“You guys are nuts.”
That's what I thought about six months ago when the management team at Wildflower (
CSE:C.SUN,
Stock Forum) invited me to the boardroom for a raspberry ale and a look at their 'look book, featuring a phone book-sized collection of sketches, designs, test marketing data, more sketches, more designs, more data, lots of things scribbled out, some post-it notes, a couple of cocktail napkins, with some things genius and passed, and other things less genius and moved forward... And it all built toward a single page at the very end with a
solitary green logo.
It's nice. It works well. But, cripes, the last logo I used for a business cost me $300 at
99designs.com and took about two days from brief to delivery, ultimately arriving from a 15-year-old kid out of Tajikistan.
This, on the other hand, was something that had likely cost high five figures, came out of a large marketing agency, and had taken maybe six months to complete. The work done, and the number of people who had done it, was mind-boggling.
It was as if, in an effort to cook a steak dinner, the Wildflower guys had opted to start out by buying a cattle ranch, then employing a crew to cut the throats of 900 head of cattle in the search for that one particular heifer with the best flank steak of the bunch.
And that's what I said at the time. This, frankly, was ridiculous.
CEO William MacLean smiled. No offense was taken.
“You don't see it yet, but this book here is the company. This book, this branding – nobody has bothered to really do this yet. Nobody has created a brand that transcends the immediate market and will be usable anywhere. We're going to make money on this brand, this logo, this look and feel. This is licensable. Transportable. If we can make it iconic, we win. People talk about building a brand, but this is how it's done in the real world.”
He's right. Companies spends millions to get a list of twenty possible names with available internet domains. Companies have teams of people dedicated to what font should be used and whether adding a serif to the 'f' would be just too on the nose.
But those are BIG companies. Fat, huge, based-on-four-continents kinds of companies.
So, let's be clear, MacLean is a lunatic. But in the best possible way if you're going to be a CEO in an outlier industry. With companies rushing into pioneer country, tackling ever-changing laws and as-yet uncharted markets, sometimes it's the lunatic with the assassin's grin that can get you to the promised land.
As evidence, Wildflower is up 308% since early February. The bastard was right.
Actually, we both were.
In late December,
I wrote about Wildflower, in a story about juniors that could be properly pillaged by investors during tax loss season, “Probably need to be another financing at some point in the next few months as things ramp up [nailed it] but, at a current stock low, it’s going to soon be the moment to pull the trigger on C.SUN. [nailed it]”
When the CEO made these wild claims about branding domination, his stock was at $0.06 and one of his two MMPR applications was dogged by a NIMBY neighbour who appears to think the Hell's Angels are looking to open new clubhouses with Health Canada's approval, and that the CEO, in his spare time, chain-whips children while chugging malt liquor and doing parking lot donuts with his old lady riding sidecar.
Wildflower navigated that little nest of vipers as well as could be expected, and turned it into a better deal with the mayor two miles over, in sunny Parksville B.C., while his old neighbours get to continue to enjoy living next to fields of horse dung. Guess you don't need jobs when you're running out God's punchclock.
So Wildflower's MMPR applications continue to work through the system, but, realistically, few care about those anymore. MacLean nailed it – while the main plank of the Wildflower business plan is to build state of the art grow houses, the market finally sat up and took notice when the company announced, last week, that it held an LOI for a licensing deal with a Washington state edibles manufacturer.
The name of that manufacturer? You don't get that until the deal is done. But the deal will involve Wildflower sending about $1.5m in cash and shares to Washington to help grow the JV partner's facility, pay down any debt, and give them working capital to grow with, in return for 20% of all future gross sales.
The key to this deal? Sure, the edibles crew wants access to capital. But what secured the deal was the brand, which they believe will represent very nicely thank you very much on dispensary shelves.
Washington State has 370,000 cannabis users, says MacLean, and the law limits out of state folk from having a stake in the company proper. But there's no such restriction on licensing an out of state brand.
Other Canadian weedcos are all over Washington looking to roll up growers and dispensaries, but most end up with real estate-backed deals that are dressed up as 'consulting' or 'rent'. Wildflower is side-stepping the less profitable grow end, and getting their chunk of the value add space, and with a company that is already producing, distributing, and selling.
In the
news release announcing the deal, MacLean said, “This is the first step in realizing our goal of making Wildflower a global marijuana brand.”
Lots of interesting stuff in that one sentence. First, he's reiterating the fact that the brand is key to future dealings, MMPR or not. Second, he's telling you in that 'first step' remark that there will be more of these deals coming. Third, the keyword: Global. Wildflower is
actively engaged in talks with companies, groups, and regulators in other parts of the world with a view to splashing that green trademark on products far and wide.
Wildflower won't tell me about what they've got planned because those deals are being actively negotiated now and, well, I'm a bit of a loudmouth. But something's in the works, and it's going to land any day now.
Back when the stock was $0.06, I said it was undervalued, and I know a few of my Twitter followers took the chance to jump in (well played).
I meant that, but was basing my valuation entirely on the MMPR applications and their potential should they ever move forward. The market, however, sees far more in the potential of that licensing deal, and sees it as a much more immediate payday, which has pushed C.SUN stock to $0.245 in just a few weeks, even as the company was closing a financing at $0.10.
There will be more financings. There has to be. There should be, with the share price darting upward and holding well at the new level. When that licensing deal moves forward, there'll need to be $1.5m sourced, and likely more than that when the grow facilities move forward (or more deals are announced).
But consider this: That next financing will be at a (at least) 2.5x premium over the one that ended two weeks ago. Warrant holders from that financing will already be cashing those in, so that means more cash in the door at C.SUN.
But while early holders are already lighting cigars, those on the fence may not have missed their chance just yet.
With Nutritional High's (
CSE:C.NHL,
Stock Forum) IPO having melted down the CSE, and topping all Canadian juniors on volume on its open, and with weed as a commodity drawing ever lower prices in the US due to supply gluts, the sizzle in the weed space is entirely around value-added products right now and Wildflower got there faster than most.
And all it cost them was that god forsaken lookbook and a trip to WA.
There will be others. True Leaf (
CSE:C.MJ,
Stock Forum) is looking at hemp protein in pet foods, Naturally Splendid (
TSX:V.NSP,
Stock Forum) is rocketing on their new hemp omega oil extraction tech, and I just sat through a presentation from Oregon-located cannabis oil extractor Golden Leaf (listing on the CSE next month) that puts them at revenues -right now- that dwarf all Canadian LPs, and the upcoming Kariana/Cannastrips (
CSE:C.KAA,
Stock Forum) RTO is so in demand that brokers and their clients are basically getting in bar fights over the right to get involved.
But, right now, Wildflower is a signature away from earning edibles revenues. And I know their team leaves Vancouver tonight for another sojourn into the dark south to see what other treasures they can bring back, like marauding vape vikings.
In the words of JC Meiklem, the Stockhouse VP of Sales, “Starbucks is a bullshit commodity with water added.”
And that's the sweet spot in any industry, where you can take that cheap commodity, give it a twist, and earn the crap out of it. Wildflower is there.
And now I owe MacLean a dollar.
--Chris Parry
https://www.twitter.com/chrisparry
FULL DISCLOSURE: Wildflower is a Stockhouse Publishing marketing client.