Xzibit: It’s the Lasagna Ganja Podcast. I am Mr. X to the Z, Xzibit.

Tammy: And I’m Tammy, a.k.a. The Cannabis Cutie.

Xzibit: We have a wonderful episode for you guys today.

Really great times with this guy coming on today. He’s been in cannabis for as long as I can remember.

His name is Brett Feldman, but you may know him as WonderBrett.

Do you know WonderBrett?

Tammy: I know WonderBrett! They had an event that I went to. It had live art and performances. Snoop Dogg ended up coming. Poo Bear was there. It was a really fun event.

Love their flower. Love their branding. I’ve been to their store. I’m definitely very aware of the brand.

Xzibit: Yeah…so WonderBrett is in the studio with us today. Let’s start from the beginning.

How did you get into cannabis?

WonderBrett: I loved weed as soon as I started smoking it at 15.

I had ADD pretty badly. They were giving me Ritalin and stuff. Stimulant pills.

Those pills helped for a minute, but then I smoked weed. After that, I didn’t want to touch those pills ever again.

I realized how bad they were for me.

They’re methamphetamine.

But weed was just a magic moment for me.

So I went to college. I went to Humboldt. When I came back, I got introduced to the OG Kush, the Josh D cut. Didn’t meet Josh until a few years later.

A mutual friend gave me the strain to grow the OG Kush. I met you, Xzibit, at the record store after my second harvest. So I gave you my number in a jar.

You called me an hour later. Told me to come to the studio. You were shooting the video for “The Real 2000.”

I was already in the weed scene, but really when I met you and your circle, that’s what pushed me into it.

You showed me a whole world where you could be young and successful, and it opened up so many doors.

Xzibit: We have a very personal, intertwined history. Even the name, WonderBrett, is from our interaction. It didn’t start out as WonderBrett.

WonderBrett: It was Brett The Super White Man. I wore it as a badge of honor.

Tammy: Before we get into that, back when Louis Armstrong and the Jazz scene was really poppin’, they had a white boy that always had that fire.

WonderBrett: We were always fanatical about trying to create the best weed for some reason. White people are able to hide in plain sight without getting caught so easily.

Xzibit: Brett came through and saved the day. There were a few good bags back in the day. Brett came on, just got started, and we started hanging out together.

That transformed into WonderBrett.

I’m so proud of what you've been able to do and produce.

Let’s talk about your passion for growing. What is your relationship with cultivation and the plant?

WonderBrett: It stems from my family’s business, which is a catering company.

Being in the food industry, I approach cultivation from the perspective of a chef. I focus on presentation, experience, and the flavor.

After all these years of just being a ‘weed guy,’ it’s legal. It’s an industry. It commands respect.

There will always be people who hate on weed, alcohol, music, whatever. But weed is a special thing. It opened up doors and changed the trajectory of my whole life.

Approaching it from a catering side, it’s an ‘offering.’ Different experiences, flavors, and stuff.

Xzibit: Do you consider WonderBrett a ‘boutique brand?’ Do you see yourself as a small business?

WonderBrett: I still see us as a small, boutique brand. The quality of our flower can compete with small, homegrown stuff.

We’re doing it at scale, and people will come from all over the world to get our weed. We’re not trappers anymore.

Weed is unique. It’s different from alcohol. We play in the same mindset of quality and branding, but weed doesn’t get better with age like alcohol does.

Weed is perishable and highly taxed. So at some point, you have to run a discount.

Xzibit: You said having your own cultivation as your own brand is essential.

WonderBrett: It’s quality control.

Xzibit: So you said that cannabis is highly regulated. As a business owner and grower, you understand the fees and taxes that are put on cannabis before it even gets out the door.

So give us your insight on cannabis regulations.

WonderBrett: So we started in the medical market and were transitioning into recreational.

The perception was that we were much bigger because of our packaging and quality look.

That allowed us to get deals done to fulfill that mentality.

So we went to Sun Valley and turned that place into something special. When we went in there, it was dilapidated. We converted the whole place.

We got a good deal in Long Beach right when Rec was happening in 2018. You had to be at a certain scale to make sense of the business.

We did an equity-swap deal. The facility in Long Beach cost 20 to 25 million dollars to build. Our brand was worth maybe 2 or 3 million.

That facility has a 22 thousand square foot canopy. We have 36 bloom rooms. We do 4 harvests a week. That was a large undertaking.

That facility was at least 2 to 3 years of my life working on growing the business and not diminishing the quality.

When you get to that scale, growth is a great thing, but it can kill you if you don’t pay your bills.

The runway for carrying your business for 3 to 9 months with all kinds of AR collection problems and pandemics can be a nightmare.

Xzibit: More money, more problems.

Tammy: Speaking of more problems, you said you’re a social equity holder.

For the people out there listening, you can qualify in so many different ways, but one is by being convicted of nonviolent cannabis charges.

WonderBrett: Or just being arrested.

Tammy: Or growing up in a community that was torn down by the War on Drugs.

What’s the story there?

WonderBrett: So I got arrested in 2005 or 2006. I was at another friend’s studio. I’d bought them a CD burner.

The only place I could get the drivers for the printer was across the street from the studio.

I was sitting in my car smoking. It was 1 in the morning. These cops drive by.

And they just see me sitting there with this laptop and trying to get the drivers for the printer to download.

They pull up on me and then, boom!

Tammy: You were just getting work done. I thought you were caught growing or pushing or something.

WonderBrett: No, I got caught slipping on some stupid shit. And of course I forgot that I had 3 or 4 ounces in the trunk of the car.

I got arrested. I thought that was the worst thing that ever happened. Got that case thrown out because of an illegal search and violating some of my rights.

Then social equity came around and my attorney told me I qualify for it.

Xzibit: How many strains do you have in your new seed line and what was the mindset about getting the new seed line out?

WonderBrett: So Bird Seed Genetics is the name of the new brand. That’s going to be a vehicle for me to share a lot of genetics with the world.

WonderBrett has had 30 or 35 strains that we put out. We always put out 3 or 4 new strains every year.

But I’ve been breeding for years, and I have a vast library that is just too many different varieties to sit on and take to the grave.

So Bird Seed is going to allow me to put out things that I can’t put out with WonderBrett right now.

You can only put out so much at once from a single brand.

People want me to maintain the menu because they like what I have. But they also want me to put out 1 or 2 more strains a year.

In 1 year’s time, I might make 100 or so new strains. And I might do that a few years in a row. So I have 100s of strains that I’ve created that I can’t get to in this lifetime, no matter how hard I try.

So I want to share these things with people.

There was a time when growing was so illegal. There was no help—no internet or community to teach you. You were figuring things out on your own.

You were learning how to grow, but also how to get enough electricity to get more than two lights running at the same time.

Eventually you learned that you can’t grow in a house. You have to move to an industrial building so you can get a 400 or 800 AMP panel to expand into a 30 light row.

Xzibit: And then to transform into a 25 thousand square foot grow—what’s the rotation on that?

WonderBrett: It’s 1200 to 1500 units or pounds every month. Some strains yield more at certain times or an issue happening in the building might reduce a harvest.

I don’t run the facility anymore so I can travel around and work on brand cultivation.

Xzibit: How’s the Michigan market treating you?

WonderBrett: It’s up and down. When the economy is good, everything is great. But like everywhere with cannabis, it’s a new market so it's a boom and bust situation.

Xzibit: Did the retail store help the brand?

WonderBrett: It helped with notoriety for the brand and a certain level of stature.

It actually hurt the brand in LA. Before the retail space, we would be in every store in LA.

Once you have your own retail space, it creates a conflict where other spaces don’t want to carry your brand because you have your own retail space.

If you have the ability to keep going vertical and opening up more stores, that becomes a good thing in that the stores become a safety net for your brand.

But it also alienates you from other stores.

Xzibit: Are you going to continue to open stores?

WonderBrett: Retail stores? When the opportunity comes. We don’t really chase those things because it’s a scenario where you have to have deep pockets.

It’s not our bread and butter or ambition. It’s just about having a few locations for the long term and with the right partners.

I don’t want to run stores day-to-day. I want to help put the image together, the art work, the menu, and the experience.

But the dream is to put out good flower and educate people on what good flower is. And to show the world how diverse cannabis is.

Xzibit: That’s your passion. But you have partners who give a shit about the business so you can focus on your passion for the flower.

It allows you to be the artist and the person who cares about the creative aspects.

WonderBrett: They are the more sophisticated businessmen.

We partner with certain people because my business acumen and level of experience would never have gotten us to where we are.

I’ll maintain the quality of the product. But I’m definitely not the guy writing the contracts and reading them without someone explaining it to me.

Xzibit: I feel like things that are happening for WonderBrett are deserved. I watched you come up from the bottom.

To see these products and the innovation you’re bringing to them while still having the passion that you have for the flower is very commendable.

WonderBrett: Thank you, man. You’ve been supportive and opened up opportunities for me. And also just an all around nice guy.

Xzibit: Let’s get a round 2 of this about a year from now. I want to hear what happens with the brand.

You have a lot of great things happening. How do people get in touch with you?

WonderBrett: wonderbrett.com. There’s some contact stuff on there. On Instagram, it’s @wonderbrett_.

And also you’ve got wonderbrett.direct where, if you’re in California, you can order flower online and get it delivered.

Xzibit: If you want to get in touch with the Lasagna Ganja Podcast, we do have an IG. How do they find us, Tammy?

Tammy: You can find us @thelasagnaganja on Instagram.

Xzibit: Yes! Come ask us about who you want to see on the show. If you have a product that you want us to know about or that you think is very innovative in cannabis or culture, please send it to us.

It’s going down. We’ve got Brett in the building. Thank you!