Q&A with Jesce Horton: CEO, Cultivator, Innovator
When it comes to weed in Oregon, LOWD brings some of the best flowers on the market. LOWD CEO Jesce Horton has worked hard to make this happen.
I recently spoke to Jesce on the phone to discuss the company’s journey into the cannabis sector, what they could achieve, and the future they want to create in this multi-billion dollar industry.
Dante Jordan: What did you do before the cannabis industry?
Jesce Horton: Before cannabis, I was in engineering at Siemens. I started with technical engineering and then switched to business development in the field of energy and environmental efficiency.
When I went to Germany, I did mergers and acquisitions at headquarters, bought and sold companies in North and South America. When I moved to Portland, I worked in sales for automation, robotics, and power generation equipment.
DJ: How did you get into the legal cannabis industry?
JH: I just started growing in my basement; that was in 2012.
At the time, I loved it mostly because I love cannabis and different strains. I kept looking at High Times magazines and wondering how the hell was that real, the weed in the High Times compared to what I got.
Besides that, I found many places where I did new things and added value; Definition of opportunities to use my training in process development, plant design, energy and environmental efficiency. I found a lot of intersections with waxing.
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DJ: What was the moment you realized that I was really good at growing weed and that I could do it on a professional level?
JH: I don’t know if I thought I could do it just because I was good. I knew I was good enough because what I took to the pharmacies, people bought. If you had a health insurance card at this point, you could simply take your deductible to a local pharmacy. If they wanted it, they could buy it and put it on the shelf. I did and I saw them calling me back asking for more.
At the same time, I bought new gear from Craigslist. I bought some water-cooled lightweight heat exchangers and talked to the guy about the industry. He told me he had two pharmacies and two grows and he just felt like a normal guy to me.
That was what made me believe there was a business opportunity outside of me to buy my weed.
DJ: What does LOWD stand for and what does LOWD stand for?
JH: LOWD primarily stands for the best of connoisseur cannabis and connoisseur culture. This is where the importance of the whole comes in. The acronym Love Our Weed Daily is about people like you and me who wake up and just burn.
These people really are of a higher standard. It’s about hitting the quality of weed that connoisseurs love. But even the term loud is part of our culture and what we call the best weed. It’s loud, it’s on your face, and it’s a representation of the truest cannabis culture.
DJ: Tell me how you get LOWD out of the ground. Your initial investment, licensing, finding your facilities, all of that.
JH: My initial investment when I started came from all of my friends and family. Mainly just family and black retirees that my father knew [his old job.]
Panacea Valley Gardens was the name of mine [first] grow. And our pharmacy was Panacea. Unfortunately this had to be closed due to zoning. On April 20th every day we got an eviction notice. I had to repay all of my original investors out of pocket because I wanted to make sure they weren’t losing any money.
Then I had to raise money again, and that came mostly from friends. My brotherhood was our first major investor. Then my other brotherhood that I went to school with in Tallahassee was our other big investor. The rest were small investors who I either went to school with or met in the Portland area.
DJ: For which products / varieties is LOWD best known / known for?
JH: At the moment we are without a doubt best known for our SLAG glasses. It is very difficult to be innovative in the world of flowers other than to come up with the best new genetics.
Our SLAG jars are designed to deliver the highest quality cannabis experience, similar to what growers get: the best buds, the best pruning, the best healing, and the first to touch their buds.
The flavors that are without a doubt our best-selling flavors right now are Platinum Garlic Cookies, Cake Mints, and 503 Wifi.
DJ: What products would you like to launch next?
JH: In the second half of the year we will bring a lot of products onto the market. Premium pre-rolls, our blunts, our concentrates and our clothing and merchandise.
After all, we have a really great innovative product called Howlers, a reusable glass that gives our best customers a chance to get a discount on our products.
DJ: What are some of your greatest achievements in this industry?
JH: It seems kind of easy, but building a cannabis brand that connects people like me. That was my biggest goal.
At this point I finally got it to a certain level that it was built at. There are many things we have to do to grow it but build a cannabis brand that is truly representative of my true smoker demographic.
In second place are the Minority Cannabis Business Association and the Nu Leaf Project. The Nu Leaf Project will break the million dollar mark in grants and interest-free loans to Black and Brown companies in the country this year, but mostly in the city of Portland and the state of Oregon. And building a team of people who enjoy what they do is something that drives me every day.
DJ: What are your biggest mistakes and what have you learned from them?
JH: Panacea Valley Gardens is definitely my biggest mistake. I had a lot of friends and family who initially believed in me and who were very excited.
When we had to close the doors it was a really difficult time because we had no other location. We had to start from scratch and I had to focus on paying back all the investors. It was just right.
That taught me that industry and growth is simply a series of different iterations until you get it right. Most of the entrepreneurs I know weren’t good at their first business and had to keep going. There is a badge on my desk that says, “Heavy things are hard,” and what we do is very difficult to do.
DJ: Who have been some of your greatest influences and / or mentors along the way?
JH: I would say Dr. Chanda Macias. One of the first people I knew in the industry. When I was kicked out of this facility, I resigned from MCBA because I had to give everything to get back into the game, find a new facility, and build from below. When I did that, she was one of the few people who knew how difficult this time was for me financially.
Without my asking, she and her husband Michael wrote me a check, which actually helped me a lot. She is one of my greatest supporters and one of the people I look at and who I am most inspired by when I look at how much she can accomplish from the beginning. How many people doubted how much she could overcome. She is my greatest inspiration in the cannabis industry.
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DJ: Tell me about your work with the NuLeaf project and your work with the Minority Cannabis Business Association
JH: I started MCBA with a few other people in 2015. We started it in 2014, a few years after I got my license to practice medicine.
You’re still killing it. The reason we started is because for People of Color one of the biggest hurdles to success is believing in their ability to overcome the many barriers that have traditionally kept us from being successful in this society.
Being able to see people who do, see and hear them, and realize that they are just normal people breaking the same barriers, was the most important thing in our opinion. Not only opening doors through regulations and networks, but also being a beacon for blacks and colored people in the industry.
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NuLeaf was a much more focused intention of putting dollars and resources in the hands of black and brown entrepreneurs in the cannabis industry. Even for a person like me who can bring a lot of skill and value to the market, financial resources are still the biggest hurdle for me.
Things like $ 10,000, $ 15,000, $ 20,000 grants can make a huge difference in whether you can implement small devices, processes, or whatever. These things mean huge opportunities for entrepreneurs like me.
This has been a very concerted effort within NuLeaf, not only to work with the government to use tax dollars to give these companies money on smart projects, but also to work with some of the most well-known companies in the industry to bring some of the wealth they have see. This is an attempt by my wife Jeannette.
DJ: What legacy do you hope to keep in this industry 20 years from now?
JH: Man, above all I want to be seen as a smart entrepreneur who used the industry and used his passions to build some ladders and bridges too. It really is.
Dante Jordan
Danté Jordan is a former member of the Leafly Subject Matter Expert Team and is currently a freelance writer, video producer, and media consultant specializing in cannabis culture, strains, products, education, and everything else related to this little green flower. Contact him at smokewithdante on Instagram or datenetworks (at) gmail (dotcom). His website is www.dantejordan.com.
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