The Entrepreneur’s Playbook: From Living Room Startups to Billion-Dollar Brands 🏢 EP140
Timestamps are as accurate as they can be but may be slightly off. We encourage you to listen to the full context.
Podcast Summary
In this special edition of the Money Mondays podcast, host Dan invites serial entrepreneur Cameron Forney to share his incredible journey from building and selling Select Cannabis for nearly $1 billion to launching his new functional hemp beverage brand, Adaptiforia. (01:21) Cameron details how he grew Select from his living room to a $980 million exit to Curaleaf, the world's largest cannabis company, and why he's now tackling the mental health crisis with his new beverage line that combines ancient Chinese herbs with hemp to create an anti-anxiety, anti-depression drink. (02:25)
- Main theme: Entrepreneurial resilience, building billion-dollar brands in regulated industries, and creating products that address modern mental health challenges while navigating complex compliance requirements
Speakers
Cameron Forney
Cameron Forney is a serial entrepreneur who built Select Cannabis (Select Oil) from his living room into a billion-dollar company, selling to Curaleaf for $980 million USD ($1.27 billion CAD). He served as president of Select at Curaleaf and spent five years making 27 different investments before launching his current venture, Adaptiforia, a functional hemp beverage company focused on mental health and wellness.
Dan Fleyshman
Dan Fleyshman is the host of the Money Mondays podcast and a successful entrepreneur who took an energy drink company public in 2005. He currently operates a 26-acre animal sanctuary in Temecula, California, housing 206 rescued animals, and is known for hosting the world's largest toy drive during Christmas.
Key Takeaways
Compliance is Your Competitive Advantage
Cameron emphasizes that staying compliant while competitors cut corners creates sustainable competitive advantages. (10:33) With Select Cannabis, he served on regulatory advisory commissions setting pesticide standards, which differentiated his brand. For Adaptiforia, he ensures products remain compliant under the USDA Farm Bill 2018 Act by limiting THC to 5mg per can at 0.3% by dry weight, while competitors often exceed these limits. This compliance-first approach protects against regulatory changes and builds trust with retailers and consumers, ultimately contributing to long-term success and scalability.
Capital Requirements Scale Exponentially with Success
Cameron shares a cautionary tale about Costco orders that illustrates how success can become a cash flow nightmare. (13:34) A $2.4 million Costco order required $1 million upfront for manufacturing, with payment coming 4-5 months later. When the product succeeded and Costco reordered $5.5 million worth, he needed $2.5 million more before receiving payment from the first order. This forced him to use factoring services at 2% per month interest, eating into already thin margins. The lesson: prepare for success by securing adequate capital before big opportunities arise, or you may have to turn down growth opportunities that could define your business.
Taste Trumps Everything in Consumer Products
Cameron invested nearly $2 million in formulation and taste development for Adaptiforia because he learned that taste is the ultimate determining factor for repeat purchases. (23:43) He explains that many cannabis beverages fail because they taste like "weed soda" - they mask the cannabis taste poorly, creating bitterness that lingers. For mass market success, the product must taste good to everyone from 65-year-old Southern Baptists to college students. This principle applies beyond beverages: if your product doesn't deliver an excellent user experience, no amount of marketing will create sustainable success.
Focus Your Time on High-Energy ROI Activities
Dan DeSilva reveals his approach to time allocation: he only pursues activities that provide the highest return for energy invested. (44:10) Rather than chasing every opportunity, he focuses exclusively on his core competency - copywriting - which he can deploy across multiple channels like VSLs, affiliate promotions, and ecommerce funnels. This specialization has made him so valuable that opportunities come to him instead of him having to network aggressively. The strategy: identify your unique skill, become exceptionally good at it, and let that expertise draw opportunities to you rather than spreading your energy across multiple mediocre skills.
Relationships Change Dramatically with Wealth
Both entrepreneurs share the harsh reality that relationships often change negatively when you become wealthy. (47:58) Cameron describes feeling lonely at the top, becoming "everyone's piggy bank," and losing friends after his exit. Dan experienced similar isolation, discovering that when he told people he was broke, nobody stuck around. This taught them that many relationships are transactional rather than genuine. The insight: prepare mentally for relationship changes that come with financial success, and consider having systems to identify authentic relationships before wealth creates complications. Building genuine connections before achieving major financial milestones becomes crucial for maintaining meaningful relationships.
Statistics & Facts
- Gen Z is drinking one tenth of the amount of alcohol that any other generation has drank in history, representing a $30 billion swing in the alcohol category. (03:16) Cameron shared this statistic to explain the massive market opportunity for non-alcoholic alternatives like his functional hemp beverages.
- Twenty percent of all college students are projected to be on antidepressants by the time current children reach college age. (04:25) This statistic motivated Cameron to create Adaptiforia as a natural alternative to help address the mental health crisis affecting young people.
- Cameron's animal sanctuary costs $140,000 per month to maintain 206 animals across 26 acres, including staff and food expenses. (59:15) Dan shares this to illustrate the significant ongoing investment required for meaningful philanthropic endeavors.
