Roger Volodarsky Founder and CEO of Puffco

Greetings, folks. Welcome to episode 333 of the Small Business show here. I am very interested to hear from our guest today, Shannon.

Me too. I know nothing. I mean, if you could pick a business that I know nothing about or even a whole industry, you probably couldn't pick a better one.

Well, that's why I picked this for you, man. I wanted to give you the opportunity to learn the most this week.

Yeah, it's fascinating and I think that our. I think our listeners will find it fascinating, you know, to learn about a company operating in a space that certainly has its own challenges around educating, you know, their customers, individuals around them that may not be customers, municipalities, states about legality issues. So they have the work cut out for them. And they've just done an incredible job at design. And the whole way they present the product is fascinating. I love it.

It's fascinating. Yeah, you're right. The stigma around their industry, quite frankly, is the reason they exist, which is really an interesting story that you'll get to hear in just a minute, in fact. So, yeah, there you go. You got anything else to say before we get going here?

Oh, man, I'm ready to small business and learn about this. And I guarantee you this will absolutely be the show where I learn the most because I'm just coming in Bl.

You might be right about that. I'm not that far behind you, but I think I'm a little or that far ahead of you. I don't know, is it behind or ahead? It doesn't matter. Listen, folks, there are a few little F bombs that are dropped in the episode here. We're leaving them in because it keeps things authentic. But we just wanted to let you know, the explicit flag, of course, is flipped for this in Apple podcasts as well. I'm Dave Hamilton, he's Shannon Jean, and this is episode 333 of the Small Business Show. I love learning about a business that is full of lots of different stories. And I love talking to people that have started businesses like that. And I'm really happy, Shannon, today to have Roger Volodyrsky on CEO and founder of Puffco. Roger, thank you so much for joining us today.

Thank you guys for having me.

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So let's start with you. Tell us a little bit about. You started PuffCo seven or eight years ago in 2013. What, what led you to start Puffco? Where, what, what was your life like before that? And, and then how did that, how did that evolve into Puffco?

Yeah, I mean, I, I guess I would say that Puffco kind of happened in the pre 30 year old angst. That stage where you kind of realized that like you're nothing that you thought you would be and you know, the world that you knew to understand in your teenage years and twenties is not quite what you've experience. And I really just wanted to do something that I liked and enjoyed and I've really enjoyed cannabis throughout my life in New York. It has been very illegal to consume cannabis for a long time. I have a couple of light cannabis arrests on my record. It's a very unpleasant thing to go through. And in 2012, concentrates had hit the scene in New York. Concentrated cannabis. And shortly after, these devices that we were calling wax pens that you would put these concentrates into also hit the scene. And what I found when I combined these two is that I could walk around New York and consume everywhere and nobody knew what I was doing. This is kind of before E cigarettes had taken off. Even really before like big box mod vaping had taken off. And I felt free to just consume and walk around the city and enjoy life the way I wanted to. And I started putting all of my friends on, helping them get devices like this. They would break on them, I would help them troubleshoot. And eventually after this became like kind of a headache for me, a friend was like, why don't you try creating your own company? You're really passionate about this and maybe it can work out. And I am not an engineer. I have no experience in product development. I literally knew nothing of what it would take to get here. And that was the exact type of ignorance that was necessary to start this journey. And that's kind of how it got started.

No, I always said starting a business that you know nothing about means that you're probably going to hire smarter people sooner than you might otherwise do. If you think you know everything about it, you know, you can save a little bit of money and maybe try to do it all yourself.

Roger, what was the first product that you know, that you brought to market or developed or got out to your friends with Puffco?

So the first one was something that most people have never heard of, and that was the Puffco Classic. So when we, when I decided to start this company, really the goal was I just want to make something that I could reliably use every day. So like the experience should be a little bit better than what's currently available and it has to work. And so we made the Puffco Classic with that in mind. And as soon as I got it and Used it. We got this first purchase order, and I had this very real moment with myself of like, is this really that much better than what's in the. In the market? And the answer was yes. But it wasn't a leap. It wasn't something that was a huge jump from one standard to what will become the new standard. And so I made that one purchase order and kind of decided, this isn't the direction I want to take my products or the company. Let's get back to the drawing board. And then the first. First product that we did that was, like, widely available to everybody and won a bunch of awards was the Puffco Pro Classic. Came in January of 2013. Pro came out October of 2014. I'm sorry, have those dates wrong. Classic came out January of 2014. Pro came out October of 2014.

Got it. Okay. Wow. So you iterated really fast on that first design of the Classic to get to, like you said, that sort of leap up to the Pro.

Yeah, it wasn't rocket science. So for me, the. The things that were most important were I wanted to be able to control my temperature within the device. They only ever really gave you one setting before then, and that didn't work for me. So variable temperature control, three options is what we were able to include for people. Larger capacity. All existing market options before ours had really small loading chambers, and I would constantly have to be refilling it, and I just didn't want to do that anymore. So I put that in there. And then they were using fiberglass wicks to wick the oil and help it vaporize, and I decided to use a porous ceramic instead of it because I had read that it could taste better and was very, very, very ignorant back then, looking for any sign of anything that would make my experience better. So while, yes, that's not a very long development time compared to what we currently go through, in those 10 months, I hadn't really changed the shape. I changed how the device worked.

Sure.

The Puffco Classic and the Puffco Pro, definitely you could tell the difference apart, but they looked very similar.

Yeah. Okay, that makes good sense. Sure. You just. You got it. But you were. I mean, even as you're telling the story, certainly you were building this for your customers, but really, you, you know, customer number one was you. You. You built this thing and these things so that you could do the thing that you wanted to do and that you enjoyed. And it turns out there's other people like you.

Absolutely. I mean, every product we have made so far has really been Just to make my own experience better. And I keep adding people to the company that share that vision. They are also quickly become as obsessed about cannabis as I am. And then they see these opportunities right along with me of, yeah, it would be easier if it did this, or I would have a more fulfilled experience if we did that. And so that's typically who we're trying to impress, trying to impress ourselves.

I love that. It's great. It just makes so much sense no matter what you're doing. And it just, you know, it really resonates with me that you're building these to make your own experience better and you're bringing everybody along with it.

Yeah. I mean, those are also the kind of companies I'm a fan of. I love companies that do things for themselves because they're led by community members. And when people are just making stuff for the sake of making it and having a successful business over having a successful experience as a brand buyer for many different brands, that's felt by me. I want people that do stuff where you're asking yourself, how did they think of this? How did they know that I wanted this little pocket in my jacket where my keys are always falling out of? But now it's there perfectly. When companies are led by community members, you really see an experience that's reflective of the community, and we don't ever want to stray away from that. We never want to start making things just for the sake of having a successful company. We want to constantly improve our experience, and that is where every product idea comes from for Puffco.

Before the show, the three of us were talking about how we all use Apple products and at some level at least, are all fans of Apple. You at Puffco and what you're describing here, even before we had this conversation, just looking from the outside in at, you know, both your sort of the way you present yourself, but also the way you present your products and the unboxing experience and all of that.

You.

You definitely, to me, it felt very Apple. Like, you know, you take something that could be super confusing, frankly, that is super confusing, and you take the confusing out of it and you just make it super. And. And you, like, now I understand why, because you're doing this for yourselves as much as you are for other members of your customer community. To that end, are there a lot of product ideas that you wind up saying no to internally because they don't meet that standard?

Oh, yeah. I mean, there's, you know, all ideas are soldiers in the war of ideas, and we really just want to let the best ones win. So there are products that, in ideation, we get excited about of this can be really, really cool. And then we'll make a prototype, and we'll be like, this is an underwhelming experience. Let's either see if we can get to a prototype in a completely different path that operates differently, or let's drop it. And there are many products that we drop. I think some of them end up coming out later after we destroy and rebuild them. But we're only looking to do things that give us that special feeling of this is new and different and exciting. And there's this look that I got used to seeing from some of our consumers, specifically the ones that have never consumed in this way before. What we do is typically called dabbing. That is the street term for vaporizing concentrates. And most people don't consume that way. They're smoking out of a pipe or a bong or a joint or the conventional ways that we're used to. But then you'll see somebody trying this for the first time. And they had never had a flavor experience like they have with concentrates, and they had never felt this intense but not overwhelming high that they're getting from concentrates. And you see this feeling wash over them. Not like they're trying something they know and love, but truly like they're engaging in a new experience for the first time. There's something really special about that, and that's why we do this. And for us, cannabis is a plant that has really been circled around sharing for so long. So when we see that people are able to engage in something and when we have the opportunity to educate them in a way that will pull them in and not make what we're doing seem intimidating, which it can, those are the opportunities that we choose to take.

I love this. I want to comment on this attention to detail. Like, when I look up on your website, which I poked around with, I had to look up what dabbing was. This is how square I am. And I got two results. It was either a dance move or what you described. And I think. I don't think this guy's a dancer, but looking at, like, this Peak Pro product and the. The case, even just the case, I look at and, like, man, somebody really spent a lot of time designing this thing and how it's laid out, and it just, you know, nestles inside this little manger, if you will. And I love it. I can definitely tell you guys are into it.

Oh, they did. And just to add to that, because the team is going to, you know, they're going to make fun of me a little bit. I pushed back on that, where I was like, this thing is way too expensive. What are you guys thinking? Like, it's just the case, but our team is obsessed. Every engagement that the user has is an opportunity to show that we gave this attention and intention, and we never want to pass up that opportunity, and we hold each other accountable to that. So even if I'm the one saying this case doesn't really matter, people aren't going to use it that much. They're saying this is the first engagement, they're going to have the product, and if they're underwhelmed, they're not going to feel like it's as special going in. So we're, you know, we don't all agree every time, but we hold each other accountable to the standards that we've set.

I like that. That's good. To Shannon's point, I was going to thank you for explaining so simply what dabbing is. I am no stranger to cannabis. I'm a musician, I'm a computer nerd. And CBD changed my life starting about five years ago. To shorten that story, I had no idea that dabbing simply meant vaporizing concentrates. That's it. It makes perfect sense.

Vaporizing CBD in one of our devices would also be considered dabbing. There are some purists that may argue that, but it's what we've all come to understand. If you're taking a concentrated form of cannabis and vaporizing it, especially if you're not doing it in a handheld, like vape pen type of device, that is called dabbing. And we believe that that is the best form of consuming cannabis. And it's typically had the stigma of the most extreme form of. Of cannabis consumption. And we just feel like that is not the case as much as it isn't the case. When you see people taking massive bong rips and engaging with flour in a way that would intimidate most users, those are just extremes. Somebody taking a pipe hit and somebody taking a big bong rip, those are the same innovations of consumption on different ends of the spectrum of being extreme in your use. And we believe that dabbing has that same spectrum. You can really get very high, potentially higher than you want to be. You can also get a more pleasant and manageable high than you can get by just smoking a joint or taking a quick bull rip. And so we try to enlighten people to that end of the spectrum, not the One that will get you higher than you've ever been, but one that fits into your life closer to coffee than alcohol, which cannabis is typically compared to.

Sure. That makes that. As someone who has a, I'll say a very delicate relationship with thc, I appreciate what you're saying here. This makes sense to me. Yeah, no, this is fascinating. You've almost commoditized what I would call open source vape pens where you get to pick what you're putting in them. But you've made it as easy to use as a vape pen for someone that wants to consume that way.

I mean, I am, since you're bringing it up, I am really against those pre filled vape pens. I mean, I know that a lot of them are sold on recreational shelves and, you know, probably just as much are sold through the legacy market, what we used to call the black market. But you don't know what's in there. And the companies that are transparent about what's in there, they're typically putting in a cannabinoid, they're putting in THC distillate, and then some of them are adding fake non cannabis derived flavoring, some are adding cannabis derived flavoring. But you're getting an echo of what this experience is. You're not getting the full spectrum. People say this as, you know, if you really want the medicinal properties of cannabis, you need all the cannabinoids. Yes, that's true. But if you want to enjoy cannabis, if you want to get the things from it that we've all become accustomed to as people that have smoked joints or bowls, we're used to getting everything from the plant. And this idea that you can just take parts of it and strip it away to me is like wanting dessert and being given a sugar packet or in a best case scenario, a soda. A soda is not a sundae. I'm chasing a real dessert. And so, yeah, we encourage users not just because we don't make any pre filled devices. We could, we could definitely capitalize by having the brand we do in that space. But we believe that people should be choosing what works for them. And when you go into a shop and you're getting concentrates, they're lab tested, you can see exactly what's in there. You can see if it has the amount of CBD you want or the amount of THC you want, whether that be on the high end or the low end, it gives you the power to choose what will work for you. On the downside, that means you have to be a little bit educated. A little bit more than going and asking your butt tender. Sativa or Indica because on the same pre filled THC distillate that has one cannabinoid, they will mark those as Sativa and Indica, but they're the same. So you have to be a little bit more of an informed user than that. And that is a challenge that we're up for, is educating users on the little bits you need to know about the plant to lead to a really optimal experience.

This is great, man. You are passionate and completely immersed in this world and it's amazing to be able to hear from you about this. I'm hoping our listeners, I know our listeners will feel the same way. I want to take a minute here and talk about our first sponsor for today and that is Custom comet@custom comet.com Custom Comet is a Portland based company that makes custom merchandise and promotional products like air fresheners, coasters, coffee sleeves, patches, pins, stickers and more. Their most popular product is their air fresheners. In fact, they sent us some of these with our logo on it. Now that was before we changed logos and so now it's time for us to order some more. What's cool is we can order those with our own shape because Custom Comet is one of the only companies that creates custom shapes for every order. Most companies only allow you to use like 10 or so stock shapes, not Custom Comet. They let you do any kind of shape you need. So we could, you know, shape it like around our new logo and really make it look like ours. And that's the idea. We can also make it smell like ours because they've got over 70 different scents and 17 different string colors. And their air fresheners use this cool three layer process. They've got this absorbent cotton core that sucks up all the fragrance and that's sandwiched between printing paper to give you that crisp, high quality art. Most custom merch companies print on a single piece of absorbent cotton and it gets all fuzzy and distorted. Not these, man, these look fantastic. They offer a number of different retail packaging options too, if you're planning to sell them. And they make a great, really unique promotional tool to give out at conventions, events, or even to existing and potential customers. What separates the folks at Custom Comet is that they have a focus there on using high quality materials and stellar customer service. We all know every business is the customer service business. Custom Comet knows this too. Custom Comet is also a company that was founded by artists and graphic designers and they're able to Provide free design help because of this talented team of designers that they have based here in the US they'll do everything to make sure your project looks great. In addition to that, go to custom comet.com, but make sure you tell them that you heard about Custom Comet here on the Small Business show, and they'll give you 5% off your first order. So go check it out. Custom Comet.com mention the Small Business show and they'll get 5% off your first order. Or thanks to Custom Comet for sponsoring this episode. All right, Roger, you mentioned earlier that you say no a lot to products. Do you happen to have a favorite one that you said no to over the years?

That's a great, great question. Yeah, I mean, like, the most recent one that I said no to was a cleaning kit, you know, and that was an easy one. So for our device, the Peak and the Peak Pro, these are dabbing devices. They're handheld, they fit in a cup holder, they don't fit in your pocket. So one of the ones that we killed was a cleaning kit. And for our Peak and Peak Pro devices, those are flagship devices that are mainly used for dabbing. Artists make a bunch of different accessories for it. We plan this into the design of the product as we know. Bongs and rigs, as they're called when they're used for dabbing. They come in many different shapes and sizes, and they really drive interest in sales in the space. So we wanted to make sure that people can put their own custom designs on our device when we're making a cleaning kit. We made it so it only fit our devices, and that is just a fraction of the market. So we killed that because it wouldn't serve the community as a whole. In fact, it would only serve the most basic of our users, not the ones going to the maker community in our space. Another one that I have killed repeatedly and there may come a day where I can no longer kill it, is an herbal vaporizer. I don't like vaping herb. I would prefer a joint, maybe a bowl. Both can be a little bit harsh, but I don't feel like I get what I need when I'm vaporizing through any herbal vaporizer I've ever had. And we believe that concentrates are the best experience anyone can have. However, most people only have access to flower, and most people will only buy flower accessories. It's remarkable that we built the success we have by only focusing on what used to be the most niche part of the industry. But that being said, our team pushes back A lot when they feel that, no, we can innovate in this space. Nobody else is doing it. Everything has been the same. It leaves me open of, I'm going to say no until you guys prove to me that I would be foolish to do so. So that may be something that comes out in the future because the team continues to push me on it. And those are just the things that come immediately to mind. What hurts the most is the products that we shouldn't have come out with. And we did. Those are the tough ones.

Do you want to name any of those or do you want me to ask you about something else?

No, please. I really enjoy talking about this because if your listeners are mostly entrepreneurs, I think this is advice I wish I had heard earlier on. So let's take it back to the Pro. The Pro came out October 2014. We get the word in April of 2015 that it had won High Times vaporizer of the Year. This was huge for us. At this point, we're a two person New York company. We're not in a state that even has medical cannabis. We're very far removed from the culture. We shouldn't have won that, but we did. And what happens when you get all of an industry's attention is it pulls out people that want to capitalize on that interest. And so we started getting copied within months, people trying to come out with stuff that looked exactly like our product. Shortly after that, we lose our supply chain and we're not able to make any more of this product without activating a new factory. And that takes a long time. And so I had to make a decision at this time. Do I want to fight really hard, use our resources to reestablish the supply chain and sell something to people that is starting to look like a white label product, like something everybody is selling and we're just one of those people, or do I want to go back to the drawing board and create something absolutely new? And so it is in my nature to chase innovation and not go for the buck. So we decided to do that at a really big expense. We were leaving all the value of this really interesting vaporizer to all the people who wanted to copy it in the space and moved on to make the Puffco plus, which at the time was the first coilless vape pen. It's really beautiful experience designed. We're still selling it today actually, you know, five years later. And it's a great selling product for us. But what happened when we did this is we had siloed the community that had Built our company. The people that loved the Pro were used to a coil type vaporizer. It's a bit of a harsher experience. It doesn't taste as good, but this community loved it. And so we made this new innovation and people were slow to adopt. They weren't as excited about was ahead of its time because we're selling more now than we sold in our first year, first two years. And so that pressure had gotten to me here. We had made a really successful, award winning product. We had made a follow up product that wasn't as successful. People were constantly saying, when are you going to come back out with the Pro? When are you going to come back out with the Pro? We really, really want this. And so instead of moving on to the next innovation that I was hoping to do, I figured, let's give the people what they want. We have a great community here. They're asking for this. It's not something I would ever use, but we can't leave them high and dry. And so we made the Puffco Pro 2. It looks similar to the plus, but it had the function of the original. A little bit smaller and more compact, a little bit more room in the chamber. Like we did our best to innovate minimally, but it wasn't something that we loved and it was successful. That product made us millions of dollars. Like it did very well. But I ended up starting to hate the business. I ended up sleeping in until noon every day. I ended up asking people that I would meet that were like, in our community, hey, which product do you use? And if they said they were using the Pro 2, I'd be like, you don't know a fucking thing about cannabis. It created this toxicity of I am making something for people that I don't share a perception with. How they see cannabis is different than how I see cannabis. I'm a purist. I want the best experience possible. And you're asking me to not do that just for the sake of you having something like what you originally loved. It didn't just make me hate the product. It made me not like Puffco as a business. To the point where there were employees that were probably ready to quit. There were friends in my personal life that were like, man, you're a dick. You're not the same as you were just a year ago. It completely eroded the fulfillment that this project Puffco and this business was able to give me. And that's because I wasn't doing it for the reasons that I started the company. I was doing it just to Stay alive. And if you ask me, that is the worst reason to run a business. Some of us have to, right?

Yes. Oh, absolutely. Sometimes you have to. But what you said there was, fine, let's do it. Let's give the people what they want. But it's not something I would ever use. Those are the things I know for me that I wish I could go back and listen to myself in the moment and know, don't do it. But sometimes you have to learn that lesson as a human and as an entrepreneur.

So I'm very grateful for that lesson because I had such a distaste after that product that when my team was like, well, what comes next? I said, let's do the peak. Like, this has been an idea now for a couple years. Internally, it's a really big effort. It's very far away from what we're used to doing. We're a vape pen company. We're not really used to making shapes and other designs. And starting from the ground up, we've been very lucky to at least have some of our parts be existing market options. Sure. But it gave me that stomach to say, I don't care if this next project kills the company. I'd rather have a dead company that tried to do something great than a company that is alive doing things that I have no interest in whatsoever. So it was a great motivator. It pushed me to do what served my original reason for creating this company. Although I wish I didn't have to have such a depressing period of my life to get that lesson.

But it happens. It's how it goes. Yeah. Yeah. So, all right, let's talk about something a little more interesting. Well, this is all very interesting. A little more positive, I should say. You mentioned your community as, you know, you are a member of it, but your community is far and wide and vocal and making accessories for your products. Tell us a little bit about how you've embraced that with the Puffco glass open.

Yeah. So this was actually a thought before we even announced or released the product. We saw two things as being really important to be successful in the space. One of them is the experience of vaporizing. Needs to be world class. This has to be something better than not just every current vaporizer on the market, but almost as good as the analog way people are doing things. At the time, a lot of people were torching bowls and putting a timer so they would know when it was cool enough to use. Really, really intimidating. Not something that people were very into.

Sounds unsafe. Potentially.

I have tattoos that's purpose was to cover up burn marks. There you go. From back then. It was not an elegant process, but the other important thing was glass. I'm a massive fan of. You know, there's many different names for it, pipe making space. Many call it functional art. There are beautiful pieces made by artists that have been on the torch for 10, 20 plus years. Some of these pieces are going for $100,000 plus bongs that are going $100,000 plus. If you're curious what I'm talking about, anybody can Google mothership glass. This is a company that is still around today, and they have made pieces that were, I mean, hundreds of hours of work that cost well over six figures. There have been pieces that have been displayed at Art Basel. It is the most innovative community in cannabis. When we talk about torching these bowls, right? That whole concept came from glassblowers that were looking for ways to vaporize hash that just didn't exist. And so they made these shapes. And what we knew we were going to do is we're going to come into this place, into the. Into this space rather, and we are going to innovate and disrupt. Our intention isn't to disrupt because we're fans of the industry and the community that we're disrupting. And so the only way to do this in a way that we will be able to sleep at night is by making sure there is an opportunity for the creators in the space to create on our platform and not see it as something that is going to get in there, disrupt their business and take the value of the space away from them, but in fact, give them a new channel for creating products and expressing their creativity through. And so the glass open was something that we wanted to do from the jump. We were just gonna wait for enough people to have it, enough people to understand the innovation, and then put out a really big prize. I forgot what the first one was. It was, at the time, felt like a lot of money for us. I think the first prize was 5,000 bucks or maybe 10,000 bucks. That's a lot of money.

It's a lot of money. No matter how much money you have. That's a lot of money. Yeah.

For making a glass piece. And our goal was we don't want the artists that do this to be the artists that are selling pieces for a few hundred bucks. It's great to have them as well, but we really want to incentivize the best makers in the space to take a crack at this. And so the glass open was our way of bridging our vision to the people who would benefit from it. And we did two of them. We have one coming at the end of the year. It is one of the funnest campaigns we do, and we typically lose money on those. We're not really doing it for any reason except for to keep creativity and innovation bubbling in the space.

So cool. That's amazing. The fact that this was like, to your point earlier, attention and intention. This is an extension of that, where you thought about this ahead of time before the product came out. I think it's great. That looks great.

So, you know, Roger, it's very clear that you're really a champion behind, you know, Puffco and, and this space. As you built this team and started to expand, how did you. Or if you could just speak to the. The experience of bringing people on that also had that same passion because, you know, you're looking for designers and logistics people and this and that. And did you find that that was difficult or did it just attract a certain type of people?

Definitely difficult. The hardest part of a job, of the job. Somebody told me a long time ago that a CEO has three jobs. It is vision, money, and people got to have vision, got to keep enough money in the bank account, got to get the right people in the company. The first two have been pretty easy. For me, people is by far the hard. Excuse me, the hardest part of the journey. And I think I'm just getting okay at it now, honestly, like our head of product development who started as a lead engineer, Avi, you know, in his interview, I, about two minutes in were like, hey man, listen, I'm really just doing this based on vibes. So, like, I'm good to go. Why don't you ask me any questions you have? And it was very off putting to him. The person who connected me with him, who's a consultant that we hired. As soon as I got on the phone with him, I was like, I have no questions for you. Ask me whatever you want to know. But I am ready to get to work because in my mind, I could do all the vetting I can beforehand, but I'm not going to know the true value of this relationship until we're in and building together. And at that point, I didn't realize that, you know, my asking questions was just another form of selling them on the company and showing them what I value. But I continue to chase a vibe. I care that we are looking at the world through the same lens, that we both have the same value system. At Puffco, we Want to make sure that all of our opportunities feel safe and have the opportunity to be fulfilled. That is just what we value. And I want to bring in like minded people. Some mistakes that I made early on, especially when I had imposter syndrome, is bringing in people that would act like they have all the answers and potentially make me feel bad about not having all the answers. And that fed my imposter syndrome and big shit. I don't believe in myself. You don't either. Great. You must know a thing or two.

That's it. That's a good way of dealing with it. Yeah, for sure.

I mean it's, it's when you want help and you don't believe in yourself. People that seem to know a bunch but also don't believe in you are weirdly attractive. Or maybe they did believe in me and I just didn't feel that. So for me, I care that we are vibing. I care that when we're talking we're losing. We're not looking at the clock, we're not measuring anything except for how excited we are to align our perspectives, literally vibe chasing. And that is not anything that I think would help anyone out there. They're all qualified, but there's a lot of qualified people out there that will come in and erode your company culture. Oh, absolutely bad about yourself. So for me, the one KPI that I care about most is how do you make me feel if I feel good about talking to you? Do I inspire you? Do you inspire me? We're looking at the world through the same lens and if not, it's going to be typically hard to advance them in Puffco. And we feel like if you're noticing that in the interview and you're thinking, well, I can build them up, you can give people information, but you can't change the way people feel about this world. And you really have to bring them in already aligned with you. Educating them about cannabis, educating them about company culture, that's all easy. But if they're looking through the same lens that you are.

No, that's. I think that advice will help a lot of people here. To the contrary, I think it's really going to be helpful to folks because that's like you said, the wrong person, bringing the wrong person in can kill your company. And I've certainly been in that scenario and watched things going in the wrong direction and had to, you know, unravel a lot of stuff. And I think, Shannon, you've been there too, so.

Oh yeah, you can't teach personality. You can't teach. I think, Roger, what, you know, you refer to as their vibe, you can teach them if they're. If they're somewhat, you know, intelligent. You can teach people to do just about anything. But that how you are when you work with them each day and being aligned with what they believe in, that's tough.

I mean, the way. The way we make each other feel is probably one of the most important things in this lifetime that we're given. And I recommend everybody look at that when they're measuring these relationships that, you know, people that they're trying to bring in, people that they're trying to use to bring themselves up. Up. That is one of the most important feelings, I think, about our first major operations hire. And, you know, I was very nervous about this guy. And he had worked for Beats and Toshiba and like, really massive organizations. And we're just like this small little vaporizer company. And I remember, like, he called the meeting about company culture, and all of us were so scared, like, this guy's gonna come in and tell us we're just a bunch of kids that don't know what we're doing and we need to act like adults. And instead he sat us down and had us say what we love about the culture. And he was like, great, we are never going to stop being this. And we're all, like, looking at each other like, wait, what? We're so young and disorganized and don't know what we're doing and, like, trying to figure this out. You're telling us to be more of what we are. And he helped us identify that we're curious and we're passionate and we don't turn to anything except for our shared perception on what is ethical and right and worth time. And he built us up this opportunity where we felt like the adult in the room was going to make us feel like even smaller kids. They lifted us up. And that feeling, that person is no longer with Puff anymore. And for the rest of my life, I will be grateful for how he helped us become us. And if you're getting anything less than that from the people around you, it is going to cost you. You are giving up your future to invest in relationships that don't serve you. So great advice.

No, that's good advice. Assembling people around you that build you up. I mean, as a leader, that's how you want to make all your hiring decisions, right? I mean, that's how you want to make all your life decisions, really. But certainly at your company, your Hiring decisions. If you can find people that you know are going to build you up and you know, without being yes men, to use a term, that's a great thing. Yeah, for sure, sure.

Thank you.

Awesome. Roger, thank you so much for taking the time with us sharing, sharing all of this information, all your stories. Is there anything that we haven't asked you about that you want to share with our audience? And if not, tell everybody how to find you, please.

Yeah, now that I think about it, yeah, there is something I would like to share. I'm assuming that there's a lot of entrepreneurs listening to this and that many, if not all of you are capitalists. We have a lot of people in this world that are here to make a buck. There's no shortage of them. If you are investing your time and your life in your business, let it be one that you're extremely passionate about. See it as a canvas for your own self expression. If it's not that, if you're just there to turn a buck, it is not going to make you feel great. And that is a projection. It doesn't make me feel great to chase a dollar. It makes me feel great to chase, chase an experience. So please be the entrepreneur that is choosing to chase an experience that values humans over profits. There's not enough of that in this world and we see more people like that popping up every day, but we need a lot more of them. So please be an entrepreneur that changes the world and lives for the better. If I can leave you with anything, it would be that. And if you're going to consume cannabis, why not go to puffco.com and choose one of our awesome devices?

That's great.

Well said on both counts, my friend. Again, thank you so much for joining us. Roger Volodyrsky, CEO and founder of PuffCo. So great to have you on the show. Thanks again, my friend.

Yeah, thank you.

Thank you so much.

That was pretty cool. You know, I know nothing about that. I'm not a can of canvas, user, cbd, that kind of thing, but I, I, you know, I happy to support a successful business person and I love his take on things and I really respect their, their framing of the product. It's super professional. The design aesthetic is, is just beautiful and I love, you know, learning more about it.

Yeah, that, that, that was the thing that sort of sparked my interest. I, I ran into them virtually over the last year at one of those pepcom. I think it was a pepcom event. These are these things that used to be in person and probably will Be again where you know it's, it's speed dating with the press if you will.

I see.

And, and they were at one of these tech focused events because a lot of their devices are Bluetooth, you know, controllable or configurable or things like that. And so I, I dug in to that because Apple has really pushed away, they pushed all the apps for vaping out of their store which I don't, I disagree with personally I think it's ridiculous.

I would disagree with that too.

I mean these things allow, one of the features of these things, these apps is they allow you to lock your devices sometimes. I don't know if you can do that with Puffco devices. I think you can but. Yeah but it's like, like and others to his point where you know he was saying that he doesn't believe in the, the, he has strong feelings against the pre filled vape cartridges. Well some of those apps would let you see what was in those cartridges. Right. Like confirming and so I don't agree with Apple's decision and that's sort of. But, but the fact that Apple made this is what made me sort of dig into that and be like oh I should learn more about what they're doing. And they found some ways around this so you can use it with your iPhone which is really smart. But that's what, that's what led me to them. And then as soon as like you, as soon as I saw the, the, the elegance and beauty of their design and presentation it was like wait, who are these? Like this isn't just some back, backwoods company, right?

Correct. Distinguishing themselves again I know nothing about this market but you know go to the show notes and you can find the links and let us know what you think. Love to hear your thoughts on Puffco the interview their product line feedbackusinessshow Co. Reach out and talk to us.

Yeah, yeah we'd love to hear from you and we'll pass your feedback along to Roger and the team over there for sure. Make sure you check out custom comment of course so, so that you can and mention small business show for 5% off and hey, keep living that charmed life, will you?