Chase Nobles is the Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Kush.com. He oversees all aspects of day-to-day operations, business development and growth strategy. He identifies new market opportunities and ensures efficiency throughout the organization. Chase has worked in the cannabis industry since 2014, evolving the Kush brand from its origins as a tourism and media company into the largest marketplace platform serving the hemp and cannabis industries. Developing the Kush.com enterprise is a continuation of his early success in entrepreneurial ventures rooted in his passion for athletics. As a U.S. Air Force Academy cadet, he competed on the men’s gymnastics team, leading them to a USAG National Championship in 2010. He went on to earn a degree in Business Management from the University of Colorado-Colorado Springs, during which time he was a sponsored whitewater kayaker. In his senior year, he parlayed his collegiate athletic experience into the creation of a specialty sports equipment design and manufacturing business, eventually licensing his inventions to a large-scale manufacturer. He lives in Seattle, where he is an avid outdoor enthusiast.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Can you share with us the story about what brought you to this specific career path?
I met my business partner, Mike Gordon, in 2013, shortly after the first recreational ballot measures were passed in both Colorado and Washington. Mike and I were on a white water kayaking trip, where he introduced the idea of creating a platform that bridged the cannabis industry with tourism. The idea sparked so much excitement that we could not stop talking about it and brainstorming where we could take it. This conversation ultimately resulted in our building Kush Tourism, which eventually evolved into Kush.com.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began leading your company?
Visiting the major farms and product manufacturers in this space has been an interesting experience. I’ve watched several teams grow from inception to great numbers, with anywhere from 50 to 100 people. The industry is constantly evolving and expanding, which is extremely exciting. Everyone we work with has a startup mentality which creates a fun and dynamic industry to work in, since we are always thinking of what’s next.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
This mistake wasn’t necessarily bad, but we launched the first cannabis tour in Seattle on St. Patrick’s Day in 2014. We were very excited, but had managed our expectations going into it – therefore, when we invited all of the major news stations to come experience the tour, we didn’t really think they would come. Little did we know, this tour piqued great interest for all of them. It even resulted in a story in the Associated Press, which really put us on the map. The national exposure was incredible, but it was not something we were fully prepared to handle just yet. We were receiving a tremendous amount of calls from across the country from people telling us they’d seen us in the news. While we may not have been entirely ready for that immediate attention nation-wide, we definitely welcomed it.
Growing a Cannabis Business - CBD - Chase Nobles, Kush.com
Are you working on any exciting projects now?
Our network is continuing to grow by the hundreds every day. Managing that growth and watching companies scale because Kush.com has provided their supply chain solutions is exciting and incredibly rewarding. We are always seeking to increase the capabilities of the platform we’ve created to ensure that we’re providing even more opportunities for success for our community. We also have a couple of exciting projects up our sleeves as well.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story?
When we pivoted to a wholesale marketplace, we reached out to Silicon Valley tech investor, Jason Calacanis. Within a week of presenting Kush to Jason he got back in touch to invest in the company. In what was a very pivotal time for the company, we went through his 8-week accelerator program where we learned how to scale quickly. It happened at the most optimum time, and we couldn’t be more thankful for that.

This industry is young dynamic and creative. Do you use any clever and innovative marketing strategies that you think large legacy companies should consider adopting?
We believe our content marketing has brought us great success at Kush. This industry has so many challenges that are not being covered and we find ourselves at the forefront creating engaging content that both educates and connects the community. This has allowed us to become thought leaders in an industry where people were and are looking for advice. Through our platform and content on Kush.com we’re shining a light on questions, concerns and other issues that face this community- providing them with resources and direction to help create a better opportunity for their own successes.

Can you share 3 things that most excite you about the Cannabis industry? Can you share 3 things that most concern you?
Excited By:
The Challenge. It is a very challenging industry, where everything seems to be 5 times harder than I’ve experienced in other industries. While most people would categorize this as a concern, that factor itself actually fuels founders like me, who like the challenge and can be agile. This mentality and drive allows me to see and set a course where others might get lost.
Wild West Mentality. There is so much growth happening in this space, and it is doing so in every direction. It takes a wild west mentality to hone your focus in order to cement a position in an otherwise seemingly chaotic arena, but if you do things the right way you can quickly become a key player in this industry.
The Impact. Hemp and cannabis should have been legal long ago, so it is both gratifying and rewarding to prove the skeptics wrong by creating legitimate jobs in a space that has been looked down upon for decades.
Concerns:
Regulatory Volatility. Laws in this space are constantly changing, and while many are for the good, some have shown unintended consequences.
Over Supply and Price Compression. As the industry continues to grow, more farmers and product manufacturers are entering the field. As the production costs go down and supply increases, prices drop. When these types of fluctuations happen over a short period of time, it can drastically hurt a lot of small businesses.
Lack of Traditional Business Resources. Our industry does not come with standard business support systems that are readily available in virtually all other industries, like banking, payment processing, insurance, office space, etc. Without access to these resources, true scale can be harder to reach. Imagine if you were on Amazon and had to pay the seller via wire transfer rather than a single click purchase when buying a product. These are the issues that the industry is up against.

Can you share your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started Leading a Cannabis Business”? Please share a story or example for each.
-Experiment & refine, then scale. The likelihood that your ideas will succeed the first time out are slim, so don’t plan on something working the first time you try it. Keep building and testing as you take your idea to market. The response and feedback received at each step will provide valuable direction toward the next iteration of your idea.
-If you can build a community around your company, you insulate yourself from competitors. We started hosting live events available for our platform’s entire user base. Through these trade shows we’ve brought our community out of the digital space and into an even more personal forum, which has allowed us to create an even stronger, more tight knit network. It has also allowed our users to get to know our Kush team on a more meaningful level as well – they are no longer just using Kush.com, but working with us as partners in the goal of pushing this industry forward.
-Invest in top talent early. When you’re ready to make a hire, make sure it’s a good fit and give them the legs to run. Recently we hired an amazing VP of Marketing, Alex Hodschayan, and VP of Sales, Jason Rubenstein.   With over 10 years of experience, Alex came to us after founding his own design consultancy firm, where he established branding and marketing platforms for a broad range of clients including Ask.com, Main Street USA and Marley Natural. Previously, Alex led the digital marketing team for Privateer Holdings and helped to bring a number of cannabis brands to market. He melds his creative talents in communication and design and leads all marketing and communications strategy for us, from development to execution and analysis.   Jason is a seasoned global sales leader with more than 15 years of experience across multiple sectors, including consumer packaged goods, e-commerce, and marketing. Previously, he held leadership roles with Expedia, Amazon, and SaaS startup Ad Lightning. He also worked with strategic partners at Xbox Advertising, Bing.com, and Garrigan Lyman Group after he started his career with the NBA’s Seattle Sonics. For Kush, he develops strategy and implements growth targets for the sales division, while streamlining processes to deliver unparalleled service for partners in the cannabis and hemp industries.
-Visit your users/clients early and often. It is easy to build something people say they want, but it is much harder to build something people actually need. Visiting users allows you to see exactly what they deal with day in and day out. Once you understand their biggest challenges, you can build a great product that finds solutions to those challenges.
-Do things manually first and then automate the process. This relates to the first point about experimenting and then scaling. You don’t need to over-engineer a solution in order to see if it works. Doing something manually and then automating will allow you to see any problem points up close and personal as they happen. Once you understand the full process, then you can build a better product and system.
Growing a Cannabis Business - CBD - Chase Nobles, Kush.com
What advice would you give to other CEOs or founders to help their employees to thrive?
Stay focused – having a mission is everything. If everyone in the organization understands the meaning behind the mission and how their role impacts that trajectory, it can make accomplishing those goals that much easier. Not having a clear mission, especially when the individual team members don’t understand how they fit into it, will cause much bigger issues, impacting future successes.

What is the best way our readers can follow you on social media?
https://www.instagram.com/kush_dot_com/
This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!