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Meet Michael Silvia and Jarrod Reeves of HerbSwift in Tempe

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Today we’d like to introduce you to Michael Silvia and Jarrod Reeves.

Michael and Jarrod, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
Like almost every entrepreneur who entered the cannabis industry early on, I had a very positive personal experience that forced me to question everything I was told about cannabis growing up. Finding the answers to those questions eventually gave me the confidence to pivot my career path and take a leap of faith into the then-fledgling cannabis industry.

During my early college days, the stress and distractions of being a student-athlete and living on campus caused me to develop moderate insomnia. Most nights I would try to go to bed around 11-11:30. Unfortunately, I struggled to quiet my mind enough to fall asleep. It was especially frustrating because my body was physically exhausted from training but my mind resisted every single night despite that fact. I would eventually try everything, from over-the-counter sleep aids to prescription sleep aids eventually resorting to alcohol. After short experiments with each of these substances, it became clear none of these options would be viable long term options. It wasn’t until I fell asleep in Organic Chemistry class while sitting next to my lab partner that I had any luck deciding what I could try next. Noticing my increasing lethargy in class and in the lab from lack of sleep, my lab partner asked me if I had ever tried “weed” to help me sleep. Of course, like most college kids, I had experimented with some cannabis a little at parties and such but it wasn’t something I was that comfortable with being a varsity athlete (and fearing a random drug test) and being aware of all the alleged negative side effects of using it. But, my lab partner was one of the smartest people I had met at college so I decided to try it…

That night, after 2-3 hits from a small glass bowl packed with some bud that I had managed to procure just off campus, I slept like a baby. It was the best sleep I had in months! What was even more amazing to me is I woke with zero grogginess or lingering effects like the OTC and Rx sleep aids had left me with after trying them. I consider that morning a transitional moment for me. I was so blown away by how easy it was to fall and stay asleep and wake up with no side effects that from that point, I dedicated myself to finding out the truth about cannabis and cannabis prohibition.

After digesting every book, article, and documentary I could find over the course of many years, I became a subject matter expert and started a consulting career in the cannabis industry back in early 2013. After providing supply chain, regulatory, brand strategy and product development consultant for over five years for several of the largest brands in the cannabis sector it became apparent that a trusted and unbiased marketplace for legal hemp-CBD products was desperately needed. I was also simultaneously witnessing the so-called “On-demand Hypergrowth.” This is the idea that shared economy/last mile business models, that could provide just about any product or service within a 5-60 minute window, are currently disrupting traditional retail consumer buying trends. So it seemed inevitable that an industry with as much potential as hemp-CBD supplements should also be offered to consumers on-demand. From this epiphany came HerbSwift, a mobile app that combines an unbiased CBD Marketplace and all manor of CBD resources and Industry News, with the ability to deliver products “on-demand” within a 1-2 hour window.

Once this vision was planted in my brain, I immediately began watering it by developing a brand, logo and business plan in my spare time. Leading up to this point my good friend (and eventual co-founder) Jarrod Reeves had become increasingly interested in what was happening in the cannabis industry as he was looking for investment and/or career opportunities in the space. We discussed my vision and along with our third co-founder Shane Riggio, we formed HerbSwift and got to work building our vision during the summer of 2018. We officially moved into our new Tempe headquarters and opened our ecommerce website for business in February of 2019 and have been steadily growing since. Our mobile app, with live order tracking, goes live in August of 2019. We were recently nominated for the Phoenix New Times “Best of Phoenix” “Best Place to Buy CBD” and are currently awaiting the final results as voted by the readers which will be announced September 8th (please vote for us here).

We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc. – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
It’s been over six years since moving from a steady regional sales & business development position in the analytical equipment industry to the cannabis industry and obstacles and challenges have been a weekly reality for me during that time across both my consulting business and while building HerbSwift over the last year. Whether it be announcements from agencies such as the DEA, FDA or some State’s Department of Health that cause the majority of the industry to perceive that the “sky is falling” or “the industry is dead,” dealing with continuous banking and credit card processing issues (even after hemp was removed entirely from the Controlled Substances Act in December 2018) or dealing with shady business practices typical in a nascent industry that was previously reserved to the black market, there is always a fire to put out as an entrepreneur in this industry.

It seems to be in this industry that just when you think you’re finally in the clear and you can focus on scaling your business that’s when you get hit with something that forces you to adapt. A few examples of such things that have actually happened are losing over $50k to a vendor that went out of business and never delivered on our purchase or returned our funds, leaving my young family behind to travel on nearly a weekly basis for the first few years, switching app developers in the middle of a build as a result of their failure to deliver, our website crashing costing us several days of sales, having your bank of 4 years notify you that you have until the end of the month to close your accounts, having thousands of dollars of product lost or stolen by shipping carriers and the stress of all this building up to the point that it nearly cost me my marriage. Entrepreneurship in any industry is not for the faint of heart, but in the cannabis space, largely due to over-regulation, stigma, and ignorance, it’s especially difficult.

Tell us about your company. What do you do, what do you specialize in, what are you known for, etc. What are you most proud of as a company? What sets you apart from others?.
If I had to say that I specialize in anything, it’s general cannabis knowledge. For over 15 years, I’ve been independently studying the history of cannabis prohibition, federal and state cannabis regulations, the science behind cultivation and extraction and much of the scientific work coming out of Israel pertaining to the discovery of the mammalian Endogenous Cannabinoid System (ECS). That being said, I’ve purposefully pursued a career path that exposed me to many different skills so I could become more of a “Jack of all trades.” I think if you want to be an entrepreneur or work at a Start-Up, you really need to be a “Jack of all trades” and wear multiple hats. It’s very typical during the early stages of starting a business to need to be your own IT person, receptionist, bookkeeper, social media manager, graphic designer, etc.

I think what I’m most proud of is also what sets apart from others; our integrity. As I mentioned previously, this industry is not exactly overflowing with professionals brimming with integrity. It’s not always easy to maintain your integrity when you see so many people around you not conducting themselves with integrity and still largely succeeding.

This is one of the primary reasons for starting HerbSwift. There just aren’t enough reliable marketplaces out there yet for this product category so most folks interested in trying CBD products have to rely entirely on what they read on a manufacturer’s/brand’s website and purchase directly from them. These days, it takes very little to create an extremely professional looking website that may make a company look a lot more established and legitimate than it actually is. This lends itself to the occasional outrageous medical claim, bait & switch practices, falsified or photoshopped Certificates of Analysis (COAs) and other unscrupulous business practices. Of course, not too many brands function this way, but they’re out there and it’s very difficult for consumers to tell the difference without a lot of trial and error. HerbSwift aims to provide 3rd party verified COAs on every SKU and feature US Hemp Authority Certified (an independent 3rd party organization that sets quality and potency standards and conducts on-site quality control inspections) brands wherever possible in order remove as much doubt and fear from our customers’ experience as possible.

What have been some of the most important lessons you’ve learned over the course of your career?
I’m not sure there’s anything we would’ve or could’ve done differently. This is not to say we’re perfect, of course, we’re not and we have made a few mistakes. But, I think we were pretty well prepared for this endeavor and came into this with the expectation that it would take a lot of hard work and commitment (and a little luck!). Additionally, given the modest size of the seed investment capital we were able to pull together Jarrod, Shane and I think we’ve executed our business plan quite well to this point. The feedback from our customers has been overwhelmingly positive so we’re optimistic that with a little more time and exposure we can become a fixture in the Phoenix community and can have a positive impact on millions of Phoenicians’ health and wellness.

Pricing:

  • Pricing on CBD products ranges from $2.99 -$169.99
  • We offer sitewide discounts & free ground shipping on every order over $20.00.
  • We offer free on-demand delivery on your first mobile app order
  • Follow us on social media for additional promotions and coupon codes

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