Behind The Brand: CRONJA CMO Mike Malcolm
For this installment of Behind the Brand, we return to our trip to Las Vegas last December for Mjbiz. While in town, we had the chance to speak with Mike Malcom. Mike serves as Chief Marketing Officer for the cannabis lifestyle brand CRONJA
Mike walks us through his first time consuming, how he found himself with CRONJA, what makes the brand unique, and more.
CashColorCannabis: Before we even get into the business part, can you share with us the first time you consumed cannabis?
Mike Malcolm: So my uncles used to smoke weed, and growing up, I used to see them rolling what I know now to be joints. So when I was maybe in sixth or seventh grade, I used to steal my uncle’s weed and try to roll it up with my friends. But we were so young and dumb we didn’t know how to roll. And so I was tearing leaves off the tree, trying to put weed in it.
CCC: Okay. And trying to roll weed up in them, not knowing that it’s too wet like it won’t light and all this other stuff. See, that’s how you mess around and roll up poison ivy.
MM: Exactly. So be careful about what you roll up. Amen. For real. Yeah. We were so stupid.
I had no idea what I was doing. But the first time I successfully rolled up, it got high. I was a sophomore in high school, something like that.
I’ll never forget my cousin and I were smoking in her car right down the street from where we lived. I remember that very distinctly. She told me the first rule of smoking weed is to always look out for the police.
CCC: Since then, have you thought about why you smoke? Whether it’s anxiety, does it help you focus a lot more? Have you ever thought about the reasons why?
MM: That’s a great question. Because in the very beginning, I wanted to be cool.
And it was just something to do. It was like what we were supposed to be doing. But right now, I’m very much more intentional about it. I just love the plant and how it makes me feel. I’m not the type of person that likes to smoke when I’m feeling bad. I don’t smoke to feel like I’m having a bad day.
CCC: Let’s talk about how you found yourself involved with Cronja.
MM: Shout out to my partners, Ryan Cron and Bryant Bowen. They are the founders of CRONJA. I met them when they sold the CRONJA leather rolling trays to Chicago’s first medical dispensary in July 2017.
A mutual friend of ours, GLC, actually introduced us. I was already messing around on the traditional side of the industry, and he was like, “Hey, these are some guys that are doing it for real. And so we met.”
Years later, the same guys would win licenses in California. After that, they officially brought me in. They told me they couldn’t afford me then, but they offered me equity in their company to help them. And I took it.
CCC: Many would think that CRONJA was a brand that created premium accessories. I didn’t know that there was a flower line as well.
MM: Yeah. So, yeah, we’ve been in California. My partners got their licenses in the summer of 2019. They started operating at the end of 2020. We have a California distribution, manufacturing, and delivery license that allows us to buy wholesale directly from farms, package that product in-house in our packaging, and then sell that into retail. So, we’ve been doing that since December of 2021. We are launching in Illinois at the top of the year 2025. We’re currently in over 200 dispensaries now across the state of California.
We will be in New York sometime in 2025.
CCC: Do you ever feel that you’re walking into a space that will be oversaturated or something?
MM: Yes and no. There’s always that possibility, but people open brand-new restaurants daily, right? If you go into any grocery store, there are multiple products of every single thing. So, the most important thing is to create products that people are passionate about.
You have to give people something to believe in, and I don’t mean just like a quote or something. Something to believe in, like they know that your product quality will be consistent. That your values are something that aligns with them and their community. If you do those two types of things, to be genuine and have integrity in your products, there’s always a chance for you to succeed.
There’s no such thing as oversaturation when it comes to quality products.
CCC: Regarding quality products, do you have a favorite product in the Cronja line?
MM: Oh yes, 100%. Our Melted Strawberries. That was one of our signature lines launched with one of my favorite products we ever released. Besides being an excellent flower, I worked with the growers for a year before launching our flower line in California. I worked with growers in California on pheno hunting for that strain. At the time, I didn’t know I would eventually do this for CRONJA. I was working with the people, trying to help them create a dope product.
To this day, it is still one of our most requested strains. Of all the skews released, people still ask me about the Melted Strawberries and when we will release it. Hearing great feedback from our customers and retail partners always makes me feel good to know that we’re doing what we set out to do: releasing great products.
CCC: What got you down here at MJBiz?
MM: They reached out to me, and they asked me to speak on a panel. I talked about the importance of cooperative economics in the cannabis industry, which I’m passionate about. They flew me out, put me up, and asked me to speak on a panel.
In this industry, it will be essential that people find ways to work together, such as CRONJA. It was two guys who founded CRONJA who understood their strengths and weaknesses and brought on people like myself and GLC to help them in other areas where we were strong. Then, we formed this collaboration. This group is known as CRONJA. It was friends who saw the light in each other and decided to work together.
You can’t do it on your own. This is where a lot of celebrities fail because they think. After all, people know who they are, so success would just come from that.
CCC: Cannabis is the one space, I feel like, that is celebrity-proof in that way where a lot of other businesses, including you, that’s not a thing in cannabis. It’s not a thing in cannabis.
MM: No matter how big you could be, you could be Snoop or whoever. Is this a good product? Is this something that’s going to be a consistently good product? Building a brand is building a community. That’s the most important thing about the brand. The branding people think branding is all about your packaging and all these other things. Your brand is the promise that you make to your customers. That’s what your brand is.
All that other shit, the fucking Mylar bags or the glass jars, that’s just packaging. Yeah, that shit means nothing. You know what I’m saying? Your brand is your promise to your customers; that is how you survive this.
“Since our interview Mike has notified me that he resigned his position as CRONJA’s CMO but still holds his equity stake.”
