Meet The Disruptors: Devin Calloway and Danielle Dao Of Eco Farm Holdings PBC On The Three Things You Need To Shake Up Your Industry

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

Make your dreams a reality -You have the chance to make your dreams a reality, don’t talk about it do it. The only way to prove yourself is to actually do it and not talk about it. I have been dreaming big since I was a kid and I realized after receiving this advice how important action is over words. I developed an appetite for getting my hands dirty and learning whatever I had to in order to get the job done. Making things happen when you are running your own business requires deep and wide subject matter expertise where you must be the technician, manager, and entrepreneur all at the same time.

As a part of our series about business leaders who are shaking things up in their industry, I had the pleasure of interviewing Devin Calloway and Danielle Dao, Founders and Co-CEOs of Eco Farm Holdings PBC.

Devin Calloway is the Founder, co-CEO, CTO and President of Eco Farm Holdings PBC leading the company’s technology, finance, manufacturing, veganic cultivation and supply chain functions. Calloway brings over 16 years of cannabis industry and advocacy experience as well as 20 years in web development, UI/UX, ERP and Information Architecture bringing a unique perspective to technology operations in the cannabis industry. Prior to founding Eco Farm, Calloway founded Ajnag.com, the first web and mobile cannabis locator app directing users to legal cannabis resources.

Danielle Dao, Founder / Co-CEO of Eco Farm Holdings PBC / Thrive Society.

As Founder and co-CEO of Eco Farm Holdings PBC & Thrive Society, Danielle Dao leverages over 20 years of experience in the cannabis industry to manage Eco Farm & Thrive Societies’ enterprise including: finance, operations, distribution, procurement & sales, cultivation, quality control and manufacturing. Dao is considered a Subject Matter Expert (SME) in cannabis, and brings over 10 years of expertise in supply chain relationships.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?

Danielle Dao: Born and raised in the South, I grew up in a community that valued pharmaceuticals as remedies for physical and mental health and wellness needs. After witnessing those close to me suffer from addiction and mental illness with no option for alternative medicine, I began to seek out a deeper understanding of some of those other options out there. I started studying wholistic living and herbology at age 18, and came across considering cannabis as medicine, bringing my purpose more into focus. The untapped potential and healing benefits of cannabis led me to California to live and learn amongst the best cannabis farmers in the world. My love for sustainable living and alternative healing grew over the years and allowed me to travel the world studying with sustainability mentors and leaders and world renown Permaculture experts who taught me to understand herbs and plants healing properties, body & energy modalities as medicine, regenerative farming & soil building techniques, and more. I have been in the Cannabis industry all of my adult life and this plant truly was the catalyst for my quest in helping heal the earth. I will continue to dedicate my life to revealing the untapped power, wisdom & healing potential that this plant offers our society and our planet.

Devin Calloway: Technology and cannabis have been my life’s work and passion. Growing up just outside New York City in Norwalk, CT in an Interracial household (my mother is German and my father is Black), there were a number of experiences in life and my upbringing that stimulated my curiosity and interest in the cannabis plant. I was first introduced to the benefits of cannabis when I was 8 years old by my father, who was a rock n’ roller and cannabis user and diagnosed with the autoimmune and connective tissue disease, Lupus when I was 6. He used cannabis to alleviate his severe muscle & joint pain and when he was no longer able to smoke due to the disease attacking his lungs, and without access to infused cannabis medicine to help with his disease progression, he was forced to rely on toxic prescription medications. As a result of contradicting school programs like DARE and “Just Say No,” I started my own research to find out cannabis was a powerful plant that could benefit society in more ways than one. In high school I became interested in tech and cybersecurity doing freelance web design and web development, and after college, as a self-taught web developer, studying UI / UX Design, server configuration, cybersecurity, database management, implementation of content management systems, and information architecture, I moved to California to pursue my passion to legally cultivate cannabis and enter the industry. In 2006,I launched the first cannabis locator site called Ajnag.com, and then in 2009 the first “Cannabis App” to be approved by the Apple App store that debuted at the first cannabis expo in Los Angeles (and the country), THC Expo.

Can you tell our readers what it is about the work you’re doing that’s disruptive?

Danielle Dao: Having a long history in the industry, I understand the legacy cannabis culture very deeply, as well as the supply chain in California. Cannabis is a very complicated fragmented agricultural supply chain with decades of “bad habits” ingrained in the ways people do business. There are also major disadvantages to being in cannabis due to overregulation; our industry is significantly more scrutinized than any other high-risk industry. This barrier to entry — this overregulation — has created a supply chain obstacle course with stop signs at every corner resulting in extreme market inefficiencies, and forcing many farms to shut down. We’ve had to adapt or fail and this applies to all farms: This is the driving force in our managed cannabis services model. We are effectively disrupting the industry with a fully managed digital & plant route to market for all farms — all while continuously adapting to changing regulations, overtaxation, and not being classified as “agriculture” continues to cripple thousands of operators.

Eco Farm & Thrive Society have created a “farm to shelf” business model that is not only tech enabled, but works with each supply chain partner to optimize their business and success. Our tech and business model provides an opportunity for us to scale globally and to standardize cannabis transactions; product value & grading standards; sustainable growing practices; and quality control for consistency and scalability across all brands, stores and consumers. We thrive to set an example and to disrupt “traditional agriculture” standards and show the industry that sustainable farming is possible at scale — without pesticide contamination and residues such as metals and other contaminants all while conserving water. This is very much possible and has always been our way of life as cannabis farmers. While there are various CPG fulfillment options downstream through tech-enabled distributors, there are really no companies addressing the upstream supply chain working directly with cultivators to synchronize strategies, collect data, refine fair trade practices, and plan for the future of the local operators’ success. Our managed services model was borne from this…to bring our community of farmers together — sharing in the risk to ensure our success. We are farmers as well. Our business model provides a path to standardization and scale, while setting “best practices” for the entire industry.

Devin Calloway: The metaphor I like to use in describing our market disruption is the autonomous superhighway or perhaps more aptly, a driver-assisted cannabis superhighway. The Internet along with the most advanced application integration has driven global B2B e-commerce communications and supply chain linkage to new and extraordinary levels of logistical efficiency and cost reduction. While the global supply chain superhighways are currently experiencing significant roadwork as I like to say, due to the pandemic, in normal times however these global routes-to-market are extremely efficient — much to the benefit of upstream suppliers and consumers. Meanwhile the cannabis supply chain is operating literally on dirt roads. Imagine if you were traveling a supply chain of bumpy dirt roads with stop signs and tolls at every turn; this is what we have basically in California, a logistical nightmare. It is our mission at Eco Farm & Thrive Society through the digital marketplace and managed cannabis services model to build the first cannabis farm-assisted superhighway across California, and then across the country. We are transforming dirt roads into a cannabis superhighway, and I don’t like to use technical jargon, but we are doing this through data aggregation; data segregation; digital threading; digital twinning; AI; digital process automation; IOT (Internet of Things/ Internet of Transparency) and of course deeply integrating this with the plant-touching side of the business.

In summary, we are empowering, integrating and normalizing the upstream-to-midstream cannabis supply chain that has otherwise been highly fragmented, inefficient and challenging to consistently bring product to market. Our team has nearly two decades of subject matter expertise in the cannabis industry to help simplify and remove complexities to operate in this challenging environment by bridging the gap between technology and the plant! Ultimately, we’re helping cultivators, distributors and manufacturers make data driven decisions on how to more effectively manage their supply chain, to increase value, market resilience, and profit.

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?

Danielle Dao: Many years ago, I had an indoor medical grow room where I worked every evening feeding, pruning, spraying and tending to the garden. One evening, when I was stepping over a pot, I grabbed the chain holding the lights above my plants and electrocuted myself all the way down to my bare feet standing in the puddles of water. Lesson learned: Wear rubber boots around low hanging electricity!

Devin Calloway: Hmmm… most of my mistakes when I was first starting out were not funny but expensive! When we first opened our extraction lab at Eco Farm, we were on a tight budget and did not have proper equipment for the volume we were producing. I was working in the lab with a co-worker all day rushing to get an order ready. For a bit of context, Decarboxylation is the process of converting THCa to THC by removing the carboxylic acid from the carbon chain. So — I would transfer the THCa oil into mason jars out of our Falling Film Evaporator and would then place the oil in a low temp freezer to cool the oil and stop the decarb process (I would leave the lid loosely opened to allow C02 bubbles to escape). I went to pull a jar out of the freezer to see if it had cooled and opened the lid not realizing the lid had been closed and fully pressurized. The hot crude oil exploded into my face and ears, luckily, I had been wearing protective goggles and my dreadlocks were wrapped in my hat! My co-worker was dumbfounded! From that point on, I vowed that I would never rush a process in the lab and took the steps to build proper decarb equipment. Always remember to use protective eyewear in the laboratory!

We all need a little help along the journey. Who have been some of your mentors? Can you share a story about how they made an impact?

Danielle Dao: James Beatty & Chiah Rodrigues (owners of Arcanna and Mendo Generations) have been huge mentors for my love for cannabis and as stewards of the earth living a very low carbon footprint. I was introduced to them from a friend many years ago, and they took me in as an apprentice. They live off grid in a beautiful two-story home deep in the mountains of Mendicino. I worked their land for many years, and lived a new definition of homesteading. I will never forget the Fall season with them. We would harvest tomatoes, squash, medicinal herbs, cannabis, flowers, vegetables of all sorts, all planted together in the same soil, and growing together throughout the year. We would spend days tincturing, canning, and making an abundance of food for all the helpers on the land. Chiah would make salves, and medicines of all sorts to give away as gifts, and to keep for the next year to treat ailments for their friends and family. They are both foundational healers and medicine plant carriers, who walk gently on the planet with care and integrity.

Devin Calloway: My Uncle Pete Vogt had the biggest impact on how I help run our company today. Pete bought me my first computer, has over 25 years of cybersecurity/tech experience, and truly stimulated my passion for tech, innovation, and big idea thinking. I remember him bringing me for a field trip into his first cybersecurity job in New York City. At the time, no one really knew what cybersecurity was (it was secretive, illusive, and I was fascinated that my cool Uncle Pete worked in it). Following that introduction, I wrote my first research paper on the network security layer and paradigm in 7th grade. From then on, I fell in love with technology, web development, and became a full on geek! I’m so grateful to have had Pete as an advisor of the company for the last 2 years where he has been a driving influence in cultivating the managed cannabis services model (MCSP) and our customer and farm success programs.

One of my early cannabis mentors is Jeff Jones, an original California medical cannabis advocate and pioneer and Founder / Executive Director of the Oakland Cannabis Buyers Cooperative, one of the first dispensaries in the US and first supreme court case to test the cooperative model now taught in law schools. I worked for Jeff as a patient intake coordinator at the Patient ID Center in LA (2008). Jeff sparked my realization about the importance of advocacy, activism, education and leading by intention and action.

In today’s parlance, being disruptive is usually a positive adjective. But is disrupting always good? When do we say the converse, that a system or structure has ‘withstood the test of time’? Can you articulate to our readers when disrupting an industry is positive, and when disrupting an industry is ‘not so positive’? Can you share some examples of what you mean?

Danielle Dao: I would have to say that Proposition 64 is both a positive and negative disruption for the legacy operators in the CA industry. On the positive side, legalization offered us a way to continue our careers as cannabis farmers, and allow us to participate in the benefits of “coming out of the shadows” and stepping forward to be a voice of wisdom and mastery in our field while continuing to take care of our land. This was a positive disruption and gave us hope that we would no longer hide, feel shame, fear or paranoia for our life choices. On the contrary, Prop 64 was a huge negative disruption. The emergency regulations mysteriously allowed for large uncapped grows while the original law voted on specified one-acre caps for five years after Prop 64 came into effect. There was also an unbalanced application of permits by municipalities. This, combined with over taxation, ever changing CEQA requirements, and having high barriers to entry than any other agricultural product, our legacy cannabis farmers are a dying breed.

Devin Calloway: Disruption is not so positive when it has an adverse effect on an industry often stimulated by an unforeseen event or condition. What we are currently experiencing with the impact of COVID-19 and the near collapse of the global supply chain system is an example of negative disruption. However, that negative disruption is now creating positive disruption through the development of innovative supply chain technologies that are creating efficiencies using AI / Machine Learning to manage and route logistics as well as through government investment. This is an example of turning a negative into positive or taking a crisis to make a change.

Can you share 3 of the best words of advice you’ve gotten along your journey? Please give a story or example for each.

Danielle Dao: “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” Fast forward to the last 5–6 years of CA cannabis legalizations, these words of advice stand truer now than ever. It is an uphill battle with insurmountable roadblocks, but as leaders, it is our duty to continue to strengthen our industry with innovation and hope.

Devin Calloway: It often takes a crisis to make a change. I feel that we’re experiencing this right now within humanity, the environment, the economy, and the cannabis industry. From shifts in focus in our industry to paradigm shifts in human consciousness driven by the age of digital information and integration, cannabis is becoming more widely (mainstream) accepted and helping adopt new ways of doing things.

1. Make your dreams a reality -You have the chance to make your dreams a reality, don’t talk about it do it. The only way to prove yourself is to actually do it and not talk about it. I have been dreaming big since I was a kid and I realized after receiving this advice how important action is over words. I developed an appetite for getting my hands dirty and learning whatever I had to in order to get the job done. Making things happen when you are running your own business requires deep and wide subject matter expertise where you must be the technician, manager, and entrepreneur all at the same time.
2. There are 3 types of people 1. People that watch things happen 2. People that make things happen. 3. People that say damn what just happened? You want to be a person who makes things happen! This advice has been a reality throughout my career. For the last 16 years in California cannabis, I have witnessed many early operators remain stuck in the comfort of the status quo and their renegade bad habit past, where they have “watched” the new industry unfold often resisting regulation, best business practices, and technology, some so much to the point where any and all opportunity has fully passed them by and are now saying “damn what just happened?” Innovation and disruption does not happen by watching or waiting, it happens through implementing, testing, failing, being challenged, learning and then adapting to create a product or service that replaces the old habits to efficiently solve real problems. It only occurs when you make things happen!

We are sure you aren’t done. How are you going to shake things up next?

Danielle Dao: By using our company voice to advocate for systemic change, and business as a force for good, we will continue to strive to be a cutting-edge leader in the space, and advocate for change in the industry and for education and give back to people who need alternative healthcare.

Devin Calloway: We are close to launching our proprietary and federated upstream supply chain technology solution that will empower cultivators, distributors, manufacturers, and retailers in other markets looking to solve the same upstream route to market problem we are experiencing in California. We are also excited to release our AI powered dynamic pricing intelligence platform in 2022. We feel it has the opportunity to help normalize and stabilize wholesale commodity cannabis prices and enable true market making opportunities. We are also focusing energy on strategic supply chain partnerships with leading cannabis FinTech, Analytical Lab Testing, IoT and midstream and downstream platforms to further strengthen our integration from farm to shelf.

Do you have a book, podcast, or talk that’s had a deep impact on your thinking? Can you share a story with us? Can you explain why it was so resonant with you?

Danielle Dao: Harvard Business Review series is great for entrepreneurs and all people who strive to excel is their roles and to relate to their own business in a more balanced way. The series discusses boundaries around burnout, focus, team dynamics, innovation, strategy and inequality. The episodes have first hand stories & experiences from some of the most well know entrepreneurs in the world, and also discusses current topics such as COVID, and how it has impacted the work force, and the disruption of how to create a new normal since the pandemic.

Devin Calloway: Grit — The Power of Passion and Perseverance by Angela Duckworth. Angela Duckworth’s in depth research on successful individuals and her analysis on defining Grit and how it is a critical variable for excellence and success was truly inspiring. I have not been able to survive and continue along this journey if it weren’t for my passion for the plant and its power to help humanity and our planet combined with having pure grit. I was lucky to have learned this from my parents. Duckworth’s book validated my experience and that I was on the right path pursuing my passion. There have been days when you wake up and the pain and suffering is so excruciating when it feels like nothing is falling into place and you just want to quit and run away. This is the proverbial beating, the bending and snapping, falling over, but always learning, evolving, and finding ways to stay in love with cannabis and technology. The outcome is shooting back up towards the sun with richer flavor, higher potency, and more resilience than ever!

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

Danielle Dao: “Always laugh when you can; it is cheap medicine” Lord Byron. Without a sense of humor about this mission, I would not be standing today! There are so many things to laugh about, the good times and the hard times. But laughter is and always will be my best medicine!

Devin Calloway: I have two life quotes that are relevant to me in my life at this moment in time. The first is “You can try to tell me what you want to believe. I won’t deny, there’s someone trying to be — So let it go and let your freedom fly. Now the pace will get much faster. So throw away that ball and chain. For to be the master blaster. You know the fire needs the flame. You run the distance.” This is an excerpt from father’s Song “Run the Distance” and has been my mantra from my teenage to adult years. It has gotten me through some of my most challenging life experiences and taught me to listen to the higher power of the universe, be free, pursue my passion that lights my fire, and realize my true potential to Run the Distance.

The second is “There are no shortcuts to excellence. Developing real expertise, figuring out really hard problems, it all takes time―longer than most people imagine….you’ve got to apply those skills and produce goods or services that are valuable to people….Grit is about working on something you care about so much that you’re willing to stay loyal to it…it’s doing what you love, but not just falling in love―staying in love.” — Angela Duckworth. It has been a long arduous, painstaking but exhilarating and evolutionary journey over the last 16 years working in California cannabis, I would not have been able to maintain the stamina if I didn’t have a passion and love for the plant. Along the way I have had to solve some very challenging and dynamic problems, from financial, technological, regulatory, legal, operational, and engineering. As long as I am breathing, I am always looking for solutions that support my loyalty to humanity, the plant and all of our stakeholders.

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.

Danielle Dao: I would love to see the Cannabis legacy industry setting new standards to inspire and implement solutions for mainstream agriculture to adopt so they may begin to correct their wrongdoings and give heed to the environmental crisis we all face. If other farming industries implemented sustainable biodiverse growing practices, water conservation, and regenerating the top soil of their land, we may be able to expedite the healing of the earth, and bring balance back into our bodies and planet.

Devin Calloway: I am grateful to be living that movement with my work in cannabis and technology! I believe cannabis is the most powerful plant on this planet, it is truly a Super Crop. Cannabis has the extraordinary ability to sustain life from food, medicine, fiber, fuel and culture, and most beautifully, the plant brings people together from all socio-economic backgrounds. It has helped me personally heal and grow, cultivate some of my most positive life changing experiences, and connect me with truly unique, compassionate, colorful, and brilliant individuals. I plan to continue on this path and do my part to use cannabis as a force for good and bring the plant to the people through technology and good old fashion farming!

How can our readers follow you online?

Danielle Dao: You can follow me on Instagram at @devi.dao.thrivesociety or add me on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielle-dao/. I look forward to speaking with anyone that would like to connect and discuss this incredible industry!

Devin Calloway: Add me on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/devincalloway/ or follow me on instagram @devincalloway

Thank you so much for joining us!