We recently connected with Justin Johnson and have shared our conversation below.

Justin, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today One of our favorite things to brainstorm about with friends who’ve built something entrepreneurial is what they would do differently if they were to start over today. Surely, there are things you’ve learned that would allow you to do it over faster, more efficiently. We’d love to hear how you would go about setting things up if you were starting over today, knowing everything that you already know.

There is an old saying that “hindsight is 20/20” and that is something you’re reminded of daily as an entrepreneur. When I left my career in advertising and technology I was well compensated, supported by great teams, and generally focused on very familiar goals I was tasked with hitting consistently. We were always learning better ways to sell an idea or execute a campaign on behalf of a client, but for the most part, product-market fit was already achieved and it was our job to make the machine run. When I ventured out on my own to launch BudsFeed.com, I learned a lot about myself and what I took for granted as a salaried employee. Here is what I would do differently.

1. Pick Great Partners – I was lucky enough to receive private funding to launch BudsFeed but I was dumb enough to think I could build it on my own. Building a tech product takes years of refinement and the iteration never ends. While I believed in my ability to build a brand and thought I had a pretty cool name, I lacked the discipline to build a tech product on my own. I have endless appreciation for my investors, as well as all of the talented people that have helped me build BudsFeed, but I wish I had someone else in the trenches with me from day one to help build the platform and hold me accountable to growth goals.

2. Practice Financial Hygiene – For most of my career I led business development. It was my only job to close big deals. One thing I didn’t truly appreciate was the finance team behind the scenes who was hounding clients for those checks, reviewing expense reports, enforcing timesheets, budgeting expenses, and more. I didn’t have enough respect for what a finance team did until I had to do it all myself. If you aren’t on top of your finances, you are just playing business, and you’re going to miss something. It’s not as easy as just hiring an accountant.

3. Follow The Data – When you’re an entrepreneur and trying to bring an idea to life it’s easy to to get caught up in your vision and expect the market to adopt your idea. I could have saved a lot of money and been further along if I focused my attention on things that generated revenue vs. trying to validate my initial idea for BudsFeed.com. The launch of Chill Steel Pipes in 2021 was the first time my perspective changed on how BudsFeed could make revenue and the launch of BudsFeed.co, our recently launched e-commerce store, is something I probably should have built a couple of years ago.

4. Always Be Learning – When we launched Chill Steel Pipes I knew nothing about manufacturing, importing, or running a warehouse with millions of dollars of inventory. When we’d run into roadblocks I didn’t understand I’d throw up my hands and say it “doesn’t sound like a marketing issue.” When my partner was diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer, I had to learn everything, and it I had to learn it the hard way, in a very short amount of time. I’ll never use the excuse that something is “someone else’s job” again. If it’s my company, I will know how to do everything, even if its not my job on a daily basis. That can change at any time.

5. Discover Your Why – When I left the advertising and tech world, it’s because I was burnt out and tired of selling consumer products to the masses and I was able to get funding. I loved cannabis as a regular consumer and thought I could really make an impact in the industry, but I didn’t really discover “why” I wanted to be a part of the industry until much later. I wanted out of a job, I had a cool idea, and I had funding, but without my “why” I was rutterless for a long time. Turns out I didn’t want to create branded content and run banner ads for a struggling cannabis brands. What I am passionate about is helping cannabis entrepreneurs navigate this market, and using what I’ve learned from my mistakes to help them have a higher likelihood of success.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

My name is Justin Johnson and I’m an entrepreneur with a common name and an uncommon background spanning digital marketing strategy, business development, consumer technology, and cannabis. In late 2018/early 2019 I founded BudsFeed.com, a community platform where enthusiasts, entrepreneurs, and brands could “seed” the latest products, services, and content created for the cannabis community.

With 15 years in strategy and growth roles, I held senior positions at some of the top creative and digital agencies in the country including WONGDOODY, Digitas, and Deep Focus, developing award winning strategies for Fortune 500 companies like American Express, eBay, Walmart, Unilever, and Pepsico Frito-Lay. I was also a founding partner and executive director of business development for Moment Studio, which was named Digiday’s Best Content Marketing Agency in its first year.

After working with every major social media platform over the span of my career, and spending a couple years in the startup space myself, I saw a growing consumer audience for cannabis-related information and few platforms that condoned it. With BudsFeed, I set out to create the preferred channel for consumers seeking to discover a broad range of cannabis related products and services, and for brands big and small seeking to build awareness.

Over the past four years BudsFeed has grown by leaps and bounds, was featured in Forbes, and was shortlisted at the Cannabis Clio Awards. We’ve also just launched BudsFeed.co, a standalone shopping experience that takes everything we’ve learned and packs it into an e-commerce store that curates the best cannabis accessories and ancillary products available for purchase.

In 2021 I also co-founded Chill Steel Pipes, which is the world’s first stainless steel, double-wall vacuum insulated smoking device, which is widely considered one of the most innovative products to be introduced over the last several years. In addition to running Chill Steel Pipes as its CEO, I actively advise new startups in the cannabis accessories space, holding an equity position in more than six consumer products with the potential to disrupt the evolving cannabis industry.

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

When I met my partner Rich Gonzalez at Chill Steel Pipes, I really thought I had found the yin to my yang. We were like brothers and together we took Rich’s idea from a never before seen product to one of the most popular cannabis accessories in the country. With the immediate success of Chill, we began to plan for the future, opening a new warehouse and even developing a new venture studio arm to accelerate other accessories startups.

The day we signed our lease, Rich had been complaining of issues from a recent gallbladder surgery, and a sharp pain between his shoulder blades. What we found was a fist-sized tumor and within a week Rich was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. And while we had a lot of success up until that point, we had very little cash, a new warehouse with rent coming due, and literal truckloads inventory on the water that would soon require payment.

While I was incredibly excited for the future we were building and had even lined up most of the funding to make it happen, I was forced to focus on the here and now of the situation. The venture studio concept was dead without Rich and I had to save Chill.

I flew to Las Vegas and lived in our warehouse for two weeks, building and selling product by the pallet load. I scavenged up every invoice we ever issued and made sure it was paid. I cut international sales deals that turned overseas inventory liabilities into unexpected profits. And by the time Rich lost his battle with in early October of 2022, we were able to right the ship, make Chill a profitable business, and begin focusing on next steps again.

It is because of this experience that I will always make the effort to learn everything about my business, no matter the function, and I will never take a good finance team for granted. I had to learn most everything I know about this business under extreme pressure and the stress I experienced isn’t something I would wish on my worst enemy.

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

When I first joined the cannabis industry, I didn’t know my “why.” I liked weed, had a strong marketing and tech background, a cool business name and domain, and some money available to have a go at building an online platform.

It was in that first year that I learned that I really liked helping people with their business challenges, and that I had a lot of real-life expertise that could benefit those entering the cannabis industry. I also learned a lot from them about advocacy and community, and what it meant to really be invested in this industry, putting people over profits.

For a very long time, I was resigned to the fact that BudsFeed.com was a loss leader. I wanted to use my reach to help people share their products and stories, even if I wasn’t getting paid for it. I knew that money would come in other forms, and it did with the launch of products Chill Steel Pipe, and ultimately the launch of BudsFeed.co in partnership with Nassir Silwany at CaliConnected. To this day, BudsFeed.com continues to be a free resource and I dedicate a lot of my time to just chatting with entrepreneurs in the space and offering any help I can, whether it’s a one off conversation or we develop a deeper relationship.

By always putting people first and focusing on how I can help them, I rarely have trouble asking for it when I’m the one who needs help.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://budsfeed.com | https://budsfeed.co | https://chill.store
• Instagram: @budsfeed_ | @gettingchill
• Facebook: @budsfeed | @gettingchill
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/justinmichaeljohnson/
• Twitter: @budsfeed_ | @chillsteelpipes

Image Credits
Justin Johnson