 Good morning, I'm Michael Miller. I'm here today at the Green Market Summit hosted by the Green Market Report and I am the Cannabis Editor and Associate Publisher of the LA Weekly and privileged here today to interview a multitude of professional athletes, former professional athletes who are focused on a healthier lifestyle, a lifestyle moving away from prescribed narcotics and prophylactically enhancing their health and teaching that message. I want to thank athletes for care for providing the athletes today and our first athlete today is a lovely woman from Portland, Oregon who flew in today, former soccer star Rachel Rapinoe. How are you Rachel? I'm doing good. Thank you so much for having me. It's good. I thought you were doing great. I'm doing great. I mean I'm in LA. It's sunny, got away from the rain, the cold up in Portland. Is that okay for you? Yes, but I had my coat just in case. I saw that. It's about 95 degrees outside. I know I'm sweating. You've got to come prepared. Well, thanks. So we're here today to talk about a number of things. Yourself as an athlete, your transition to the so-called civilian world and then your education that you bring to the post professional athlete world into what you're doing today. So let's talk a little bit about yourself as a professional athlete. What did you participate in and tell us a little bit about how your injuries were dealt with while you were professional? So I grew up in Northern California, played. I was a multi-sport athlete. Soccer and basketball were myself as well as my twin. I can't tell my story without talking about my twin sister Megan Rapinoe because we did everything together. So it was never a me, it was a we. So we grew up playing everything under the sun, but we really honed in on soccer and basketball. And then unfortunately, height got the best of us. So we went the soccer route because that's where the most opportunity was. So we played elite soccer growing up, ranked one and two in the nation in high school. And then we got both got full ride scholarships. It was one and two. You were two. Sorry, our club team. Our club team. I thought it might be a little William sister rivalry there. No, no, no. Our club team was ranked in like top five all through high school, went to nationals, you know, we kind of had the pick of the litter where we wanted to go when we decided that, you know, Portland was the place for us at the time it was the top three school. So my sister and I played all four seasons at the University of Portland. We won a national championship in 2005. She definitely shined. She was definitely quite the star. She's inducted into the NCAA Hall of Fame, University of Portland Hall of Fame, so on and so forth. Many people will know her from this last World Cup over in France. And she's, you know, one of the most iconic figures right now in sports, which I'm very proud of her. So I got to give her a little plug in. So but my injuries actually started in college. It was when I had to go from being a multi sport athlete down into a single sport athlete, and then the rigors of training. And so I, you know, blew out my left knee twice. I've had four knee surgeries on my left knee and then took, you know, a year and a half after I graduated, no eight to recover from that. You know, obviously, I was, I was introduced to opiates at age 21, you know, had way more than I should have ever had. So even though I wasn't necessarily addicted to them mentally, my body became addicted obviously right away. So I've been through the withdrawals, the detoxing of all that. And then I went, I recovered from my knee surgeries. I played pro broad for a year. I came back at the time that the league here in the States had folded. So I played in the amateur league, which is the, you know, what's the most competitive league that you could play in at the time, played on a team here in LA. And then I was about to sign, go play in Sweden. And then unfortunately, during a practice or a pickup game, fractured my ankle into my career. So my career ended at age 26, mostly just due to injuries. I just couldn't stay healthy. Not an uncommon story. Yep. So tell us a little bit about your in your advocacy with respect to the cannabis plant. At what point did that into your life? For reasons associated with health and wellness? Yeah, I mean, it's interesting. I definitely was introduced to it much later in life because of the my own perceptions of it and fear around it. You know, I grew up thinking that it was just the gateway drug to everything, right? Because that's what we were told war on drugs. So I unfortunately was only introduced to it, probably only like four years ago. And it was by my sister, Megan, she started taking it and then other athletes and kind of our pro network soccer network, basketball network that we know. And it was a really, it was a game changer for me because it was the first time that I saw athlete using it, not for like stoner culture, but for a health and wellness effect. They knew that it helped them perform better, because they were able to recover better on it. They didn't really know all the whys about it. They actually didn't really even know what they were taking, the dosage, all that. Are we talking about CBD cannabis with THC? Yeah, I mean, it was both combination thereof. Yeah, it was both really. They just knew that it was it was helping them recover better, particularly around sleep and anxiousness. And they were able to play better than on some of the higher dosages of, you know, insides and obviously opiates. Terrific. So let's go transitioning into launching a brand in the space. What was the catalyst for you? Is it something that you had aspired to? Was it organic? Was it something karmic stars in alignment situation tells the story of the beginning of your idea to launch your brand and where you are with it today? Yeah, I would say it was twofold. I after I got done playing, I was set off into a career and to health and wellness. I was pre-med and undergrad. I knew that I wanted to do something with science and with the body. And then I realized medicine wasn't for me because I didn't want to see people that were already sick. I want to help them on the preventative side. So then I went back to school, I got my master's in exercise science, and then I started a company, my sister and I actually did a training company in Portland that trained soccer specific athletes, some other athletes were mostly soccer high school, college professional athletes, and then we have a national training business where we go coast to coast and do events. So I kind of set out on this mission to empower athletes, more so on the strength and conditioning side, but it was always in me to do that type of research and be in that field. So I would say it's that and then the other part of it was the last four years again, I've been seeing these athletes at least in my network, using cannabis products and then, but what I noticed was they weren't using the same brand, they were kind of jumping around. And again, they didn't really know what they were using. They didn't know the dosage, they just knew that it worked. So I recognized three years ago that there's a real big opportunity to be a trusted sports brand in this space, it takes obviously some due diligence, winning the trust of those athletes. But I knew that there was a really big opportunity in this space to talk a little bit about your products. The packaging is beautiful. I have the package here. And there's a number of goodies in here. Why don't you tell us what we have in here and walk me through what I see so many times and so many product shows. And there are a lot of people that acknowledge or not. But in my experience, with the thousands of products out there, most of it is me to product, I say same stuff, different bottle. Let's talk about what is the difference with your product, the added value, and what makes your products unique? Yeah, so obviously we did a pretty intensive competitive audit. And there are definitely a lot of brands in this space. And what we found was there were not a lot of brands that had a very clear brand voice and vision, as well as aesthetic, and then using high profile athletes. So we wanted to cut through the noise. We wanted to be very sleek. Let's keep simple colors. We don't want a bunch of stuff all over our logo wing. Mindy is the name of my company. We started about a year ago, we've been concepting it for two and a half years. Again, two syllables very simple. We're playing on men, so athletes on the mend, but making it our own by putting the Y on top and our taglines we cover better. So we actually just went to market this August with three products. So we have all natural gummies. We have, and we have vegan gel caps. So the gummies and the gel caps are both vegan. Again, very sleek branding, not a lot of hoopla. We don't want any of the flower or anything like that because we want to win the trust of front offices and league makers, policy makers who how many milligrams it's in each. And then we have a proprietary self stick here. So the thing that we also found in our competitive audit is that a lot of companies are using kind of a lower dosage. So if we want to win the trust of athletes, efficacy needs to be really high. So we're coming out with a line where our baseline for edibles is 25 milligrams and then our baseline for a topical is going to be 500 and we'll just go up from there. And again, using athletes in the fold from the very beginning. Terrific. What are some of the values that you've been ingrained with been part of your DNA since you were a child that you bring to sports, professional sports, the work ethic, the play ethic, the team ethics that you now are transposing into the launch of your brand. Yeah, I mean, I think I always was like one of the captains on the team, you know, not necessarily because I wanted to be but I guess coaches saw in me this ability to lead. So I definitely bring a very strong team aspect, you know, you're only stronger than we could sleep. So, you know, my team nominated me and see me as the CEO, which I'm very flattered and I'm definitely up for the challenge. But making sure that everyone on my team and as we continue to grow are all aligned and all are very clear in their role and responsibility. And then I would say honestly above anything else is the grind, right? Like everybody knows the start of grind, but especially in this space, you have to do everything you can to differentiate yourself. So putting that extra bit of thought that extra bit of detail and, you know, that methodicalness of the launch, the brand, the strategy, you know, your team, everything just kind of has to be different. Because you need to really be a step ahead, you need to separate yourself from from all the noise in this space. Sure. Let's talk a little bit about education, education for folks that are a little bit in the know, education for athletes that are not professional, but also education for those that are still so adversely influenced by the stigma. Athletes for care is the preeminent organization with respect to advocating and educating with respect to the reduction of that stigma, not only for athletes, but for everybody. Because in fact, as we talked about before, if you have a body, you're an athlete. So let's talk a little bit about that education. What are you seeing? What do you recommend? What do you wish with respect to that stigma reduction? Yeah, I mean, education is key, right? There are some brands that are doing a great job educating their consumers and there are some that are not. So we obviously want to be at the bloody edge of the sword in terms of education and actually partnering with athletes for care even before we had anything but a concept and maybe some business documents we had filed the business. But after filing the business, the first thing that we did was reach out to athletes for care and partner with them. You know, we are not an advocacy company. We are a consumer packaged good company. We're building a brand. So we want to make sure that we partner with organizations like athletes for care and support them and lift them up in what they're doing in their respective industry. But I couldn't agree more. I think education is really important. It was one of the biggest reasons why I jumped in and, you know, into Mindy's because these athletes were using products and they didn't know where it came from. They didn't know exactly what they were doing with it. So in kind of following suit with that, we made this booklet. It's not FDA approved yet. So can't quite sell it to the public. But we this is our attempt to educate not just our pro athlete networks, but anyone who's interested in learning more about CBD, particularly, you know, our products Mindy, our product offering down the pipeline. It's sort of this like high level primer guide. There's so much left unknown still with cannabis in general, but particularly CBD. So I'm very excited for more studies to come out. I'm very excited for some of the current leagues right now who are conducting their own studies to come out with their research and with their findings. I think that, you know, it's going to be pretty clear what they need to lean towards in terms of lifting the CBD ban. Because, you know, for our athletes to be able to play on Vicodin or very high anti-inflammatories and not to be able to play on CBD is just a risk to their own body risk. It's a tragic, absolutely tragic that we have federal approval of things that do damage to us and federal restrictions for things that could benefit us. Yeah. And I mean, it's an investment too, right? Like if you're an owner and you want to protect your investment, then you should do everything that you can to take the best care of their body. So they could also look at it as a business decision and we hope to help them do that. What do you think the timeline on is for professional soccer in that regard or football? If you live abroad, as most of the world calls it, do you think the world football leagues will be ahead of the curve behind the curve or somewhat in the middle with respect to the NHL NBA and professional baseball? Yeah. Well, they are actually ahead of the curve. WADA lifted their ban last year. So the World Anti-Doping Agency lifted their ban on CBD as long as the product has 0.3% or less of THC. So Olympic athletes, any federation that's following suit under WADA, legally their players can use CBD. And so the NWSL, which is our women's pro-league here in the United States, they're following suit with those policies. So which is why for us, it was a no-brainer to gain traction and to go to market with women's soccer players and Olympic athletes because with the World Cup that just happened this summer and with the Olympics happening next summer, it just made perfect sense for us and they can have a public relationship with our brand. They can also just talk about CBD in general and the wellness benefits of it. But outside of those leagues, the WNBA's collective bargaining agreement is up for negotiation. The NBA, the NFL, NHL, they're all conducting their own studies. So I think that it's going to be sooner rather than later. You know, maybe I'm just hopeful. I've been told that I'm an optimist, so. It's not bad being an optimist as long as you balance it with a little bit of realism, as my father used to say. Okay, that's true. Final question for you. I'm just noticing, you know, most of the packaging on a lot of these brands is full of colors and flamboyant and pictures, images of the 60s, your image, you're picking two basically non-colors, black and white, no illustrations, no graphics, and I'm sure that was very mindful. Talk to me about why you made those choices. Yeah, I mean, I think, again, we wanted to kind of cut through the noise, right? And we did, we've been doing focus groups with pro athletes and pro teams since February now. So, you know, some of it was just feedback. We had some other packaging that we were showing during our pitches and we were getting feedback like, I don't like that green, I don't like this. And a lot of it's too, it was perception and still is perception to some athletes that aren't comfortable with cannabis and maybe haven't used a lot of it in the past. They don't really want anything with green on it because it reminds them too much of THC and then that triggers something about, you know, the fear in getting and testing positive. So, we are definitely, again, using our pro athletes in the fold from the beginning for product development in early R&D feedback. So, like I said, I mean, we were going to go with maybe some different coloring and then based on their feedback, we decided just to keep it very clean for obvious reasons. We didn't want to have like flowers and stuff on it just because we want it being associated with more of a sports brand. Even though it is a wellness product, we want it to look kind of sporty and, you know, athlete, built athlete approved. So, that's why we went with this. Final question for you. Let's talk about dosage and dosing. Yeah, I have a large guy like myself but I'm a lightweight and I need very little and I know smaller people that could take much more. What kind of guidelines do you provide? I know that the regulations are very strict. The FDA pretty much says you can't say anything. How do you take that into your private mix along with your guidelines from your legal team? How do you give advice to somebody about your product? An elderly man like myself or a young injured athlete in their late 20s, how do they know how much or how little to take? Yeah, that's a great question and there's definitely still a lot of research that we don't know about dosing. What we tell everyone is to start low and slow. That's like the basic rule of thumb. You know, we start edibles 25 milligrams, topicals 500 milligrams, obviously with a salve or a lotion. It's not transdermal, so it's not going to get in the bloodstream, so you can put as much on as you want. And we know with CBD, right, it's non-toxic, so you can't overdose on it. But we always recommend starting low and slow. And it's in our booklet. We've had a couple athletes that didn't read the booklet and, you know, took three at a time and felt very tired the next day. But that's what we tell them. And 25 milligrams is a great dosage for most people. And so that was definitely research. It was very strategic on our end to have 25 milligrams because, of course, we want it to be effective to build brand loyalty. But yeah, low and slow always. Fantastic. Well, it's been a pleasure to see you today. I want to wish you all the best and great success. Please give your sister a giant hug from all of us at LA Weekly and the Green Market team for her extraordinary success and career. And we wish you the greatest success for Mindy. And thank you, athletes for care and everything you do for them in moving the needle forward. Thank you so much for having me and more to come on Mindy. Absolutely. We're excited to hear it.