We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Alexis Hubbard. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Alexis below.
Hi Alexis , thanks for joining us today. What’s something crazy on unexpected that’s happened to you or your business
Sooooo. I run a cannabis wellness business in a state where they don’t like that . Some way or another I end up giving something to an undercover cop . Which led to the search of my residence. I mean they took EVERYTHING! My Cricut machine , my lamenator, my Homemade vanilla bean extract ! That I just started by the way . Anywho . Due to Covid my case kept getting pushed back . This was also during that time in 2020 where white folks were outwardly supporting black businesses and BLM . So I had a business owner friend of mine raise funds in my honor. She raised 10k ! I was able to pay for my lawyer buy some herbs to get my business back up and running and just be at peace for the time being . It took about 16 months for my case to be resolved and I am so happy that is behind me
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
Well I started my herbalism journey with Purple Puffs . This is my cannabis wellness business where I create a safe space for people to share and use herbs . I make everything from scratch using coconut oil and grain alcohol for my infusions. I make drinks , cakes , cookies , gummies , salves and bath bombs just to name a few things. I got the idea in college and at first it was called “tree treats” . It was my first time trying the plant and I was like wow ! This could do so many good things for people why is this illegal. So I like to incorporate cannabis in anything that seems helpful in the healing process . That was my baby for a good 5 years . Now I’m moving on and developing my new apothecary . Mage Apothecary. It’s still the same concept using herbs for healing but I’m focusing my opening line on ailments that affect the black communities such as high blood pressure and type 2 diabetes. As well as other remedies for general wellness. I hope to expand the line and educate our communities on using more herbs than pharmaceuticals. So many of our grandparents are on so much medications . I hope to one day out a dent in that
Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?
In the beginning when Purple Puffs was just a baby it was just word of mouth and instagram and Snapchat. One morning I wake up and my perfect authentic earned instagram following of 4k was deleted . I could not recover the account I was sick ! But I made another . Delete .another one and then that one got deleted created a new email account and that one got deleted smh all I was posting was baked goods . It was devastating to my business and lost a lot of clients because of it. But because things were still going well I had to take the time and think how I could protect myself but still have a website . So my friend figured out I could have a password protected website and go from there . It was a hit and made this so much easier
Can you open up about how you funded your business?
I still have a regular job . A lot of people think entrepreneurs don’t anything but run their own business. But sometimes no most times are out here running other people’s businesses just to get ours off the ground . My advice to anyone trying to start a business. There is no right time only the right idea . Even if you can only afford to make one . If you sell just that one you have a business. And before you know it that one turns into 2.
Contact Info:
- Website: Www.puffsstuff.com password Cannabisheals
- Instagram: Themageapothecary