Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Rebecca Connet. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Rebecca , thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. To kick things off, we’d love to hear about things you or your brand do that diverge from the industry standard

We believe in creating products and services that help our communities. We are Hemp farmers here in Colorado. We also produce our own CBD products with the guidance of a pharmacist. The feedback we have received over the years regarding our products keeps us forging ahead. We listen to the public; in turn we have navigated our business methodically to the feedback received. By growing our hemp business organically, literally and figuratively, we have been able to keep a close pulse on what the community’s needs are. It has been a slow process, I believe it has been the right path,

Rebecca , 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?

My husband, Darin Connet, and I have always wanted to run a business together. Darin was in the entertainment business, FMX Motocross, Through the years we observed many riders develop injuries. Many were snared into opiate addictions. We witness lives taken or destroyed over this epidemic. When we researched CBD a few years prior to the Farm Bill, we decided to take a shot at growing hemp in 2019. We are now in our 5th year. It has been a rough ride to say the least. With the market being flooded to bad players coming and going. We have been patient, waiting for the dust to settle. Originally we wanted to grow an organic crop and sell it in bulk. We ended up having to create products. We started to extract and make our own rubs and tinctures. Slowly, we gained feedback and have been developing products through that process.
One of the problems we solved for a customer was that she liked our 3500mg Topical Cream but requested a higher strength. We got to work in the lab, with our pharmacist’s guidance, created a 6000mg Pro Cream. We sent it to her with her next order. Her feedback was amazing! That is what keeps us motivated.
I believe the difference we bring to the market is care, patience and time invested. We are not beholden to investors. We believe in organic processes. We have a pharmacist not a chemist helping with the formulations of our products. We are most proud of our ability to be proactive in our products. We don’t follow gimmicks or the next big thing. We take a step back when new hemp cannabinoids are discovered or manipulated. We want to stick to the plants organic form.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

In 2019 when hemp was legal to grow in the United States, everyone jumped into the market. It drove the prices down. Many had no idea what they were doing. We heard horrific stories of thieves in the night. People claiming they knew how to teach existing farmers to grow. It was the wild west. Unless you were from Canada, France, Russia or China I don’t believe you knew much. We certainly learned as we went. Darin knows how to grow. I know business. That was our talent. I took care in finding the seeds. I found a company out of Colorado Springs that had been growing since 2014. I bought from them. We keep our heads down, trusted our instincts and persisted forward. It felt like a tidal wave we were up against, daily. We guarded our business from the outsiders. I’m not going to sit here and say it was rosy or still is…it is not. Darin has worked hard at perfecting the crops. Mother Nature always has the last say. We had an early freeze in September, our second year growing. We called in favors from family and friends to help cover the crops. The next day it was 50 degrees, we had to rush to uncover the crop from the condensation. We had russet mites last year. The darn bugs sucked the nutrients out of the plants. By the time Darin realized it was the bugs and not a watering issue, we had lost 5% of our CBD content. Our crops are grown outdoors. We believe in the sun not LEDs. With that comes huge risks. We will continue to grow outdoors. We have been told our buds are too small. People are looking for Cannibas sized buds. Our buds are denser due to the sunlight. It is hard to change people’s thinking. That is what we try to do every day. CBD is a medicine. Education is key to this industry surviving. We have hemp legal, we need to take care with that responsibility.

How’d you think through whether to sell directly on your own site or through a platform like Amazon, Etsy, Cratejoy, etc.

It was a challenge to find a platform that would accept CBD products for sale, a merchant that would accept credit card payments and a bank to hold our money. We have a website through Wix. I had to fill out extra paperwork, which was not a problem. I was grateful Wix would host us. Getting a cart was the hardest process. Square is our preferred merchant. They now require all our products to be third party tested. This is not a problem; we have provided the tests. There can be some disconnect with Square in regard to how the testing is done, but all in all we can abide. We use SSFCU. A local credit union. This industry is full of closed doors. If you keep at it, there are businesses out there that will help you, at a cost of course. The most recent issue we have had was with Venmo. Venmo just froze our account last month. They stated it was indefinite and they didn’t have to give us an explanation. Unfortunately, there are still barriers.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.roottherockies.com
• Instagram: @roottherockies
• Facebook: Root The Rockies

Image Credits
Jack Jaxson