Editors’ Note: This is the transcript version of the podcast. Please note that due to time and audio constraints, transcription may not be perfect. We encourage you to listen to the podcast, embedded below if you need any clarification. We hope you enjoy!
It’s no secret that California is one of the most cutthroat markets in the industry today. Not accepting anything less than the best is how Ted Lidie, founder of Alien Labs, has built a successful brand synonymous with quality and successfully scaled it across state lines.
This week we host Ted to discuss:
How Alien Labs have been able to grow Top Shelf Flower at scale
His obsession with quality and how they do QC
What is going on inside the top-shelf California cannabis industry?
What he thinks of being inside almost every NY Unlicensed store
About Alien Labs
At Alien Labs, we take quality seriously. We believe that our customers deserve the very best, and we work hard to ensure that our products meet the highest standards of quality and safety. We use only the finest ingredients, and we test every batch of our products to ensure that they are free from contaminants and impurities.
In addition, we are committed to sustainability. We believe that it’s important to protect the environment, and we do our part by using sustainable packaging and eco-friendly practices in our production process.
Connect with Alien Labs
https://www.instagram.com/returnofthealien
https://www.instagram.com/alienlabs/
https://www.twentysixtynine.com/
Follow us: Our Links.
At Eighth Revolution (8th Rev), we provide services from capital to cannabinoid and everything in between in the cannabinoid industry.
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[00:00:00] Bryan Fields: What’s up guys? Welcome back. Turn the episode of the Dime. I’m Brian Fields and with me as always, this Kellen Finney. And this week we’ve got a very special guest, Ted Lighty, founder of Alien Labs. Ted, thanks for taking the time. How you
[00:00:12] Ted Lidie: doing today? Hey, I’m doing great, man. Thanks for having me. Uh, I’ll, I’ve listened to a couple episodes.
[00:00:16] I really like what you guys are doing here, so, uh, uh, big thank you for having me on. Yeah.
[00:00:21] Bryan Fields: Excited to dive in. How
[00:00:22] Kellan Finney: are you doing? I’m doing really well, really excited to talk to Ted to learn all about, uh, one of those strongest brands on the west coast, you know, and, you know, help, uh, educate the East Coast on the, the west coast ways, if you will.
[00:00:35] Yeah. One would
[00:00:35] Bryan Fields: argue also one of the strongest brands here on the East Coast also. So, yeah. For the record, please, Ted, you’re
[00:00:40] Ted Lidie: location. Yeah. Uh, we’re located in Sacramento, California. We are, you know, we operate in three states, California, Arizona, and Florida. And, uh, we started in a little town of Redding, California, which is in NorCal, and now we’re home based out in sac.
[00:00:56] Bryan Fields: Awesome. Great. So for our listeners, I don’t feeling about you, can you give a little background about yourself and [00:01:00] kind of how you got started in cannabis and some of the origin days of Alien Labs? Yeah.
[00:01:03] Ted Lidie: So, uh, in, in California, you know, cannabis has been a thing, you know, a, a market, uh, culture, if you will, for a very long time, especially where I’m from in Redding.
[00:01:14] Um, I always joke with my friends that didn’t do weed stuff that you, there’s two choices you can do to really support yourself, you know, nicely in Redding. And one of them is be a firefighter and the other one is grow weed and sell weed. So I chose the weed route and uh, you know, here we are almost, I mean, 10 years later, pretty much coming up on 10 years and, um, you know, one of the strongest brands in California.
[00:01:39] We didn’t always know what we were doing, but we, the mo the moves that we made were right, you know, trusted our gut and just kind of went from there. And now we’re a much different place. We partnered up with connected and they, you know, we used kind of their foundation to, uh, continue to build our brand.
[00:01:55] What was the, the
[00:01:56] Kellan Finney: early days transition like from the medical market to like [00:02:00] a full rec market?
[00:02:01] Ted Lidie: Well, writing was banned. It was traditionally a banned city and county, so like what we were doing, you couldn’t really hide under the guise of medical. It was just pretty much straight up illegal, you know, or, uh, I don’t know if illegal is the right word, but it was just, you know, banned by the city.
[00:02:15] So, um, when legal hit, we didn’t really have any way to go legal. You know, we weren’t, we didn’t have the money. That’s not really, you know, we were making money, but it wasn’t like that. It wasn’t like the type of money you could use to spend and build yourself a few million dollar, uh, facility and do all the licensing.
[00:02:35] So, Um, you know, connected was one of the few stores that we supplied with what we did have. And, um, the O one owner at the time and the founder, co-founder, Caleb, came to us and he was like, Hey, we have a facility that you guys can occupy. And at the time I was partnered up with, um, Mya, then partner Tyler Meeks, and we were like, damn, really?
[00:02:56] And he said, yeah. And so we, we teamed up with Connected, which eventually led [00:03:00] to our partnership, but. At first we were just using their facilities and, uh, you know, they were doing all the backend licensing and selling a lot of it, which made it easy for us to, you know, do what we do best, which is grow good weed and, and brand good weed, and, um, kind of show off what good weed was at the time, it wasn’t really defined as much as it is now, you know.
[00:03:21] I wanna stay with the
[00:03:22] Bryan Fields: brand. Uh, one of the things that I liked about the aspect, it has a really calling on the demographic on who you’re speaking out to. So take us through the, the origin of the name, where’d it come from, and and who did you think about in those early days was really the, the demographic for that.
[00:03:34] Ted Lidie: So coming from re I moved to San Francisco from Redding. Um, I don’t even remember the year, but you know, early on in the medical days. And I remember going into these stores and just seeing how. There was weed and big jars, like deli style and it was unbranded. And I just remember thinking like there was no way this was gonna be how it was.
[00:03:54] And at the time, there all there really that I knew about, you know, I, in my limited scope of [00:04:00] it, um, just from like coming from just selling packs of outdoor to really kind seeing that this industry is out there, all I really knew about was cookies, you know? And it wasn’t a brand yet. It was just like, A strain that a few guys had access to and they sold it and branded it.
[00:04:16] You know what I mean? But it wasn’t like cookies yet. Um, and one of the things that struck me about that was that like, it didn’t really represent who I knew was growing the best weed, which was like up in Redding in the mountains and you know, the. The outsiders, the guys that weren’t just like freshly in it and showing their faces and all that.
[00:04:34] And that’s where the name Alien came from. Like, it does mean, you know, aliens in space, but it also means like different and outside of what was, you know, um, fast forward 10 years later and it kind of became, I mean, aliens are cool as hell now. They’re popular, you know, U F O. Aren’t even conspiracy theories anymore.
[00:04:52] And that was just kind of serendipitous. It wasn’t planned like that, but it just became like the perfect way for us to kind of slide in. And, [00:05:00] and I think that really contributed to like a lot of our success, you know? Yeah, a hundred
[00:05:04] percent.
[00:05:04] Bryan Fields: And it’s pretty crazy to think about the, the origin of ’em, like naming and alien laps and where we’ve come far, where they, uh, they’ve announced that UFOs are real.
[00:05:11] So it’s pretty wild
[00:05:11] Ted Lidie: to drastic difference. The whole nerdy subculture thing that we tried to kind of like pick up and run with is just popular now too. You know, like all the things that. When I was younger, like video games and anime and just sci-fi and all this shit, it wasn’t popular. It was like the weirdo stuff, you know?
[00:05:28] Essentially like you didn’t. Tell your high school friends that you went and rented weird anime movies and shit at, uh, you know, blockbuster. But now it’s like completely mainstream and like that is what’s cool. So it’s just interesting to me how like we were able to kind of ride that wave, you know, into, into success and into, uh, our brand being, you know, kind of a pop culture monster.
[00:05:55] What
[00:05:55] Bryan Fields: type of products does Alien Labs have underneath
[00:05:57] Ted Lidie: its umbrella? Uh, we, you know, we [00:06:00] specialize in flour. Um, that’s our number one product. That’s what we sell the most of. That’s what we, you know, care about. And then we also, you know, we do fresh frozen, so we have vapes, we have rosin, we have edibles, um, pre-rolls, all the things that kind of come with, you know, using the byproduct of flour.
[00:06:18] Um, and I love hash and rosin, so that’s one of my passion projects. You know, it’s not always the most profitable thing for us, but it’s just something that we love and. Think that it’s important to make and have out there. So, uh, that’s probably my favorite product in the lineup is the rosin. Um, I smoke, I smoke flour a lot more socially when I’m trying new stuff.
[00:06:39] You know, I smoke all the new things and smoke batches to qc, but, N day to day, hour to hour. You know, I’m smoking hash and rozen. It’s just easier for me. I have young kids and I don’t wanna always smell like flower and blunts when I’m going to pick ’em up from school and stuff. So, um, I think hash and rosn is kind of like a natural evolution of where people see themselves, unless you just [00:07:00] really like the, you know, ceremony of rolling a joint and smoking flour.
[00:07:04] Um, I think the best way to get the most flavor and the, the best effect is, is with hash and rosan. And
[00:07:11] Kellan Finney: so when you’re making hash and rosin, do you guys typically just focus on you to indoor, indoor cultivation? Yeah,
[00:07:17] Ted Lidie: only indoor, uh, fresh frozen for the rosin, and then we’re partnered with clia. Um, they make, you know, some of the best hash and rosin in the rec market and they make all of our stuff.
[00:07:28] Um, maybe eventually we’ll bring it in in house one day, but for now, you know, they do a great job with our product.
[00:07:34] Kellan Finney: Were you always, uh, an indoor cultivator? Is that kind of
[00:07:36] Ted Lidie: how you guys started with. I personally, yes, always indoor, but my family grew outdoor and that’s how I kind of got into selling, um, you know, outdoor weed is that my aunt and, well, my, my aunt and my uncle grew on the house that I was born in.
[00:07:52] But then, you know, when I was in high school, my aunt and her, uh, husband were growing just tons of outdoor and, uh, that’s where I would [00:08:00] get my packs and just sell ’em, you know, I’d get a good deal on ’em. And then, you know, story of a lot of us. Just the family just born into it, you know, that’s why it’s totally, it.
[00:08:09] It’s kind of like a, um, a product of where you’re from. You know, like a lot of us are from the same kind of areas where, you know, NorCal, Humboldt, same, just, that’s where you cut your teeth and learn about this stuff. You ever think about
[00:08:27] Bryan Fields: like what the next generation, like when your child grows up and kind of the next reigns of like how far of like a, we’ve come from like back when you started to, you know, let’s say 30 years from now with your, with your
[00:08:37] Ted Lidie: child.
[00:08:38] Oh, it, yeah. That’s crazy. My daughter, that’s what she wants to do. She always tells me, she’s like, I wanna go, I wanna work with you dad, with the plants. Like, cool, I’d love that. You know, we need more women in this industry that are killing it.
[00:08:50] Bryan Fields: Absolutely. So on another podcast, I’ve seen you talk about Tuesdays and Fridays about the Distros on Tuesdays and Fridays on the stainless steel serving trays.
[00:08:57] I’d like you QC Yeah, I’d like you to share [00:09:00] kind of the experience on like what you’re looking for and kind of lay out this scenario for our listeners. Uh, for what you’re, yeah.
[00:09:05] Ted Lidie: So every Tuesday, sometimes Friday. Actually I did it today cause, or, uh, yesterday, I mean, um, and today, but we’re trying to really like, nail down it.
[00:09:14] It’s. All right, I’ll start at the beginning. So, qc, every Tuesday I go to, um, our distro center, and I, uh, quality check every batch, like visually. The each individual section has a score, so it’s nose structure, color trim, and moisture. And, uh, each section is scored out of five points. So if the nose, they’re actually higher, some things are, even though it’s scored out of five, like some things are weighted higher, like.
[00:09:42] You know, a two in structure versus a two and nose like the two and nose is more important. So it’s like that could be something that automatically doesn’t pass. But sometimes a two in structure just means like, it doesn’t look normal. Because these aren’t like values that are, um, it’s a [00:10:00] perfect batch of that strain.
[00:10:01] Right. So it’s like a two can be. Uh, it’s not, the structure is different than it normally is, which would make it have a two, but that doesn’t make it bad necessarily. But if a nose is a two, that probably means like, it’s not good. It doesn’t have a nose essentially, you know, or one, um, and that would be an automatic fail, but a two in structured necessarily wouldn’t be.
[00:10:20] Um, so I scored, like yesterday there was 60 batches, so I scored every one of ’em in, uh, about a hundred pounds, and that was 600 pounds. Um, and about a hundred pounds didn’t pass. And yeah, just every week that’s about what we, that was a huge qc, but, so not every week is that much, but every single week we do a qc it’ll range from, you know, 20 to five to 30 batches.
[00:10:44] So let’s just say, and uh, it’s just about maintaining your, your quality. You know, you don’t want your customers to get something that they don’t want. If they go in and buy it and it looks different, they’re gonna wonder why. You know, and that’s just not a good process for a. [00:11:00] Consumer package, good company at the end of the day.
[00:11:02] And so what we’re doing now is we’re trying to build this out into a book so it can be taught, you know, cause right now the knowledge is just kind of held within my head, or Caleb’s head or you know, some of the other cultivation guys that have been here for a long time at a high level. And that’s just not scalable, you know, especially in other states like I.
[00:11:21] Um, would love to be able to be in Arizona and Florida all the time, every once a week to QC every batch, but it’s just not possible, you know? So now we’re, it’s like what we were doing today was picking out nugs and stuff that were fives in structure and fives in color, and fours in color, and fours in structure for the photographer to take pictures of so we can, uh, Like, put it in a little book so that I can go to Florida and say, here’s your manual for QCing.
[00:11:48] And you know, teach them, run them through it a couple times. So, um, we can have the same strict standards that we do in California everywhere, which we already do. I mean, they, they pretty much know, you know, but we just need to [00:12:00] kind of be able to, um, Give them the context. Like if we send them a new strain, they don’t always know that, you know, it’s half green, half purple, and it’s pretty normal for it, you know?
[00:12:10] Or if it’s not all purple, then it needs to go back. You know?
[00:12:14] Bryan Fields: When you say nose, you’re talking about the smell of the
[00:12:16] Ted Lidie: Yeah. The smell, right? Yeah. Is
[00:12:18] Bryan Fields: there ever any time where you feel like there’s any biases where you’re like, I don’t really like the way that smells, but I think the industry would like that?
[00:12:25] Or do you kind of really layer it on what you think is best?
[00:12:28] Ted Lidie: No, I always, there’s, I have strains that I don’t like that we put out, you know? Uh, it’s just, I understand when it comes to something like, that’s like subjective and objective quality, right? Yeah. So like a, the nose for something should be loud.
[00:12:41] It should jump out of the bag no matter what. Even if I don’t like that particular smell, um, it should still have like a certain level of loudness, you know, quote unquote that, uh, should carry through everything we put out, you know? But sometimes the strength, you’ll get a batch. It just has no-nos. Like, what happened to this, you know, there’s something that happened along the way [00:13:00] that, um, You know, made the nose a little more muted.
[00:13:03] It was dry too fast. The drying process wasn’t right, the curing process wasn’t right. There’s tons of reasons why that could be. But your job, you know, in my job as the person that holds these standards high is to make sure that I know that, you know, and, and that’s why we need to find a way to teach these things to our other sites.
[00:13:23] So I don’t have to do that all the time. Like I just got a batch from Arizona, or, I mean, I went there and I, I qcd a batch from Arizona and I was like, yeah, this is good. Um, but the next batch was way better. You know, first time they grew it. Second time you grew it, you can always see a difference in that.
[00:13:37] So I, you know, made the decision to hold back that batch and, and push the next one forward for the launch batch. Have you
[00:13:43] Kellan Finney: guys tried to tie quantitative results from like a G C M S to like what your objective opinion is Based on the nose? Yeah. I’m asking. I’ve seen this done with like, um, there’s a cake brand, but they’re making a cake and like one in 14 people [00:14:00] hated it and it was because there’s like a ruthenium in it and they were able to determine this by, instead of ha, instead of using a G C M S, they had a nose detector on the other side of the gc.
[00:14:12] Right. And so instead of running it through a mass spectrometer for the detection, they were just literally having a human
[00:14:16] Bryan Fields: and the
[00:14:17] Kellan Finney: human’s nose was the detector and they were able to determine all of the different qualities from like what was causing the cake to taste poorly based on that. So I just didn’t know if you guys had No, yeah.
[00:14:26] Ted Lidie: Thought about information. We definitely do. Uh, we, you know, with the moisture, we have an in-house moisture meter, so like that, all those, the scores out of five, it’s like really a one or a five. So if it’s not one within those, Uh, parameters of like, you know, 8% is too low. You know, 9%, nine to 10% is kind of right there on the, on the edge.
[00:14:46] Um, you really want it a little bit over 10 before it goes in the jar. Cause it’ll, it, it, like, it looks like this, like you put it in the jar and it kind of gains a little moisture from the stem from being in a small place, but then it drops off like crazy. So you want to be a little more moist than you’d [00:15:00] necessarily wanna smoke it when it first got in the store.
[00:15:02] Mm-hmm. Um, but yeah, so we. We try, you know, we talk about tying it to terpene percentage, and the thing is, is that those gas, uh, spectrometer tho those are just un, it doesn’t tell you the whole piece of the puzzle. No, you’re right. Show you the whole picture of the puzzle, is what I should say. Yeah, no, and you’re right.
[00:15:24] There’s something like 500 different cannabinoids and, and, and, uh, you know, flavonoids and. Esthers and so many different things that we don’t test for. And those things are really what give cannabis a complexity. Like terpenes tell you a little bit about stuff, but I could show you a strain that tests 1.8% in terpenes and 3% in terpenes, and you would say that the 1.8% are louder all day.
[00:15:48] And it just comes down to what terpenes are present, and it’s just not really telling you the whole picture. So that’s why human. Um, you know, the human element is still so necessary in this, [00:16:00] and I tell my partners and, and my friends all the time, like, if, if you could quantify what we did, that simply like, we wouldn’t even be here because these huge companies with billion dollar budgets would already figured it out, you know?
[00:16:14] Kellan Finney: It could be like the, the Crown Royal model, right? Like there is one person who approves every
[00:16:20] Ted Lidie: batch of Crown Royal. Yeah, I didn’t know that, but that’s crazy. Yeah.
[00:16:22] Kellan Finney: She literally like goes and tastes it and like it’s a, it’s a girl too, by the way, so Oh, that’s awesome. Yeah. She goes and she tastes it and like if she says it’s not okay, it’s not okay.
[00:16:30] And they make it massive. Right. So she’ll be like, I need 50 barrels of
[00:16:34] Bryan Fields: that six 16
[00:16:35] Kellan Finney: barrels of this. It’s pretty wild. So it could, honestly, the cannabis industry could just be, that’s the only way
[00:16:41] Ted Lidie: that it moves forward. Yeah. I mean, on top of that, it’s just like, if you have people like me, you know, in, in the business, it’s like we kind of have been doing this long enough to where we kind of showed people what is and isn’t good.
[00:16:54] You know, it’s not just like, um, I’m just an everyday person that’s setting [00:17:00] these, you know, it’s like we kind of defined this as we came up at Alien Labs and, and, you know, other brands too, not just us, but, uh, definitely played a big role in, in defining what quality is, you know, and, and still are trying to do that, you know.
[00:17:15] Oh, I can’t hear you. Is it me or No, he’s not good. Oh, okay.
[00:17:18] Bryan Fields: So my dog was barking. So nines and tens go into the jar. And do the others go into like a, a value brand? How does that
[00:17:26] Ted Lidie: work? Yeah, we have a brand called Misfits. Uh, and like it doesn’t hit the QC marks, it’ll go into Misfits, which is, you know, cheaper.
[00:17:33] It’s, it’s still great quality, but like, uh, for instance, if Y2K is green, We’ll pretty much tend to send it to, to misfits cuz it needs to be purple. That’s a purple strain, you know? So if it’s green, it’s, it’s going into misfits. Um, if the nose isn’t all the way there, it’ll probably go into misfits. Um, is Misfits
[00:17:51] Bryan Fields: and Alien labs like brand?
[00:17:53] Ted Lidie: Yeah, it’s Alien Labs. Mi It’s Misfits by Alien Labs. Just mi it’s a misfit, you know, it didn’t quite make the QC. [00:18:00] Uh, standards, but it, it wasn’t bad enough to not actually put out, it was just, you know, that quality wasn’t there to give it the premium price tag in the PR jar, you know, life. Got it.
[00:18:11] Bryan Fields: So I’m familiar with trends and I know that you are not someone who follows kind of the industry trends.
[00:18:15] And when you’re kind of making decisions, is it gut feel or another factor that helps
[00:18:19] Ted Lidie: influence research? Um, we do, we look at data and like for instance, we put out a sativa recently. I’m not like a sativa guy, you know, but the. People were loving them. You know, there was a few, like three in the top 10 selling strains, and we didn’t have any, you know, we didn’t have any haze lineage.
[00:18:36] We didn’t have any, you know, kind of what people would call sativa. I mean, I know that there’s like, you know, words that, whatever, there’s like, uh, controversy surrounding these words, but I think when I say sativa, people kind of know what I’m talking about, right. And, uh, that’s why I continued to use those words.
[00:18:52] But, um, so yeah, we didn’t have anything with like a haze that people would consider like, you know, more of an up feeling. Uh, so we put that out and it did [00:19:00] really well. And that’s like goes back to what I was saying, like, not everything I necessarily like, but I know it’s good. I don’t have to like something to know if the quality is there, you know what I mean?
[00:19:10] I, I can understand that not everything is for me and, uh, my taste isn’t everyone’s taste. And I think that’s important when you’re putting together a menu especially, is to understand that like, Your taste isn’t everyone’s taste. I had this really, you know, hit home with me with uh, clothes cuz you know, we do the apparel line and I pretty much.
[00:19:28] I’ve added some color into my wardrobe since the, since I started thinking like this, but like, I pretty much just wore black all the time. So like all the ts that came out would just be black and it’s like, oh yeah, that was like my design brain. But then when I started opening it up to like thinking like, damn, I can’t just design for myself, you know, I gotta design for everyone that buys shit.
[00:19:46] So we started adding colors in and people of color, you know, Do you notice a
[00:19:51] Kellan Finney: different, uh, do you guys launch a different menu in different states or do you notice a different, like this strain as well in Arizona, it doesn’t do so well in California? Do you guys like [00:20:00] this, that kinda stuff?
[00:20:00] Ted Lidie: Um, we try to launch, you know, every strain in every state, but like, it’s slower.
[00:20:06] Um, but yeah, like, I mean, I think people in California just kind of like get over things faster. So like a strange life cycle is like a little less than it would will be in like another state where like people haven’t experienced anything like that yet. Like, I’ve haven’t, we haven’t grown melanated in California in a long time, but in Arizona, you know, they love it.
[00:20:25] So what flower qualities
[00:20:27] Bryan Fields: do you think consumers should be paying more
[00:20:29] Ted Lidie: attention to? Freshness they on the package for sure. That’s huge. And that’s, you know, um, stores will overbuy sometimes and they don’t understand how much they can actually sell through. And then when our customer gets it, it’s like two months old, three months old, and it’s like, well that’s not, It’s not bad.
[00:20:49] I mean, you know, it can be good. It really depends on how it was stored, but, uh, generally I think premium and fresh kind of go hand in hand. You know? Are you testing all
[00:20:59] Bryan Fields: the [00:21:00] products that you’re putting out and if, if so, are blind testing, correct?
[00:21:03] Ted Lidie: Yeah, I do both blind and, uh, and knowing, um, we do blind tests like together, like the group of us will get together and do blind testing, but I still have like a pretty.
[00:21:17] I’ve Biases are always there. They’re, they really are. It’s crazy. But um, once you know that and you try to like, choose around it, that’s why it’s important to do both things, right? Like we’re just about to come out with, uh, indoor vape pins and. You know, we thought the temperatures were good on the p on the product, and then we did a, a blind test with all of us and it, we determined that we needed to lower the temperature a little bit and it was just a little too harsh.
[00:21:41] But that was like one of those things where I thought it was good enough and then we learned that, you know, to be better. We all kind of came to the consensus that it could be lower through the blind testing. Have you, have you always done the
[00:21:54] blind
[00:21:54] Ted Lidie: testing as a way to evaluate? No, that’s new. We, we have an r and d team led by, uh, [00:22:00] Jonathan Carol, and he’s just great.
[00:22:01] He’s comes from Cornell, um, and he really put this together for us. The whole trials thing, you know, the, um, it’s, I love it. It’s awesome. It’s very fun. It’s just different. And then I think, like even just qc, like, it’s so funny how. Like, I see people throwing around these words like QC and r and d and I don’t feel like they did ever before we started talking about it.
[00:22:25] You know, like, especially qc, like, I don’t think that was really, not to say it was non-existent, but like the way people talk about it now is so like, oh yeah, like Alien Labs started doing QC and now we, we talk about this a lot too, you know, and I, I think at where we stand, kind of, that’s our position in this industry.
[00:22:41] Like we do things and then they just kind of become standard for people that are trying to scale their company and, uh, Make quality products, is it
[00:22:51] Bryan Fields: challenging to, to try to scale and grow high quality
[00:22:54] Ted Lidie: flour? Yeah, it’s very challenging. I mean, I would say that like, we’re not the [00:23:00] only ones, but we’re definitely the best at it.
[00:23:03] Like they’re, I don’t know any other company that’s scaled to the size that we are that’s maintained the type of quality that we have. Um, and it has not been easy, you know, it takes a lot of, um, Not accepting, you know, anything less than the best. And that can, I’m not always the most loved person in our, our company, you know, because I have to be the guy that’s like, this isn’t good enough.
[00:23:28] I’m sorry, but like, it’s just not, you know? And, and, uh, I’m okay with that because like people, our name is, you know, pretty synonymous with quality in this, in these markets. You know what I mean? people ever be able to like, I don’t know if it’s possible to scale the quality that you can do in like your garage with a four lighter to like, you know, multiple states and multiple thousands of lights.
[00:23:53] Like, I just don’t know if, if, if it is, I think we’ll be the first people to do it, but as of this moment, like I [00:24:00] still think, um, you know, people in the black market are growing super fire. You can just give individual love to each plant. It’s just, it’s, it’s crazy. And I, I love that. I mean, I love That’s great.
[00:24:11] You know. What do you think
[00:24:13] the
[00:24:13] Kellan Finney: biggest challenge is to scale from the four lineer to like, that you guys
[00:24:17] Ted Lidie: have experienced and, um, just dynamics within, like, everything’s more expensive now, so you have to get the shit out. You have to turn and burn your rooms. Like there’s no waiting, you can’t, you know, drive or maybe as long as you want it.
[00:24:32] Um, or, you know, individual hand watering is always gonna be, you know, probably better in my opinion than, uh, Just cuz of the little spouts that you put in there, the drippers, you know, you’re not really getting that whole surface area wet. And really the drying and curing, I think is the toughest thing.
[00:24:52] And then, you know, waiting on test results and, and then jarring it and having it sit in places where you’re not in control of the environment. You know, [00:25:00] those jars that we put our weed in, they’re not like, You know, environment proof, you know, so eventually they’ll equalize to what the humidity and the temperature is where they’re stored, you know, which we’re not in control of.
[00:25:13] So that, that’s tough. But when you have four lights and you come off with, you know, eight pounds, like those go to the people that they smoke, that smoke it, you know, pretty much right away. There is no waiting period. They’re not sitting on a store shelf, you know, degrading. And also the freshness. Like they’re not, if you have eight pounds, you could sell one pound to eight different people and those things are gonna be gone in two weeks and then, you know, in two weeks we’re probably not even on the shelf yet from being packaged, you know?
[00:25:41] So the quality, like I said before, the quality and the freshness go hand in hand. And. The black market is always gonna win when you’re regulated as heavily as some of these states are in, in that regard, you know, in regard to freshness,
[00:25:53] Bryan Fields: you think that’s misunderstood by, you know, let’s say most of the people in the industry or people outside the industry, they just don’t recognize how many steps go [00:26:00] win and some of the challenges with rowing, high quality flour.
[00:26:02] Oh
[00:26:03] Ted Lidie: yeah, definitely. They just, you know, they think it’s the same and it’s just not, you know, we have to wait for weeks and move things. You can’t, you know, if you don’t have your, uh, If you don’t have a distribution in your cultivation center, then you, it has to be moved. So you have to pick it up and put it in a truck and move it.
[00:26:21] And that’s just all different, you know, temperature and relative humidity going up and down and just then it take it to the vitro center where you store it, you know, cool. And package it up. And then, you know, it goes to a store or you know, another distro center. And then that’s just three touchpoints where you’re going from A to B with a, with a, in, you know, a home grow or you know, something like that.
[00:26:42] It’s not like so many touchpoints. How
[00:26:45] Kellan Finney: long are, how long away or how far away do you think we are from like, uh, an experience where you can go to a, a facility where they’re growing the cannabis, they cut it, you can consume it right there. Kind of like an all-inclusive experience, if you will. You know, I’m thinking of like Sierra
[00:26:59] Ted Lidie: Nevada, [00:27:00] if you ever been there.
[00:27:00] Yeah, no, totally. You know, I think Maine just released some new legislation that like, makes it more like a, uh, Like a vegetable or fruit. Yeah. I’m trying to think
[00:27:09] Kellan Finney: of like that
[00:27:09] Ted Lidie: experience, you know? Yeah. I, I have this idea, you know, this, this idea for an experience that’s like crispy kreme, like you get
[00:27:17] Bryan Fields: exactly.
[00:27:19] Ted Lidie: Hand rolled joints that were rolled in ground that day, and there’s a fucking light on in your store window that’s like fresh rolls. You know what I mean? And like there’s no state right now that you could ever do that in because it’s just not, you have to grind, you know, you roll it up, then you send it to testing and there’s all these different steps where you can’t make things as fresh as they need to be.
[00:27:39] But like, how cool. And, and that’s why I think, you know, A big part of the reason why the traditional market still exists and still beats the, the recreational market because they’re just, the regulations artificially add time. They, they keep you from doing things that are like, like that, you know, where you can get fresh rolls or freshly pressed rosin.
[00:27:59] Like [00:28:00] imagine that, like a jar where you, you freshly press your rosin. I remember in the two 15 days, jungle boys would press your shit right in their store lobby. You know what I mean? And you’d get that right then and there and, um, I think we need more of that, especially if we’re gonna see more innovation.
[00:28:16] I feel like, you know, as, as, um, as much as it’s regulated that it all, that stifles innovation. So like, we’re gonna be here where we’re at for, you know, quite some time unless things change in that regard. You know, these states kind of. I was hoping that New York did a better job of learning from the mistakes of some of these other states, and it just doesn’t seem like they did.
[00:28:43] And when I see, you know, my boys out in New York going to real, um, licensed stores just to check ’em out, it’s like, oh, $110 for a dis distillate blue Dream cartridge. And, you know, $70 for dis distillate gummies. It’s like you guys dropped the ball. You had every. Colorado is, [00:29:00] and California to an extent also have like excuses for being bad, right?
[00:29:05] Yeah. And like these new states that open up, they don’t have an excuse. They’ve seen it done and they’re not learning from that. And I think that’s like the, one of the, the cons, right? Of the state by state process instead of, um, just the whole entire United States saying, Hey, okay, this is what we need to do, even though they would fuck it up too.
[00:29:23] So there’s no doubt about that, but at least, um, if. Each state isn’t different. That makes it hard for, you know, like a operators in each state to go. Cuz like Florida is so much harder to, not harder, but it’s just so much different branding. Like you have to have a white jar with black, uh, you know, font and there’s no logos and none of that.
[00:29:45] Where in California we’re pretty much free to do whatever the hell we want to do, you know? So it’s just like, if. That’s another thing that just like isn’t great for what we’re trying to do here. Like having to go to each state and learn those regulations and, and take what we do in California and turn it [00:30:00] into something that’s, um, you know, legal in Arizona, for instance, just like it’s.
[00:30:05] The state by state process just isn’t great.
[00:30:08] Bryan Fields: It, it is not great. And the one area I will push back on for New York is that I don’t think we have opened up yet. I think when you have only five stores open, I don’t think you can classify yourself as opened up yet.
[00:30:18] Ted Lidie: But even just though, like not having indoor licensing yet, like what that’s doing is because they’re not gonna have a lower price product.
[00:30:26] Like if they set out and it was in okay, indoor licenses or go greenhouse licenses or go outdoor licenses or go. You, they would’ve settled at like 80, you know, 50 30 or whatever, like, like they did in California. But now what’s gonna happen is greenhouse weed in New York is $80 an eighth, right? I mean 80, 90 bucks an eighth.
[00:30:46] Well, how much is indoor gonna be? Hundred 20 bucks? You know what I mean? And like that we’re going the wrong direction. Yeah, exactly. And that is $15
[00:30:56] Bryan Fields: a
[00:30:56] Kellan Finney: Colorado by two eight you could pay for your plane
[00:30:58] Ted Lidie: ticket, you know, and, and [00:31:00] foundationally that is baked right in, and that’s wrong. That’s just how it, it shouldn’t have been done that way.
[00:31:04] Right. They should have had the foresight in understanding to, uh, to stave that off where they, you know, opened up either, you know, don’t do this trickle down where it’s like, oh, one store gets to open every three months, you know? Or, um, you know, versus somewhere like California where it’s like, okay, you know, we’re gonna open up the whole state and start giving licenses where still there’s not enough stores.
[00:31:28] I think there’s only like a thousand, but it’s much better than having five where, and then, you know, the, those one stores get all the press when they open up from huge places. Cuz New York’s just a media, you know, playground when, you know, a year from now when there’s. 700 stores, it’s like no one’s gonna really care.
[00:31:48] So it’s like, it, it seemed rigged in a way that wasn’t, like, not good for the consumer. You know, I have a, a random
[00:31:55] Kellan Finney: question. So you operate in Arizona, which is probably as [00:32:00] starkly different from a, a market opening perspective than New York. Has there been any like catastrophic. Errors or, or hiccups when they transition because they transition in 70 days to a
[00:32:12] Ted Lidie: wreck market.
[00:32:13] Right? Yeah. It wasn’t too long ago either. Has there been any like
[00:32:15] Kellan Finney: really big problems from that quit transition?
[00:32:18] Ted Lidie: The difference, the difference between medical and recreational is theater, you know what I mean? Like, it’s not, it, it, it isn’t really, it’s like. The people that made the rules made it slightly different and that’s it.
[00:32:31] You know what I mean? So Arizona was a good example of a, a place that went from rec to or medical to rec, like really easily. And I think, um, we’ll see what happens in Florida this year. I think maybe they’ll try for rec. I think they’re close or they already gathered enough signatures to get it on the ballot.
[00:32:47] Do you think that transition will be as smooth as Arizona’s? I don’t know. It’s tough to say dude. Air or Florida’s a a different beast, you know, especially with. The government that is in place, they’re, you know, [00:33:00] they’re, they don’t, it’s gonna be an interesting time for sure. You know, I like, what I do like about Florida though, is if you get your license, you’re good.
[00:33:08] You just can pop up your stuff. You don’t have to, you know, so in that regard, it’s like a better. Licensing system, but then there’s no, you know, no vending essentially. You can’t just be a cultivator and, and sell the stores. You have to be fully ver vertical, which is tough. And then obviously the price of the license is just insane.
[00:33:26] Outrageous. So the good part for you
[00:33:29] Bryan Fields: in Florida is that you’ve got a pretty premier partner, and truly I’d like for you to talk about kind of that partnership and why you thought that was a good one to,
[00:33:36] Ted Lidie: to take. Yeah. You know, truly it was just proven that they can operate and just like us, we, we wanted to be able to, um, Do what we do best and do, you know, have the best product that we could possibly have reach the most people.
[00:33:51] Which, uh, you know, if we don’t have a lot of capital, we’re not that kind of company where we’re out raising and just, you know, spending money like that. So [00:34:00] going into situations that we can do the most with the least is really like what we want to do. And in Florida and truly, truly just helped us get there in Florida.
[00:34:11] You know, they have 120 something stores that are just, you know, gray and people out there love California cannabis. It, it, it’s a good match for us for sure.
[00:34:21] Bryan Fields: Absolutely. And one of the talking points we’ve seen a lot is that MSOs grow shitty pot. Now with your partnership with truly can we expect that Alien Labs quality to kind of be in Florida?
[00:34:30] Yeah, definitely.
[00:34:31] Ted Lidie: You know, we, um, we sent some growers out there, they work for Tru Leave now, and, and we, they, Uh, built our buildings to our SOPs, our spec, our cur, and dry to our spec. And, um, it’s just, it’s, it’s just different, you know? Uh, what we do is just different and, and that comes from just that knowledge of us doing it for so long.
[00:34:52] It wasn’t, we learned the hard way. You know, we set up and failed and set up and failed until we figured it out. Right. [00:35:00] And, uh, I think we also just helped out truly in that regard, but kind of. Giving them some tips and pointers. You know, I think their quality, um, has gone up since we’ve been working together too.
[00:35:12] Do,
[00:35:13] Kellan Finney: do you guys have fundamentally different, like cultivation, SOPs if for, for instance, in Arizona, I. Desert, very dry versus Florida. Very, very humid. Right. So I know you, you’re cultivating indoors, but does that change
[00:35:26] Ted Lidie: the spectrum? Uh, not really. It doesn’t really change too much. You know, you, you might need more humidity or, uh, more dehumidification in Florida, or might need to add some in Arizona, but it’s pretty much the same everywhere.
[00:35:40] Um, testing is kind of different everywhere too. You know, it’s funny to see. Strains in, in California, go in 30, mid thirties, and then that same strain in Arizona will be 22. And it’s like, this makes no sense, but it does make sense because, you know, it’s, it’s the, the testing labs, like [00:36:00] they don’t have a standard, so there’s no, if, if the testing standards were all over the place in the state, um, I mean in the, if the testing standard was the same in the whole country, you would see the similar numbers.
[00:36:12] But since like some. States required to do this, and some states required to do this. You just see different numbers everywhere. It’s crazy.
[00:36:19] Bryan Fields: Just quickly going back to New York, I just wanted to get your perspective for those who’ve been in the unlicensed stores and have seen your products everywhere. Is that something that you feel good about, bad about?
[00:36:28] Not really sure, but it’s one where I’ve got friends all the time who say, oh my God, I just scooped this alien lab product. But I understand with your feeling of quality must be challenging and knowing whether or not it’s a legitimate product or not, how do you feel about that?
[00:36:39] Ted Lidie: Yeah, I like, I mean, I don’t mind at all.
[00:36:41] It’s cool that people were sought after like that, you know? But a lot of that is, Fake. And that’s tough. You know, it definitely hurts your bottom line when there’s people out there I see all day, every day people sending me like, I bought this cartridge. I’m like, where’d you get it? And they’re like, oh, I got it here.
[00:36:54] And I’m like, send me a picture of it. And it’s like, oh, well that’s not even real, dude. Like, we don’t make full gram all in ones. That’s a [00:37:00] problem. Or that’s a uh, a common tell. Like I see full gram all in ones a lot, and it’s like, we don’t even make those here in California, dude. We don’t make full grams.
[00:37:08] So, Um, if it’s a full gram, it’s fake. I see knockoffs of the fonts off, but then I see the real stuff too. You know, people come to California and buy their store out and take it home with them, you know, so it’s just crazy. Um, but I think it’s cool. I’m, I’m not, you know, we don’t hate it. You know, prime in the market for when we actually come there.
[00:37:26] Bryan Fields: You know what I mean? Yeah. Ex I mean, you’re building, you’re building brand presence in a state that is desperately seeking out
[00:37:32] Ted Lidie: California products. Yep, exactly. And California products, you know, there are the best, it’s, there’s no competition. I, we talked about this a little bit, um, before we got on, but, uh, you know, it’s different.
[00:37:43] People don’t understand that like California’s had this market and people have sought after the weed for. Years, 30, 40, 50 years. You know, it’s not just like something that is new because California legalized or whatever it, it, it’s well known as having the [00:38:00] best, the best stuff and, and the most innovative strains and, you know, the most innovative everything in it.
[00:38:06] And that’s, you know, can’t really be replicated by another state. You know, like Oregon, or no one’s asking for Oregon packs, no one’s asking for Oklahoma packs. You know, they want the, the California stuff. So, um, I think, well it’ll be really interesting when that opens up, if it opens up federally, um, to see where the price of, you know, sought after California cultivators and brands, you know, having fresh, you know, New York has a store that gets.
[00:38:34] Fresh deliveries every morning of, you know, connected and Alien Labs products. Like, I think that’ll probably be a pretty a destination. You know what I mean? Can we beat one 20 an eighth? Yeah. I don’t know, man. That’s crazy to think about, but, It’s gotta be
[00:38:48] Kellan Finney: good margins, right? If you’re on the other side.
[00:38:50] Yeah. I mean
[00:38:51] Ted Lidie: it, it must be, um, for sure. But like, whew, I don’t know. It’s interesting. Red 60 Scale, you learned that like one 20 and eight is cool, [00:39:00] but you know, you’d rather just sell all your shit for fucking 80 than have it sit, you know? Sure, sure. Let’s do a quick
[00:39:05] Bryan Fields: rapid fire number one homegrown tip.
[00:39:09] Ted Lidie: Oh.
[00:39:10] Um, Have enough dehumidification and, and air conditioning. The, the environment is important. Most important, maybe
[00:39:20] Bryan Fields: true or false, you had a brand called Revolution.
[00:39:23] Ted Lidie: True. It was like the first brand I ever made, uh, was like when I was in sophomore, maybe freshman
[00:39:29] Bryan Fields: year. I don’t know. I like it. Sativa, indica, hybrid.
[00:39:32] Think it should stay or go?
[00:39:35] Ted Lidie: Um, I think it should stay because it’s just already known and I think like trying to come up with new like. Nomenclature for something like that. Just, uh, who has time for that? You know, customers, like our customers don’t really care to be educated that much anyway. Some do. I mean, you know, very few.
[00:39:54] But, um, like just stick with what, you know, stick with people already understand it. [00:40:00] It, if, if we’re gonna educate and, and push something like that, it should be on, you know, THC percentages and stuff like that. I, I think it’s just a fool’s errand to try and. Um, change naming conventions at this point in the, you know, dream smoking
[00:40:16] Bryan Fields: session.
[00:40:16] Three people dead or alive.
[00:40:18] Ted Lidie: Ooh, that’s a tough one, man. Um,
[00:40:24] damn, I don’t even know. Holy shit. Steve Jobs for sure. Um,
[00:40:33] Tupac. And we’ll just throw Biggie in for my New York fans, you know, I love it.
[00:40:41] Bryan Fields: Besides OG one strain for the rest of your life,
[00:40:44] Ted Lidie: um, Skittles, what’s the
[00:40:47] Bryan Fields: strain you’re giving aliens on their first experienced
[00:40:50] Ted Lidie: to earth? Uh, og for sure, without a doubt. Uh,
[00:40:58] Bryan Fields: C bn Alien Lab [00:41:00] Edible in the future?
[00:41:00] Ted Lidie: Yeah, we were working on one for a while.
[00:41:02] Definitely. It’s there. I use C BN a lot. I I every night. I mean, I u uh, I two, uh, I think it’s called Conna. They have a five milligram c b n five milligram, C B D five milligram thc. That’s really good. And then, um, the. I don’t know what the name of the brand is, but they’re called Knockout and I think it’s 20 milligram cvn, 20 milligrams tc.
[00:41:24] And they, it just makes you sleep really well. It really works. It’s effective as hell
[00:41:29] Bryan Fields: under the radar state you have your eye on.
[00:41:32] Ted Lidie: Hmm. Good question, man. I don’t know. Uh, Maine, I think that new legislation to Maine is pretty cool. You know, if I just, I don’t know if it was released recently. I just read about it this morning though, but it just treats it like a agricultural product, which is how it should be.
[00:41:48] You could pop up at farmer’s markets with your homegrown, you know,
[00:41:51] Bryan Fields: be sick. What is the most expensive lesson you’ve learned in cannabis?
[00:41:56] Ted Lidie: Ooh, choose your partners wisely. [00:42:00]
[00:42:00] Bryan Fields: What do most not know about
[00:42:01] Ted Lidie: Anion Labs? Um, man, I don’t know. I think we’re. Probably that we just start really started from nothing and came from nothing.
[00:42:14] You know, we both, me and my former partner came from just poor households. We just really made this from nothing. And if, if we can do it, I, I think the big lesson that I’ve learned is that you can do things if you just, you know, put your mind to it. And really, I, that’s so cheesy, but it, it is true. And especially when you see what Alien Labs has done from, you know, not having much, uh, it’s something to believe in, you know?
[00:42:38] When you got started
[00:42:39] Bryan Fields: in the cannabis space, what did you get? Right? And most importantly, what did
[00:42:42] Ted Lidie: you get wrong? Um, we got right the quality, but we got wrong. Just, um, damn. I don’t know. We did really good at both things. It’s crazy. Both the main things that I think about, but not having the foresight to like, save money and, and, uh, you know, we were trapping.
[00:42:58] We weren’t like, [00:43:00] Trying to make it legal and trying to go legal like that a a or, you know, we didn’t know how REC was gonna play out. So it’s just like, if you’re doing this and you’re having a good success, like save some money so you can, you know, not have to get investors and not have to, you know, get percentages out and those things cuz that can, it went really well for us with connected.
[00:43:21] But I’ve seen, um, And I’m sure we all have seen like plenty of times where it didn’t work. I, I think we’re like the, you know, the 1% in that, in that manner,
[00:43:31] Bryan Fields: you could solve your experience in a main takeaway or lesson learned to pass onto the next generation. What would it be?
[00:43:38] Ted Lidie: Man, do what you love and, and just, you know, uh, be confident in it.
[00:43:43] And that’s really, that separates people for sure, separates businesses. Um, you know, stand on what you’re doing.
[00:43:52] Bryan Fields: Prediction time. Ted, when interstate commerce happens, does this alter how you think about branding and [00:44:00] positioning for newer consumers? If so, how? If not, why not?
[00:44:05] Ted Lidie: Um, not so much. We haven’t really been the type of brand that like changes who we are for that type of thing.
[00:44:13] You know, we are, we’re, we’re known for quality and I think quality will stand a anywhere, any state. Um, but I think if, if I were to build like a newer brand, uh, in, in that case, like if, if I went and out and built a new brand, it would just be more appealing to women. I think women are just left out of this a lot.
[00:44:33] Not to say that like alien laps is a masculine brand cause I don’t think it is, but I think that’s part of the success, right? Is that, is that it’s kind of like, um, Gender neutral, if you will. Uh, but I think women, you know, they’re, they’re a big consumer and they’re the next big consumer base. And, and companies should be catering to them in a way that’s non pandering.
[00:44:51] Like, I don’t think, like I would make a brand for women, but I think that I would, um, encourage and, and, uh, you know, help a [00:45:00] woman make a brand for women. I think that’s just a big thing that is being missed right now in our, um, Because there is some, right, but it, it, it’s mostly like corporate, corporate se corporations saying, uh, we need to make a brand for women, you know, and not like empowering women to make brands, which is what I think that we should be doing.
[00:45:25] Well said, Kelly.
[00:45:28] Kellan Finney: Um, I think, uh, the only big transition I think that interstate commerce could potentially have on brands is in terms of like Appalachians. Right. And so I think that, uh, like with champagne, right, like that whole lawsuit and everything, like technically champaign is that grape that’s grown in Champaign, France, right?
[00:45:50] And makes sparkling white wine, right? Uh, right. And I think that that
[00:45:56] Bryan Fields: will happen with cannabis
[00:45:57] Kellan Finney: eventually. Right? Especially with interstate [00:46:00] commerce. And I think that that. Just plays into brands like Alien Labs who have that kind of founder story from, uh, like, you know, an Appalachian, like the Emerald Triangle, if you will, who’s been doing it for multi-generations.
[00:46:14] I mean, like some of the, the conversations we were having before, right? In terms of a multi-generation family farming the same land. Like that’s, that’s the American dream. And just because it’s cannabis. Yeah, it’s kind of looked at in this like, This kind of weird lens, if you will, and, and it shouldn’t be,
[00:46:31] Ted Lidie: you know what I mean?
[00:46:32] Like I agree.
[00:46:33] Kellan Finney: You know, you go just on the other side of the Sierra Nevadas over to Sonoma and there’s people that have been growing. Just a different type of plant for multi-generations on land in the hills too. You know, the only difference is one makes alcohol and one makes cannabis. So I don’t know.
[00:46:49] That’s my opinion on the whole interstate commerce. Uh,
[00:46:52] Ted Lidie: yeah, the Terri Air or whatever it’s called, like the, you know, Humboldt Cannabis will be hugely sought after. You know, hopefully if [00:47:00] the industry isn’t decimated by then, um, yeah, hopefully if there’s still growers up there. Yeah, exactly. Because that, that, that area is suffering.
[00:47:08] Man. So bad. So bad. It’s sad to see, you know, someone that I was going there my whole life, you know, and uh, I go there now, I’m like, damn, I hope you guys can survive, like, and show the bear some support people. Yeah.
[00:47:23] Bryan Fields: Agreed. I, I think in my opinion, that when interstate commerce happens, that companies are gonna really need to lock in on who they are and what they do best better than anyone else.
[00:47:32] And I think what you said, Ted, about not being the most popular person in the room, I think is incredibly critical for adhering to that high quality standards when people get an alien, that product, because I think there are a lot of companies out here who are still trying to figure it out, and that’s gonna lead to.
[00:47:45] A, a big mass extinction for those companies who don’t do anything well, they’re just kind of like navigating along. And I think understanding your North Star what you do better than anyone else. And sometimes that means making a not popular financial decision, especially for a company like yourself where operates in California, [00:48:00] I think is really gonna want
[00:48:01] Ted Lidie: separate the Yeah, I completely agree.
[00:48:03] A lot of these companies are doing like a bunch of things not that great and Yep. Once there’s actual competition out there, you’re gonna have to focus on what you do best, like we do, which is just flower. And, you know, the, the rest of the things come with, with having great quality of flour, but if you’re trying to grow and, you know, um, make edibles and produce extracts and have hundreds of stores, it’s gonna be tough once there’s more competition out there.
[00:48:27] Absolutely.
[00:48:28] Bryan Fields: So for Ted, for our listeners, they wanna get in touch and they wanna buy Alien Labs products. Where can they find
[00:48:32] Ted Lidie: you? Uh, we’re in, you know, 500 stores in California. We’re in damn near every store in Arizona. We’re in true leave stores in Florida. Um, our website has apparel, merch more, more, uh, places to find us for the, the cannabis side and, um, you know, dm me on Instagram, return to the Alien or Alien labs.
[00:48:53] Both of ’em, you know, they get to me if you have questions. I’m always, I try and respond to every dm, so Cool. We’ll link it up in the
[00:48:59] Bryan Fields: show [00:49:00] notes. Thanks for taking the time.
[00:49:00] Ted Lidie: This was a lot of fun. Yeah, no problem man. That was great. Thank you. Thanks for.
