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

Alright, Jason thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Let’s start with a story that highlights an important way in which your brand diverges from the industry standard.

The main thing we set out to do when we started the company was to provide exceptional quality with higher dose options than most companies all while keeping prices affordable so all people and pets could benefit.

Many times, doses are too low to have a therapeutic effect. This is especially true with pet products. If you are a pet parent of a medium or large size dog you know how challenging it can be to find a product that is strong enough or affordable long term.

One of the main reasons we started the company was our 65lb chow with spinal degeneration and severe arthritis. He was on a whole host of meds that were starting to impact his liver. We decided to give CBD a try for a more natural approach. We found that it showed some promising results but the doses were so low that it just wasn’t feasible to do long term.

The industry standard for a CBD pet treat is only 2mg. If your pet is over 10lbs, chances of it yielding any therapeutic effects are slim. My two senior dogs were both between 65-75 lbs. They needed 20mg once or twice per day. It would have cost us 10-20 dollars per day, per pet, with a traditional product.

We offer CBD treats in doses starting at 2mg and go all the way up to 20mg, which are higher dose pet tinctures. Many companies stop at 500-600mg on pet tinctures. We go all the way up to 1500mg even 3000mg. This is an affordable option if you are using the products on a regular basis, have a large dog that needs one or more therapeutic doses per day or have a multiple pet household. Our pet products are always human grade with minimal ingredients. We refuse to cut any corners on our pet products.

We take the same approach with our people products. Gummies have become an industry favorite. Most brands offer gummies at 15-20mg, 25mg if you are luckily. They are typically in an envelope containing 10-15 gummies. Our gummies are always in a 30ct container so you have enough for at least a month. We offer gummies in 20, 40 and even 100mg per gummy. If you need the horsepower, you take a full gummy. If you have the discipline to cut the higher dose options in half you can save a great deal of money and have extra on hand for the more challenging days.

We were also a couple years ahead of the curve on offering products that utilize lesser-known secondary cannabinoids like CBN for sleep and CBG for mental focus and mood elevation. The secondary cannabinoids can be expensive to extract so products aren’t very common in the industry yet. We recognized the benefits of CBN and CBG early on and they have been some of our most popular products. We offer 2:1 ratio tinctures or gummies in a variety of strengths.

Jason, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

Back in the early Nineties I started working in Chinese internal arts, such as meditation, bodywork, bone setting, and energy practices, etc. I went to school for Traditional Chinese Herbology, and spent a year as an intern at one of the Midwest’s top Chinese Therapy clinics. These modalities were not mainstream like they are today. People acted like seeing an herbalist or acupuncturist was akin going to a witch doctor, especially in the Midwest.

With the lack of opportunities, I decided to lean into my other lifelong passion, art.
I got sidetracked for a couple decades at a high-pressure desk job as an artist/designer. The long hours and constant pressure were having a negative impact on my health.

I decided to try CBD for the day-to-day anxiety and was pleased with the results. I was using CBD for myself and my 2 large breed senior dogs and the cost was astronomical, not to mention the results were all over the board.

Back then, the industry was like the wild west and I quickly became a frustrated consumer. I was either grossly overpaying or buying products that weren’t consistent. In many cases the products never worked at all.

I had always been creating herbal remedies for myself and my pets. I wanted to get back to my roots, so to speak. I decided to develop the brand building off of these decades of experience and knowledge. Celestial Stem embodies my personal passion for healing and wellness and my mission to provide affordable sustainable options so everyone can benefit.

In addition to our CBD products, we’ve been steadily growing our herbal formula offerings. We have incorporated more Ayurvedic formulas for a more palatable option as opposed to TCM approach. The end goal is to open a wellness center and offer classes and have a rotation of wellness practitioners in addition to the product lines.

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

Running a CBD business can seem like a war of attrition at times. The CBD space has a multitude of hurdles that a more conventional business never has to consider. Securing the essentials that you need to run a business aren’t always available. Checking accounts, payment processing, or not being able to advertise are just a few examples. All of these services are either restricted or come along with exorbitant fees for the privilege of having a “CBD specific” account.

The two major ecommerce platforms do not allow CBD sites. We were removed from both. One major hosting platform told me CBD sites were fine and didn’t have CBD listed in their prohibited substances list. A couple months in, I submitted a tech support ticket and was told CBD went against their terms of service. They deleted my site and kept my money after prepaying for three years of hosting and extras. We had to secure private hosting which ended up being a great thing,

When we started, we had to pay $1,500 just to get introduced to banks that were taking CBD account applications. Getting an account secured took 10 months. While we were working on the bank account most of the payment processors that serviced the industry backed out overnight. There were exceptions of very large national accounts but left smaller business with no way to take payments without any notice. We were fortunate enough to quickly find affordable CBD processing and started doing local farmers markets and then the lockdowns hit. We had a good deal of inventory expire since we make the majority or our sales face to face.

Finding a retail spot that will approve the use for a CBD shop isn’t easy. Most locations won’t approve and the ones do will come with drawbacks or are in areas that are less than desirable. We do have beautiful retail location, but it lacks street visibility, which can be very challenging. We are 100% dependent on word of mouth and search engine results. Luckily, we have great customer base with a good deal of regulars that are kind enough to refer us. You have to devote time every day to SEO and just when you get to point where you’re getting results, the algorithm changes and you are back to square one, where search engines can be tricky.

Every business has ups and downs, it’s a delicate balance of seeing things through and knowing when to change things up. The first couple of years were definatly challenging. Luckily, we are in a good place but don’t take anything for granted. We know that regulations and or the industry in general can change instantly without notice.

We’d really appreciate if you could talk to us about how you figured out the manufacturing process.

We are very selective with our manufacturers. We like to work with boutique businesses that will allow us to formulate and or collaborate on product development. People are putting these products in their bodies and we have a responsibility to exceed safety standards. So, GMP, SQF or organic certifications are things we look for.

We always lab test. It’s surprising that there are manufacturers that don’t test their products or will hand you something that tests below or drastically above the target. We will not work those companies or sell their products. Efficacy and consistency are a paramount for us and it’s what our customers expect and ultimately appreciate.

We always look for exceptional companies that make the very best product in a given niche. Who can make the best pet treats or the best gummy? We work with a couple companies that do everything from the farming to extraction to finished products. One company makes our organic CBD dog treats to our specs, another does our pet tinctures and can accommodate our carrier oils which we do a bit differently than other companies. We love the company that does our gummies. We can provide any extract we like and collaborate on the recipes. They just infused a version of our long-time skin and coat salmon treat for a new CBD cat treat option. We are currently working on developing an Ashwagandha gummy and a Beetroot gummy next. We also work with another company that specializes in cold water extractions and makes a couple of our fun edible products.

I do not like to have all my manufacturing under one roof. This can be disastrous if they hit a delay in production or go out of business. One thing I’ve learned is that you have to be flexible and have the ability to pivot at any moment. Back up plans for everything are a must.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://celestialstem.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/celestial_stem/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/celestialstem/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/celestialstem/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/celestialstem/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@celestialstem
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/celestial-stem-mesa-2
• Other: https://www.pinterest.com/celestialstem/