We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Alex Basaldua a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Alex thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to hear you experience with and lessons learned from recruiting and team building.

The beginning of this venture for myself was very unique. I came into this company while the person who had started it and was running it brought me on to complete his team and I was set to work on their apparel and swag and he also hired a new brand ambassador which was set to start after he left. So now we have a company with no one leading and with little experience on how daily operations was handled and no one knew who was going to be leading the way in taking charge of any of the many duties this person had on their plate.

It actually took me a little while to decide if I wanted this role. I knew what it could mean for me if I did but I also knew the pressure and stress it would bring to deliver not just for my ownership but for customers and sponsors, its a lot of responsibility to take on. But one of those days I ended up having a deep conversation with an old friend Kendrick Lo from my high school days and I’m talking to him about this dilemma I’m having about taking the job. And he tells me “dude, what are you thinking? You do know people still talk about your parties from back in the day right? You still have a reputation out here for throwing the sickest back yard parties man”. And that’s when it started to hit me. My dad always told me before he passed, “Do something you love to do, and you’ll never work a day in your life”. So I decided to take it. I’m already in an industry I love and combining it with something I was already good at and thrived doing in my younger days was just a fit I couldn’t deny myself in trying out.

Coming back to taking on all the responsibilities that one person was tasked with, we decided as a team to distribute the responsibilities among the three of us.

Ajee who was brought on to be our Brand Ambassador, is handling those duties but was also given the roll as our Social Media Coordinator. She handles all social media accounts, responds to all messages, raffles, giveaways, videos, content and has become the face of our brand.

Natosha was given the role of Event Coordinator, she handles the legal part of our business in making sure we acquire all required permits, fencings, amenities, and food vendors and we share tasks of locating and locking down venues for events.

Myself I took the role of Project Coordinator, I work directly with our Operations Director and Ownership on deciding what kinds of events we are going to do, the dates we’re going to do them on and what venues to approach. My main responsibility for this position though has to be creating and maintaining relationships with brands and dispensaries.

We were all relatively new to the company and only I was the one that had any industry experience. Both Ajee and Natosha were really fast to learn the ins and outs of who’s who and what everyone does, they took to their roles almost naturally but the thing I’m most impressed with is how close we have become. The 3 of us hang out and do so many activities outside our job, We have become family and have learned to lean on each other as a team to get our events done. I have to say I wouldn’t be where I am today with out them, WE wouldn’t be where we are or who we are without us working together.

We’ve built something here. We’re on a different path from what was set before and we have dived into not just being apart of the cannabis community but supporting those in it was well.

Alex, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

Well I got into the cannabis industry in late 2019 and I started as a budtender at Curaleaf. I had done every other kind of work and It was time for me to take a massive pay cut in order for me to get into an industry I’ve always had a passion for. I thought it was so cool to be legally selling something that I was doing for so long illegally. But I also found that I didn’t know as much as I thought I did. So having a talk about my cannabis knowledge with my lead Janice, she ended up inspiring me to learn as much as I could about individual products and how they are made in how they interact each one interacts with some ones body and health. I speak about product knowledge because it was a very important part of what got me wanting to get into marketing.

About a year into working at Curaleaf, I left and ended up at Ponderosa which was later absorbed by Sonoran Roots. While there I went from Budtender to a management lead. From there I was given the opportunity to create a Street Team, So I created the Sonoran Roots Street team and started a program which allowed the company to utilize its own workers for brand ambassadors. I do have to say I owe where I am today to their Operations Director Kyle Laureano for hearing me out when I told him I wanted to be where he was one day. I wanted more than to just be in a dispensary, I wanted to be more than stuck in a retail setting.

About a year and a half into being there things were not working out for me on the retail side of things any more and the company decided to part ways with me but in doing so led me here. I made a call and pretty much had a job before I got home from being released from previous job. Its been a place that has allowed me to do what I wanted to do in this industry, its allowed to me flourish, network, and make a name for myself and make something that was already good even better.

Trap Culture went from just throwing events to now being much more involved in the cannabis community as being apart of others events and collaborating with others to throw events. We were the only event company until recently was partnered with another cannabis event company “Cannatainment” to host a Super Bowl watch party. We now also partner with brands and with other event companies on their events, seeing the kind of support and love that we get from the community and industry since our team has taken over has been amazing and is a testament to the kind of love and support our company and individual team members show is also returned. People know Trap Culture from Cannafest, which was an event where we shut down Golfland Sunsplash, Mangia Ganja food truck festivals, Trap Nights our night club experience, Buds & Bikinis which was our 3 month summer pool party series, and most recently Cross Faded which was our revamped night club experience. But now they also see us as supporters of the community was has been very special for us. The amount of love we get is amazing and it shows each one of us all the hard work and dedication we put into this collectively.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

About a month into this new role I had just gotten, and right when the previous person who used to run day to day operations left, was right when I lost my residence. I had no where to go and no money for a place of my own due to a divorce I was going through at the time. So while making this decision of taking this role and staying with this new company to me, I was also going through a tough transition myself. So from October of 2022 till the middle of May 2023 I had been throwing events and showing community support all while going home to my truck and parking at local park every night. But with the support of coworkers and friends I was able to shower and had places to leave my dog during events. My owners showed compassion for my situation as they helped me when I needed it most.

I stuck with my job and showed up early and left late a lot of nights over this past year because I have no back up plan. I have tons of work and life experience to fall back on, I have degrees, and certifications I could lean on to get other work, I could do so many other things with my life but this is what I choose to do, this is the industry I choose to be apart of and this is the community I’m honored to be apart of. We throw these events to give other cannabis users, medical patients, and cannabis enthusiast a safe place to consume and offer more than an event but an true cannabis experience while keeping to our mission of ending the stigma on cannabis and integrating it into a normal lifestyle.

My situation truly humbled me, and just the love that was shown to me let me know hat this is where I was ment to be. And showed me that If I just kept my nose down and kept working and grinding and kept putting positive energy into the universe that opportunities would open themselves up for me and they did. I got into a 3 bedroom home with a couple of friends and our team threw our biggest and most lucrative event we have thrown as a company in some time with our Buds & Bikinis event. It truly was the Pool Party series of the Year!

I tried to not let people know of the situation I was in due to everyone being so helpful (a pride thing), I felt it was a test of faith I needed to go through myself in order for me to become the person I was ment to be. and in a way it was. I’ve grown tremendously as a person from having to go through that experience. But now I feel that if I let people know and let them know how I got through it or that just getting through hardship like that is possible by just not giving up, can inspire someone else to keep going, that no matter what you go through in life everyone has their own battles but if you don’t give up you can do amazing things, that hardships are tests of faith that help you become who your supposed to ultimately become and If you stop you’ll never become who your supposed to be.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

Our team. Simply put its been our team. Taking a company that had previously not shown too much community support, we quickly realized in order to have the support of the community we needed to show that community support. Before I arrived I had my own mission, It was simply to learn as much as possible about the industry and work with everyone possible, that there is enough “meat on this bone” in the industry for everyone and If we arn’t pointing each other towards a bag, then what are we doing as a community? We all gotta eat you know. But between Natosha, Ajee, and myself, we all have great personalities that allow us to maintain outstanding relationships with not just brands and dispensaries but with customers and attendees which was detrimental for us in staying relevant during that transition. And the fact that when we throw an event, they carry a very unique vibe compared to what any other cannabis event company has been able to deliver. People know when you come to a Trap Culture event they are going to have a great time and a story to tell to their stoner friends!

Contact Info:

• Website: www.trapcultureaz.com
• Instagram: trapculture.az
• Facebook: Trapp Culture
• Twitter: trapcultureaz
• Youtube: Trap Culture az
• Other: My personal IG is Ajbas22

Image Credits
image credit for the pool image is Neil McAlister aka Chef Turtle