A year ago, Grön was an edibles brand in nine states, and Wyld was about to buy it. When the deal was announced in January, Grön founder Christine Apple told Cannabis Now that the Portland, Ore., brand had “passed over those older legacy states that are more saturated,” including California, Colorado, Washington and Michigan. Now, Grön is in all four.
Since September, Grön has launched in six new states and relaunched in Nevada, bringing it to 15 states plus Canada.
That growth traces back to a cup of coffee. Draper Bender, Grön’s president, helped set the deal in motion when he sat down with Wyld founder and CEO Aaron Morris, and he has spent the months since bringing the two companies together.
Cannabis Now spoke with Bender about how the deal came together, Grön’s place in the Wyld lineup, the brand’s record-setting Halloween edition and what comes next.
Draper Bender, president of Grön, helped set Wyld’s purchase of the brand in motion and has led its integration into the company. Photo courtesy of Grön
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Dana Murphy: To start, tell me a little about your role. What does being Grön‘s president look like day to day right now?
Draper Bender: We’re almost at the tail end of all our integrations with Wyld. What we thought was going to take maybe two years has come down to almost 10 months. By the end of this month, we’ll be fully integrated across operations, sales and distribution, marketing, finance and all the other core functions of the organization.
So I’ve been spending a lot of time with Aaron and the rest of the team making sure this is as seamless as possible. That means getting the teams ingrained with each other, making sure cultures are aligned and making sure we’ve got the best people in the roles to drive Wyld into the next massive growth curve.
DM: Congrats on doing that in under a year instead of two. It’s quite the feat. Back in January, Christine told us the deal started when you had coffee with Aaron and came back saying, “I have an idea.” What did that conversation look like, and how closely has this past year resembled what you pictured?
DB: Aaron and I had been kind of frenemies for about two years before that conversation. Over that time, we’d talked several times and realized how similar the two businesses were, from operations to sales and marketing. As we were sitting there, I just hurled this idea: What does this look like if the two companies come together?
My basis for it was the data. We’d been spending a lot of time in platforms like Hoodie and Headset, and Wyld was the 1,000-pound gorilla in the room. It was always, “How do we beat them?” So we studied the brand and how ours compared. The interesting thing we saw was that the brands complement each other on a shelf. When a Grön product and a Wyld product were both on the shelf, the category grew. If it was just Grön, we could stabiliz
