November 25, 2019 5 min read

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

With women driving an estimated 70 to 85 percent of all consumer purchase decisions, it’s no wonder that cannabis “for women, by women” has become one of the more growing (and notable) industry trends for 2019. Laura Eisman and Allison Krongard — e-commerce founders of Girlshop and WallCandy Arts, respectively — identified an opportunity to add their voices to the movement, and they’ve just launched Her Highness, a lifestyle brand that caters to the differing needs of women; from low-THC to, yes, high-dose products. 

RELATED: The Women Who Invented Cannabis Tracking

Where Were Each Of You Before Her Highness, And What Made You Decide To Go Down This Road?

Laura: Allison and I are both entrepreneurs and both had successful companies, and each of us marketed to the same customer. And we saw in cannabis that there were brands that weren’t marketing in an authentic way to women, we really felt that women were an underserved market.

Allison: We feel like we can do so many beneficial things for women — maybe they had a pot brownie in college — and weave them into this lifestyle product collection. So, targeting the same customer as we had before, but talking about something different here.

Image Credit: Courtesy of Her Highness

Had You Both Both Been Cannabis Users Already?

Laura: Yes, although I was only an occasional user, so it gave us the scope of the market we’re trying to reach. There are women who are sort of dipping their toes in, and we want to help them on their journey. At the same time, there are the connoisseurs, and we want to get in the minds of those customers too.

How Do You Go About Formulating Products Specifically For Women?

Allison: We start with a list of attributes we’re looking to achieve. Like in our Giggle pen, we’re looking for a perma-smile with energy, something that makes you laugh. We’ve all had that experience where you can’t stop giggling, all your friends are so pretty all of a sudden, no couch lock, no munchies. We work with our formulation team to pick a strain that most closely matches those attributes, and then we tweak the terpenes to try to Frankenstein the perfect moment. In our Sleeping Beauty, we picked a very sleepy strain, but then we amplified the terpenes that were most relaxing and did years of testing. We need a consistent product that’s gonna deliver what we say each time.

RELATED: Women Are Disappearing From The Cannabis Industry. Why?

How Do You Differentiate Yourself From Other Female-Focused Brands?

Allison: One thing we’ve noticed is that a lot of female focused brands are doing low-dose stuff. And that’s great, but we want to do high-dose and low-dose, it’s more about what in the form factor is different. In our pre-roll, we made custom cones that are long and thin, so you don’t get a big lungful of smoke and it’s not gonna light your eyelashes on fire; very woman who’s smoked a joint knows the smell of burnt hair and pot.  

How Do You Handle Being Based In New York, Where Cannabis Isn’t Recreationally Legal?

Allison: We have our cannabis line in California, and our CBD line everywhere else. We’ve translated all of our products into CBD, so our pleasure oil is also excellent in the CBD version, and the other herbs we include in it are super potent together.

Laura: We have skin care, anti-aging, moisturizing, sexual wellness, self-care (relief of menstrual cramps)… we’re even creating a transdermal so that women can walk in stilettos pain-free. We’re really trying to address all these pleasure and pain points of a woman’s life, the way they live their life every day.

And How Have You Been Received?

Laura: We know that the women’s market is underserved, so we feel like especially recently we’ve been welcomed. And our lead investor, Merida Capital, is very supportive of women-run businesses It’s a difficult industry for everyone, but I think it’s becoming more recognized that this is needed.

Allison: More than the challenge of being a female-owned company coming into cannabis, our real challenge has been coming from “regular” industry, having been trained in traditional business practices, and adjusting to this industry, which is very different. We’re New Yorkers, we like appointments on time, and so adjusting to the cannabis industry overall has been the greater challenge: having Wall Street money come in, finding suppliers that are reliable, those kinds of challenges are really interesting.

Any Advice You’d Like To Pass On To Other Cannabusiness Entrepreneurs?

Laura: The industry needs more people that come from other business backgrounds. If you’re resilient, nimble…

Allison: The more artists, teachers, scientists, accountants, people from every walk of life who can come and bring their specialty… that’ll help to remove the stigma and normalize it, and that’s the goal here. The more, the merrier — the industry is wide open.