Nicolas Guarino of Naturae: 5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started Leading a Cannabis or CBD Business

Understand the success rate for anybody that gets into a brand-new industry, by its nature, is extremely slim. It’s hard to survive and I wish someone told me your chance of ever running a successful profitable cannabis business would be extremely challenging.

As part of my series “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started Leading a Cannabis Business” I had the pleasure of interviewing Nicolas Guarino, CEO and Founder of Naturae. Nick is originally from Venezuela but studied in the US and went to college at CUNY Baruch in New York City. His family background is four generations taking part in specialty agriculture production in South America. As a consumer with a passion for cannabis, Nicolas co-founded Naturae in 2017, dedicating and focusing his efforts on business fundraising and cultivation. In 2021, he was named CEO of Naturae and steered the company to a successful launch into the burgeoning and exciting New York adult-use market with the Jaunty brand. Naturae is one of New York’s leading companies licensed for all adult-use cannabis supply chain activities outside of retail. and they are the largest producer of CO2-extracted cannabis oils in the state. Their house brand, Jaunty, is New York’s number-one-selling cannabis vape brand, available in all of the state’s licensed dispensaries, and the only brand to use CO2-extracted cannabis oil in all its products.

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 got involved in cannabis in 2017 when New York expanded its hemp program, which was previously limited to research, to include commercial business and established industrial hemp as an agricultural commodity. Family members of mine had a small plot of land upstate, and that inspired my roommates and me at the time who had connections to infrastructure to apply for a license and then began fundraising for a vertically integrated CBD project. As avid consumers at the time, it seemed like the perfect opportunity to get involved with the cannabis industry. To learn more about and fully immerse ourselves in the industry, we apprenticed for free at farms in Oregon and Colorado. Through those experiences, we decided to focus Naturae on CBD cultivation and production. We received a hemp cultivation and processing license, which was a ton of work but we got it done and pitched dozens of investors to raise $3 million in debt and equity financing for Naturae’s processing and manufacturing infrastructure. The five years the Naturae team and I spent in the hemp industry presented enormous challenges, as supply was not regulated and interstate commerce was allowed almost immediately, but they proved to be the best training ground for our current vertically integrated operations in the THC sector.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began leading your company? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

It’s a slightly long story but to summarize, one of our founders that was previously the CEO left the company. When I took over and started running everything, we had an issue with a supplier and had an impromptu visit from them at the facility. They were checking to make sure things were in order since I began running the company and thankfully everything was going well! They showed up with an experienced investor from the mining industry, with tons of relevant experience. We learned he had founded multibillion-dollar gold and mining companies. And lucky for us he took a huge interest in our company because of our CO2 extraction system. He saw massive potential in us, and to this day he is our primary investor. I learned that networking and investing in relationships are key, and it’s also important to make sure you stay on top of your game at all times, you never know who you’ll run into.

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?

When we first started in 2017, we needed to have a greenhouse for our hemp starts. We thought we needed a much larger greenhouse than we actually did. We ordered the greenhouse, looked at all the plans for it, and got everything ancillary ordered and prepared for its arrival. Then, once it arrived — we realized we didn’t have any way to actually unload the greenhouse, as our tractor’s front loader was far too small. There were about four tractor-trailers with tons and tons of steel for a 15,000-square-foot greenhouse that showed up at our farm, and the delivery people were waiting for us to have some kind of form to unload. We ended up having to get tractors from our neighbors in the town that were farming out back then in Berlin, New York, and get two different tractors that very unsafely unloaded a full 15,000-square-foot greenhouse, nearly flipping forward from the weight several times. Because it was so unsafe, we ended up unloading each piece by hand, and with the amount of strain, I ended up in the hospital that evening with subcutaneous emphysema. The lesson? Check the transport manifest and look at the weight of what kind of deliveries you’re taking. The details are important, leave no stone unturned!

Are you working on any exciting projects now? How do you think that will help people?

Our number one goal at Naturae is to be New York’s premier cannabis distribution company. As part of this, we want to be able to offer our retail dispensary partners a full catalog of products that are going to compete in every single category. We spent the last 5 years perfecting our cannabis distillate extraction techniques. Right now, all of our products are distillate based. We have vaporizers and gummies coming to market, released as one of our house brands, named Jaunty. This is just the beginning. In addition to adding alternative extraction methods like solventless and eventually hydrocarbon butane extraction, we will be able to produce more cannabis connoisseur-focused products like live resin and live rosin, and dab-able concentrates — those things are coming a little further down the line but we are excited about it!

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?

While I already mentioned him before, I have to give another shoutout to our mentor and investor who has been a huge part of our success due to his emphasis on fundamentals and in many other ways. He has a wealth of knowledge in business and experience in other industries, serving as either founder, CEO or chairman of multibillion-dollar companies. He has been a great mentor for the past three years, especially in teaching me to be a CEO that cares about numbers, is cost-conscious, and helps me establish a profitable business.

This industry is young, dynamic and creative. Does your company use any clever and innovative marketing strategies that you think large legacy companies should consider adopting?

For us, getting to market as soon as possible with a quality product was our strategy. Oftentimes larger companies might overthink and potentially spend too much time on the marketing process, which could slow them down. But for us, we were ready and hit the ground running as soon as the New York’s licensed industry permitted the retail sale of products in January of this year. Being quick, smart, and nimble is critical. Plus, we value the price point at which we sell our products, and taking this into account for our larger strategy of competing with unlicensed markets has been extremely important. Since day one we have been able to offer dispensary partners’ products that can sell and deliver value to the New York consumer at a price that is fair and reasonable.

Can you share 3 things that most excite you about the Cannabis industry? Can you share 3 things that most concern you?

1. The fact that it is an emerging industry that is so new and there’s no hard and fast playbook that you have to follow to be successful is exhilarating.
2. Product development and process development in general is exciting, there is so much you can pull from other industries to innovate new products and market products in different ways.
3. New data is very interesting to me — and there is always new data coming in that we’re able to analyze and learn from.

On the other hand, there are some concerns…

1. Early taxes in the cannabis industry and how disconnected they are from the real implications of the unlicensed market.
2. The timing of federal legalization and how it can affect stakeholders and states, especially those that have only just legalized compared to states that are still only pushing for legalization.
3. I’d like to see more transparency and consistency in marketing and packaging. Testing and dosage are important and should be meaningful to the consumer in some way. Right now, it’s a bit of a free for all.

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.

1. Price is going to go down and the intermediary markets will quickly get commoditized, so work on launching a focused consumer brand.
2. Any figures that equipment companies provide, you should divide that by half and take away another 25% or so, and then you’re somewhere near reality.
3. Understand the success rate for anybody that gets into a brand-new industry, by its nature, is extremely slim. It’s hard to survive and I wish someone told me your chance of ever running a successful profitable cannabis business would be extremely challenging.
4. Every service provider around you is going to try to take away from the potential margin of profitability that your company can have. Be super aware of hiring the right people and who you surround yourself with!
5. You’re going to have infinite sleepless nights if you get into this industry. Everything is constantly changing and the plan you made last month is completely irrelevant because some regulations just changed, or prices just dropped another 25%.

What advice would you give to other CEOs or founders to help their employees to thrive?

As a CEO, you can help your employees thrive by participating in the tasks that you’re asking them to do for a significant period of time. This way, you can have mutually empathetic points of view. However, as much as you want to get in the weeds with everyone, it’s also important, as a leader of the company, to back up, gather everyone around, and on a very high level show them what the vision is for the company. This builds trust. Show employees where they fit into the success of the organization, and how important their role is. Let each person know that even if they’re not working in an executive position, they’re a big part of this company and helping us move in the right direction. Lastly, make sure everyone is on board with the vision of the company, emphasize the mission, and why each person’s position is critical to the company’s success.

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. ☺

Continuing to reduce the stigma associated with cannabis use is going to bring the industry at large forward. Normalization of cannabis and a massive emphasis on promoting responsible use to adults and legal consumers will go a long way. But we have a ton of work to do just to survive the next few years, so I will leave it at that!

Thank you so much for the time you spent with this. We wish you only continued success!