Meet Ray Landgraf of Island Cannabis

Today we’d like to introduce you to Ray Landgraf.

So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
I started Island in Southern California in 2014. We launched our first product in 2015 focusing on the pre-roll space, which was virtually non-existent at the time, and overall, I had the goal of building a great company around a great brand that embodies a passion for exploration, community, the outdoors, and inspiring moments of happiness with our customers.

Our flower is seasonal, single strain, and sourced from a network of small farms across California. We’ve gone from a company of two people pulling all-nighters rolling joints to fulfill last-minute 420 orders to being widely recognized as a leader in product quality, manufacturing consistency, compliance, and technology in the cannabis industry.

We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc. – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
It definitely hasn’t always been a smooth road. I’d say our biggest challenges along the way have been ever-changing regulations and access to capital. The disparity between state and federal law, coupled with a constantly evolving regulatory environment, is an impact that most non-cannabis businesses take for granted.

As an example: things like HR platforms, payroll, and equipment financing for high-growth companies typically aren’t hard problems to solve. There’s an ever-changing regulatory landscape, so even in California, we’ve been through four significant regulatory events in the last 18 months that many people in the cannabis industry are now starting to call “extinction events.”

We’re not through with these types of events yet, and there’s still a lot of regulation that doesn’t make practical sense. We’re very supportive of smart regulation and believe a lot of the intent came from the right place, but practically, it’s very difficult to run a business in an environment where you have to constantly spend your way through things you have no control over.

We’d love to hear more about your business.
Island has focused on cannabis production technology for the three largest product categories: flower, pre-roll, and vape. From the start, we’ve been committed to adopting thorough production practices and developing technology that allows us to produce higher volumes of the product without sacrificing consistency or quality.

We’ve been able to set ourselves apart from other cannabis brands by holding ourselves to a higher standard even before the law required us to do so. Since the product first hit shelves in 2015, we’ve tested all raw materials for pesticides, molds, contaminants, and fungicides to ensure consumer safety, even at the beginning of legalization when most cannabis companies – if they even tested for anything – tested for levels of THC potency for marketability and not product safety.

On top of our premium quality and consumer safety standards, we’re really proud of the way Island has grown into a lifestyle business people want to be a part of. As opposed to other cannabis companies that pander to the stereotypical stoner-culture branding—big marijuana leaves, incorporating the color green or words like “Canna,” or “420,” on labels and packaging—we intentionally do not.

We’ve differentiated ourselves from the clutter of the industry by appealing to a broader audience beyond cannabis experts and longtime enthusiasts. We understand that for a lot of people, cannabis doesn’t consume every waking hour of their lives, but it fits in neatly at just the right times.

Island offers ready-made products for newcomers to the cannabis consumption space such as our PAX Era pods and our five pack of Island Minis which can function as both a box of modestly measured joints for personal use or a social product to be shared among friends. Our mission has always been to celebrate all types of cannabis users, including the ones that are too busy to consume cannabis regularly because they are out there pursuing their passions and living their lives.

We’re here for the part of us that forgets to take breaks and want to remind our customers that it’s okay to do something for the pure enjoyment of it. We offer fun and carefree moments with our products whether in solitude or with company, in order to give ourselves the opportunity to press pause, rest, and recharge. We consider being “on Island time” a gift to yourself to enjoy personal time well-spent, in a place that refreshes the spirit and uplifts the soul.

If you had to start over, what would you have done differently?
Thankfully, there really aren’t many regrets that would make me want to scratch everything and start over. One thing I’d definitely do differently is to hire earlier and faster.

Like any other startup, there’s a significant amount of bootstrapping as you build during the early days and filling key roles earlier, so we had a bit more cross-functional stability instead of trading hats so much and dealing with the trade-offs come with that.

At the end of the day, however, it’s been a very interesting learning experience as considering the time we put into attracting the right people to join our journey in such a wild burgeoning industry.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.island.co
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/findisland/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/IslandCannaCo/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/findisland?lang=en

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