seen that, you know, in cannabis. And it's interesting.
It's a fascinating case study because honestly there's a lot of, there's a lot of similarities to alcohol, but there's also a lot of things that aren't common, you know, like, you know, like it like the history of the demonization of this, of this plant and and the whole sort of counter-cultural aspect of it for so many years.
And I mean it's really, it's like, I have to say, like, in my entire career, it's the most challenging industry I've ever worked in, like far none, is just it's matured. But yeah, I mean, look, I will say that there are a lot of smart people in this, in this industry. We welcome more smart people because there certainly are also some not so smart people, unfortunately, in this industry I can attest to.
But yeah, what I will say is that I think that to get into your point, DC, that people they get so you get so caught up in the like, okay, how do I make money today versus how do I win in the long term. Right? And when I set up my business, I was like, I'm going to set up these brands that have international appeal.
And for me, it was easy because I have the music industry backgrounds like, oh no, one's going after these music, audiences. These not the ones that I'm going after right now. Everyone's going, if they're going after music going after rap or they're going after reggae and that's it. And so I'm thinking long game and, you know, hey, I'm going to wait it out this time.
I'm going to survive because like, I'm, you know, as I've experienced so many times in my career, I've like been there early and then went on to do the next thing, you know, like, what's next? It's like, all right, I'm gonna, I'm gonna finally get, you're gonna stick around for the payoff. This time.
LT: That's smart.
Hey Kieve, just to put a bow on this and then w it's a segue to you. What we're all really saying is that nobody's figured out how to really have a brand that connects with consumers yet. That's still sort of evergreen and that's really what's happening. So segue to yours, because I think you have a what's popping that sort of goes, goes direct in line with what we're talking about.
Kieve Huffman: Yeah. I mean, my what's popping and you, and you alluded to it earlier, is that yes, the house has, has passed a you know, passed a what I think it's called the Moore Act. I think it's a version of the Moore Act, which is essentially decriminalizing cannabis. It's also got a lot of great social equity components to it.
Expunges all the records of, you know, anyone that's got cannabis you know, any sort of criminal legal issues are that to get to, you know, get people out of prisons and, you know, it's all, it'll, you know, it goes a long way. Look, here's the thing. And, and I've been looking at this since, you know, 2014.
And so we've seen already the evolution, I think in the most recent polls, the Gallup polls, 63% of all Americans believe that cannabis should be fully legalized and you can get 63% of Americans to agree on anything. I mean, I think 87% believe that it should be legal for medical purposes. So, you know, our government is not listening to the people.
Right. You know, and, and it's really just, that's, what's popping for me is that, you know, at what point are we finally going to have the government, like, just get out of the way and you know, we've shown that the states can do, can, can, can do this. There's some models of what's worked and what hasn't worked. There's plenty of studies that's out there, you know, it's to support this and, and just, you know, hey, at the end of the day, the economic benefits of just, you know for the country that, you know, the, the additional tax revenues, it doesn't make sense.
So what's popping for me is like, we need to get these old dudes, you know, that are sitting in the Senate that probably won't pass this. And to, to kind of listen to the people and, and, and move on so that, you know, we can kind of help take this because it's, it's still, that happens getting back to your original what's popping.
The ability to truly create brands that are going to be meaningful on a national basis are going to continue to be limited because you just, you can't run a national, it doesn't make sense to run a national campaign.
LT: That's the full circle, the that's the full circle of this that's and I'm, I'm, I'm glad you you, you really did a great job of of putting a bow on the full circle of it Kieve.
And my just quick header before we go to show close. And unless you have anything to add D is that this is going to happen. It's a question of when it needs to happen now, but you know, you're right. We're at the mercy of a lot of, unfortunately, a lot of old folks in the, in the Senate who, who really don't understand the, the 63% and 87%. And you know, that number is only growing. So. That's my thought around it.
Kieve Huffman: Well, you know, it's growing. I know it's like my Mother takes cannabis for her arthritis and my mother was in like Mothers Against Drunk Driving. Like I was afraid to tell my mother that cannabis back in 2014, because it was like, here I am a grown man, like, you know, had a successful career and I'm going to go into this cannabis industry. And I was like, so I told my dad first. And, and he's like, you know what? That's interesting was like, you know what? You should go talk to your mother because maybe you can help. Wow. And that's when I said that was the first time that I realized, because what happened is that the change started happening with the oldest older generation where they started to see the benefits, right.
Because for themselves or their friends, like, oh, they're taking cannabis now they don't have to take these pharmaceuticals. It's helping them sleep. It's helping them with their arthritis, helping them with pain. So yeah, it's only going to continue to get,
LT: What's your mom's name? Let's give a shout out before we go to show coast.
Kieve Huffman: Linda, Linda Huffman.
LT: Roy, and Linda.
Kieve Huffman: There you go.
LT: I love it. So Hey Kieve, you've been sensational. Yes, D, do you want to add something before we go to show close?
DC: Yeah, I was responding to your what's poppin? And Larry, I haven't done mine yet. So can I just that,
LT: I'm sorry. I thought you said, you're sorry, D. Go!
DC: You go.
Yeah. I'm I'll good. I was responding to yours. I'm going to make this super quick, cause we're gonna, we're going to get out of here and get, get to the next section. So I will, I will lay it down. Like this is connected to my earlier point of responding to your what's poppin. People versus product at the moment of people are seduced. I believe in your industry with the plant. They're seduced with the plant, another way of seeing the product and not as much, so to your point, Kieve about thinking what's the long term play of a brand. I was not a cannabis smoker, in my youth, I had a couple of boys. They smoked, I tried to smoke with them, it didn't do anything for me. I didn't discover until much later is because I didn't know how to do it. They had somehow known how to do it, but I just didn't. So it didn't have any impact on me. But today in terms of people even not when cannabis first started of popping up, I was like, okay, now I don't know anything about space, but I know two people, if these two people say we're going to do something in a space, they could be global.
One was Willie Nelson and the second is Snoop Dog. I don't know anybody else, you know, to a lesser degree, a different generation, maybe Wiz Khalifa. But those two I'm like these can be giants in the game. And so I did a little perusal myself and I'm sorry, third Bob Marley, Bob Marley.
LT: Rest in peace.
DC: Bob Marley, Willie Nelson, Snoop. Okay. That's that's a trifecta. These, they all have something: Marley Naturals, Leafs by Snoop, Khalifa's Kush, Kush with a K Enterprise Oil, and Mirayo by this is Santana. so,
Kieve Huffman: and Willie Willie's Willie's Reserve, sorry to jump in is, is Willie Nelson's brand.
DC: Is that really okay? And is it, is it called reserve?
Kieve Huffman: It's called Willie's Reserve.
DC: Willie's Reserve. Okay. It has his name in it. Okay. Got it. Okay. So, so what's popping for me is that I think there are going to be some brands that just pop up that are not associated with a name, like a Coca-Cola for example, that's off the Coco bean and that's why it's called Coca-Cola.
But I do believe that long-term some of these name brands that people are familiar with are going to be dominated if they're operating in the right way. So that's that that's a show closed brother.
LT: No, I love it, D. That's a, that's a great add. And it just goes to the big bow that this space is wild west and there's still a lot of fertile territory to be had.
And it feels like Kieve is a, is really thinking about this, right. Because he's thinking longterm and he's been ahead of the curve and it goes to stay with this curve. Right. All right. So she'll close. So D you want to share your learnings first or shall I?
DC: Would you please do the honors brother?
LT: I will do the honors. Lots of great stuff, Kieve, this is, this is awesome.
I'm going to I'm going to give a number of ones that are, that are quick ones, but really important. So first one, when you truly vibe and love a brand, you should really be conscious about it. If you have a love for marketing since like Kieve that may help steer you to a great career, which it did for him.
Perhaps I think the most important learning that I'm going to posit that I learned from Kieve that I think would be great for every. Success equals work life balance. That Kieve lives. It's not just about making the most money. If you achieve that work-life balance. And he's most proud of being Sebastian's dad, you're doing something right.
Next one, find your Terry dry, and like Kieve, keep them close and then pay it forward. Like Kieve and Terry Dry are doing as well. So just a couple more when doing something entrepreneurial, you must have business partners that are people who are complimentary to you. And it D said so well, not your mirror.
And the last one, like NFPS, it's really important that you look at things objectively when you see this new sexy object and really see if it's truly right for your business, your brand and manage accordingly. That's mine.
DC: Noise, noise. Two areas for me, one is about your gift, your gift in business of seeing things that are likely to be significant, substantial, early.
You clearly have that. It's it's honed. You even said yourself. Sometimes it's a little too early that you've now worked on that. And I'm guessing you got the timing, right? Just by virtue of the career that you've had. But you said something interesting that with your business partner, you could not see the fact that he was like, you could possibly be an issue down the road.
You, you were in business with him for two, three years, and you did two years after that. So what I'm taking from this Kieve and I want to offer to the Brand Nerds, and I've said this before, is that sometimes our gifts when taken to the extreme, can become our curses. You have the gift of seeing the future.
Literally you can see, you can see that, but when someone was as close to you as a business partner, and one could even say like, as you said, like a marriage, you couldn't see it Kieve. You, you, you could not see that. So be aware Brand Nerds of your gifts and be aware that when you applied them to different domains, they may not have equal power, maybe not.
So that's one number two. Asked you the question, what are you most proud of? You talked about being present in the life of Sebastian, your 13 year old. When you talked about Terry, when we Larry asked the question has been the biggest influence on your career. You talked about Terry as a mentor and Larry has alluded to it here, and you said close.
So again, a form of presence. You talked about your father, Roy, and what he did and how he was present in your life. And I get the impression Kieve that you would attempt to have this level of presence throughout your life. Not just personally, but professionally, which brought to mind a quote that I think represents you from Mya Angelo.
One of my favorites, rest in power, queen Nubian, queen my Angela, the quote is people. Forget what you said. People will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel. One of my favorites. Yeah. So. Your presence is a form of showing up. And when you show up, I believe people feel that presence and it gives them permission and maybe even inspires them to do the same.
So that's what I've taken away from our time with you brother.
LT: The stuff is deep from, D. As usual.
Kieve Huffman: Yeah, that's great. You know, I have heard that, that Maya Angelo quote, and it is it's, it's incredibly powerful and it's, it's it's, it gets to the essence. Yeah. You nailed it on that of, of what I believe. And what you were saying.
It's like, look at the end of the day it's wide, like I've become. I've become far less materialistic. The older I've gotten, because it's, to me, it's all about experiences, right? Like if I'm going to spend money on something, I'm going to spend money. I take my son on a we go, we go to another country every year.
Like I want. We're going to have memories and he's going to have, and we have great experiences together to me. That's, that's what life is all about. It's not about like, okay, did I get some other new trinket or toy? You know, because at the end of the day, I'm not going to remember how that made me feel.
But I remember how that trip made me feel that I went on my son wasn't with my son. So yeah, the good, good, a good one. I'm going to have, I, you know, I keep stuff up on my, I have sort of along my wall, I put different quotes and things, so I'm going to have to go look that one up and write it down. It's like,
awesome.
That's a good one to put up on the wall. K. Before we before we take us out in the outro, anything you learned from this wonderful conversation we've had with you?
Well, I'll tell you, one thing I learned is that I think the cannabis industry could really use. People like yourselves to come in and help take it to the next level.
Because you know, we do have like most of the really smart, good people in the industry are kind of coming at it from more of a picks and shovels side of things. Right. Cultural and I feel kind of lonely out there of on the brand needs side, you know, because there's not a lot of strong voices when it comes to branding.
So one thing I, you know, I, I'm inspired by what you guys have been talking about because it's just, it's, it's great to hear some different perspectives and and to hear, you know, and learn from you guys, what, as an outsiders to the industry, kind of what you're seeing as well. So so yeah, thanks for having me on for that, you know, it was just great to.
To, to learn about you guys as well. And you know, and, you know, also I feel like in a way, a little bit of like, you know, this is like a pretty interesting like therapy session for me as well.
LT: We've been told that before Kieve and that, that means I think we've done we've all done. The three of us done a really good job in just having a great conversation.
So that's, that's what we try and make sure it happens on this show. You've been fantastic. We've learned you, you've taught us so much about an industry quite honestly, that we really wanted to delve into. So we really appreciate your time. So now is the time I, I always Jade asked me our wonderful producer, Jade Tate to give the space.
Thanks for listening to the Brands, Beats and Bytes recorded virtually on zoom and a production of KZSU Stanford, 90.1 FM radio worldwide at kzsu.org. The executive producers are Jeff Shirley, Darryl "DC" Cobbin, myself, Larry Taman, Joseph Anderson, Jade Tate, Hailey Cobbin, and Tom Dioro.
DC: The Podfather.
LT: And if you are listening to us via podcast, it would be great if you can please rate and review us. Additionally, if you do like the show, please subscribe and share. We hope you enjoyed this podcast. And we look forward to next time where we will have more insightful and enlightening talk about marketing with another great business leader as our guest.