New Market Expansion With a House of Brands Strategy

DeepRoots is a free, monthly, webcast series featuring some of the foremost operators and brands in the Cannabis Industry. This collaborative venture between CBE & Ott Growth Advisors provides best practices and strategic insights for cannabis brands and operators to position their businesses for market expansion and growth.

About This Event:

Entering new markets with a limited set of products is challenging. Doing so with a House of Brands strategy is even more difficult, particularly when the core offering is delivering quality flower at an affordable price. Rusty Wilenkin, Founder and CEO of Old Pal, joins Deep Roots to share his philosophy when entering new states including how to evaluate a new market to determine what products to launch based on market data and an expected consumer brand value proposition of shareable cannabis. Rusty has guided Old Pal to success in nine markets and has learned how to manage both a complicated regulatory framework and a complex supply chain to deliver product consistency to the delight of customers.

Our Guest:

Rusty Wilenkin, Co-founder + CEO of Old Pal

Co-Founder and CEO Rusty Wilenkin started Old Pal after beginning his career in media lending, then spending 4+ years in the cannabis space. The concept was born out of a white space that the team began to notice throughout the industry: there wasn’t a flower product out there that was both affordable and beautifully designed. During that period he co-founded Prism Farms, in addition to negotiating all seed funding and distribution channels for the company. Rusty then built out the SoCal region for Flow Kana, doubling their sales team in Southern California. He then mirrored that success at Kiva Sales and Service, where he ran their flower and concentrate sales. Rusty began pursuing Old Pal full time in May 2018, and it’s quickly become one of the fastest growing cannabis companies in California, in addition to expanding to 7 additional states as well.

DeepRoots Host:

Erik Ott, Founder, Ott Growth Advisors

Erik Ott is the founder of Ott Growth Advisors (OTA), a boutique investment bank specializing in Corporate Development and M&A. Ott serves on the Board of Directors of BGP Acquisitions Corp, a $115m cannabis SPAC trading on the NEO exchange. Before OTA, Ott was a founding partner at KO Acquisitions, Inc. and investment bank specializing in M&A in the State of California.

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