Bridging the Worlds of Cannabis, Art, and Social Justice with Kristina Lopez Adduci

On this week’s podcast, Eric & Isaac are joined by the founder and CEO of House of Puff, Kristina Lopez Adduci.

Kristina is an entrepreneur, speaker, art collector, and curator. She’s the founder and CEO of House of Puff, a New York-based cannabis brand. The company began with her conception of the cannabis products she wanted for herself. Since, Kristina has evolved the brand to leverage the power of art as a vehicle for social change.

House of Puff leverages the power of art to make cannabis consumption chic and easy. With expert curation, they work largely with women and BIPOC artists to translate high-culture aesthetics into products that elevate cannabis above any stigma. Women-owned and Latina-led, they also produce inclusive educational content.

During the conversation Kristina talks about her journey into the cannabis space, how they are opening up the market to women, educating the consumer, and being a voice for women on the fundraising topic. 

Transcription

Eric:

This is the Roots to Risk Podcast hosted by Eric Schneider, alongside Isaac Bach. Roots To Risk brings you insights, the latest stories, and long form discussions about the cannabis industry. You’ll hear interviews with industry leaders and their perspective on current and future trends, how they’ve built success and what challenges they have faced. Our goal is to facilitate candid conversations and provide informative content for the cannabis community at large. Let’s go. Super excited for, for who we have on deck today, Christina Lopez, uh, UCCI Isaac.

Eric:

I know we’ve, we’ve known Christina for quite some time. Uh, you, uh, her back from the Founders Institute days. Um, she’s just one of my favorite people in the space, honestly.

Isaac:

No, by far, uh, actually like a, a close friend of ours now in the space. I think someone we, we genuinely look forward to seeing and talking to every event we go to. Um, you know, she takes care of us. She, she makes it a little bit easier for us to, you know, talk about insurance from time to time with certain people.

Eric:

Yeah, she’s, she’s great. I mean, she, she, she promotes us like, you know, like introduces us to a bunch of, like, she’s, she’s just been a, a great, um, you know, partner to have in, in the community. And just a little bit more about, you know, Christina, she is an entrepreneur, speaker, art collector and curator. She’s the founder and c e o of House of Puff, a New York based cannabis brand. The company began with her conception of the cannabis products she wanted for herself. Since Christina has evolved the brand to leverage the power of art as a vehicle for social change, uh, what they’re doing in this space is, is really great.

Eric:

And, and the brand. And we’ll hear more from Christina, obviously. So let’s bring her in. Christina Lopez, UCCI from the House of Puff, truthfully, one of, uh, one of our favorite people in the cannabis space. What’s going on? Christina?

Kristina:

I’m excited to be here. Thanks guys.

Isaac:

Absolutely. Give you <laugh>.

Eric:

I know. I’m like, I was like, kinda like geeked out, excited for this one. I’m, I’m fired up.

Kristina:

I know you said that. I’m, I’m honored. I’m excited you guys started a podcast. I think, you know, making insurance sexy as per usual,

Eric:

I’m trying as, as hard as you, as hard as

Isaac:

You can. That’s a, that’s a big statement. I don’t know about that. <laugh>.

Eric:

Yeah. I don’t think, I don’t think those two words in the same sentence should ever be together, but we’re we’re,

Kristina:

Let’s make it happen.

Eric:

Let’s make it happen. Love it. Um, no, but if you could just give us a quick background on On House of Puff and, and what you guys are doing in this space, and we’d love to just learn a little bit more about you and, and the organization.

Kristina:

Yeah, sure. So I’m the founder, c e o of House of Puff, and we’re a lifestyle brand that leverages the power of art to make cannabis chic easy and, uh, welcoming. I was a late bloomer to cannabis. I grew up in a strict Puerto Rican household, and so wasn’t really surrounded by it. I, uh, went to college and consume, went to grad school, didn’t consume. And it wasn’t until I moved to New York City, of course, um, and my anxiety just sort of like crept up on me. I was 27. I had an art magazine at the time, and when I went to go consume for the first time, it was out of this just gross phallic, you know, the Rick and Morty bongs, the, the stuff that you find on St.

Kristina:

Mark’s place. And I thought, you know, here I am, you know, a well to do New Yorker in the art world, you know, I loved how it made me feel like I loved, you know, my first bong rip, if you will.

Kristina:

Um, I felt like I was just myself again, if that makes sense. And I feel like a lot of first time people say like, the first time they consume cannabis, especially if it’s for, you know, medicinal purposes. Like for me and anxiety, it was just like a wave of calmness. And I was like, all right, I’m totally on this cannabis train, but I cannot smoke out of things like that. And so what I did was I just reached down to my Rolodex of all the artists. I’ve inter interviewed over a thousand artists and found a ceramicist, found, you know, a local artist from Brooklyn and, and decided, all right, I’m gonna make pretty shit.

Kristina:

And so we started with our one hitter LA pipe, and I always wanted just like a pink pipe that I could fit in my purse. Leave it out, you know, Abela would find it, you know, till this day, God rest her soul. She thought it was a lipstick holder <laugh>. And so I just wanted to make beautiful artful things and I wanted to work with artists because sure, there are a lot of cannabis accessories out there. Um, but very few of them are working with the artists in their studio to create, um, accessories. And so that’s how it all began.

Eric:

That’s awesome. So, so with like, what was your journey like when you jumped, you know, two feet into the can or to, to working full-time House of P and and what were you doing, you know, previously?

Kristina:

Yeah, so, uh, I worked at the Michael J. Fox Foundation, um, as I was doing this art magazine. And actually that was the first time I had heard about cannabis, uh, for therapeutic purposes. So patients who have dyskinesia, for example, the tremors, um, cannabis helps them. And so I left the foundation to work full-time in the art magazine and, you know, all the wild developing, you know, thinking about House of Puff, um, and then how to exit the magazine because at a certain point I realized, uh, the market share was bigger in cannabis.

Kristina:

This was right around the time the, you know, states were legalizing, uh, you know, medical was opening up and I thought, I think I could probably do more good, um, in, in cannabis than I can in the art world, cuz I, you know, I had launched a, a platform that was, you know, we were interviewing, uh, bipo women artists, L G B T Q A artists.

Kristina:

And a lot of them weren’t getting the, the press and the attention that they, they deserved. And I thought, okay, I’m gonna amplify them, but through cannabis. Um, and then I thought, okay, well there’s gotta be other women out there like me, right? You know, we we’re coming out of the can of closet, if you will. We’re sort of kind of curious. We’ve tried C B D, you know, we’re, we’re, we’re venturing into T H C, um, but we want things that are beautiful that sort of fit our lifestyle. And so, um, you know, I met my C E o Holly Hager down at, at Art Conference, art Basel in Miami, and we teamed up.

Kristina:

And from there it was very, it was a very pragmatic approach, like accessories, we knew very little reg re regulatory constraints, right? Um, and it was a problem that we could solve right away cuz we both come from the art world.

Kristina:

We knew all these artists that want to work with us. Um, and here we are like 50 plus skews, um, later, and we sell D two C and B2B and, and hopefully I r l, uh, soon enough. And, um, you know, we wanted to serve, uh, we women, that’s our, our, our main customer. They’re the fastest growing segment in cannabis. Um, and they are not marketed to in a way, um, that they wanna be marketed to. Right? A lot of this is marketed towards men and so beyond accessories, we, during the pandemic, we really just, uh, dove into content marketing, which really also sets us apart.

Kristina:

So we’re big educators as well.

Isaac:

That’s actually, you know, that brings up what I wanted to ask, because you guys are, you know, so far advanced in that to, compared to a lot of the canvas industry as it relates to your content and, you know, what you do with social media. Can you talk about, you know, obviously Covid seems to be a big, um, stimulator for that, but what kind of brought your, you know, mind to that and the content you’re putting out?

Kristina:

Yeah, so when Covid hit, obviously a lot of the dispensaries in stores that were carrying us, they, they went out of business or they closed. And so how do we reach people where they are? And they were at home so reluctantly, Holly was like, we should do a blog. We should do YouTube channel. And like, we’re, we were a startup. And I was like, we don’t have time to do any of that stuff. Like, whatcha talking about? I’m not running blog posts. And so she’s like, well, what else are we doing? Like we have to reach our customer. And so we did, so in 2021, we went from a digital reach of 46,000 to 3.4 million in 2022 last year.

Kristina:

Wow. And that’s like organic, right? So we hadn’t taken on any investment. This was like no paid marketing spend. And then little by little, a lot of the MSOs started to pay us to create content for them. So then I realized, all right, like we, we are onto something. And then our YouTube channel, you know, I’m sure you guys have, we’ve all at some point have Googled had to roll a joint, and most of the time what you’re seeing is a white guy in his mom’s basement. And with like, dirty fingernails, I’m like, I, that’s not, that’s not how I wanna learn how to roll a joint.

Kristina:

Was that was a picture, was that

Isaac:

A video of Isaac? Was that, was that

Kristina:

Maybe might been, it might have been,

Isaac:

Might been My mom would be rolling the joint with me. So I don’t know if, uh, <laugh>, I dunno if that would be in her basement. So, yeah.

Kristina:

And, and so I thought, alright, like, lemme get my nails done. Let me put my rings on and let’s show. Cuz that’s what women wanna see. They wanna see somebody they can relate to, specifically women of color. And we did. And I think if you hopped on Google right now and you typed in how to roll a joint, I’m pretty sure we’ll appear on the first page. Our video will appear. And that took like a, that took a lot of work. It was a lot of s e a lot of marketing and we learned a lot. Um, but now I think we’re up to a digital reach of 5 million just on YouTube alone.

Kristina:

Um, and again, investing in video rich content is something that I don’t think, um, a lot of cannabis companies are doing. And, um, women and Gen Z in particular, they’re just craving this content. And so beyond that, you know, the press is, has been very good to us. They, our story resonates. I think we’ve got over 300 million, um, media impressions and again, earned media, which means that we’re doing something right, like this mainstream message of destigmatizing this plant and normalizing this plant and the way that we’re doing it is working.

Isaac:

No, definitely. I think, you know, one of the things, uh, a log of cannabis companies struggle with is kind of the SEO regulations around cannabis and how Instagram and, uh, Facebook don’t allow it. Tw Elon gag on board, uh, you know, a couple weeks ago with it. So how did you listen? You know, did you

Kristina:

See my tweet? Did you see my tweet? I don’t know if you guys are on Twitter, but the week before Elon Twitter announced that they were going to allow, uh, cannabis to advertise, I tweeted, I, this is a true story. You can check the tweet <laugh>. I had a dream. I had a real dream. Me and Elon Musk, he invited me to his headquarters in Cal, in, in San Fran <laugh>. And he said, Christina, we’re gonna start letting cannabis companies advertise on Twitter. And mind you, in my dream, all the computers looked like they were from the nineties.

Kristina:

Like, you know, the old like Oregon Trail computers. Yeah. And he awkwardly hugged me. And I woke up the next morning and I vividly, I felt like it was real. So I tweeted that I had a dream. Lo and behold my tweet like sort of went a little viral and somebody from Twitter got in touch with me, said, can you, can we talk? Called me? And she was like, are you, are you psychic? Do you dream things before they happen? Because we’re we’re launching this, uh, this week and lo and behold, this was last week.

Kristina:

This is a true story. And now we’re gonna work with them and, and push out some House of Puff ads. And

Isaac:

That’s amazing. We’re super

Kristina:

Excited. Cause to your point, Isaac, a lot of these companies, I mean, you can’t even post oregano on TikTok without getting just shut down. You’re fine. We’ve had to result to like using pretzel sticks as joints. Like it really, you have to get creative and it’s hard. And that’s why with seo, um, you know, God bless Neil Patel, just free courses and just trying to figure out how do we rank for things like pretty pink pipe cannabis accessories, um, without getting dinged. And it’s, it’s a science and it’s hard.

Kristina:

And I, I recommend anybody who is trying to expand their, their footprint and they can’t take ads out or they’re getting shadow bann on Instagram, look into seo. Cause it’s one of the few ways that we can get in front of our customers.

Eric:

Yeah. I can’t believe will Twitter

Isaac:

Into happening. That’s impressive. <laugh>,

Eric:

I think, I think she actually called Elon and actually made it happen. It wasn’t a thing <laugh> until Christina and I would’ve, I wouldn’t put that past you to actually call Elon Musk and, and will it into, you

Kristina:

Know what, you know me,

Eric:

I know you, I know you well enough. You you Yeah. You would do that. Uh, what I love about you. Um, that’s, that’s wild. That’s super cool though. Isn’t it wild? I think, I think it’s just gonna be tremendous for brands and, and you know, even, even for companies like us, like, you know what I mean? Just like we, we have difficulties, you know, marketing as well. Um, like we can’t put, you know, insurance for cannabis companies, like, as simple as it is. And so, um, we, yeah, we, we feel that too. And, and to your point, it is trying to be creative and nuanced and it’s uh, it’s frustrating, right?

Eric:

It’s like we’re just trying to do simple things that every single other business and organization does. And it’s just like, you know, another tying our hand behind our back when we’re just trying to take world in scale. You know what I mean? Yeah. I

Kristina:

Mean that’s why content marketing for us is so, is so important, right? Education is, is a should be. If you are in cannabis, you should be educating your consumer full stop. You know, like we all assume cuz we’re in our little cannabis bubble that everybody knows what a terpene is or the difference between t h C and, and cbn and people don’t. And so it’s just a great way to reach your audience, but you have to be careful on what you say. Like, we have to separate house of puff.com and our blog.

Kristina:

It’s crazy. We still get referral traffic back to House of Puff. But we shouldn’t have to be on two websites cuz anytime we mentioned cannabis hemp, C b D, our payment processors, we get mixed. We’ve gotten shut down Squarespace, Spotify, or Shopify. They’ve all booted us cuz we use the word cannabis.

Isaac:

That’s crazy.

Kristina:

Yeah. Yep. It’s what

Eric:

What are, what are some things on the, on the docket for House of Puff this year? What are, what are like, you know, three things that you’re most excited about for, for 2023?

Isaac:

The Hamptons party?

Kristina:

Yes. Oh, you guys mark your calendars. I, somebody the other day asked me when it was happening, I’m like, you guys, it is February. Like what do you mean <laugh>? People are just excited. It’s great. Um, it’s so you’ll be there, right? Of course. I’m

Eric:

Assuming you remember, remember the week before, remember the week before my wedding when I had the neck injury and I was walking around like this and I like, yes.

Isaac:

I had to drive, I had to drive him back to, uh, Massapequa. Yeah, that was, that was a rough one. That was the first time you met Eric too. Christina.

Kristina:

I know. It was, it was,

Eric:

What’s wrong with this guys? You okay? <laugh>? I’m sorry. I know

Kristina:

You were so like, um, yeah, no, excited about the Hampton story. It’s, it’s always a good time to bring together all the industry leaders, tastemakers people making moves in the space. Um, a few things that we’re excited for, we’re going obviously gonna keep growing our community, right? We’re at a digital reach of 5 million, 10 million. We wanna grow that reach, you know, to 20 million reach everybody, reach, reach women, reach, uh, people of color, um, and get them, get ’em in our house. Um, and then we wanna translate what we’ve been doing D to C and b2b, um, and anchor our community in real life.

Kristina:

You know, hopefully in New York, um, you know, New York adult use is, is up and running, so to speak. So we’re excited. Um, and then, you know, leverage that, that destination shopping cache into a forest multiplier, uh, for scaling the rest of our business. Right? So I would love to see how Suff pre-rolls and gummies in, in, in legal markets. And so that’s what’s on the horizon.

Eric:

I would love that as well. That’s really cool. Wouldn’t you?

Kristina:

I know you would. I know you guys would buy it.

Isaac:

What, what would you make the flavors? I I know the flavored gummies would be insane. Oh right.

Kristina:

They, yeah, they would. Oh my gosh. They’d be artisanal. You know, I would want them to like reflect my Puerto Rican, her heritage, right? Like a coconut, a mango, a guava passion fruit, but not too sweet. Cuz I can’t do sweet. I don’t like sweet, I don’t like sweet cocktails. I don’t like sweet dessert. I don’t like desserts. Give me a soft pretzel over chocolate cake any day of the week. Maybe I should do an infused off pretzel.

Isaac:

No, I like that.

Kristina:

Here’s an idea.

Isaac:

<laugh> partner, partner up with some companies down in Philadelphia. They’re, they’re the home of the soft pretzel.

Kristina:

There you go. I mean, New York soft pretzel. Come on, Isaac, gimme a break.

Isaac:

I don’t know. I’ve lived in, I’ve lived in both places. The Philly soft pretzels are pretty good, so <laugh>

Kristina:

Fair, fair, fair enough. Yeah,

Eric:

No, I think, um, it’s super interesting like how House of Puff is like where you were at, you know, when, when Isaac and, and you met at the Founders Institute. Was that like two or three years ago? When was that?

Kristina:

Yeah, we were just talking about that three years ago. That’s when, I mean, I look back at that deck and I think what, no wonder nobody wanted to give any money. Like, I look back and I just, and I, I always recommend people getting into any startup, whether it’s cannabis, fashion, whatever, take, get into an incubator and hopefully they don’t, you know, take a per or equity. Um, but you, you think you know it all. And you can Google all you want. You can go on, you know, CAMBA and create a deck.

Kristina:

You really need that like a foundation. And Isaac was one of those people who saw the house above vision almost immediately and has and believed in us ever since and gave feedback till this day, you know, on, on, on the deck that is now spectacular. But back then wasn’t, and it was such an incredible experience.

Kristina:

I know how to fundraise like nobody’s business. I actually enjoy it now because I get to tell the House of Puff story over and over again and each time I tweak it. The unfortunate thing is, you know, the statistics of funding that goes to women and the funding that goes to Latinas is, I don’t know, 0.8%, something absolutely abysmal. Um, so that’s a tough pill to swallow and you know, women, um, are typically overlooked in the investment process and that sucks. Um, but I’ve learned to just grin and, and share my story and pitch.

Kristina:

And even if you don’t wanna hear it, I’m just gonna keep, I’m gonna keep telling you. And, and you have to, you have to be, um, you have to believe in what you’re building. And I, and I and how of puff is my baby. I believe in the vision. I know in 10 years from now it’s, you know, we’ll, we’ll we’ll take over the globe. Um, and there’s gonna be times that people don’t understand what we’re doing and that’s okay because I surround myself with people like you guys, um, my team and we’re excited about what we’re building. So anybody listening who’s in the fundraising process, you know, during an economic downturn, it’s, it’s hard, but keep going because, um, the strong businesses will survive.

Isaac:

No, I, I think from my perspective, well yeah, your, your sales, the you speaking sales pitch was what got me. I don’t think I even paid attention to the deck the first time. It was just your passion for it was, um, comparatively to some of the other companies at that point, um, was Oh yeah. Astronomically bagger. So, um, no, but it’s cool seeing what you and Holly have built over the last three years and gained to be a very small part of it. Um, you know, in different ways. But, um, I think one of the cool things that you do a lot of is, you know, voice your opinion for, um, and be a voice for women in the industry on the fundraising topic.

Isaac:

Cuz I do know that’s a, a constant issue that you, you’re baling against.

Kristina:

Yeah. I mean, listen, women have less access to funding. You know, we’re held to a higher standard. Um, we, we have to work harder to prove and, and demonstrate our potential. You know, I’ve seen, I’ve, I know people and we know these people that have gotten 10 million on a, on a seed round based on a napkin idea. Like, and that’s, that would never fly, uh, if I did that. And so, you know, it’s, it’s tough to think about, but I don’t let it stop me, you know, Right.

Kristina:

I do it with spirit. It’s a Spanish saying and you just keep fighting the good fight. Cuz if you believe in something enough, there will people who bubble to the surface who, who believe in that. And I’m lucky to have advisors, investors who, who get it

Eric:

Totally just keep kicking down doors.

Kristina:

Right. Just keep kicking them down and just, you know, find a

Eric:

Way, find a way of my, one of my mentors, he always said either you either find a way or you make one. You know? Um, and yeah,

Kristina:

Ben, Ben, my, the universe to my, what I wanted to do.

Eric:

Yeah. And I think people gravitate towards you, you know, and, and you have a, an awesome just like aura about you, you know, that, that people wanna be around you. You know what I mean? Yeah, absolutely. The

Kristina:

Feeling is mutual. <laugh>

Eric:

<laugh>. I appreciate that. Um, called

Kristina:

Lucky Girl syndrome, right? I dunno if you guys are on TikTok, it’s like when you say like, I am the best I am, I am going to crush it. I’m gonna make all this money, I’m so happy. All good things happen to me eventually that you push out that good juju good energy, you’re gonna surround yourself with people who are good people and you know, you know the bad, the bad apples when you meet them, you already know. Mm. I don’t like your vibe. I’m a very, I’m, I go on, I go on gut. Yeah. And my gut when I get to both of you is I like these guys.

Kristina:

<laugh>,

Eric:

My biggest thing is I’m like, if I was really in a bind, like the way that I surround myself with people, I’m like, can I trust to call this person and they’re gonna help me out? Yeah. You know, I mean, ibs my guy besides my brother, that’s my, that’s my guy. Yeah. Can you call someone think the, I think, I think the field is mutual Isaac, you know?

Isaac:

It is, it’s very mutual <laugh> as much as we, as much as we fight like an old Mary couple. Yeah. It’s mutual. Except when Luna scratches, we wanna go check in on her

Eric:

<laugh>. It’s my cat. Who’s

Kristina:

Lu?

Eric:

It’s my cat.

Kristina:

Oh, cute.

Isaac:

She attacks me if I leave.

Eric:

I’m a cat dad. I love that thing. I’m not,

Kristina:

I’m not a I’m not a, I’m not a cat person, but, you know, God. Speed.

Eric:

Yeah, I was, I was, I was kind of forced in this situation. My, it was, you know, it was either it wasn’t the cat or Eric, it was, you know, you take the cat or, or you go Eric <laugh>. Um, was it easy, easy to

Isaac:

The cat? He used to come into the office when he first started digging Alex with swollen eyes and couldn’t really talk. And I was like, dude, you gotta you gotta get some histamines.

Eric:

I take AEC every day. It’s all good.

Kristina:

Oh, that’s love. That’s love.

Eric:

Absolutely. Um, no, but cool. And I, I think I wanted to, to kick it over to Isaac, you wanna just go through the, the rest of this segment and we’ll wrap things up? Yeah. La

Isaac:

Last couple questions for you, Christina. Um, so obviously, you know, one of the biggest things about the Canvas industry is, uh, rebounding from kind of mistakes or learning experiences. So has there been, you know, one thing that’s stuck out more than anything else as a major learning experience that has helped, you know, you move forward and, you know, build House of Puff to Wear is today

Kristina:

A learning experience? Well, that’s a really good question. I would say, um, hmm. I think that one of the issues or things that I’ve learned is product development takes time. And especially when it comes during an economic downturn or covid and you have partners that are in different parts of the country. Like we, we had a ceramic supply issue.

Kristina:

Like who would’ve thought during pandemic, like ceramics or porcelain would be, would be not in suck. And you know, we, when you, when you rush something, right? When you rush, you know, our first iteration of our, our Barret bowl, you know, it wasn’t perfect and I knew it wasn’t perfect and deep down I should have like looking back, like gone with my gut to say, you know what, let’s just take our time. But we just wanna push more skews out. We wanted get more product out there.

Kristina:

Our customers kept asking for it. And listen, we learned, we learned that Listen, you, you, you can’t, it can’t be perfect. Um, but to take your time because, um, you’re selling something that’s, uh, important to you, important to your consumer, they’re spending money on it, so you wanna be intentional. And so now with everything that we do, we’re super intentional. We do a lot of listening, you know, uh, on our Instagram newsletter, we’re always asking for feedback like, do you wanna see a little divot in your bowl?

Kristina:

Do you want this in a different color? Like, what do you want? What do what, what is House of Puff not providing that you want us to provide? Um, and that has just helped tremendously. And now we just, we we take, we take our time. And I think I’ve learned that taking your time when it comes to producing products is okay.

Isaac:

I love that. Yeah. I think, um, a lot of people try to rush things out just to get ’em out and be first to market. Yeah. But I don’t think that’s necessarily the, uh, the best way. And, um, yeah, I mean, especially for c p G companies and really even B to B, um, getting feedback from your clients is always important. So implementing that in a timely but um, effective manner while being, you know, ing a BGA is good. Um, but Cool. You know, last two are, you know, what’s at the top of the playlist these days? What, what, what are you listening to in the morning when you get a peace and quiet?

Isaac:

Oh my

Kristina:

God, let me, lemme lemme pull out my, I have an eclectic, uh, uh, music. Yeah. I’m trying to think what I have. I have playlists called Emo Girl, you know, but then I have like, you know, dashboard confessional, yellow card starting line, like love, love, love. But I also have like, you know, Barry White, Stevie Wondered Earth w

Isaac:

That is eclectic. You, you got the TikTok songs and then the Earth Wing and Fire, I love it. Right next to each other. Yes.

Kristina:

I’m a big, I’m a big movie score gal. Like I love, I put on my, and I can just rock out to like work. You put on some good movie scores. I recommend Han Zimmer. Of course. What,

Isaac:

What’s the, what’s the number one movie score then for you? That’s a good one actually, that I’m curious. Oh,

Kristina:

Oh, time, uh, by Han Zimmer. That is, um, what’s the movie about The Dream Inception?

Isaac:

Hmm. That’s a good one. That’s,

Kristina:

Oh, <laugh>. Oh. And then, um, Ramin Diwa, I probably just butchered her his name, but he did the score for Game of Thrones and the scene where, you know, the, the, the Red Keep Falls, that one. Yep.

Eric:

Yep.

Kristina:

So you wanna get hyped up for a meeting? Put that on <laugh>.

Isaac:

I love that. That’s

Eric:

What I was listening to this morning, Isaac, when I came in. No, I’m just kidding. No

Isaac:

Shot. I don’t think you were listening to anything. You were just, you were just going a little crazy <laugh> excited. No headphones.

Eric:

I know Friday.

Isaac:

Um, but cool. Then last one, what’s, uh, what’s the go-to book or podcast that you, you might turn to, um, that you’ve either read multiple times, you know, a newer one that has provided some good insight for you, um, that you would recommend to people?

Kristina:

Um, let’s see. Uh, there is a book of, I’m gonna butcher the title about levity and humor. It’s called, I think it’s like business with humor. It’s just about how the best business people don’t take themselves too seriously and you can manage a team and you’ll get better results if you just bring a little levity to this situation and, and crack a joke. And it, and it really, cuz sometimes I take myself too seriously. Um, and this book was, um, one of my advisors was like, you should read this.

Kristina:

And it, it just really helped me reframe how I should, you know, tackle situations. Um, and just life in general with my team, with my, you know, my personal life and, and just having a little fun with it. And I think as a c e O and people who are in C-Suite positions, sometimes we forget that a little levity goes a long way. And then in terms of podcasts, I mean, roots to Risk I’ve heard is really good. I’m tuning into that.

Eric:

That was, that was a paid plug. That was a paid, no, I’m just kidding.

Isaac:

<laugh>, like I said, our number one salesperson, Christina as always

Kristina:

Sexy.

Eric:

Um, no, but really appreciate the time, Christina, this was awesome. And, uh, we’ll, we’ll definitely, we’ll definitely catch up soon in person. Um, especially at a a can. Are you gonna be at the Cannabis Collective event on, uh, March 7th? Yes. Cool.

Kristina:

Yep, we know it. We’ll see you there.

Eric:

We’ll see you there.

Kristina:

Thank you guys. Miss Christina. Thanks guys. Bye.

Isaac:

Bye. Thanks, Christina.

Eric:

Like I said on the, the front of the call, one of my favorite people in this space. I’d be, that was, that was awesome. Great, great hearing. You know, her story ob obviously we, we’ve known Christina for quite some time, but just hearing about her background and the art world and, and how she came up with, with House of Puff. I personally didn’t know that story, so it was really cool to see, you know, the transition and where they’re at today from, from where they’ve grown. And, um, just, just a cool story to highlight and, uh, like I said, one of my favorite people in the space.

Isaac:

No, for sure. I mean, I, I always love getting to catch, catch up with Christina. Um, I get to do it a little bit more often than you do from time to time, but, um, no, it’s great. I mean, the products they make are awesome. You know, Sarah has, uh, her products all over our apartment, so, um, I, I see it every guy. So what they’re building in the space is really awesome.

Eric:

Absolutely. And, and super excited for, for the next episode, and we’re gonna keep this rolling, just trying to highlight, you know, industry leaders and, and people that are doing incredible things for the industry. And, uh, super excited to keep it rolling.