“Don't let what you don't know scare you, because it can become your greatest asset. And if you do things without knowing how they have always been done, you're guaranteed to do them differently.”
-Sara Blakely, Founder of Spanx
I didn't set out to create a smoking accessories brand geared toward women. But as I embarked on my personal journey with cannabis during Covid, it became evident that the products I was wanting didn't exist in the world just yet.
So, I simply began making the things that I couldn't find, and I also happen to be female. As such, I recognize that my vibe may not always resonate as strongly for men as it seems to with women, and I’m OK with that. If there’s one thing I noticed at the cannabis industry conferences I've been attending, is there’s a lot of BDE (Big D*ck Energy) being flung around over there and not nearly enough Divas, and it's time for that to change.
One of the earliest gaps I found in the accessories market was the absence of standard cigarette cases, which seemingly hadn’t been brought over from the tobacco era. Cannabis companies sell pre-rolled joints in janky-ass, plastic tubes, so proper cigarette cases got left on the table.
I had a challenge though, because I’d been rolling all of these gorgeous, colorful, pinstriped joints that looked hella awesome when lined up in unison, and I wanted a case to store and display them in. Despite an exhaustive search, I couldn't find any cigarette cases that didn’t have huge pot leaves, rasta flags, or cartoons of Cheech & Chong on the cover, and I’m not even exaggerating. There were a few offerings on Etsy intended for women with "Stoner Girl" or "Barbie Blunt" written across the front, but the sheer lack of discretion and design in the accessories market irritated the fuck out of me. It's no wonder a lot of people get turned off by ‘stoner culture.' It's not only painfully outdated, it's part of what is standing in way of full legalization.
Since I couldn't find any cigarette cases I liked, I began making my own embossed case designs which I gave away as gifts to friends. Inside, I included a fancy lighter, a custom cigarette clip, and a curated mix of six color-striped “Mallets” (cannabis cigarettes) which I presented like a music mix-tape (only doper!). I made a companion menu called "The Lineup” detailing each strain, much like you would find with an artisan box of chocolates indicating the percentage of cocoa, tasting notes, where each chocolate was made. The custom Lineup menu tucked neatly inside of each case and came with a notecard and pinstriped golf pencil for marking down favorites and capturing ideas. Nothing else like it exists.
The smoking sets became a sought-after item within my small social circle, and I started receiving outside requests for the cases. Before I knew it, hundreds of people were using my products.
Since my handmade art wasn’t scalable, I enlisted the help of South African artist Tracy Marais to create four art-deco designs for the Croquet brand. We embarked on a year-long creative journey together, drawing inspiration from four American locations– San Francisco, Hollywood, New York City, and the US Virgin Islands, all reimagined in the 1920s. The illustrations are also symbolic of my personal background: California, where I was born & raised, Brooklyn for my father, and the Caribbean where my mother was from. I still chose to use traditional "rasta colors" of red, green, yellow, and black in the artwork, because I respect its powerful symbolism, but I featured just one color at a time on each of the four designs.
Once the cigarette case artwork was underway, it was also time to formally develop my prototypes for Mallets– the color-striped paper products that I’d created to visually identify different strains of cannabis that would otherwise look identical when rolled with traditional white paper. Until then, cigarette cones were all made with plain white or unbleached paper, and aside from a couple of novelty products-- like rolling papers printed to look like money, color-coded cones had not yet emerged.
But venturing into any industry as a newcomer comes with its share of challenges. After finding a manufacturer to produce my first batch of Mallets, we emailed for months, signed NDA’s, and met over Zoom to talk through my project and future plans for my brand, to make sure they could produce the things I wanted to make. We agreed on a price for the first run, and they asked me to email over my specs. But the next day, when I tried to pay the invoice to start production, they straight up ghosted me. And I knew immediately what must have happened.
A few months later, an email blast arrived from that manufacturer, saying how they’re always innovating at XYZ Company USA, and had some new product samples they were excited to send to interested customers. I received one, and as you've already guessed, a box of my own product ideas showed up on my doorstep. While their execution lacked any style whatsoever, it was an unmistakable infringement on my concepts, now up on their website for all to see. Naturally, my attorneys dispatched a cease and desist immediately, only to have it opened, resealed, and returned with the word "REFUSED" stamped on the front, which is how I learned my first (but not last!) lesson in manufacturing.
Desperately in need of advice, I paid a visit to the only inventor I’ve ever known my entire life, Maurice Kanbar, who recently passed away, may he rest in peace. Maurice underlined the importance of protecting my designs and urged me to file a patent, even though I explained that I'd already filed trademarks. But he continued to press the point, and though it was a big expense for me, I took his advice. Smart move.
My products have long since been manufactured elsewhere, but only later did I fully understand why filing a patent was so important. If somebody else wants to come along and release a similar product with colored triangles or hexagons on them– have at it! But those stripes? Nope! That’s Croquet. And that's a big deal. So thank you, Maurice. I owe you one!
As dispiriting as that had been at the time (and it was!) I used the opportunity to pivot on
my plans, file additional trademarks, and double down on Croquet's super unique themes, which helped me develop even better ideas than the ones I'd started with.
And that's how I came up with my next big idea. Because if I was going to be the only weirdo out there combining cannabis, and croquet to build a brand, I may as well create something on-theme that also has the potential to help people engage more intentionally with their cannabis experience– I developed a scorecard.
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