Founded in Colorado in 2015 by Miami-born-and-raised brothers, Jacob and Alex Pasternack, Binske (silent ‘e’) is that rarest of cannabis entities, a brand MSO. Unlike product MSOs or vertical MSOs, which typically own and operate oodles of licenses in various states, Binske owns not one license in any state. Rather, as explained to CBE by older brother Jake, who also serves as chairman and CEO of Binske parent Praetorian Global, “We bring the intellectual property to a partner for them to exploit in a specific territory.” Currently selling 150-plus SKUs across six states – California, Florida, Colorado, Nevada, Michigan, and Washington – with licensing deals six more states, Binske’s Intellectual Property (IP)-based strategy has paid off handsomely for the multistate operator with headquarters in Denver and Miami, and according to Pasternack, the best is yet to come.
Binske, like its Colorado cannabis peers, earned its stripes courtesy of s state system that required a DIY commitment to the industry. I asked Pasternack if there was any merit to the theory that because Colorado companies were forced to be vertical and not take outside money, that it toughened them up, forced them to learn the ropes whether they intended to or not, and made them into tougher competitors on the national stage.
“It’s an interesting thing,” said Pasternack, “because when you think about the way Colorado set up its licensing system, which we know is different in each state, it philosophically believed in the concept of survival of the fittest. So, instead of handing out six licenses and having limited licensing and effectively a monopoly for certain companies, Colorado said, okay, we’re going to issue licenses to a host of people and let these guys kind of duke it out, and whichever companies survive will be there. I think because of the highly competitive nature in Colorado, and because at least in the recreational framework it very quickly became the most mature marketplace out there, I think that sentiment is correct, and a lot of those companies and our peers in Colorado had early learning curves and were able to see what worked and what didn’t work.
“I think the big difference between us and some of those other folks that came out of Colorado was the depth of the wealth when it comes to intellectual property,” he added. “A bunch of the other companies and our peers were more focused on one specific segment of the market, the gummies, or pens, or flower products. When we started – and I started back in 2014-2015 – it was all about [creating] a full complimentary brand that has every single piece of necessary IP, and I think the concept there is Gucci wouldn’t be Gucci if they just sold men’s jackets and shirts. They need to sell men’s and women’s active leisure, and formal, they really need to have every single piece in order to truly be a full-scale brand. And that was where we were heavily focused at the beginning. We understood based on the data coming out of Colorado retail shops what and where the demand for products was, and then we crafted the intellectual property portfolio to kind of sync up with the demand. The concept was that in a mature marketplace, if we’re looking into the future and understanding what the demand on the products is, and if we take some of those principles and apply them to emerging markets, we were going to be ahead of the curve.”
I asked Pasternack to explain in greater detail what sort of IP Binske employs. “The word IP gets thrown around pretty loosely these days,” he replied. “There are a lot of companies out there that say IP and they claim IP, but at the end of the day what they’re doing is effectively a glorified packaging deal. No offense to any of those companies at all but delivering a box that says Tom’s Cannabis on it is not intellectual property, that’s, again, a packaging deal. For us, at this point, we have proprietary cultivars, proprietary genetics. On the edible side, we went to South America to Peru, found the highest quality cacao that existed anywhere in the world, brought that back into the States, and started to combine that super high-quality cacao from the Amazon jungle with the technologically advanced extraction methodology, and that’s how we started winning awards and gaining recognition. And so, for me, it’s really about being a true intellectual property provider. My background is in entertainment. I used to work for the studios, so my understanding of IP and licensing is a little bit different than most. When you license something in entertainment, you’re licensing a finished product, you’re not licensing a box, if that makes sense.”
Binske has in fact inked several such licensing deals over the years, with companies such as Trulieve, MariMed, Six Labs, and Aurora. The MariMed deal in 2019 resulted in a vast expansion of the Binske footprint to a handful of additional states. “Binske products will now be available to 52.4 million people (age 21-61) in 11 different states, reaching 52 percent of the U.S. population with access to legalized marijuana,” the company said in a statement released at the time. In terms of product categories, Binske carries a full complement of flower, edibles, vape pens, and concentrates, and in December, it announced a new line of cannabis-infused coffee products that utilizes Intelligentsia Coffee as a key ingredient as well as Binske’s prized varieties of cacao exclusively sourced from Peru.
Pasternack explained how the licensee process works. “What we basically do at this point is we take our partners, our licensees, from start to finish,” he said. “We provide them with the necessary information and IP around the genetics, the process, what plants like what, what are the cycling times, the nutrients, lighting specs, etcetera. Then, on the extraction methodology, whether it’s CO2, butane, or ethanol, our extraction methodology is really focused on what is the downstream product.
“Each one of those three extraction protocols are good for a specific downstream product,” he added. “Understanding which of the extraction methods is the best one for the downstream product is where the craft comes in. Then, what we end up doing is we deploy our team of production professionals across the country to each one of our licensees and train them on how to make the exact same product in each one of the various territories that has the same level of efficacy, same level of quality, etcetera. So, really what we’re doing is we are propping up satellite production in each one of the various territories as opposed to buying wholesale from some cultivator in a specific territory, and then throwing it in our box.
Does that mean that as Binske moves from state to state setting down its footprint, that it doesn’t have as much Capex than if it were building its own facilities in every state? “Great question,” replied Pasternack. “When we started off back in 2015, most of my peers were focused on hard assets, on licensed acquisition, on cultivation footprint. Whether they had 30,000 square feet or 100,000 square feet, that was the metric by which companies gauged themselves against others. I personally, and the company, philosophically didn’t believe in hard assets in the same way. We believed in intellectual property and brands.
“Back in 2015,” he continued, “the novelty aspect of the products really surpassed anything else. People were just so excited that they could legally purchase cannabis products that the idea of quality differentiation, innovation, really didn’t fit their scope. And frankly, I can understand why that is. Think about alcohol as an example. Let’s assume alcohol is illegal in California and then all of a sudden it becomes legal, and Walgreens starts selling Franzia boxed wine. What would happen? People would be high-fiving in the streets. ‘Come over to my house for the boxed wine party!’ It would all be good and well until that high-end Cab from Napa or that high-end Malbec from Mendoza comes out, at which point people will realize, wait a minute, Franzia boxed wine is actually a very inferior product compared to the Cab. But if you don’t have that level of knowledge and access to the Cab, you really don’t have that level of foresight. So, I think that’s kind of the biggest piece I was able to see back in 2015, that the consumer was inevitably going to get more educated, they were inevitably going to be driven towards higher quality products and higher quality cannabis solutions, and really what we tried to do is position ourselves for the future as opposed to positioning ourselves for today.”
That philosophy then extended to capital expenditures, said Pasternack. “While most companies were focused on deploying capital towards license acquisition and building out hard assets, we were focused on deploying our capital to build out intellectual property,” he added. “We were focused on the brand and on the products, and the concept was if we had the compelling brand that had a certain elasticity when you talk about demographics and consumers. Think about a rubber band. At the brand level, we’re always trying to stretch out and fit as many consumers in as we can without breaking the rubber band. That’s more where the focus was philosophically and strategically that if we build the right portfolio, the right brand, with the right SKUs, it really doesn’t matter which territory, medical or recreational; we were going to have a place in that marketplace. I think that’s kind of piece one.
“Piece two,” he continued, “is that each one of these markets is its own unique sub-market. Are there similarities between two marketplaces? Sure, but because of the way the laws are in terms of each state being allowed to create their own framework and their own rules by which governs the business, it creates these sub-marketplaces. So, you’ll see things in one market that you don’t see anywhere else, and you’ll see a trend in one place that you don’t see anywhere else. Some of that is driven by the consumers. Some territories are highly tourist oriented; some are highly local oriented. In some, like in Florida, tourists can’t participate at all right now. You have to be a local of the state. So, to your point, everything is unique, everything is different, and where the craft comes in and where the skill comes in is to understand the marketplace, understand those factors, and then build your strategy around that. Now, if you don’t have the requisite intellectual property to participate, you are kind of shut out, so that’s one of the other important pieces.”
Flower is the Root
Employing a model that tailors its product offerings to meet local demand in each one of the markets it’s in, I ask about the decision-making process that goes into deciding which products go into a particular state or region.
“It is an ongoing process, and the devil is always in the details,” said Pasternack. “The reality is that flower is always the starting point and the root structure, if you will, for each one of these marketplaces, even if flower is not permissible as a product. In some states, they legalized pens or some of the attraction products without having legal flower yet, but you still then need the flower to create the downstream products. So, flower is the first and foremost with everything, and in most of the mature marketplaces you’re seeing flower at over 50 percent of market share in terms of the product mix. So, you know, that’s always your starting point.
“Now, depending on what you’re trying to do with downstream products, that then informs what type of cultivation strategy you’re going to deploy,” he continued. “If you’re doing 100 infused products, you don’t necessarily need indoor material to do that. Initially everyone was using all indoor material to produce the downstream products, but sophisticated operators now understand that they can grow outside or in the greenhouse and still create the discipline necessary to produce a high-quality edible product. But if you’re doing a smokeable product, whether it’s flower or any of the concentrates, you need the indoor, highest end product, and if you’re going to incur the highest cost of goods on production to produce indoor, you should at least endeavor to be at the highest end in terms of the retail dollar coming in.
“I think the other interesting piece is the delineation between plant-touching and non-plant-touching businesses,” he added. “We don’t touch produce or distribute cannabis. We simply own all the intellectual property on the products, on the brand, and then license those brands and products out to plant-touching operators. More than being a product MSO, we’re really a brand MSO. We bring intellectual property to a partner for them to exploit in a specific territory.”
That said, if quality suffers, doesn’t that tarnishes the brand as well as the producer? “100 percent,” said Pasternack. “We’re hands off from the actual production of who’s producing, but when it comes to QA/QC, we have a pretty comprehensive protocol that’s set up on a state-by-state basis which ensures efficacy. Some of that is our own internal protocols that we put into play; the other side of that is the state mandated testing. A lot of people complain about state mandated testing, but I actually love it. Let’s say a product supposed to test at 100 milligrams per chocolate bar. When I started off, my big concern was somebody messes it up with dosing, and all of a sudden there’s 175 milligrams in a product. But because of how rigorous the testing is, these products are produced, they’re quarantined or sent to the lab for heavy metals, bacteria, microbials, potency. Not until we get that test result back is that product allowed to be packaged and then distributed.
“So, the cumbersome nature of the testing procedures in each state is actually a very good thing for us and for consumers,” he added. “Everybody has a story or at least a friend who in the past 10 or 20 years ate an edible or a brownie at some house party and had the worst experience ever because they were overdosed. That would be like going to a bar, ordering a shot of vodka, and they gave you seven shots of alcohol in one shot. You’d never drink vodka again. It’s one of those things where consumers need to start off small; micro dosing is important, and just kind of carrying the consumer through. It’s really no different than wine.
“To be honest,” said Pasternack, “I think one of the other big problems or issues on the product side is that consumers are still getting educated and understanding how to discern high-quality product versus lower-quality product. Unfortunately, right now, potency is the only thing, the only quantifiable number, that somebody can latch on to. And that’s like saying that Everclear is a higher quality spirit than Blue Label, which we know is not the case, but Everclear has more alcohol on a per volume basis. The other big issue is that retail stores still searching for the best way to market products to consumers, so what you see is the highest potency stuff is the most expensive, which, if you think about alcohol, is a rudimentary understanding of the product.”
From IP to Shelf
I also wondered what sort of distribution challenges Binske has encountered as a brand without its own licenses or trucks, seemingly dependent upon others to get its product on shelves. “Every territory is highly different than another one,” he answered. “It starts off with how many retail doors exist in the state and what level of penetration we are looking for in that specific state, and we obviously will build those plans and protocols by looking at data from other states that we’re active in.
“Then I think the biggest piece for us is partner selection,” he continued. “We view the licensee-licensor relationship effectively as a marriage. We’re in this together, all in the boat rowing in the same direction. So, making sure on the front end that the partner has the requisite resources to facilitate the distribution into the various channels is key. Some of the companies elect to use a third party, and in some of the states the protocol is that it has to go through a distribution outlet. In other states, if you have a cultivation license or a manufacturing license, you can sell direct to the retail store. And frankly, that’s one of the other big benefits – and one of the reasons why licensees bring us into their territory – because at this point, we have a national fan base. A partner trying to bring Jimmy’s Cannabis into a store versus bringing Binske into a store; they have a lot more success with Binske because of how we’re perceived in the marketplace and the quality of the products. So, what you’ll see sometimes is a company license us, bring in the brand that everybody knows they can get onto the shelf easy because of our relationships with some of the big national retailers that are active in multiple states, and then they’ll piggyback their own house brand on top of that, because they have inroads through the bench brands.”
Who drives quantity allotment? If a partner is opening up five more stores and says they need more product, does Binske provide it at its own pace, or does the partner have control over the amount and pace of production of that licensed product?
“In most of the territories and most of the deals, there are production minimum requirements on a per-SKU basis,” replied Pasternack. “So, on the front end, both of us – licensee and licensor – understand what the obligations are from a production perspective, and everyone’s aligned in that regard. Then, in most of the territories, the success of the wholesale business is predicated upon your ability to do business with a third party at the retail level that you don’t vertically control. Obviously, in some of these territories, our partners do have vertical retail assets, and that’s easy; you just plop it on the shelf. But in most of these territories that are highly competitive, the wholesale license allows you to sell to any retail store in the state. That’s where differentiation comes in having unique genetics, having chocolate, and having some of the edible products that have a real edible story behind them. That was one of the things that shocked me the most when I first started, was most of the companies that were producing edibles viewed the food product, the actual chocolate in this example, as a carrier for the high. Like, how much high can I get into this piece? Where for me, it was more about, if we’re going to produce a chocolate bar, let’s find the highest quality cacao that’s out there, and let’s go get a global worldwide exclusive for use of this cacao in cannabis droplets. That’s how you put out a sophisticated product, not just shoving as much THC as you can into a piece.”
As to what precisely distinguishes Binske from its competitors, “I think there are a few things,” said Pasternack. “The focus on quality, on the granular details, is what makes a product special; those little garnishes of cerebral stimuli that are kind of layered in. I think the other part of it, too, is the depth of the well of the product offering, I’m a big believer that there is a cannabis solution for everyone. Ever since I was young, I was much more of a cannabis person than an alcohol person, and I meet folks all the time that just say to me, ‘I don’t like cannabis. Cannabis is not my thing.’ But once you kind of dial down and sit with them and understand what their life is like, what are they doing, what are they not doing, there really is a product for everyone. A friend of mine recently told me, ‘I’m not a cannabis guy. I get paranoid.’ And that’s because he’s only smoked flower. We now have him on a low dose gummy that he takes every single night before he goes to bed. He just didn’t know that was available, and it was a product that effectively replaced Ambien for him.
“So, I think what the future is really going to be about is presentation,” he added. “Is [the product] presented the right way? Are there low dose options for net new consumers entering the space? And also, to break that taboo wall a bit, the connotation that anybody that uses cannabis is a couch potato college kid, which really couldn’t be further from the truth. There’s going to be this shift that takes place, and we’re already starting to see it in some of these territories where the consumer base is getting more educated. A lot of people that historically didn’t use cannabis products are now using cannabis products, and whether that’s a grandmother who understands that she can just have a vape pen, which is a much better solution than having white wine or Ambien, or it’s a middle-aged father or mother that can get some relief and some benefit, whether medical or recreational.
“That’s what I think we’re going to start to see,” he added. “The latest data that I saw was that about 11 or 12 percent of the North American population uses cannabis at least once a month. Over the next 5-10 years, that number is going to grow to 20-30 percent. And when you look at the revenue projections in the space globally, it’s not as if the 12 percent is going to start buying more product. It’s just that you’re going to bring in more and more of these consumers, and like I said, I really do think there is a solution for everybody, whether that’s a topical, edible, or a vape product. I like flower personally, but a lot of our guys focus on concentrates and some of them like hash products, where I’m just kind of an old school flower guy.”
Speaking of concentrates, Pasternack was exultant about the progress being made in the field. “It’s amazing the technological advances of what’s taking place on the extraction front,” he said. “With some of the original extraction machinery on the CO2 side, we were using machines initially created to decaffeinate coffee. That’s what the intention of the machines were. So, to think that we’re now in a place where you can do fresh frozen, solventless hash, with no solvent whatsoever, it just shows us where things are headed. I’ve been a big fan of cannabis since I was a teenager, back in the days when you didn’t even know what you’re getting in the plastic bag. Now, you actually have 35 different options, and one of the other things that is happening is a certain percent of consumers become paralyzed by choice. It’s almost like when you turn on Netflix and try to figure out a movie to watch. You could spend 30 minutes just flipping through the thing because there are so many options. So, I think the other part is really creating that patronage, creating that brand that has that visibility, that keeps that promise to the consumer, and then most importantly has that efficacy from territory to territory.”
I asked Pasternack if cannabis is still local in nature, and we’re still in the process of developing bona fide national brands. “I think that’s totally accurate,” he replied. “I think, unfortunately, the bulk of the material just on the flower side, and, frankly, on all the other products in the space right now, is low quality product, because you have production people that are focused on turning the dollar as opposed to producing high quality stuff. It’s much harder to produce high quality material than it is to just pump out lower quality stuff. So, I think that’s one of the biggest pieces is that consumers will become more educated, and they will become more sophisticated with the products.
“And again, for us, it’s about the depth of the well of the product portfolio,” he added. “It’s about access to the marketplace and being in a position where we can serve 100 million plus consumers that are over the requisite ages between the various states “And then, I think the last part that’s important that we didn’t touch on is marketability. How do you market these products properly? The days of girls in bikinis holding goats and just crazy stuff is really yesteryear; it’s really not sophisticated, and I think what you’re going to start to see going forward, at least from us, is a much more sophisticated marketing strategy where we’re personifying the experience of cannabis in a different way, using stimuli to the senses as opposed to some picture of a big fat joint in somebody’s mouth.”
Binske by Design
If it isn’t clear by now, Binske identifies as a lifestyle brand rather than as a brand dependent upon cannabis for its identity. I asked Pasternack if by definition that makes his partnerships all the more important, even essential.
“100 percent,” he replied. “I think the value proposition that we bring to the partners relates to the fashion analogy with Gucci. Because of the lack of interstate commerce, if I’m now giving you the exclusive right to produce and distribute Gucci in a specific territory, that’s a huge value proposition. And that’s really where we are now. At the beginning, we had to be opportunistic with regard to new licensing partners with territories. But now we’re in the position where the deals come to us as opposed to us having to hunt the deals, because the partners want the benefit of all the sophistication, and they want the benefit of all this patronage and quality product.”
That anticipated my next question whether Binske deals are exclusive, and what the company looks for in an IP partner. “All of our licensing deals are exclusive,” replied Pasternack. “We view our licensees as a marriage, and we’re locked and loaded with that specific partner in the specific territory. Now, when it comes to partner selection, the biggest thing is kind of a shared zeitgeist, if you will, and people that see and understand the marketplace the same way we do. We’re not interested in a flash in the pan and bringing in as much revenue as we can in six months. It’s more about longevity, and I’m always willing to sacrifice for the long haul.
“This is an industry and a business that by the time my children are my age, it’s going to be alcohol, it’s going to be wine in the shop, and the people that focus on really providing the highest quality products and providing innovation and providing the patronage, and being everything that a brand needs to be, that’s who I believe are going to be the big winners long-term,” he continued. “The guys that are just focused on how to make as much revenue as possible in six months’ time; they may do well and they may have a big exit, but they’re really not providing anything back to the community and the consumers. To use the corny Spider Man line, with great power comes great responsibility. And we take that to heart, because we are in a position that we are crafting policy; we are responsible to show these consumers in these new marketplaces what this experience looks and feels and smells like. And, again, the potency thing is just another example. I’m much more focused on aroma, flavor, scent, and effects, as opposed to potency. Whenever you go to Napa and you drink some really high-end wine, the drunk you feel off that wine, you just feel better. You don’t get drunker than you normally would; it’s just a more elevated feeling. It’s like rubbing your hands on a silk dress as opposed to on sand.”
A private company, Binske keeps its revenue from public scrutiny, but the numbers it provided CBE indicate a steady yearly doubling of revenue. “Yes, we’ve doubled revenue every single year since inception, and this past year was no different,” said Pasternack. “And for the calendar year that we’re in right now, we expect at least double-digit growth. Now, the one thing I will note on that is that it’s one thing to say, ‘Hey, I had two territories last year. I have four now, and that’s why I doubled my revenue.’ But the thing that we’re most proud of is the increased market share in all of our territories across the board. So yes, we’re turning on new markets and creating new revenue streams, but we’re also increasing market share in highly competitive and mature marketplaces. That shows you that there’s a difference here, there’s a value proposition on the brand that other things don’t have.
“We entered Washington state not too long ago, which was one of the first legal marketplaces,” he added. “The level of reception that we’ve had in that marketplace and the patronage that’s kind of driving towards the products and in turn the revenue is pretty exciting considering that that marketplace is one of the most mature and has suffered price compression the most. If you can do that six or seven years after the thing has gone live, and you still have that higher power on trajectory, that just shows you that the products and the brand make sense, and the demographic and the elasticity of the brand is there.”
I asked if Binske needs to raise funds in support of its expansion. “We’re always looking for growth opportunities and to bring on good strategic investors,” he said. “I’m more focused on a strategic investor as opposed to just the dollars themselves. We’ve been blessed that we’ve been able to raise 100 percent of the capital that we’ve needed privately, through a pretty small friends and family network.
“We will start bringing on some additional institutional dollars in these next couple rounds,” he added, “but we will be much more focused on strategics that provide value beyond the checkbook, because we are setting this company up and setting ourselves up for what the future of cannabis looks like. Unfortunately, the paradigm right now of what the marketplace is based upon the regulatory code and environment, the asteroid is coming. We can see it, it’s coming; when it’s actually going to hit and when some of this reform takes place, is anybody’s guess, but we feel it is an inevitability.”
Are there any plans to take Praetorian Global public? “As I mentioned, we’ve been able to raise privately all the capital that I endeavor to bring in,” he replied. “Most of these companies go public because they need huge sums of capital and need to access the capital and need $200 million to go execute the acquisition strategy of 15 retail shops, or whatever it is. We have a different model. Because we’re not funding Capex, we’re not, in most cases, funding the cost of goods. We’re really more supporting the brand from the licensor perspective. I won’t rule it out, but I think at this point, we’ve shown the ability to bring in the capital necessary to promote and progress the brand.
“Long term,” he added, “I think what’s interesting about us specifically is the value proposition that we bring to some of the big alcohol players. At this point, if most of them were to acquire an American plant-touching asset, they would be immediately delisted from whatever exchange they’re on, assuming they’re public. And if they’re private, they have lines of credit with Bank of America or some of these other financial institutions, for which buying a plant-touching asset would become very troublesome and problematic. For us, we don’t present any of those issues because we’re non-plant-touching, so an alcohol outfit could purchase us or do a deal with us, and they would immediately de-risk the long-term cannibalization that marijuana will have on alcohol.
“And then,” he continued, “when you think about intellectual property, if you’re sitting on 13 alcohol brands today, to now be in a position where you could monetize those brands by using our intellectual property and create 13 revenue streams from one territory as opposed to one, there’s a lot of value in that. And I think, while today the delineation between plant-touching and non-plant-touching exists in this kind of convoluted structure, where if you’re an American plant-touching company, you can be traded on the Canadian stock exchange, and if you’re a Canadian plant-touching company, you can be traded on the U.S. stock exchange, we’re more focused on the future and providing that value to whoever that next big partner is.”
I wondered if Binske, as a burgeoning lifestyle brand, might one day step up to the retail plate, similar to what a few other cannabis product brands have been doing. It turns out that day is here.
“One of the things that we actually are doing is we’re opening up a flagship store on Miami Beach,” said Pasternack. “And that flagship store is actually not going to sell THC product; it’s going to sell all of our CBD offerings, as well as all of our lifestyle apparel and accessories. And so that side of the non-THC store is interesting to us. If you think about Supreme, as an example, Supreme started as a skateboard brand, and sold tangible skateboard products 10 plus years ago. Now if you go into a Supreme store, you can’t even find a skateboard. Instead, you see a $1,300 luggage collaboration with Louis Vuitton. So, they morphed from being a tangible skateboard company to a lifestyle brand that was birthed out of skating. That’s one of the things that we are looking at, and then over the next couple of years, there will be some Binske flagship stores on the THC side, as well as onsite consumption lounges, and those are more about putting a flag in the ground for consumer experience.
“We’re in Planet 13, we’re in MedMen, we’re in a lot of the big chain accounts, and I think all those guys do a phenomenal job,” he added. “I think the issue though is controlling the narrative, and when you have budtenders that are selling 200 different brands, even if you do pop-ups and education, it is hard to control the narrative and what is being conveyed to consumers. And so, our model on that side is going to be to prop up a handful of retail outlets in specific strategic cities, to provide the consumers that ability to see how we feel the retail experience should go?”
Obviously, these high-end shops will have to be in the best cities. “Yes, because of our brand being on the higher end segment – Miami, LA, Aspen, New York City, Barcelona; there are going to be a handful of those style of cities that get the benefit of our retail programming and retail assets,” said Pasternack. “At the beginning, I wasn’t ready to dive into that until I learned and got as much data from the marketplace as we have now. At this point where, we’ve kind of tooled up over the past few years to prepare ourselves for this. I just didn’t feel at the front end that it made sense. It was more about learning about the consumer, learning about the marketplace before I was ready to put a flag in the ground and say, this is what it should be.”
The store on Miami Beach, which Pasternack said should open mid- to late-summer 2022, is located at the Goodtime Hotel, owned by Dave Grossman and his business partner, musician Pharrell Williams. Playing out this scenario to its logical conclusion, I wondered if one day we will walk into a Binske store and find not only cannabis products for sale, but also other lifestyle offerings, like clothing, artwork, and maybe even skateboards.
“Correct,” said Pasternack. “On the clothing side, we’re actually doing some pretty interesting collaborations with some big fashion brands that are out there, where we’re doing collaborative products, taking our assets from the murals and all of the art that we’re kind of famous for, and then doing a collaborative set of clothing or other products with some of these big names. And the idea there is, if you think about Louis Vuitton as an example, they brought in Virgil [Abloh] to be their creative director a few years back. He since has passed away, but the whole point was that Louis Vuitton up to that point appealed to more of an older demographic because of the price point and because the clothing itself was more pinstripe, and it had the monogram LV. It wasn’t urban, it wasn’t loud, it wasn’t fun, and they saw the value in bringing someone like that in to capture and compel a different demographic that they didn’t touch. So, I think another piece of it is just understanding, okay, this is who we already have, this is who we now need to go get – the guys and gals that are on the fence – and what is it going to take to compel them and show them that there is a cannabis product for everybody. And doing so all in a way that’s unoffensive, that is welcoming, and it’s presented the right way.”
Cannabis, he added, will be but one of the components. “When consumers like yourself get a jar of flower that’s just unbelievable, you smell that thing and you’re just so excited,” he said. “It’s like slipping into a warm bath. It’s the same for someone that’s really into fashion, and who buys a new cashmere sweater or a cool new jacket, puts it on, and experiences a feeling that overcomes them. Again, it’s not about the jacket itself; it’s about the lifestyle side of it that is the perceived value, and it pumps those endorphins and gets you feeling good about what you’ve done.”
The Binske website exemplifies much of what he is saying, added Pasternack. “Basically, what we’re saying there is this concept of Binskefication, and the idea is that the products themselves contain the energy, the life, the essence, whether in the medical or recreational context. And if you go onto the website, you’ll see one of the packages opening, and then all the assets from the mural kind of coming out of that box, showing that this life, this energy, lives inside the package. We then show the lifestyle videos of the people doing different things; the woman walking down the street, the group having a picnic, hanging out on the beach, whatever it is, and then the assets come off of them, almost like Tinkerbell and fairy dust creating a trail behind her. The concept of the narrative is that this essence, this energy, is inside the package, and when you consume the package, it lives inside of you, and then your environment that you’re in now becomes a product of that. So that’s really the narrative flow of what we’re doing from a marketing perspective.”
As we end our long conversation, I remark that the quality that comes to my mind about Binske is discipline, the discipline to stick to the original mission and core values, and note that discipline seems to play a central role in providing companies with a modicum of control over their destiny in a business environment that seems to delight in thwarting control.
“I couldn’t agree more,” said Pasternack. “That’s something I tell my staff all the time, that the most beneficial and valuable thing in business is consistency. To use a baseball analogy, I just want doubles and singles every single day, one after the other. A lot of people don’t realize that Babe Ruth might hold the home run record, but he also holds the strikeout record, because if you’re swinging for the fences, you’re also going to strike out. So, instead of trying to focus on those bright lights, just keep hitting your doubles and your singles.”
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