"Just because something worked or did not cause problems at one level, that same process or lack there of can be detrimental after growth."
Chris Piazza Tweet
Meet Chris Piazza, the founder of CannaDevices, a cannabis industry accessories company. Chris started as a glassblower making pipes for smoke shops, but in 2018, he and a partner founded CannaDevices to provide American-made glass pipes and other accessories to dispensaries nationwide.
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We are thrilled to have you join us today, welcome to ValiantCEO Magazine’s exclusive interview! Let’s start off with a little introduction. Tell our readers a bit about yourself and your company.
Chris Piazza: I have been in the cannabis industry for about 15 years, most of that time as a glassblower making pipes for smoke shops. In 2018 a partner and I started CannaDevices which was focused on providing accessories to dispensaries nationwide.
We began with just supplying American made glass pipes, at any given time we have 60+ artists working for us full time all across the country in their own studios.
As our customers started to ask for other items, we began expanding our offerings and we now have overseas partnerships offering us the ability to manufacture all sorts of cannabis accessories extremely competitively, while still holding true to American made glass.
We are able to work in the cannabis industry but not be confined to state boarders because we do not touch the plant itself. The overall focus is being a picks and shovels business.
If you were in an elevator with Warren Buffet, how would you describe your company, your services or products? What makes your company different from others? What is your company’s biggest strength?
Chris Piazza: Hi Warren,
CannaDevices is a picks and shovels business for the cannabis industry. I have been involved in accessories for just under half of my life, so it is something I know very well. We have grown as our customers told us what they needed but have held true to our initial focus of American made glass.
While the margins may not be as impressive as if we used overseas manufacturing, our unique ability to supply American made pipes gets us through gate keepers and sets us far apart from our competitors. Once in the door, we can compete on price for the more generic products we offer, all of which have a focus on being brandable and therefore sticky.
Finally, the grand plan is to create a large network of customers to later start an acquisition strategy of other accessories to continuously have new products for our pipeline. We are truly focused on the tried and true, not chasing the newest thing.
Sorry, I think we missed your floor.
What advice do you wish you received when you started your business journey and what do you intend on improving in the next quarter?
Chris Piazza: I have a very hard time holding others accountable. This probably comes from a place of wanting to maintain a “happy culture” but this results in subpar executions. This is a lesson that is very difficult to learn and relearn.
I was given two pieces of insight that I am working on implementing. The first is related to, what I have come to understand is not uncommon, but many entrepreneur types have a hard time with holding others accountable, so rather then spending time and energy trying to get better, put someone in place between yourself and team members that need the accountability.
This goes to the concept that you can only get so good at something that does not come natural, so find someone that has the natural ability and help them perfect it. Next, application of KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) WITH incentives attached to them. In a backwards way this actually helps with accountability as well.
I have implemented a bonus structure for one of my managers and what seemed to be overnight, they began executing on a higher level related to expenses then they ever had. So this quarter I am working on creating KPI based incentives for other departments as well, including some of which that have been troublesome or difficult to manage. Most respond well to positive reinforcement, so going to put some real effort behind that.
Here is a two fold question: What is the book that influenced you the most and how? Please share some life lessons you learned. Now what book have you gifted the most and why?
Chris Piazza: Not to be cliche but The Rich Dad, Poor Dad series opened my eyes to the trap of trading type for money and shifting to money making money. I had first branched off on my own as a glass artist, thinking that I was finally free to work for myself. What I didn’t understand was why I was working so many hours and could never get ahead.
Reading Rich Dad, Poor Dad helped me understand that a Self Employed person is the hardest working class with the least freedom. I immediately started working on building businesses that were scalable without much time being traded for growth, along with investing any extra money that happened to be available.
In regards to most gifted, The Go-Giver. This is also the book that I have reread the most amount of times. The easy-read, storybook nature makes for a great way to learn for vitually anyone even slightly interested in entrepreneurship or business. There are countless little lessons throughout the book; I am always picking up something new and hope those that I have gifted/suggested it to reread it multiple times as well.
Business is all about overcoming obstacles and creating opportunities for growth. What do you see as THE real challenge right now?
Chris Piazza: Personally, my challenge is where to focus time/efforts. Cash flow is THE struggle right now with the cost of money increasing and having restricted access to funds because we are cannabis related. My company could attack this form 2 different strategies, increasing high margin revenue or streamlining and creating more efficiencies to increase net margin.
Both of which are crucial, so I am working on putting technology in place to help operations and for the first time start building out a sales team.
In your experience, what tends to be the most underestimated part of running a company? Can you share an example?.
Chris Piazza: Putting this into words could be tricky, but I will give it a try. As a company grows, problems grow in unison. An example for us was products that were out of spec, our company was growing at a 2-4x pace over a 2 year period.
We work with individual artists so some out of spec items is to be expected, but when we had 10 artists it was not a terrible problem. As we grew to 65+ artists this became a substantial problem. We did not even know we needed a process until it was staring us in the face. Just because something worked or did not cause problems at one level, that same process or lack there of can be detrimental after growth.
What does “success” in the year to come mean to you? It could be on a personal or business level, please share your vision.
Chris Piazza: This year, in regards to the business, I would like us to continue our growth and double our revenue over 2022. This will happen with a focus on operations getting streamlined and building out a sales team.
As a result I will personally be able to travel to customers more and make much needed time available for relationship building and networking. This will also lead to helping my personal goal of being more available to my family and friends.
Jed Morley, VIP Contributor to ValiantCEO and the host of this interview would like to thank Chris Piazza for taking the time to do this interview and share his knowledge and experience with our readers.
If you would like to get in touch with Chris Piazza or his company, you can do it through his – Linkedin Page
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