The DTC-ification of Gummies

Talking shop with Snoozy’s co-founders.

Sunday, August 18, 2024
Time to read:  About 10 minutes. Contains about 2,182 words.

For the first few years I worked in this industry, running a “cannabis business” meant you were either growing it, turning it into an edible, processing it, or running a dispensary. All cannabis companies were plant-touching companies, and the founders did everything themselves. Ten years later, the game has wildly changed. (Save for taxes and a bank account, though—no progress there 🙃).

White labeling. Distributors. Affiliate marketing. Remote agencies. Paid ads. Cannabis as a plant may have a ways to go, normalization-wise, but in the realm of business operations, cannabis businesses have most of the same tools as any other, especially in the “hemp” category. 

One brand taking advantage of the latest sales tools available is Snoozy. The CBD gummy brand reached out to me early 2024, I was struck by the timeline of these founders getting going and how established they were. Simple, straightforward branding, nothing wildly ambitious about the recipe or plant extract. But they said they were in something like 300 stores! Did they crack 7-11? Co-founders Chris Abbenda and Owen Martinetti are also fairly green entrepreneurs, just 28 years old.

They were fresh out of Baruch College when Martinetti’s mom shared an article with him about Governor Cuomo legalizing the licensed hemp market in 2017. Martinetti ended up getting some college buds together and applying for a cultivation and processing license, earning two of the earliest in New York. They spent time in Oregon learning about the plant and processing it, wrapping their minds around the “difference” between hemp and marijuana, and founded Naturae, which exists today. 

Since then, they helped open Potency, a Massachusetts dispensary in the Berkshires, and still run the shop’s marketing and finance efforts day-to-day, as well as overseeing all of Snoozy. The latter of which was totally self-funded thanks to some kind of PPE-related gig during the pandemic. My curiosity was piqued.

This Q&A with these early movers covers executing a very clear product offering, leveraging third-party partners, lessons learned playing in licensed and DTC hemp spaces, and the power of timing.

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Chris Abbenda & Owen Martinetti.

How did you two get connected? 

Chris Abbenda: We met while at Baruch College. I was bored working towards a career in real estate and started seeing Owen posting some things about the farm. I had an appreciation as a consumer but knew nothing about cultivation, so I drove up to check it out. He said they were looking for sales help, and I decided to just take a chance. I started working as his salesperson and crashing on his couch. We eventually moved into an apartment together as roommates. 

How did you fund the Snoozy startup?

OM: By 2020, Naturae had considerable funds raised and a decent-sized team, and I was taking more of a backseat. Then the pandemic hit, and the whole industry on the hemp side took a giant hit. Essentially 8 times the amount of hemp needed for CBD products was produced in 2019, so there was such a surplus and market collapse in early 2020. The way we were set up on the processing side, we weren’t in as bad of shape as many, but we couldn’t continue our work driving around finding new customers.