#57: Jack Grover (Grove Bags)

Jack Grover (Grove Bags) [00:00:00]:
I think the cannabis industry overall is gonna grow a hundredfold in our lifetime as the informal market and the formal market emerge as we're able to more further study and research this plant and get get medicinal value out of that, I think the cannabis products, the cannabinoid industry, the hemp based products industry, the potential for, you know, hemp, which is, you know, industrial cannabis to replace hydrocarbons in the supply in in our supply chain for everything from, you know, packaging to panels for, automobiles, I think is incredible. So we've really, you know, barely scratched the surface of it.

Jeffrey Stern [00:00:37]:
Let's discover the Cleveland entrepreneurial ecosystem. We are telling the stories of its entrepreneurs and those supporting them.

Jeffrey Stern [00:00:46]:
Welcome to the lay of the land podcast, where we are exploring what people are building in Cleveland. I am your host, Jeffrey Stern. And today we are talking about entrepreneurship in the world of cannabis. I had the pleasure of speaking with Jack Grover who is the founder and CEO of Grove Bags. Grove Bags is a provider of cannabis packaging specifically tailored for the unique physiology of the plant to create the perfect climate for cannabis preservation. After graduating from Babson College in 2014, Jack was inspired by his brother Charlie's battle with cerebral palsy to enter the cannabis industry and create packaging that preserves medicine at its highest quality. Four and a half years later, Jack's company Grove Bags continues its commitment to manufacturing products in the United States and has gained industry wide praise for its proprietary Turplock Technology, which we will explore in great detail in our conversation. GroveBags growth and positioning to take advantage of the growing cannabis space is more than apparent here.

Jeffrey Stern [00:01:56]:
I very much enjoy learning about their journey so far and the marijuana industry overall. I hope you all enjoy my conversation with Jack Grover. So I want to start today really on your area of interest in operations, specifically in the in the cannabis space. I know for sure this is the first time on the podcast that we're covering the topic. Actually, maybe the first question, we'll keep it real easy, is I I wanna get colloquially the right industry vernacular here. Do you refer to it as as cannabis? Is it marijuana? Is it weed? What what is the right terminology to to use here?

Jack Grover (Grove Bags) [00:02:37]:
I I use the term marijuana. You know, I think, weed. You know? We do a lot of business internationally, and I I, you know, picked up that weed's kind of a dirty word. If anything, it's an herb. You know, we're we're dealing with plant based medicine here. So we we try to, you know, advocate for it in that light.

Jeffrey Stern [00:02:56]:
Alright. I'll respect I'll respect that. So I I'd love to kind of begin then with your origin story, how you kind of married your interest with entrepreneurship, with your interest in the in the marijuana space. I'm imagining kind of a lot of perceived opportunity has been unlocked in kind of the regulatory changes of of the last few years. But but kinda talk us through, you know, kind of the founding inspiration, and and we'll kinda get into everything that you've learned along the way.

Jack Grover (Grove Bags) [00:03:27]:
Yeah. Absolutely. I would say, finding inspiration for me is, you know, into the the plant overall as my brother suffers, you know, from pretty severe, cerebral palsy. He gets a tremendous amount of relief from medical cannabis. And so when I kinda saw the the relief that he got from that, and when I saw the the effect it had on his quality of life, I became pretty interested in in cannabis, the cannabis plants, and then that, you know, only accelerated when recreational cannabis was passed in Denver and in Colorado in 2008. I thought the the genie was out of the bottle at that point. So I I was interested in the industry, you know, from that point onwards and always had a inkling that I would figure out an angle to get involved.

Jeffrey Stern [00:04:13]:
Yeah. And how how did you kinda go about trying to find that angle? Right? I imagine there are quite a lot of ways that you could have found that angle, to get involved in the space, especially as nascent as it is. So so where how did you kind of approach that problem?

Jack Grover (Grove Bags) [00:04:31]:
So my grandfather had great grandfather had started a packaging business when he came to the United States selling twine door to door before you had tape. Everything was wrapped in paper and then tied with twine. And then that evolved over the years to become a a small packaging business. So I I knew about the packaging industry, and I thought that the the cannabis industry was gonna need, you know, purpose driven suppliers that were able to extend credit, facilitate terms, you know, so you know, navigate complicated supply chains for, you know, regulated compliant, you know, custom printed beautiful packaging. And and, you know, somebody would need to build out an infrastructure for this this new industry. And further than that, you know, we we wanted to develop some purpose engineered, packaging stuff that, you know, wasn't just, you know, a baggy or something, but modified atmospheric films that really, you know, brought how the modern mature, agricultural industry does things into the, you know, cannabis industry as it came out of the the darkness of prohibition into the light.

Jeffrey Stern [00:05:35]:
When you were thinking about this opportunity, was your like, how did you see this opportunity? Is it is was your background kind of working with, you know, some of the things that your great grandfather was working on? How did you kind of see the the opportunity, if you will, specifically in this in this packaging space?

Jack Grover (Grove Bags) [00:05:54]:
Well, my my dad and my uncle actually sold that business when I was 9. You know, I was I was fortunate enough to understand the value of money more than, you know, just cool cars and, you know, nice apartments and stuff when I was younger. Because when my dad was able to sell that business, you know, what that gets for the parents of a disabled child is peace of mind that they would have some quality of care and some quality of life while they were here. So really was quite young when they they got rid of the the business, but my father had been a a consultant to packaging and distribution companies. So, you could say I I had the perfect mentor there for for a number of years, and he's a respected author and authority in that world. And he's certainly someone who's, who have hit up for a lot of free free advice over the years. But I would say, really, it it came down to, you know, I wanted to do something that scalable, that would add a lot of value to the industry, that could be part of standardizing how the industry does things and and remove various access and improve the product that, you know, I I held in high regard. So packaging was the natural natural way to do that.

Jeffrey Stern [00:07:05]:
Yeah. So may maybe now is a good point to just give us a brief overview of what Grove Bags is.

Jack Grover (Grove Bags) [00:07:12]:
Gotcha. So, Grove Bags is a nearing 30 person strong team of people that push forward, and develop products that prolong and protect product viability of of cannabis in the the burgeoning plant based medicine industry. So what I mean by that is our products from which are most notably known for Turplock. That's really become a standard for curing and storage of product in the cannabis industry. And what I mean by that is, you know, when you go to the grocery store, you buy a bag of prewashed, pre cut salad, Jeff, and, you know, you just get home and tear that bag open and boom, it's ready to go. And it's a bunch of cut up ratchets and lettuces and carrots. Mhmm. So that that product was actually, is a modified atmospheric film that was made by Dave Freca, who's a legend of Ohio, entrepreneur.

Jack Grover (Grove Bags) [00:08:03]:
Definitely someone I recommend you you have on this podcast because people could learn a lot from listening to him in in comparison to me. That that's something that Dave Freca developed. And I I was aware of it because we've networked with him throughout Ohio, and he was somebody that I'd I'd come through to admire in the Ohio and Midwest business community. And that's a very particular film, that modified atmospheric film, because it keeps that salad fresh. You know, on your counter, it will open a couple hours, but this material that Dave invented, these modified atmospheric films, can keep vegetables fresh for weeks by creating very specific microclimates within those bags. So those bags are actually respirating as those vegetables naturally crispness and their freshness and flavor. And that's the same basic idea of what TurfBloc does for cannabis. We created a modified atmospheric film that maintains a 58 to 62% relative humidity in the antimicrobial, antistatic environment.

Jack Grover (Grove Bags) [00:08:57]:
And what that means for people who are producing and storing and selling cannabis is means they're able to deliver to their customers really the product that they intended when they cultivated it. Because it's one thing to grow, you know, fantastic medical cannabis. Marijuana, it's a completely other thing to store, keep it viable, and keep it potent and terrific until the customer enjoys it. That's where Turplock comes in, and that's where our product comes in. And that's why it's, used in 55 countries now.

Jeffrey Stern [00:09:25]:
Yeah. I guess working a little bit backwards from the current state, can you kinda take us from 0 to 1 how it was you got started? You know, what was Grow Bag's first big break? Was it was it tied to this Turb lock? And and how do you actually go about the the manufacturing and and just kinda getting things off the ground?

Jack Grover (Grove Bags) [00:09:46]:
That's a lot. Let's chop that up into a a few pieces. From a material sciences development standpoint, you know, that was about a year long process of having a a, you know, great partner that was invested in this that, you know, gave us some resources. And we were able to come in and say, you know, help us develop a product that's just this, this, and this. And then they develop it, and then we would go out, and test it, in an environment where we can legally test it. And then we come back to our notes and say, you know, we need to do this, this, and this. And it was a a bit voodoo science, a bit material science, a bit YouTube University. But it was, certainly a great experience.

Jack Grover (Grove Bags) [00:10:23]:
So right now, I believe we're on our 12th or 13th, you know, iteration of the Turplock materials. We continue to refine it and make it more environmentally friendly and also better performance. In addition to that, you know, really what helped us get started is we had a core group of 5 or 8 initial customers that really gave us a huge amount of feedback that were very patient with us, that for lack of a better term, you know, told us we had a great product but really taught us how to be a supply supplier to them and be an important cog in their operations. So you know, those were far flung. You know, my friends at Guardant First out in Oregon or, you know, our clients through AirDicks down in South Africa or our clients in Israel or even our clients here in Ohio like, Jeff Korf over at Kalinas who, you know, gave us a shot, you know, early on and has been, you know, one of, you know, the best people I could possibly have learned from in in this business. He's a remarkable entrepreneur and leader of his organization. So, really, I I would say it's so I was people that got us off the ground. But, you know, I made a lot of lot of mistakes early on.

Jack Grover (Grove Bags) [00:11:34]:
I was a young entrepreneur, and I certainly, you know, was good at good at excel and good at selling things from my prior experience. But leading and managing a team and and the competing departments and everything is, something that's, you know, quite difficult to learn, I think, comes with a certain degree of humility and maturity. So we're lucky to have great partners, and we're lucky to have a really great product. And I think that got us through the early years. The 1st 2 years or, I guess, 3 years, including product development, were pretty difficult, and things were going pretty slow. And a big reason for that also was product moves so fast at that point in the cannabis industry. There was really no need for long term viability or shelf life. You know, testing protocols were very weak at that time.

Jack Grover (Grove Bags) [00:12:14]:
You know, nobody really understood what are terpenes, what is cannabinoid degradation, you know, what what does mold look like, what does unhealthy cannabis look like, how how should this product smell over time. So the market had become more mature, and we really didn't get our our first big break until 2018 during the glut in production for sun grown cannabis in Oregon. And I spent a lot of time out there that summer developing the market and getting people to test out our product. And all of a sudden, there was a huge oversupply, and people needed product to stay fresh for 3 or 6 or 9 months so they could trickle it out to the market and not get killed on it. And they needed a way for it to stay viable over that time. And by the end of that season, we were sending full full truckloads, 1 pound bags, and 5 pound bags out there. And as I said, we were off to the races after that. I I think it's always been important for us to try to stay true despite temptations to where we believe the industry is going versus where it is today.

Jeffrey Stern [00:13:14]:
Yeah. I wanna maybe add a little bit of that industry perspective and and walk through the industry for the uninitiated, myself included, who I think has a kind of a vague understanding of of end to end what the marijuana industry looks like and what the major stops are along the way. But I know it has changed quite drastically over the last few years. I love to get your take on just maybe a brief history of the space and how you've seen it evolve in the last few years. Maybe who the participants in the space are, and and how I don't know. Maybe speak to kind of the how the quality of the industry participants and just kind of end to end. What are those major stops?

Jack Grover (Grove Bags) [00:13:54]:
Yeah. That's certainly been an evolution. You know, back when we first started the the company, I was like, you know, oh, wow. You know? It's not a lot of sophisticated business folks in in this industry. That's I would say, is no longer the case even as, you know, there's non mainstream financing in cannabis. I mean, there really is, you know, people who have have capital figured out how to deploy it in that space. So there's very veteran management across the board now for for most organizations. You're you're really working with the same caliber, if not a bit higher level of, you know, middle to upper management that you would be in any other industry because people see huge entrepreneurial and opportunity here.

Jack Grover (Grove Bags) [00:14:37]:
Now 5 years ago, you know, that was not the case, and I this was actually one of the things I resented about the cannabis industry is a lot of assholes who were c players in other industries thought everybody in cannabis was a moron, and they could walk in here and be an a player even though, you know, if you're a c player, you're you're a c player. I don't care what you're doing. That being said, I think, you know, the cannabis space is a bit like, you know, cryptocurrency whereas, you know, if if you're not doing well, you know, you're, you know, there's no indictment of you as a person, but you're not good at entrepreneurship. You know, growth growth can cover up for for a lot of things. You know, you'll really see our metal tested in my competitors. And as metal tested when we're a a shrinking space, when the market's growing at this big of a rate, it can cover up for a a lot of deficiencies.

Jeffrey Stern [00:15:25]:
Yeah. There are a few things that I wanna unpack there. One is it seems it's taken a long time for it to go very fast and maybe your take on why it's taken so long, like, what do you think are the important antecedents to where we are today, whether that's law, regulatory, or other kinds of maybe social stigmas that have historically been tied to to the space?

Jack Grover (Grove Bags) [00:15:49]:
I think there's a lot of historical stigma. I think there's still a certain degree if if you dive into cannabis or, you know, plant based medicine, psychedelics, any of that stuff. You're certainly, you know, branded as one of those guys which in, you know, California, you know, might be cool. But at the Union Club in Cleveland is is a bit of a, you know, unfortunately, different story. So there there's still, quite a bit of ways to go in terms of homogeneous acceptance across all echelons of our society, particularly in governance. I think the destigmatization, increased competition, and mainstream funds pouring into the space have really accelerated the growth of the industry. I would say this is the the first big industry trade show year where I saw the rate of innovation slowing down and the rate of mergers and acquisitions accelerating. So we're interesting we're entering, you know, an interesting new time in the space if you were to say that the space mirror mirrors tech or any or other sort of, you know, high growth, bubblish type space.

Jeffrey Stern [00:16:51]:
Yeah. I mean, it's very clear to me just like as a as a citizen that there's this massive potential energy in in the marijuana space, this this intersection of really extraordinary consumer demand and all these changes in regulation unlocking the the market opportunity. I guess, what is the role of regulation? Like, how do you think about regulation in in your business?

Jack Grover (Grove Bags) [00:17:17]:
Regulation in in our business really opens up playing field to the big packaging companies even more. And they're already pretty entrenched in cannabis, but the multinational companies were at wonder it, and it'll become a bit of a land grab. You know, our valuation will probably 3 x overnight, just because, you know, all those mainstream companies can access the space. But honestly, selfishly, you know, the longer and longer that process takes, the more time we have to build. And, you know, the longer you know, we might be a midget, but we're one of the taller midgets.

Jeffrey Stern [00:17:52]:
That's just not a

Jack Grover (Grove Bags) [00:17:53]:
really correct analogy, but I I I hope the meeting came across.

Jeffrey Stern [00:17:58]:
I I think I understand you there. Does the opportunity exist for Grove Bags because the industry is so fragmented? I know you mentioned you're starting to see some of that m and a, But are, like, the big CPG brands able to deploy their scale and and their, like, marketing advantage to just go and win the space? Is there an opportunity for you? Because

Jack Grover (Grove Bags) [00:18:20]:
No. But our clients are going out and hiring them. There's certainly an opportunity for us because there is a a bit of a a legacy in the market. We are a more established, you know, reputable company having been doing this for for 6 years. But I think, yeah, it definitely takes a a smaller, more fragmented market for a company to learn and get its its feet under itself. You have to be able to kinda work on unbothered in the in the shadows for a bit, so to speak. You know, I don't really think we were on a lot of our competitors' radar in terms of the large bulk agricultural packaging companies or the desiccant manufacturers until really, you know, last year. So that gave us, you know, four and a half, 5 years to really build them and get our legs underneath us.

Jack Grover (Grove Bags) [00:19:05]:
So this were, a mature transparent industry like, you know, the the space industry and highly regulated. It's much much more difficult to do something like that bootstrapped. You know, we're we're still a completely t owned company.

Jeffrey Stern [00:19:20]:
Right. No. That that makes a lot of sense. One of the areas I I did wanna ask you about was was competition and and how you kinda think about differentiation. Because I I was just trying to understand, you know, what is the competitive frontier for your business? Is it is it the quality of the product? Is it the brand that you've built with Grove Bags? Is it like relationships with cultivators or distributors or dispensaries? Like, where do you see this battle being won or lost?

Jack Grover (Grove Bags) [00:19:47]:
It's a bit of everything. On the first and foremost, it has to be a a superior product that is, with a superior process, you know, that is easier to use and easier to interact with and easier to get your hands on. I think that's, you know and you have to feel like you're getting a good deal. I think that's that's first and foremost. And I think that's the the world that Jeff Bezos put us all in. I think there's certainly the brand and the relationship that, you know, our company ambassadors build with cultivators, you know, around the world, whether they're giving them grow tips or commenting on on their production or, you know, just telling them how to properly use our product and their process. I think, another part of that is, you know, the relationships that our team forms with big time grow operations where we're able to add a lot of value and our SOP is able to enormously influence the product that they're doing. And whether that be, you know, being used by marquee brands, by, like, Alien Labs or Connected Cannabis or Native Roots or some of these you know, marquee cap craft growers like Helios, you know, that are renowned in their own right.

Jack Grover (Grove Bags) [00:20:54]:
I think really having the reputation of being the the goch go to tool in the belt of any grower anywhere in the world is our biggest opportunity. We really have an opportunity here to be a a gear in the mechanical box of every grower around the world, whether it's a small one person grow in South Africa with 4 plants or whether it's it's a guy in California with 40,000 flowering plants.

Jeffrey Stern [00:21:18]:
Yeah. And and how do you think about, you know, garnering your brand and and kind of, I guess, really on the marketing side, how how is it that you have gone to market and tried explicitly to to build that awareness with the rest of these players in the space?

Jack Grover (Grove Bags) [00:21:36]:
Samples. I've I've hopped on the phone, and the team stopped on the phone many thousands of times in addition to that. But literally years of saying, hey. Well, I'll I'll send you some bags. Try them out. Hop on the phone with me for 5 minutes. Listen listen to my process. Try my product out.

Jack Grover (Grove Bags) [00:21:52]:
I'll give you a call in 2 weeks. If you don't like it, I won't call you again.

Jeffrey Stern [00:21:55]:
And so the the product speaks for for the value?

Jack Grover (Grove Bags) [00:21:59]:
Yeah. And I think you have to relentlessly do that no matter what you're doing. You know? I think a good 10000 times before you really know what you have or not. So a lot of people use that metric. It takes $1,000,000 to get the business off the ground. It takes 10,000 pitches to get your business off the ground.

Jeffrey Stern [00:22:19]:
So with I think all this really helpful context. Can you kind of paint a picture of just GroveBags as a business? You know, what is the kind of business model? Are there other products that you're bringing to market at this point? And a little bit of of how you kind of see the immediate path in in front of you?

Jack Grover (Grove Bags) [00:22:40]:
Yeah. We, we certainly have more products in the flexible packaging, modified atmospheric packaging space, you know, environmental, you know, friendliness developments, product functionality developments that we think are gonna add efficiency and value to our customers that we're really excited about. There's a lot of opportunity right now in the the broader ancillary cannabis space. So it's really, you know, world worlds are always served. It's it's hard not to feel like that, and I think that's a a big feeling at the at the company because we package everything from a a gram to 5055, you know, gallon bales of hemp to, you know, 1,000 pound bales of industrial hemp. So we really have a lot of product lines, I think, of flying our technology to other industries like the beer industry, for example, and the tobacco industry is exciting for us. And I think, in additionally, really for us, finding ways that modified atmospheric films, innovative packaging like ours can help the process for all these at home producers of psilocybin and these other plant based products. I think there's a opportunity, you know, as these whole new industries are popping up to be the nuts and bolts suppliers to these operations.

Jack Grover (Grove Bags) [00:23:54]:
So it's it's pretty exciting for us, and it's, you know, on on the one hand, it's hard to stay focused. But on on the other hand, it's it's good to stay excited about the future. So I think that that's something that, you know, we've tried to look for. I think as we look to double in headcount this coming year, couple things we're gonna really try to keep in terms of our culture is we wanna be a place that a players wanna come to work and a players a a players wanna stay. So I think that extends to a couple different things. I think it extends to having an exciting opportunities ahead of us and being a fast growing environment with a lot of opportunities. And I think it comes with, doing meaningful work, which we really feel we we do here at Grow Bags.

Jeffrey Stern [00:24:34]:
Yeah. One of the things I was curious about that I'll ask just because you kind of mentioned recruiting and and the culture around the company is I always find it really interesting in these kind of more nascent industries where kind of by design, you actually can't have that much industry experience, if you will. I mean, at this point, you can a little, but how are you thinking about kind of talent acquisition, and what are you seeing in terms of people's interest in just getting into the space generally?

Jack Grover (Grove Bags) [00:25:03]:
I think it's still very high. I think, you know, that's an advantage we have of being a a in being in Cleveland is there's not a lot of businesses like ours or in environments like ours, so it's it's particularly attractive. You know, I don't care as much about experience in the cannabis industry. You know, I think we can really give people that. What we're looking for is focused, highly motivated, high character people that, you know, we don't mind traveling with and and spending 80 hours a week with.

Jeffrey Stern [00:25:32]:
Yeah. You mentioned kind of this balance between excitement about the future and staying focused. And I'll push you on that one a little bit in how do you try and weigh extracting, and kind of fine tuning the the value that you already have versus exploring other opportunities and, you know, maybe finding extensibility in other markets, like like in beer or in tobacco?

Jack Grover (Grove Bags) [00:25:57]:
For me, personally, I find it, you know, really have to immerse myself in something and to, you know, have to get totally sucked into something for that to become my world for a little bit to really explore. Because usually, you know, I'm at a 10,000 foot view, but what built this company is you know, there's a a Yiddish saying that I love. You know, to a worm and a jar of horseradish, the world is horseradish. There's also something to be said, you know, for the the blinders of an astronaut or someone who's passionate about the subject being deep in that jar of horseradish and and or in that subject and that subject becoming their reality and their perspective. And I think it's a it's a tough thing as a founder. You know, you're, as, you know, you'll you'd, I'm sure, agree is to both to alternate from that 10,000 foot view and and being at the same time, also being able to get deep in that jar.

Jeffrey Stern [00:26:47]:
Yeah. I like that analogy a lot. What what ultimately then is your is your vision for GroveBags? You know, what what is the impact that you hope to have kind of in in retrospect?

Jack Grover (Grove Bags) [00:26:59]:
I'm a big admirer of of Jim Collins and and Peter Drucker, and both of them talk a lot about being built to sell versus built to last. I wanna build a a lasting business here. I I don't know if I don't think grow bags will be the last thing I ever do, but I I do wanna build a a self sustaining company that, you know, I I I don't know. Quite selfishly, I've always, you know, wanted to be driving on the highway and see one of our our trucks or delivery vans going by. So I I'm not quite sure where the the future is for us. The future for us is adding the most value we can and being as indispensable to our customers and partners as possible and really being, you know, a keystone bedrock in the architecture, and infrastructure of that global cannabis economy. Where that goal takes us, you know, I I don't know. But I am certainly excited to find out.

Jeffrey Stern [00:27:51]:
Yeah. No. It is is an exciting journey that you're on for sure. You mentioned the the partners. I did wanna maybe go back in time a little bit and just hear kind of the story, and relationship that you had working with Magnet in the space.

Jack Grover (Grove Bags) [00:28:07]:
Yeah. Magnet, certainly, you know, interesting environment for us coming from Batson, I really valued being in a in a space with a lot of entrepreneurs and and creative people and creative problem solvers. And Magnet has some really interesting resources available at their disposal from an engineering perspective, from a staffing perspective, and certainly from a relationship and rolodex perspective. I would say, you know, one of the most valuable things we've got out of magnet is our 3PL provider who really worked with us and scaled us from a few pallets of inventory to a few 1,000 pallets has really been a key relationship for us, and that's that's Bob and Patty and Lisa, Oswald over at National Commercial Warehouse, and they're a MAGNET member. And that was a great introduction for us, and that's been a really long term relationship. But the importance of programs like MAGNET, you know, can't really be understated in terms of cities like Cleveland getting a, you know, entrepreneurial ecosystem all gravitate to each other and find each other one one way or another. And I joke with them, you know, we'll we'll joke together that Cleveland won't have a proper, you know, start up ecosystem with proper financing and resources and mentoring until, you know, we all have, you know, big exits and are able to do that in the city. But that that's not quite true, you know, with with folks like Ethan Karpier doing doing what they they do over at Magna.

Jack Grover (Grove Bags) [00:29:40]:
And there's, you know, a couple other good programs in the city that I think are really add some value and are are really valued valid in a a bright spot in in what can be, you know, often disastrous public support of, you know, private entrepreneurial initiatives. You know, I think tech elevators are great place.

Jeffrey Stern [00:29:57]:
Oh, yeah. Absolutely. More on the the company building and and entrepreneurial journey. When when you find yourself at this point kind of unsure of, you know, certain things, where where is it that you go to to find the resources, really on the on the company building side? Who's helping you out in this journey?

Jack Grover (Grove Bags) [00:30:16]:
I I'm lucky to have a great mentor and example of not just being a good businessman, but being a good person. And my father and that, you know, certainly is my number one sounding board. But I I'm lucky to have some friends and relatives that have really mentored me and given me good advice over the years. And, you know, I've often been a sounding board for some pretty painful decisions and painful periods. You know, there's a lot of dark times to entrepreneurship, certainly times where you take several steps forward, and then also times where you get knocked back a few steps. And that's certainly been true in this business.

Jeffrey Stern [00:30:52]:
It seems, again, from afar that it's it's been mostly kinda tailwinds propelling this industry forward. But what what have been some of the the challenges that you've kind of encountered building GroveBags that that maybe you didn't anticipate?

Jack Grover (Grove Bags) [00:31:07]:
Anytime you OEM a product, you have to get those manufacturers to want to do it, to want to do it well, to want to do it consistently, to want to deliver on time. You know, when you're competing against General Mills or Kraft for machine time, you know, you have to get creative and you really have to sell people. You know, there's really a few people, you know, around the country who, you know, after years of trying to fly and go see people and develop relationships, you know, I would take out another credit card and fly out somewhere at the drop of a hat in the early days to try to find somebody to make our stuff for us reliably and at scale. And that's that's certainly been a big challenge. And I think anybody who's trying to OEM something, you know, people talk about, well, you know, Apple OEMs everything. Well, yeah, Apple's many times bigger than all of its suppliers and routinely fucks them on top of that. You know, this this is, you know, the opposite. So I I think that's that's pretty challenging.

Jack Grover (Grove Bags) [00:32:01]:
I think you have to be pretty pretty nimble to do that. I think you have to be willing to, you know, get said no to a lot and get laughed at a lot. I certainly have been laughed at, you know, my fair share of times, you know, doing this and building this up, particularly, you know, 7 years ago, this this space was radioactive to a lot of people.

Jeffrey Stern [00:32:20]:
Yeah. Was it, again, kind of this combination of the the stigma historically with the space coupled with the regulatory burden of it?

Jack Grover (Grove Bags) [00:32:28]:
Or Yeah. I I think the the 2 combined are pretty we're we're a pretty force. I think, now people more see it as an as an opportunity as I did then.

Jeffrey Stern [00:32:40]:
And when you think about the future of of marijuana in the industry, how much do you think is left to be unlocked and and really like on what timeline? Because in many ways to me, it feels that it's still the early days. But but how do you think about that unlocking?

Jack Grover (Grove Bags) [00:32:57]:
It's still definitely the early days. I mean, the the great $1,000,000,000 brands, most of them haven't been started yet. I would say that the industry you know, we we joke and say, you know, we could, you know, smoke pot all day with our customers and hang out and just not fuck up, but we'd still 7 x over the next 5 years. I think the cannabis industry overall is gonna grow a 100 fold in our lifetime as the informal market and the formal market merge as we're able to more further study and research this plant and get get medicinal value out of that. I think the cannabis products, the cannabinoid industry, the hemp based products industry, the potential for, you know, hemp, which is, you know, industrial cannabis to replace hydrocarbons in the supply in in our supply chain for everything from, you know, packaging to panels for, automobiles, I think is incredible. So we've really, you know, barely scratched the surface of it, you know, as, as an industry and as something that, can propel change in our society and globally. So I'm I'm very excited. I think, you know, there's not many spaces that are gonna grow a hundredfold in a lifetime.

Jack Grover (Grove Bags) [00:34:08]:
I think you've got your choice between, you know, crypto and and blockchain technologies, cannabis, and, the space industry.

Jeffrey Stern [00:34:16]:
Yeah. No. It it seems on the precipice of of some extraordinary growth. What is the next unlock? Like, what in terms of the the overall progression of the industry, what's, like, the next thing that needs to to kinda happen for this to transpire positively on that exponential growth

Jack Grover (Grove Bags) [00:34:38]:
curve? Man, if I had the bandwidth and energy, I would piece together $20,000,000 and I'd go out and I'd hire some engineers and scientists, and I would figure out how to refine industrial hemp on a clean enough basis to run through film extruders. Because, you know, the entire $1,000,000,000,000 global packaging industry from bags to boxes to containers to labels to tape to shipping containers. You know, all that together is about a $1,000,000,000,000 global category that runs off, you know, unsustainable hydrocarbons for most part. We could see over the next 10 or 15 years, you know, and, you know, quite real, sense of literally seeing that evolve and change over to, you know, sustainable, you know, hemp based solutions and and hemp fiber based and and hemp based resins. So whoever's able to patent the process around cleanly and at scale, extruding hemp resin pellets to a high enough cleanliness where you can run them through multilayer film extruders and and do flexible packaging and labels with it. I think that's a, you know, that's a $1,000,000,000 patent right there.

Jeffrey Stern [00:35:42]:
How do you think about kind of the geographic breakdown of this? So are you are operating internationally at this point?

Jack Grover (Grove Bags) [00:35:49]:
Yes, we are.

Jeffrey Stern [00:35:50]:
Yeah. I genuinely don't know. Like, where does America stand relative to the rest of the world in terms of kind of adoption and and progress? And where where are you kinda seeing the the fastest kind of growth and kinda demand for for what you're doing?

Jack Grover (Grove Bags) [00:36:05]:
It's a shame because the US definitely produces the best kudos in the world. So if we can have an interstate commerce and an export market and for the international markets, I think it would accelerate desigmitization. As well as, I think, it would stimulate broader global decriminalization of of the plan. I think a lot of countries follow the US's path in terms of economic and social reform. So that's something that we're excited about here. But beyond that, I think the biggest thing that we're excited about is the ability for people to grow their own plant and home grow illegally. I think, you know, the the return to the gardening, I think, is not just a a good thing for people taking charge of it, what they consume in their own bodies. But I think a certain thing has been, you know, lost, you know, at least here in the United States where a lot of people have never experienced nurturing a plant from, you know, seed to, dinner table.

Jack Grover (Grove Bags) [00:37:04]:
So that's something that I'm excited to to see continue growing as as home growing becomes, you know, the biggest hobby in the United States, which it is rapidly growing. We routinely ship, you know, several 100 packages to home growers around the country.

Jeffrey Stern [00:37:16]:
Yeah. I can I can absolutely see that that trend playing out? But I'd love to kind of bookend our our conversation here with a question about still the the cannabis space specifically. What is it about the industry today that you don't understand well that that you wish you did? Like, what's still confusing you as as kind of a a true expert in this space? What what still do you not grasp about it?

Jack Grover (Grove Bags) [00:37:42]:
The lighting. How are how are there so many lighting brands and lighting companies and lighting tech? You know, I like, am I you know, once we have enough success, am I gonna have to start a lighting division and hire some light wave engineers and really understand that. That that's one thing that, you know, from a intellectual curiosity standpoint, you know, really gets me and from another thing from an environmental standpoint, because, traditionally, indoor cannabis cultivation between the HVAC requirements and the actual lighting is a huge power consumption industry. And, you know, we're betting a grove bag, so that's one of the things that's gonna have to change as the industry matures and evolves and goes global over the next 10 years.

Jeffrey Stern [00:38:23]:
It's really kinda fascinating to think about this space and just witnessing how much it's it's grown in the last few years and kind of imagining how how much it will in in the next few. It's it's an exciting prospect for for you and and Grove Bags for sure.

Jack Grover (Grove Bags) [00:38:40]:
Yeah. It certainly keeps us, excited for the future.

Jeffrey Stern [00:38:43]:
Yeah. Well, I I mean, this is has truly been a a fascinating conversation. I I personally have learned quite a lot. So I I really appreciate it. One thing that we do, Jack, at the the end of of every show is to ask for, not necessarily your favorite thing in Cleveland, but for something that other people may not know about, a hidden gem, if you will. So with that, I will I will ask you for your hidden gem or gems in in Cleveland.

Jack Grover (Grove Bags) [00:39:13]:
Hidden gems in Cleveland. Well, our warehouse is in Chinatown. So I, I am known and recognized in most Chinese restaurants in Cleveland. And I would say l l j LJ Shanghai has has Chinese soup dumplings that can hold their own against any any spot in the country. And I think, Jeremy Umanski over at Larter Deli and Bakery not only has some of the best pastries, but some of the best pastrami sandwiches of any deli bakery in in the country.

Jeffrey Stern [00:39:43]:
A 100%. And those 2. Well done. Well, Jack, I I really appreciate you taking the time and and and sharing your story here today.

Jack Grover (Grove Bags) [00:39:52]:
Absolutely. Thanks so much for having me, Jeff. I I really appreciate the time, and, hopefully, we can meet up for a cup of coffee or something in the the New Year. Would would love to, get more closely acquainted as to founders in the Cleveland area. And, you know, I was doing a little googling on what you guys do on my phone during the interview. It looks like some impressive stuff. So congratulations. It's always cool to see somebody, you know, raising money and hiring and building out here in Cleveland.

Jack Grover (Grove Bags) [00:40:18]:
So, appreciate what you're doing.

Jeffrey Stern [00:40:20]:
Oh, well, thank you, Jack. If folks have anything that they would like to to follow-up with you about, where is the best place for them to do so?

Jack Grover (Grove Bags) [00:40:27]:
People can email me, jack at Grove Bags, anytime. You know, we're hiring like crazy, and I'm a pretty friendly guy. I'll you know, I'm always willing to meet up with just about anybody for a cup of coffee. So if anybody has any interest in what they're doing or if I can be a sounding board for any anything or anyone Cleveland based, you know, please reach out. Awesome.

Jeffrey Stern [00:40:47]:
Well, thank you again, Jack.

Jack Grover (Grove Bags) [00:40:48]:
Thanks, Jeff. Have a good one.

Jeffrey Stern [00:40:51]:
That's all for this week. Thank you for listening. We'd love to hear your thoughts on today's show, so if you have any feedback, please send over an email to jeffrey@layoftheland.fm or find us on Twitter at podlayoftheland or at @sternjefe, j e f e. If you or someone you know would make a good guest for our show, please reach out as well and let us know. And if you enjoy the podcast, please subscribe and leave a review on iTunes or on your preferred podcast player. Your support goes a long way to help us spread the word and continue to bring the Cleveland founders and builders we love having on the show. We'll be back here next week at the same time to map more of the land. The Lay of the Land podcast