Social Equity Brand Spotlight: Yes Cannabis

We’re sharing the stories behind social equity brands on LeafLink, starting with Yes Cannabis, a social equity applicant brand out of CA managing two new cannabis brands, Hooga and Jenny’s Rose.

We’re excited to sit down with Matthew Martinez, CEO of Yes Cannabis, an innovative new cannabis company that has now launched two brands, Hooga and more recently Jenny’s Rose. Yes Cannabis is a social equity license applicant, currently undergoing the process of gaining a full social equity license and Matt has a lot of experience to share around cannabis laws/regulation, launching cannabis brands, and the social equity license process.

On how he got his start in the Cannabis Industry

I first became involved in cannabis back in 2010, when I started a Prop 215 delivery company out of San Bernardino (CA). We primarily serviced San Bernardino and Orange County – that was my first exposure. I was 20 years old and it was my first entrepreneurial endeavor.

My father had passed away from cancer and my younger brother was off in college, so I needed a way to put a roof over my head. I decided to start a business.

Unfortunately, that venture turned out to be an epic failure. I was arrested, went through a 15-month court battle with the county of San Bernardino. I was treated like a criminal, but when it was all said and done I was able to prove that I was operating in accordance with the law at the time. After satisfying the court’s requirements the case was dismissed and they sent me on my way. I’m one of the few that got lucky in that way.

“Evergreen Herbal doubled my conversions almost instantly. Now that I can easily sell subscriptions, our lifetime value is skyrocketing.”

On how he got involved with Yes Cannabis

I started consulting and providing management services to multiple operators within the city of Los Angeles, primarily for pre-ICO licenses. Along with waiting tables, that was how I funded my way through college. After school, I became a partner of an event and entertainment company with a few buddies of mine. I was specializing in sales, marketing, and branding in the nightlife/entertainment scene of Hollywood. This helped me develop better corporate business skills, but throughout the entire time I still had my finger on the pulse of the [cannabis] industry because I was providing active management and consulting services to operators in the industry.

On Yes Cannabis’ consumer-facing brands

I’ll start by talking about Hooga, which is an alternate spelling of a Danish word with no direct English translation. This is a very positive, comforting, and heartfelt brand that we launched to provide high-quality concentrates at a value price point. We launched that product about six weeks ago and it’s doing fairly well down here in Southern California.