Flow Garden Co-Founders Discuss the Future of Smokable Hemp and Their Award-Winning Flowers Co-founders of Flow Garden, David Miller and Erich Maelze, join Dan Humiston to talk about their company's success in the nationwide sale of Smokeable Hemp. They highlight the medicinal benefits of Smokeable Hemp, such as helping combat anxiety and stress. David and Erich discuss their company's focus on quality, and their methods of finding and breeding the best hemp flowers out there, using an R&D facility, flood and drain, living soil, top feed current culture, H2O, pheno hunting, and house crossing. The co-founders also discuss the slow growth of the sector but see a lot of development and more people jumping into the game in the next two years. Produced by PodConx MJBulls - https://podconx.com/podcasts/raising-cannabis-capital Dan Humiston - https://podconx.com/guests/dan-humiston Erich Maelze - https://www.linkedin.com/in/erich-maelzer-30bb64211/ Davis Miller - https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-m-31911223/ Flow Garden - https://flowgardens.com/ Recorded on Squadcast - https://squadcast.fm/
Flow Garden Co-Founders Discuss the Future of Smokable Hemp and Their Award-Winning Flowers
Co-founders of Flow Garden, David Miller and Erich Maelze, join Dan Humiston to talk about their company's success in the nationwide sale of Smokeable Hemp. They highlight the medicinal benefits of Smokeable Hemp, such as helping combat anxiety and stress. David and Erich discuss their company's focus on quality, and their methods of finding and breeding the best hemp flowers out there, using an R&D facility, flood and drain, living soil, top feed current culture, H2O, pheno hunting, and house crossing. The co-founders also discuss the slow growth of the sector but see a lot of development and more people jumping into the game in the next two years.
MJBulls - https://podconx.com/podcasts/raising-cannabis-capital
Dan Humiston - https://podconx.com/guests/dan-humiston
Erich Maelze - https://www.linkedin.com/in/erich-maelzer-30bb64211/
Davis Miller - https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-m-31911223/
Flow Garden - https://flowgardens.com/
Recorded on Squadcast - https://squadcast.fm/
[00:00:00] Today, IMJ Bulls. We are joined by the co-founders of Flow Garden, David Miller and Eric Melzer. Guys, welcome to the show.
Thanks. Thanks for having us. Yeah, thanks for having us.
Well, I've been trying to get you guys on the show since last summer because I heard about Flow Garden and, and you have such an interesting story. You have an INGAR grow in East Tennessee. And you've emerged as like a clear leader in this nationwide sale of Smokeable hemp, a sector. I gotta believe it's just gonna grow like crazy over the next few years. I thought to kick things off, maybe you could explain to our listeners that have, are not familiar with Smokeable Hemp? What is it?
smoke. Boy, he is cannabis. It's the same plant that everybody knows and loves as marijuana except the THC is bred out of the plant. So you have just a minuscule. Below 0.3% THC and the other cannabinoids like C B D C, B G [00:01:00] take the place of that. So you're not getting the psychoactive high per se, but it's more of a medicinal feeling.
Like it, it helps the combat anxiety, any kind of stress like that. So it is, it's definitely a different effect, but it's more medicinal and it's, it's, it's starting to gain a lot of popularity too.
Yeah, I can see why. I can see why. David, I'll throw this one back at you. Your flowers won a lot of awards. What are you doing different that makes your hemp so special?
Well, our focus is quality and focusing on finding and breeding the best hemp flowers out there. So, we have well we, we have an r and d facility and we have a lot of different methods, flood and drain. Living soil, top feed current culture, H two O, a lot of different methods that we use in addition to all the pheno hunting that, that Eric does, and then a house crossing that he does with all the, the various [00:02:00] types of strains that are out there.
Yeah, it makes sense. I heard some, I don't know if it was an interview that you did with somebody else, but you said something about smell cells,
Yeah,
So that, that's done early in the pheno hunting. So we, we pop a bunch of seeds, different varieties, and then about halfway through flour about 30 days in, that's when the plants start giving off their smells. And I'll go around and just, you can rub the leaf where the little trichomes are growing, smell it, and you get a good, good smell of the plant.
And that's, that's where the pheno hunt starts. So I'll start selecting the best smelling one. As long as their structure's good and and we kind of go from there. But that, that's, that's really where we get the smell. It's all in the genetic.
Yeah. Yeah,
Yeah. Yeah. And the coa obviously will back that up with having terpene levels and now more than a handful of plants of four or 5% plus, which is.
Yeah, even more than double the average. Exactly. Like in the marijuana industry, the, these guys are, I [00:03:00] mean, they're, they might be hitting in the threes, most of 'em, at 2%. Terpenes is considered really good in the mar marijuana industry, but in the head industry that that's what we really are dependent on and focusing on.
And so we've had some of our strains upwards of 5.5% terpenes, and those are adding to the effect with the CBD and the other cannabinoids is what we're finding. So it's not just the THC or the CBD that's given you the, the buzz or the, the different effects. It's also the terpenes as well. More
Well, it's nice that you can be that hands-on, that you can actually go from plant to plant and say, this one smells great. Let's, let's focus on, yeah, I, I think that's shows the the commitment that you have within your organization
I said, for me it's like Christmas. Every day you just go in and the, and the plants change day to day. So it's, it's really neat. It's like a little treasure hunt.
Yeah. That's really cool. Yeah. As I mentioned earlier, you guys have a dominant share in this smokable hemp sector. Gimme an idea. Where do you see [00:04:00] this going? Like projected to grow this sector to projected to grow over, say the next two or three years?
So I've been doing indoor hemp now almost five years. I was probably one of the first ones to start doing it, and then definitely scaling up and it's moving a lot slower than I thought it would. It's taken a while for people to actually. I guess get their hands on it, try it. But it's definitely gaining, it's gaining a lot of speed and especially the last year, we're getting a lot more development for it and there's a lot more people jumping into the game and doing it as well now.
So I see the next two years, it , definitely getting a lot more.
Yeah. I, I, I think the benefits are gonna be just so overwhelming that it's, it's, it'll be, it'd be hard to stop the, the growth. I think I saw on your website that you have a subscription option. , Is that still available?
Yep, go ahead. Yeah, just like most subscription models out there how do we find a way [00:05:00] to please the customer through great customer service and provide 'em what they want? So there's different amounts they can buy, add different subscription levels, and they pay a monthly fee to get different types of strains and, and new releases.
We'll, we'll drop that once a month and, and send it out to our, our subscribers.
, is it an also a way for them to, to try different strains or different options?
Yes. Yeah, that's, that's one of the reasons we created it cuz doing all these pheno hunts, we'll have little batches of all these different ones that we can't really put on the website. Cause we don't have enough. But we have enough. to give out in the subscriptions. And that's kind of the catch is they're getting the newest stuff first, which, which they really like.
So we've had people that have, I think we've done it almost a year now, or maybe a little over, and there's still people that have started from the very beginning that are still subscribers. Yeah. And we can use that and do use that as a way to survey our customers as to which ones they like the most out of the small batches.
[00:06:00] Yeah. Which helps us. to decide, , which ones do we want to scale and, and grow in in larger quantities? Exactly.
No, it's a great idea. It's a great idea. , as we all think this, this sector's just gonna explode. And if you wanna maintain this nationwide lead that you have in this, in this sector, it, it seems like it's gonna be pretty expensive with marketing and building out in here.
Probably ex have to expand your facilities. Will there ever be an opportunity for investors to participate in your.
Yeah, I mean, I guess the first part, just to comment on it, the, the expansion in the space and the, the fixed costs associated with it, we have a pretty good understanding of, and that's why we've delved into the r and d space and actually have a lab and in-house testing. Independent from our necessary third party testing that we do for our strains to stay ahead of the curve and bank all this data and all these strains and all these in-house cultivars and crosses that, that Eric has created.
So it's, yeah, there [00:07:00] are a lot of costs involved with scaling and expansion as, as that. As, as any industry requires. But our, our niche is focusing on quality and being in a market where there's, it's, there's so much stuff that's undiscovered and as far as accepting money, I'll. Just pump that. One of my friend's business colleagues that started Green Light, he was a multi-billion dollar company.
Now, he probably through their seed investing in numerous series stages. I can't tell you how many times he said no. And the reason he said no is for the right reason, is what's the company's. Where does the company go and does the company want? So is the company, have they found someone that is truly gonna partner with them?
Because just to take money at a super high valuation, there's, some, if you j if you're just looking for the buck and partnering with somebody that's gonna give you money just out of ego or. Whatever the situation is with, with all the different companies, then it's, it's destined to fail on my [00:08:00] or, or there is an endgame, but we're playing the long game or the infinite game as I guess Simon Sinek says.
And we just wanna find a, a good, long-term partner, whether that be a family office, whether that be a PE firm whether that be an individual investor or
Give you the long answer. Sorry about that,
No, no, no. I love it. I like that. I, I, like I said, I love the idea that infinite game, that's the, that's, that's what I want to hear you. This is, this is not just get in, get out. This is, let's make, let's make this into something special. Something that we can all be proud of for years and years to come.
Well, Under that heading, I'm gonna make sure that we have links to your to flow gardens information. So if anybody wants to take a look at the website and maybe get part of the, join the subscription service that's, that's available to you. And also if, if you feel like you might be the right partner for these guys that you, your, your interests are aligned and you're planning to be an in an.
Company I'm sure somebody from their team would be happy to talk to you. David and Eric, I appreciate you being on the show with me today. Thanks again for, for sharing this [00:09:00] and, and good luck.
Yeah. Thank you. Look forward to talking to you in the future. Appreciate your time today. Definitely.