Interested in starting your own entrepreneurial journey in design and consulting services but unsure what to expect? Then read up on our interview with Jack Whipple, Founder of Whipple Effect, located in Santa Monica, Ca, USA.

What's your business, and who are your customers?

Whipple Effect is a brand that specializes in efficiently designed indoor cultivation facilities, data-driven cultivation protocols, automation, project management technology, step-by-step training manuals, and premium genetics. Managing 350,000 square feet of licensed indoor cultivation gardens in Los Angeles and Phoenix at the moment.

We are currently building new facilities in Boston, Oklahoma City, San Diego, and Thailand. Our team has designed over 500,000+ square feet of commercial gardens over the last ten years. We have projects in Boulder, CO; Denver, CO; Adelanto, CA; Palm Springs, CA; Los Angeles, CA; Oakland, CA; San Jose, CA; San Diego, CA; Williams, OR; Portland, OR; Las Vegas, NV; Oklahoma City, OK; Boston, MA; Phoenix, AZ; and Nan,Thailand in our portfolio.

Our brand was founded by expert cultivators, is designed for cultivators, and is privately funded and owned by cultivators. This allows us to stay true to our roots, put our teams and the plants first, and keeps us protected from having our company culture washed out by the corporate cannabis world that does not have cannabis backgrounds.

We have gratitude meetings every week, our employees have health insurance and bonus structures, our team is diverse with multiple ethnicities, and nearly half of our team is comprised of women. We support psychedelic plant medicine and view cannabis as one of the psychedelic plant medicines. Our customers for our new cannabis cultivation book are anyone who grows cannabis. Either commercially or at home.

Tell us about yourself

Being a serial entrepreneur who has been working with cannabis since the age of 15, I am also a passionate advocate for psychedelic plant medicine and believe that these plants are the catalyst to revolutionize the field of mental health. I am the founder and CEO of Whipple Effect, Psychonaut Genetics, The CCI Book, and A Sacred Trip. I am also an angel investor in my brother Mark’s golf company, Evolution Putting.

I have taken the road less traveled and learned business and cannabis by trial and error—learning the hard way. Before the Whipple Effect, I was the founder and COO of five commercial cannabis cultivation facilities. I started his first business three weeks after Amendment 64 was active in Colorado, which allowed for recreational wholesale by a stand-alone cultivation facility. I then started a cultivation facility in California when Proposition 64 passed and legalized recreational cannabis.

Whipple Effect has now partnered and designed a facility with one of the first license holders in Thailand, as they just passed recreational cannabis, making them the first country in Asia to legalize it. My dedication to the plant and belief that cannabis is here as a revolution to the consciousness of humanity has allowed me to stay the course as a pioneer in the emerging global cannabis industry.

What's your biggest accomplishment as a business owner?

Making an exit from being a minority shareholder and COO of privately held cannabis cultivation facilities so that I could self-fund Whipple Effect and Psychonaut Genetics as the founding CEO.

What's one of the hardest things that come with being a business owner?

There is a multitude of logistics that must be completed behind the scenes: taxes, HR paperwork, insurance, legal contracts, and employee contracts. Staying up-to-date with all of this while being the leader of expanding the business and supporting our teams requires extended work hours, large accounting and legal expenses, and a lot of organization.

What are the top tips you'd give to anyone looking to start, run and grow a business today?

  1. Just start. You likely will not have a perfect plan, no matter how much planning you do. Starting is the only way to figure out your lane, and your early errors and mistakes will be what guide you to make pivots and transform your business so it can be successful.
  2. You are only as strong as your team. Higher smart people who care. Pay them well. Support them, and make sure to communicate your appreciation for their work. Ask them what they are passionate about, and put them in a position where they can use their skills. Share with them the vision, and then give them permission to innovate so that your company can become bigger than anything that you would be able to achieve by yourself.
  3. Stick to your values. Start a business that you are passionate about and dedicate yourself to doing quality work. Great work, good values, and dedication will always lead to success. Customers and consumers stand behind brands that have a purpose and do great work.

Where can people find you and your business?

Website: https://www.whippleeffect.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mrwhipple/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jack-whipple-3b003456/

If you like what you've read here and have your own story as a solo or small business entrepreneur that you'd like to share, then please answer these interview questions. We'd love to feature your journey on these pages.

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