Hemp's New Horizon: Innovation and Sustainability with Ryan McKeever

In this episode of the Conscious Design podcast, host Ian Peterman interviews filmmaker, hemp farmer, and entrepreneur Ryan McKeever. McKeever recounts his entry into the hemp world in 2014 as a TV reporter covering Charlotte’s Web, his transition to hands‑on CBD farming in 2018, and the rapid boom‑then‑crash of the 2019 CBD biomass market that saw prices plunge from $25 lb⁻¹ to $0.85 lb⁻¹. He describes how he used his storytelling background to document the industry, create a proprietary hemp genetics line, and connect farmers with extractors, which helped launch the first wave of Delta‑8 products. The conversation then shifts to the post‑COVID reset and the emergence of industrial hemp verticals such as hempcrete, fiber, animal bedding, and minor cannabinoids. McKeever identifies a core “trust deficit” – the absence of standardized certification, commodity exchanges, and reliable escrow mechanisms – that deters investors. He highlights Trusted Harvest Exchange, a nascent platform aiming to provide a certified supply‑chain, escrowed payments, and carbon‑credit accounting to restore confidence. The discussion also covers carbon sequestration as a secondary revenue stream for growers, the role of government grants and military contracts in de‑risking development, and practical advice for newcomers: balance passion for the plant with solid business strategy, understand the evolving regulatory landscape, and leverage emerging verticals. The episode ends with McKeever sharing contact points for his CBD, mushroom, and minor‑cannabinoid ventures and encouraging listeners to explore the growing hemp ecosystem.
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Hello and welcome to this episode of Conscious Design. I'm your host, Ian Peterman, and author of the Conscious Design book. And today we have Ryan McKeever on our show. He's TV commercial and corporate director, entrepreneur, hemp farmer, now developer, and the last few years been really focused in the hemp industry. Welcome to the show.
Ian, thanks so much. It's good to be here. I've enjoyed our conversations over the last couple months and congratulations on everything you have going on. So it's very exciting. So thanks, thanks for having me.
Absolutely. You've done a lot, but if we're to shrink down our focus a little bit, you got into the hemp industry back when it was just CBD. You know, you're getting into industrial hemp and things like that. What got you into it first? How'd you start getting interested into this? How have you seen things shift?
Quite a shift it has been. I first got into the hemp industry, CBD industry, back in 2014. I was hired by a cable channel to interview one of the Stanley brothers for one of their programs regarding CBD. Back then, that was, you know, an unheard of term. And no one knew what it was. So that was, you know, I was dispatched to produce a TV segment about CBD and this company called Charlotte's Web. So fast forward to 2018, we jumped into the hemp game, my wife and I, on her 10-acre farm. The farm was basically being used for a rental farm and the 10 acres, about 9 acres of it was just a pasture land for horses, just a few horses. So 2018 was a big year for CBD biomass. You know, biomass is the, the buds, so to speak, of, of the hemp flower, like the cannabis flower. THC, the marijuana world, you know, that's what you would smoke is the biomass. The CBD hemp world, it's what you extract CBD from and roughly makes up, you know, 40% of the entire oil that's extracted from the plant. Could be up to 40% of it could be CBD. CBD. I believed in CBD after the interview with Joel Stanley and hearing about the efficacy of his product when it came to treating a youth who had epilepsy. And I believe it was epilepsy. And so, you know, just hearing from the actual mother, you know, sitting in front of me, like I was the guy that did the interview, like here she is telling me how her child went from 200 seizures a month to less than a handful. And, you know, you go from a quality of living to quality of life that's like borderline, you know, miserable to then actually having a quality of life that's a meaningful and productive life, you know, not one that's hampered by pain and uncertainty. So that's why my wife and I did this, was we had the farm, I had the ability to bring people together because of my storytelling career. I've been a director for 23 years and have owned the company that does all the commercials and TV projects and corporate projects. So I've owned all the equipment and basically we just turned the equipment on us to tell our story of becoming CBD hemp farmers to try and create medicine that was to help people. That was 2018. I involved, gosh, nearly a dozen different people to be a part of the journey. So I would basically film them and their story, whether it was a small-time farmer who's been doing it for a few years or the largest CBD hemp farmer in the county that had a £1 million hemp deal with a foreign country. So I involved all these people in our storytelling. And turn the cameras on them. And you know selfishly, like for me, it was I get to learn from these people who have been doing it already, and I get to learn how not to fail as a hemp farmer. And so that's what we did was I took the camera crews and myself and became kind of like the host of this docuseries show. Learned how they did their operation, applied the knowledge to what we were doing with our operation, which first was making genetics. We made our own genetic line. We crossed. 2 different hemp strains together to make our strain that we use in our field. That was an entire journey of itself, was creating genetics, right? Sexing the plants. And basically we started with 4 hemp plants, grew to like 60, took a number of those and converted those into males. You can literally sex the plant by, you know, there's a whole process to do that. But, you know, then we ended up having We built a greenhouse, had a huge crop of female plants that we crossed with the male plants to pollinate 'em and create our own genetic line. That whole thing went up and didn't go up in flames. I wish it would have, but it went up in mites. Let's just say we had a mite infestation that, of course, it's all on camera and they're crawling all over me while all this is happening. So the stories are really interesting and compelling. And then of course we followed patients of the CBD medicine that we were creating. So we, everything from the genetic line all the way to the end user, which was a patient, right? We really wanted to see someone and their results from CBD. We interviewed a number of people, followed a number of stories, and just met some incredible people who have had their lives changed by CBD. That was 2018, 2019. The fall of 2019, things started to get a little dicey with the pricing. So 2018 was a great year for CBD farmers. You're looking at $25 a pound, right? And so when a farmer is used to making 7 cents a pound for corn and you hear about a, a new crop that you can put in your rotation, that's $25 a pound, not 7 cents. Like, So there was a huge boom of farmers creating this, you know, surplus of CBD biomass in our country because of course any farmer would want to do that, right? I mean, you've been slaving away for 7 cents a pound. You got this opportunity. I'm doing it. What happened was 2019, it all came to a big crashing halt. The fall of 2019, after the harvest came in, we were a part of that harvest. Prices went from $25 a pound to 85 cents a pound in 3 months. And when you have a 90% market collapse in 3 months, like that is devastating. So all of these farmers were left high and dry with biomass in the fields, contracts that were worth nothing, right? So it was a big mess, but for me it was a great opportunity to tell some of these stories. So I continued the storytelling through the chaos and the craziness, right? And that led me to speaking at conventions across the country, speaking about the storytelling, right? And that's what it really started with, the passion for the medicine. You know, we're not necessarily replacing a pharmaceutical, but, you know, providing something for people that would then be an alternative to a pharmaceutical option, right? So it's using healthy natural medicine as opposed to a synthetic medicine that's made in a lab, you know, for monetary purposes. That's really our why, you know, 2019, the whole collapse kind of get back on track with that. Basically all of that collapsed, right? The market went to 90% collapse and all of these people had their biomass in the field And so using kind of the methodology that I did to create the entire docuseries, I was like, you know what? I know some extractors. I know some processors. I know some science guys that are working with stuff in the lab. Like, let me see if I can work some stuff here and bring some of these people together so they're not literally losing the farm. Right. I mean, you know, this one deal was worth many, many billions of dollars, you know, with this foreign country. And so I was trying to help these people out. So. Ended up connecting some extraction labs, some sciencey outfits with some of these farmers that were really in bad shape. Yeah, that was 2019. That became the first wave of Delta-8 across the country. So 2019, this guy had a million pounds of biomass, this farmer. And, you know, through the connections that I was able to make with him, They would've been done eventually, but I kind of, you know, I was proud to have helped them to not lose the farm, so to speak. But, you know, they sold 275,000 pounds for Delta-8 extraction. That became the first wave of Delta-8 products across our country, 2019. You know, of course it was, people were dabbling with it in other market, in, you know, like smaller markets, but the big wave came in 2019 and that was part of the collapse was people people ended up selling their biomass for Delta-8 extraction. So 2020, of course, everything shut down. Hemp goes to like zero. It's kind of like reset time. All the guys that have been working on all the other things like the polymers, the hempcrete, you know, the hemp bedding, the fiber, the textiles, all that was kind of being worked on in the background, the hempwood and the wool, all that stuff. So that didn't really have any noise back then, 2020.
Yeah.
Kind of reset the entire hemp marketplace, basically. And that's when you saw some of these guys like Cam McIntosh with AmeriShave, like, come on board, and Matty Mead with, you know, his company Hempitecture, I think. And, you know, there's also Hempwood down in Kentucky. So there, you know, there's a lot of these companies that had been working in the background to try and, like, get a foothold into a marketplace, a building marketplace, so to speak. For the construction industry. And so that's kind of where it's evolved to. A lot of these verticals are starting to develop. You're getting especially Cam McIntosh with Amerishav. He's, he is the guy that's getting the IRC codes passed for hempcrete to be used as an insulative material in, in the building and construction world. Eventually it will become load-bearing structure. I just don't think they have the testing or the, the The consistency of genetics to create that just quite yet. So that's kind of where it's at now. It's being worked on. As you know, as far as the journey goes for our storytelling, we stopped filming after about 2020, kind of midway through '21. I had been filming at that point for 3 and a half years, but I've stayed in the industry. You know, the connections I've made through the docuseries, the passion that I have for this plant, really has just continuously evolved. It, it started off with CBD, moved into hempcrete, which was kind of the next big buzz thing after 2019. Then I moved into some of my friends were doing the animal bedding in Florida and then came along this hempflavin I didn't know anything about, which was amazing and interesting. And, you know, all these different things that have evolved and, you know, plastics and resin and all these, of course, as you know, you know, some of that material. And so it's exciting to see all this happen. And Jean Lotus, who's kind of the hempcrete queen of the industry, she's come out with the Hemp Builders Association, or the, yeah, the Guide to Hemp Building and Hemp Building Association Rolodex, so to speak, of all the people that are, that have hemp businesses that are in the building industry. You know, there's a lot of people that are kind of rising to the top. Of course, you know, I wouldn't be remiss not to mention a good friend, Morris Beagle, who is the owner of NoCo. You know, that convention's coming up in Estes Park here in April, the 10th to the 13th, I believe is when that is. So that's a great kind of regathering of the hemp industry throughout the year, and especially going from the cannabinoids to now the industrial hemp. It's a very interesting journey to be on and just be a part of. So that's kind of the journey, so to speak, where we're at now.
Yeah, definitely with you. I've seen the shift over and as you know, I have a hemp material, right? Industrial.
Yeah.
That is really, I really see a lot there. You know, it's from what you've seen, we kind of, I feel like it was a dot-com bubble a little bit, right? CBD just came, blew up. Some people made it out, some people didn't. And now we're re—
Right.
With the industrial side. side of things, right? Where it doesn't feel like it's bubbling, it doesn't feel like it's spiking quite as quickly. There's a lot of, I would say, smart hesitation in jumping in. Not that there isn't money and people, you know, people are getting investments, people are putting money into it, but it's not as crazy as it was. So I'm curious how you've seen that shift happen as well and what you're seeing in terms of how are investors approaching this, how are companies approaching industrial hemp as opposed to what they did with CBD and kind of everybody just went crazy really quick?
Yeah, well, I'll say this, like there's a lot of people that have been burned and feel burned. And so really what it comes down to is there is a, huge trust deficit in the hemp industry. Like after 2019 and then the COVID I mean, everybody just kind of, you know, closed the door, the whole hemp thing. Like it basically set us back so far. We had so much momentum with CBD and then the rug just got taken right out from under us.
Right.
So the big problem is there isn't like an established certifying body or a certifying authority that represents quality standard in the industry. You know, like other industries have that type of thing. They have a, you know, certification that goes with something that, you know, is a standardized commodity that means something. And, you know, to kind of go down that road a little bit, like at this point hemp is barely recognized as even an agricultural product. And when you think about, corn or soybeans or something along those lines that is a traded commodity, agricultural commodity. And literally a farmer can take their product down to the local co-op and get market value for that. It's traded on a market exchange. There isn't anything that exists like that for hemp. So really there's a huge problem at the very beginning of the business, like chain, right? It's not that investors are leery, it's that investors are looking for stability. They want to see a market that's stable, that is backed by an entire supply chain of credibility and stability. And so that's, I think what investors are waiting for is something like that to happen. And there's things out in the marketplace that are being developed to satisfy that need. I think that investors are looking for one of these things I've come across through my storytelling is a company called Trusted Harvest Exchange. And a company like Trusted Harvest or one that is very similar in ways that can bring that trust deficit back to the marketplace and kind of remove that deficit and bring a surplus to trust. And so what companies like Trusted Harvest does is basically that was created by an attorney who in 2019 was inundated with hemp farmers who had failed contracts. And so they were seeking, you know, monetary justice, I guess, for the contracts that they had signed in good faith with buyers. And because these contracts are worth absolutely nothing, and it became just as good as like a hand, you know, as good as a handshake, right? You're doing the old boy farm ag thing where you're selling your product On your honor, and they're buying it on their honor saying that they're going to do that. So really, we have to implement a standardized commodities exchange in the hemp industry, one that covers the entire supply chain from genetics all the way through processing, manufacturing, and products. And it covers everything from cannabinoids to all the different verticals of industrial hemp. There's— we just did a research the other day, and we found like 31 active verticals inside industrial hemp right now. I've been talking with the guys at Trusted Harvest, and they're making sure that each one of those verticals is addressed when basically this exchange that they're creating comes online. Anyone from a farmer all the way to an end-use person can have the confidence knowing that, you know, all the genetics are They're using the right genetics, which, which represent quality, a quality standard. You know, if you're using, you know, just as a basic, like fundamental thing to show the diff— difference of how hemp strains can be, you've got the cannabinoid hemp over here, right? Which is shaped more like a Christmas tree. That's where your CBD comes from. And then you have your industrial hemp over here on this side that is literally like a 20-foot-tall corn stalk, you know, straight up and down like a big broomstick. And so everywhere in between, right, there's genetics everywhere in between. And so you have to make sure that you have the genetic for that product, especially when it comes to like building materials. I mean, if they're— if whoever Joe Smith is using the wrong genetic in his hempcrete material, that could have a significant impact down the road as far as unforeseen things that could happen. So there's a lot of variables there that need to get ironed out and a company like Trusted Harvest, what they're trying to do is provide that trust so that the market could continue and investors come back to the table, you know, with a thirsty appetite.
Hey, it's Ian here. So glad you're enjoying this episode of Conscious Design. If you want the full scoop on conscious design, what it is, how we do it, how you can do it, then check out our book. We wrote it so creative entrepreneurs like you can code social and environmental responsibility right into your brand's DNA. You can download the first chapter for free. Link is in the description. Enjoy the rest of the episode. Don't forget to like, subscribe, and share. So they're right. They're an independent company creating this market. Is the gap, I guess, is the gap there because the current commodities market just won't touch it? Like they just won't, they won't back it. Is it like, is this something that Regulatory is a component of this hampering this? Because I feel like there's, I feel like there's multiple angles, right? So I'm just kind of curious what's, you know, if they got up and running, is there anything else that needs to happen or is it kind of building trust, right? Is this enough, do you think, trust-wise? Let's say Trusted Harvest up and running tomorrow. Does that build in enough trust by itself or is there more layers we got to add before, you know, I'll say I'm an investor and I go, yes, I trust that the commodities is there.
So that's kind of out of my realm. I haven't quite gone into like, you know, okay, how can I bring all this together? Right? Because trying to bring all these different pieces together, I'm sure it's doable in a very thought-out way. Like that could happen probably, I would say in the next year. So it's really trying to tie into government programs that are looking for kind of like what we were talking about originally, which is the sustainability piece. I think it would start with partnering with the government or the state individually for a development or some sort of you know, low-income housing that would create a buzz that would then generate momentum. 'Cause really that's what it comes down to is like, you know, we have like, we're throwing spitballs at the wall right now, but no one's paying attention, you know? And so politicians can do their thing, but if no one like in the public or the building sector or, you know, all these different sectors that could benefit from, you know, industrial hemp, if they're not paying attention, You know, it's just a bunch of individuals educating people on their own knowledge rather than like a standardized something that people can get behind. You know, I could really go down that road. There's, there's quite a few companies that are, that do represent standardization in high-risk marketplaces, right? And especially commodities trading. And so I know that Trusted Harvest is seeking guidance from these companies who have been in existence for over 100 years, you know, who already have over a trillion dollars of assets out in the marketplace that their standard represents. So these guys are doing it right. They're not being hasty about coming to the market. They want to come to the market in the right way so that way the need is filled and, you know, there's no questions about what they're, you know, the platform satisfies in the marketplace. So, so I'm excited to see where it goes.
Yeah.
And then, you know, that brings up a whole nother thing. So once this exchange comes online, You know, the farmers can be assured of their payments, right? Everything is going to be in escrow. So, you know, there's going to be a payment verification. So the farmer knows he's going to get paid. The end-use processor knows what genetic is being used because they purchased the genetics from a certified seed or genetic company that has that certification that represents the entire supply chain. And so it's just going to be a very interesting platform that comes out. And what's really fascinating about the whole thing is You know, throughout this journey with the hemp industry and learning about the plant, a new, I guess, vertical has come about, a new sustainability idea has materialized, and that is the one of carbon sequestration and carbon, you know, offsetting a carbon footprint, you know, specifically for large corporations who use enormous amounts of energy. And so for the Trusted Harvest guys, like they have, they are starting to build in a secondary income stream For the farmer, because that's really what all this started was farmers got screwed in 2019 because of failed contracts. So how can we help the farmer out even more? We can give them a secondary income stream whereby the hemp that they're growing will then be able to be logged very specifically as far as how much carbon that particular hemp crop has sequestered from the earth. So then through this platform gets converted into a carbon credit that then can be openly traded onto a carbon exchange. So all this is being done in the background to try and bring some stability and trust back to the marketplace for, you know, establish a marketplace that's going to be here for 100 years, right? So that's the idea that these guys have.
Right. Well, I love that idea. We, with Odin, we had that idea of, right, this, Carbon sequestration. It works fantastic. It also, it also is really great at rebuilding the soil as a fence crop, so to speak. Yeah. So that was one of the, one of the things we looked at and, you know, we're, we're, we're in building materials, industrial fibers basically, but being able to attach it and go, hey, yeah, you're buying this. And by the way, it's—
Right.
There's carbon credit. With it. And so we were—
Exactly.
Your end customer, we're not going to use too much in producing it. Like, we're not— we don't need the carbon credit really with what we're doing. But, you know, if we're making, let's say, pallets for somebody, they probably are. They're probably using a lot of equipment and energy to do what they're doing. And so being able to add value to that and go, yeah, this also, you know, you're going to buy this, here's the price. There's also a carbon credit attached to it, and this is how much you can get from it. Really upping, increasing the value chain in that way so that everybody gets a little bit more value out of it, which I think is important and also a good product, right? It's good. It's a good fiber to eat.
Definitely. And I think that kind of is what that Trusted Harvest represents is basically that secure. So it's all of those things, you know, it's, To kind of bring back that trust deficit. It is the secured contract platform, just like what you would see on PayPal or eBay or whatever. It's all digital. It's done with 3 clicks. The purchaser and buyer are assured of their payment because it's verified in escrow. And then the farmer has the ability and the opportunity to sequester, you know, log the sequestered carbon data and sell that on the open market. And then the whole thing is under the certified Supply chain. It really solves all the issues that we've been identifying over the last many years in the hemp industry. And I'm pretty sure I'm speaking at NOCO. I'm supposed to be speaking at NOCO, so I, I need to talk to Morris to make sure that's gonna happen. But it probably will be a lot of what we're talking about here, basically talking about the supply chain, this, the trust deficit, and kind of where we're at in the marketplace. So come to NOCO and check it out, everybody. I'm sure there'll be a recording of it.
So yeah. Yeah. Well, and I think what I'm also interested in seeing is, right, where the hemp industry had to kind of reset. And now there's also this opportunity to create transparency from the ground up, which is something that other industries, like we're trying to make other supply chains transparent because they haven't been. For 100 years, right? Or ever. Never been transparent.
Yeah, exactly.
So I'm really curious to see this develop and see how, right, success here is something that as it's successful, we are really curious to see how it influences other supply chains and then pairs with that so that this maybe can become that template, Right? Of here's how you build in commodities exchange transparency and layering. Like, I really, I really like this idea of layering value, right? A core value, but then here's a carbon credit and there's, you know, I'm sure we can think of a billion other things to layer into there, but all just added to this transparency of this is what it actually does and this is how you could see, you know, the genetics, right? Of knowing Oh, we got this seed, this genetic, we grew it, we processed it, right? It's, it's a very clean, very clear path that we're missing in other places. So I'm excited to see where that goes. Yeah.
And that's kind of the idea behind, you know, staying in the, in the industry is once we do end up selling the docuseries, which has 2 seasons, You know, still needs, still needs a lot of work and some villain stuff. But once that does sell, we hope to just pick right back up with the cameras. Because right now I'm, I'm in the industry as kind of the, an industry expert connector of people and, you know, a presenter on stage, uh, someone who is an educator and informer and, you know, tries to move the industry forward. So I'd love to bring the cameras back involved, but it's a huge expense and, you know, I don't quite have the bandwidth to do all these other projects that I'm doing and hire my film crew to travel around the country with me yet. So we're getting there. We're, we're really trying to, to make that happen.
Also, I think there's a lot of change happening and it's great to see that Trusted Harvest is out there working to try to build, build that trust. I think it's, like you said, is important. We need to rebuild that as a market. Before, I mean, there's still investors investing in it, but they are not as gung-ho as they used to be in the space. So building that up step by step, and I think as difficult as a reset is, I think taking advantage of that, of a reset and setting out and really planning how do we want the market to be, how do we want it to be guided, how do we want transparency built in? It is a bit of a unique opportunity.
Yeah.
That I think if we, if everybody involved takes advantage of it well, we'll end up with a stronger and better market than what we had before and avoid potentially even some of the, these, this bubble behavior, right? Because that, it happens, bubbles in markets. So if we can see it, stop it, control it, right? That keeps us from, you know, in 10 years having another bubble that wrecks it again. And that would be, we want to avoid that. We want this, as you said, we want this market.
Yeah, exactly. I mean, a way that might happen. So Cameron McIntosh over at Amerishop there, he and his team were just awarded, I think it was $1.8 million to develop something through the military. So I think it had something to do with maybe vests or something. I'm not quite sure, but I haven't really followed up on that since I kind of briefed over the news. It may have been less than 2 weeks ago. So the grants are out there for particular types of things. I know there's going to be some housing money available if it's not already available. I haven't looked into it recently. That could be a way to go is like through the government instead, you know, 'cause then you get a foothold in the government. Let's say they make like, I mean, this is if you can't find the funding, right? Of course, ideally you would keep it private sector and, and go fund, you know, get some funding. But if you can't, you know, or if a person can't who is looking to develop a unique product in the hemp space, I mean, as we've all heard, there's 27,000 uses for hemp right now. There's about 30 verticals. There's a lot of room to innovate there. And so if a person wants to do that, you know, that could potentially be available through like a government grant or something like that. So, because I know the money's out there, Cameron just got almost $2 million.
It's out there. It's, you got to find it. That's the work part, but it is there.
Yeah.
Well, and before we wrap up, and I really enjoyed this conversation, what else would you put out there for really for companies? You know, industrial hemp is growing. So for, you have any last thoughts and anything you would add to share with companies jumping into industrial hemp? What should they think about and be aware of jumping in?
Well, the big thing is to try and convince someone that it's okay to do, right? So that's the deficit that we're trying to overcome. I would say that I just had a really good thought, but basically for someone that's trying to come into the market as far as an investor, there's opportunity there that it's a high-risk market, right? It's just like any high-risk market. The reward could be Magnificent. Not only could you financially gain significantly from something that takes off, but you're also in a position to help others, right? That's the big thing of the whole hemp industry is for me, it started with helping others and, oh, I know what I was going to say. So really what it comes down to for investors is to understand the industry has changed drastically since 2017 Farm Bill, right? 2017, you had people running around Capitol Hill wearing capes made out of hemp and they're running around like Super Hemp Man and stuff and looking like they're straight out of the Grateful Dead concert. And I love those people, like they're my people, but like to represent an industry on Capitol Hill You gotta like, you have to play the game, right? You gotta, you gotta play the game. And so I feel like kind of that the early days of the hempsters that were out there that were more or less like the hippie transitioners to the cannabinoid marketplace in the early hemp days, 2017 to 2020-ish, I feel like those have been replaced by business people. Not saying they're gone, right? You know, those People who were starting kind of the OGs in the new hemp revolution in 2017, like they're still around, but it's not all about the cannabinoid market anymore, right? There's other things that are out that have been replaced by business people who know how to get products into big verticals like the lumber industry, the textile industry, wood industry. So there's a lot of the animal bedding industry, the feed industry, the grain industry, like there's a lot of verticals that are emerging that are, you know, from real-world business experienced people. And so those, as some of these start popping off and you start hearing about them in national news organizations, not just the hemp world, you know, 'cause that's a vacuum where we're all in this vacuum cheering each other on. But once one of these stories pops outta that bubble and gets picked up by, you know, a major podcaster or, you know, Joe Rogan or, Whoever it is, Tucker Carlson or Lex Fridman or Lex, whatever his name is, whoever it is, like once the sphere is broken, then, you know, you're going to see a momentum that is going to come back to the industry like we experienced in the early days once the Farm Bill passed. So that's kind of what I would tell someone looking at it is the hippies have been kind of, I guess, not replaced, but it's kind of transitioned to more of the business acumen people. So, but they both have the same heart, right? They both want to help. It's not like they're— one is better than the other. It's they both come at it from a passion, right? Most of the people that I know in the hemp industry, it starts with the plant, you know, whereas everything else, it starts with making money, right? Let's— how can I make money on this? But with hemp, like the majority of people I've met, it starts with the plant. So that's kind of cool. You know, I really like that about the industry. It's, we're all kind of into it for the same reason and we know how beneficial the plant is in whatever way you want to pick, you know, whether it's carbon sequestration, medicine, building, you know, anything really. So, right. That's what I was—
Yeah. As I said, there's so many, there's so many uses for it. So pick your favorite use and there you go. Well, amazing. This is, this has been really great talking with you, Ryan, and for Last bit here for anybody that's wanting to reach out to you, connect with you, maybe invest, get your, get another season of your show done. What's the best way to find you, reach out to you and connect with you?
We have a number of companies out there. We jumped on the, we jumped on the CBD company train back in the day and we really believe in the minor cannabinoids, which are going to Minor cannabinoids. That's a whole nother podcast. We could talk about that for 45 minutes. I don't want to plug all of my companies or whatever, but you know, we have a CBD company, CBDV in particular, and CBN. So you can find those 2 products at peacebehempi.com, like peace be happy. We have a mushroom company that we just launched called Rockets, so like rockets.net, so like for your neural network. And mostly I'm on LinkedIn, just my last, my first and last name, Ryan McKiever, M-C-K-E-E-V-E-R on LinkedIn. I love LinkedIn. It's been a great tool for business for us and looking forward to many more connections, you know, and, and hopefully, you know, many more conversations. I literally can break down the minor cannabinoids and like how, how those are going to be used in pharma and pharmaceutical medicines moving forward. I mean, that's, there's a, there's a whole story there. There's literally a whole story. And also in the future, we could talk about that multimillion-dollar deal that was with one of the farmers I followed, which is a major storyline in our show, which is now currently in international court for multimillions of dollars for just crazy stuff going on. But yeah, there's a lot of story there.
So.
Absolutely.
Awesome. Well, thanks, Brian, and appreciate you being on the show.
Sounds good, man. I'll talk to you soon. Thanks, Ian. Hey guys.
Hey there. Thanks for joining us for this episode. I hope that you're enjoying the content we're putting out. If you're looking for more ways to learn about this, to get involved, create your own consciously designed products, there's a couple of ways that you can do that. First is our book, Conscious Design, which you'll find a link to in the description of this episode. Please check that out. Go over quite a bit of information, what the process is, how I've applied it to product design, and some really great examples of companies out there that are doing really great work, some of whom you have seen on this podcast. The other way is our course, 4 Weeks to Launch, where I peel back the curtain on how to develop a product start to finish in a way that can create positive impact rather than any negative ones. So please check that out. That's a great resource that will also be linked in the description as well. And see you in the next one.
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