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

Jenna, appreciate you joining us today. So, let’s imagine that you were advising someone who wanted to start something similar to you and they asked you what you would do differently in the startup-process knowing what you know now. How would you respond?

this is kind of a funny question and I think about this a lot I actually. when you start a company and you raise money and you see how long and hard and annoying that process can be, once you’ve raised the money you sometimes are scared to spend it because you don’t wanna have to go and raise money again. So I definitely fell into that trap where I wanted to make everything the best that it could for the least amount of money, especially in the beginning when we were first starting out. and I think what I learned from that, is that I ended up having to redo things and I spent more than I would’ve if I just invested more heavily in them in the first place, I learned that some things are worth hiring the more expensive professional that has experience and you really have to value and weigh what you want to invest in now vs. the short term savings – what is worth it and most important to you at this moment. There are a few areas I wish I had invested more heavily in in the beginning stages others were I wish I had spent less money.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I had this idea of starting a super microdosed edibles company for a while. I love Edibles. I use them to sleep every night and I really didn’t like the products that were out there. They got me super high and I felt like I was still sleeping when I woke up in the morning. I was always cutting them in half and trying to make them lower dose cause I didn’t want to feel like that and I also wasn’t a fan of the ingredients. A lot of them used like gelatin and blue dye 1 and just stuff you don’t really wanna be putting in your body, especially on a regular basis.

At the time I had a job so I was working on this concept at night and working my job during the day. I started telling people about it and I had a few offer investments into my company. Seing these people kind of say ‘hey you’re on some thing, we believe in you’ . It was a hard decsion because I had a steady gig and was making good money, but eventually I got the guts to quit my job andgo raise money and do this full-time.

I really set out to solve the problem of people being scared of Edibles. We’ve all had an experience where we’ve eaten an edible or brownie or even smoked and gotten way too high and had that heart beating out of your chest moment where you’re like ‘oh my God if I stop thinking about breathing like my lungs gonna stop working I’m gonna stop breathing’ and it’s just really not what cannabis has to be like. I think product should not make you feel like that, especially unintentionally.

So I set out to kind of reverse engineer this and create a true microdose where you can control how you want to feel and kind of build your own experience yourself. It’s funny, when you walk into a dispensary you look at some of these products and they have like 30 mg THC, 50 mg THC, and so you think like ‘OK, products with 5 mg must be a microdose’, but honestly 5 mg is a lot, even for me, and especially for someone that has never tried it before . Our gummies are only 1 mg THC, which is a true microdose. For most people, one gummy really won’t get you buzz, it probably will just make you feel relaxed. And the drive behind the brand is to show people this.

The brands mission is bring new people into the cannabis world and get rid of this fear of getting too fucked up. You don’t get hung over from cannabis, unlike alcohol, so its a great alternative for those of us that don’t have the luxury of hangovers (i.e. moms). There’s no need be afraid if you’re taking the right dose and the right product.

The thing I am most proud of is turning an idea in my head into something you can hold in your hand. I think that so many of us have ideas, but an idea is only an idea unless you do something about it. Whether this ultimately fails or succeeds the fact that I created not only one product, but a bunch of them, from this crazy idea that I had is really cool. But really my favorite part about my job is I get these emails from people saying ‘I’ve dealt with chronic pain and my back and I can’t sleep and I found your gummies and they change my life’ . We had another person email and say ‘I swore I would never try weed but I love these because I feel comfortable and in control’. Getting those emails like is whole reason I did this and was whether it turns into some zillion dollar company (which obviously hope it does) or not the fact that these products have such an impact of people’s lives makes me incredibly happy and fulfilled.

Lastly, I love the creative element. I love creating brands and products. I’m addicted to candy so working in this space is really cool. I get to try a bunch of different candies all the time and actually create my own.

How did you build your audience on social media?

Social Media is a tricky one! We were so lucky to connect with Whitney Port, who has come as our creative Director and is a huge part of the company. It has really changed our presence on social media.

There’s a lot of mixed feelings around influencers and I got conflicting advice when starting my company. But in my experience, it’s really about picking the right partner for your company. The reason I love Whitney so much is not just that she’s just an incredible person, but she actually believes in this and what we’re doing. She actually uses the products. We’re very aligned on the mission and the values and the direction and so it’s been just such such a lovely relationship . We

Our target audience is mostly millennials and even breaking that down further, a large part of our customer base are millennial moms. Over 80% of that customer segment make their purchases based on recommendations and things that they see on social so for us, social is huge. That is where our audience lives. So we spend a lot of time and resources on building our community and presence on social and we have seen that it really is worth the investment.

Again though, it goes back to the authenticity of the people that you bring into your company and align your brand with. Do they truly love your products and mission? Or do they just want to collect some money to post? I believe that consumers can tell the difference.

Are there any books, videos or other content that you feel have meaningfully impacted your thinking?

A quote my grandfather used to say “someone gotta to do it, might as well be you”. I think about this a lot. Since I started running my own business, I feel like I can kinda figure most things out. I look at all these other people who are doing incredible things and realize they are just people that they decide to get up everyday and figure things out. There isn’t really a secret to it, you just have to start.

So I take that approach to everything. If SOMEONE can do it, I can probably do it too. Or at least figure out what I need to do to get it done. It. makes problems I face feel less intimidating.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.thehighconfectionary.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/highconfectionary/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenna-goldring-ab638558/

Image Credits
Cortnee Photography