Vic Mensa read it.
The Chicago-born musician and entrepreneur did everything most successful executives did before launching the first black-owned cannabis brand in the second city, 93 Boyz.
93 Where does Boyz’s name come from? Mensa and his partner were born in 1993, so they are 93 Boyz.
He conducted product and market research and developed successful pre-select strategies. (Or, in other words: as a teenager on the south side, he took two trains throughout the city and could find the best flowers before bringing them back to nearby for sale.)
But before he entered the legal cannabis industry as 93 Boyz, it was a celebrity and success designed to build a music career, which was recorded with Roc Nation before its first independent release earlier this summer – he sat down and carefully prepared and applied the knowledge in books.
He told mjbizdaily recent. “I’ve seen my friends use these principles to manifest from imprisonment in some of these books.”
He knew he had a story for sale: a kid from the south, busy on the street, hitting cultural gold in the studio.
But by carefully reading Al Ries and Laura Ries’s “22 Unchanging Brand Laws”, he also knows that brands need stories too – a coherent narrative that customers sign on each purchase.
In “Build a Story Brand 2.0” written by Donald Miller, he knows whether the story is in packaging and marketing, even the color scheme is not clearly told, regardless of the good or set-up of the funds, and the effort will be insufficient regardless of the cultural connection between music and music like marijuana.
“These are the basic truths for branding and creating something that stands out: something that has a clear narrative and is something that is driven by purpose,” said Mesa. Mensa said he will share some of the truth at Mjbizcon at 11 a.m. on December 3.
That is the impersonal aspect of things. Personally, it’s a completely different story.
“At the end of the day, it’s dealing with people,” he warned. “Depending with people and creating things.”
“That’s difficult,” he said. “It takes a lot of wit.”
From street to studio to shop
Most cannabis brands are desperate to be the street credibility and real influence of a popular rapper with a traditional market experience in the real world.
Maybe there are some investors or founders out there who think the transition from legacy to law is easy for someone with an existing reputation. Celebrity plus investors plus weeds equals success, right?
Let Mensa correct the record. Neither the traditional market nor the music industry alone is ready for the “continuous challenge” in legal marijuana: letting suppliers pay bills, keep positive cash flows, pay taxes, and handle all of this with an elegant scope.
“What I want to say is that my experience in cannabis is defined by the challenges,” he said. “This business has a steep learning curve and an experience of how to handle things gracefully.
“I often realize that my old rules of life don’t apply. If someone doesn’t pay, you won’t kick their door. What we’re going through on that side doesn’t last.
He added: “But I think that’s why these books are so valuable to me.”
“They helped give me different tools and a different framework.
“My old framework is in a completely different world, and it doesn’t serve me in many of the spaces I’m in right now.”
No permission required
Just entering the door is a challenge that Mensa has not yet completed.
Illinois and Michigan are the top two states in the Midwest launching adult marijuana sales. Michigan’s first sale was in December 2019, a few weeks later in Illinois.
It took Illinois longer to design a cannabis social equity program for Mensa and others—people of color, people on the street, people with less capital than multi-story operators.
When the market finally opened for small operators, Mensa and his team applied for a planting and retail license.
They didn’t get one.
“Equity plans are complicated,” he said. “In many cases, they have mastered so that the same person can continue to make money.”
Until today, neither Mensa nor 93 Boyz holds a legal cannabis business license.
Without fear, he found a farmer to work with, and that’s how he developed his product line and branded product line-it would be even more difficult if he wasn’t ready for the idea and narrative.
Finding the entry point is part of Mensa, thanks in part to the advice of Viola Brands co-founder Dan Pettigrew.
“He is my mentor,” Mesa said. “And he is determined to step into whatever way I need to get in and achieve that.
“Once you can negotiate from a place of experience and leverage, things will be different.”
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Back to books
Mensa’s success was in the hands of those who found 93 Boyz who might need them. 93 Boyz is helping Mensa’s books fund the Bar Project, which sends these and other books – Alex Haley’s “Malcom X Autobiography”; authors Bell Hooks and Eckhart Tolle’s books, as well as books on Eastern philosophy – the incarcerated.
But one thing that is crucial to the success of his brand is not a book. The packaging can shine, the story can sing – but the content inside is absolutely important.
He learned this very early, sold marijuana as a teenager, when he would take two trains from the south side, find a dealer with Master Kush and Master Kush, and then go back to the street, turn around and get people back.
“Product quality is obviously critical,” he said. “This is completely necessary, but it is hard to say that this is the most important factor.
“It depends on what you are going to do, but at the end of the day, if you have the best … brand and don’t have good flowers in the packaging, that won’t work.”
Anyone in the cannabis space has some lessons, or consider jumping into it might use – no need to read – but Mensa also offers some sage advice for other musicians and others with existing celebrities: Sell good weeds and the rest will follow.
He continued: “I think a lot of celebrity cannabis brands have failed because artists want to name themselves and take a step back.”
“It’s never my point of view. I’m very well-mastered and involved: design, picking cullers, pharmacy sales strategies.”
