Lakeshore entrepreneur starts Honest Cannabis Company, selling CBD-infused coffee

Joshua Dudley, most recently of Sheboygan, loves coffee. His first venture resulted in a patent.

“My mom was watching 'Shark Tank' one day, and the inventor was interviewed, and my mother and I started thinking that it was cool and maybe we could come up with something," he said. "She came up with the idea for an update to a French press, and I drew a design.”

Although Dudley had been considering opening a coffee truck, he put those plans on hold. They had engineering done, had gone through the application process, and were awarded a patent. The marketing continues, but he is also setting his sights on another new business.

The Honest Cannabis Company was formed this year and Dudley has found support for the idea. He participated in business pitch contests and took first place in the Level Up Pitch Contest in Manitowoc. With that encouragement, he is moving ahead.

“The invention got me interested in the coffee industry,” he commented. “My idea was to combine coffee with cannabis. I hadn’t really started seeing much of that and thought, ‘Why don’t I do this?’”

As a lab technician, he had the skill to infuse the coffee. The more he considered the idea, the more he liked it.

“It was like lightning had struck. I had this idea and everything seemed right about it,” he said.

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His past experience included various jobs, but Dudley decided he needed to learn more about running a business. He signed up for the Wisconsin Small Business Development Center program at Progress Lakeshore in Manitowoc. The eight-week program covered the basics of running a business.

“The class was amazing," he said. "It answered a lot of questions and verified a lot of things I was looking into because the idea had been a while in the making. It brought me to the next step and here I am with a fully developed product.”

Creating the product involves taking a crystalized form of hemp oil, roasting coffee beans, and then after roasting and cooling, mixing in the CBD, or cannabidiol, isolate. The benefits of the coffee are said to be numerous, including reducing stress and anxiety, improving health, boosting energy, and minimizing chronic pain. (Editor's note: The U.S. Food and Drug Administration still is researching the safety and efficacy of cannabidiol use.)

In doing a competitive analysis, Dudley found that cannabis-infused coffee is available from other sources, but he has found a niche. He is offering single source beans (most commercial coffee is blends) and trying to garner interest at popup markets for a subscription service.

“I learned that my bags of coffee can’t be sold at retail," Dudley said. "It needs to have more of a gimmick. From selling at popup markets, I realized that customers at those markets are looking for something unique, and I need more novelty in my packaging to attract subscribers."

To that end, he has developed a 16-ounce variety box of coffee that he calls “Coffees of the World.” He has 16 different sources of beans from around the world and features four per box. Once customers try different beans, they can select the bean they like, and soon, will be able to become a monthly subscriber.

The subscription service is almost finalized. Dudley is completing his marketing plan and opening up an Amazon store. His website (www.thehonestcannabisco.com) is almost ready to go, and his goals are in place.

“Within three months, I want the marketing finalized," he said. "By six months, I want to build awareness to my brand within the area by selling at farmer’s markets. After that, I want to garner more subscriptions and continue to sell on Amazon.”

For the business to be profitable, Dudley says he needs to have a good conversion rate among those who try the product and subscribe long term. As he tries to reach a break-even point by year two, he will need to sell about 100 pounds a month in year one and grow from there. Attrition and conversion rates will be carefully tracked.

By taking part in local markets, he hopes to get a better sense for the business and how customers feel about pricing, single-source beans, packaging, and shipping. Along the way, he will promote what he sees as the benefits.

In the elevator speech that he gave at pitch competitions, Dudley stated, “CBD has many benefits; studies on CBD have shown that it contains antioxidants and has anti-inflammatory and analgesic effects. CBD is also shown to work within a subset of serotonin receptors to help regulate mood. Now I anticipate there are many people out there like me that will forget their vitamins in the morning, but never their coffee.”

The combination of the focusing effects of caffeine with the calming benefits of CBD are the ingredients that he thinks will bring success. He is considering the tagline, “Bringing the Calm to Your Caffeine.”

To get to this point has been a learning process. Dudley spends hours listening to audiobooks to learn more about business and sales. As a self-described introvert, he is trying to become more of an extrovert so that he is comfortable selling.

The journey has inspired him to go forward with the independence he learned from his mom. She taught him to be creative and assume responsibility when things go wrong and to make adjustments when needed. It is fitting that his favorite quote is along those same lines.

Quoting Bruce Lee, Dudley said, “Be like water making its way through cracks. Do not be assertive, but adjust to the object, and you shall find a way around or through it. If nothing within you stays rigid, outward things will disclose themselves … Be water, my friend.”

Tina Dettman-Bielefeldt is co-owner of DB Commercial Real Estate in Green Bay and Past District Director for SCORE, Wisconsin.

This article originally appeared on Green Bay Press-Gazette: Entrepreneur's Honest Cannabis Company sells CBD-infused coffee