Laura Trujillo & Amanda Terpstra: From College Teammates to Cannabis Trailblazers

In this episode of *The Ganjapreneur Podcast*, host TG Branfalt speaks with *Laura
Trujillo* and *Amanda Terpstra*, co-founders of *BestBuds*, a woman- and
Hispanic-owned dispensary based in Woodbury, New Jersey. Lifelong friends
turned business partners, Laura and Amanda share their remarkable story of
bootstrapping a licensed cannabis retail business from the ground
up—navigating community pushback, lawsuits, zoning battles, and a grueling
fundraising process along the way.

Together, they break down how their complementary skills, entrepreneurial
drive, and deep community engagement helped them overcome early resistance
in a small-town setting. The conversation touches on fundraising challenges
for women and minority founders, the changing product landscape in New
Jersey, and why staffing and personality fit are critical to cannabis
retail success. It’s an inspiring and highly practical look at what it
really takes to open—and sustain—a dispensary in today’s regulated
environment.

Listen below or scroll down for the full transcript!
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Listen to the episode:

Ganjapreneur · Laura Trujillo & Amanda Terpstra: From College Teammates to
Cannabis Trailblazers
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Read the transcript:

*Editor’s note: this transcript was auto-generated and may contain errors.*

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TG Branfalt:

Hey there, I’m your host, TG Brand Fault, and this is the ganjapreneur.com
podcast where we try to bring you actionable information and normalized
cannabis through the stories of ganjapreneurs, activists and industry
stakeholders. Today I am joined by Laura Trujillo, COO, and Amanda
Terpstra, CEO, their co-founders of BestBuds, a woman and Hispanic owned
dispensary based in Woodbury, New Jersey. How are you doing this afternoon?

Laura Trujillo:

Great. Doing great. How are you doing?

TG Branfalt:

I’m doing doing just fine, just fine. Excited to hear about your story.
It’s really, really interesting. You guys have a history together and then
have brought that to the cannabis space. So why don’t you tell me about
your background and how you ended up in the cannabis space?

Laura Trujillo:

I think I’ll start. I’m Laura Trujillo, the COO and co-founder of BestBuds.
I think our story goes back to college. Me and Amanda met playing college
soccer where our bond was initially formed, running suicides on the soccer
field and just dying on that sideline. But through life, through college,
we’ve remained best buds, so we really are in fact best buds. We just don’t
have it for a name, and it was my grandiose idea to come to her after going
over to the West coast for corporate work functions. I would try to go to
as many dispensaries as possible on the west coast, knowing that eventually
it was going to come over to the East coast. And being a cannabis consumer
myself for many years, for PTSD, I always would just like to see how the
cannabis industry was helping within the community and how it impacted.

Of course, west Coast and Colorado was probably one of my first stops, and
so they were also doing a lot of breweries as well. So wherever there was a
brewery, there was a dispensary. So on family vacations, my husband would
go to the brewery, I’d go to the dispensary. It is a win-win for everyone.
Then I be in my best butt. Amanda, I knocked on her door and one day, and I
know she was kind of trying to figure out her what’s the next challenge to
be, and I was kind of tired of corporate America and traveling between
Jersey and West Coast and I said to her, let’s open a dispensary, man. I
came knocking on our door and she looked at me like I was crazy and told me
to get out of here, but then I was like, Hey man, let’s go to this Canna
Gather event in New Jersey.

Probably one of the first events, it was right when they decriminalized can
cannabis and Trenton, so it would be like a $50 fine. And from that moment
on, I think we saw the vision and the potential and the networking and just
being able to bring something different to the community in Woodbury that
will also help Woodbury grow. As a small town in New Jersey, we are a small
business and we really want to grow our community around us through the
power of cannabis being women. And Hispanic owned is also another niche
that we have in the market as well. There’s not very many of us out there
that have actually opened, but we’ve been through the rigors, we’ve been
through the lobbying, the ordinances in New Jersey, fundraised ourselves.
You’ll find that me and Amanda are often called peanut butter and jelly. I
am all things creative design. I designed the logo I came up with, the name
was on top of getting that trademarked early on. So we are registered,
which is really important and she’s all things, I call her my legal and my
HR and my business, but I wanted to give Amanda a test to introduce herself
in her words.

Amanda Terpstra:

Hey everyone, thanks for having us here today. I’m Amanda and CEO of
BestBuds. Yes, I’m all things business. My background comes from a family
of entrepreneurs, which is actually how we got located in Woodbury. My
grandmother was actually an owner of her own business. She did have a male
partner. A lot of people don’t realize that it wasn’t really until the
eighties that women could get their own loans and start their own
businesses. So to have someone like that in my life so intricate without
realizing it and now living my dream of owning their own business, amazing.
But ultimately that’s how we got to Woodbury was being familiar with
business downtown and the people in the community helped us a lot to get to
where we are. But yeah, is Laura’s original dream and vision coming to
life, but mine in a different way at the same time

TG Branfalt:

She said that you were maybe a little bit hesitant at first. Do you want to
sort of elaborate as to your feelings at the time?

Amanda Terpstra:

Well, I think it was more like Laura was like, Hey, let’s open a
dispensary. And I was like, what are you talking about? And she kind of
explained to me that cannabis was legalizing and I honestly was a little
bit blind to the fact. So it was quite interesting to go to this event and
to learn about this emerging industry, and I was at a pinnacle in my career
of what’s my next step? So after a lot of thought and discussion and
brainstorming and we figured it out and my husband was like, we can do
this. And I was like, all right, I’m going to do it. And that was it. The
first day I left my job, I actually went to another networking event on
cannabis just to keep the ball moving. But yeah.

TG Branfalt:

So tell me a little bit about those early days. Tell me about Woodbury. You
described it as sort of a smaller town, right?

Amanda Terpstra:

Yeah, Woodbury, it’s in Gloucester County, New Jersey right across the Walt
Whitman from Philly is the county seat of Gloucester County. I grew up in
Woodbury Heights, the town over, but my family owned and operated
businesses in Woodbury. My grandmother had a title agency, so I grew up
doing all this admin work, which you don’t realize what you’re learning
until later in life sometimes. But yeah, it’s a cute little small town.
It’s redeveloping, it’s growing right now. I think small town America is
really making a turn for the comeback and we’re excited to be a part of
that with my family and friends being down there, it was nice to kind of
reconnect and regroup and there’s a lot of great organizations in the town
that are doing a lot and coming together to really try to improve the
downtown and get the community back. I think everyone’s kind of on a curve
from covid and figuring out what’s going on now and going back to work and
things of that nature, but love to be there and continue my family’s
legacy. In terms of the city,

TG Branfalt:

Did you guys experience any sort of pushback from maybe local zoning, local
authorities, anything like that? Because of the sort of small town nature,
it’s often as much harder I think for these types of businesses to get the
permits, the necessary permits.

Amanda Terpstra:

I think we were the first cannabis business to be sued for our location in
New Jersey.

We got our ordinance passed and we got our resolution and then there was
the lawsuit, and it is because we’re downtown, it was harder to get that at
first. The city drafted an ordinance that excluded specifically South Broad
Street, which is the downtown area, so we had to fight for them to include
that and revise it, and then we got the approval and then the lawsuit is
that there was a daycare in a church a few doors down, and in my mind, if
we have a toddler wandering around the streets that far, I think that that
is a bigger concern than cannabis. But yeah, so it was quite interesting.
We did win obviously. I mean we got a lot of pushback. They almost opted
out and then we kind of rallied a bunch of, we did all kinds of social
media email and calling and the town really came out. The people really
came out and we rallied and we were one of the first cities in the state
before the optout where they opted in and it created a lot of attraction.
And then there was some berating at some town council meeting, public
sessions of who we are. And I won’t get into the nitty gritty of that, but
it was, I don’t know, I don’t know if you want to talk about it, Laura,

Laura Trujillo:

Give you a little bit more color too. At that point, once we decided that
we wanted to have our dispensary in Woodbury, New Jersey, we started with
going to every single town council meeting. We didn’t want to be people
that just showed up and say, Hey, we need this. We wanted to know the town.
We wanted to know what was going on, where the needs were. Eventually you
got to a point where it was cheers and everybody knew your name. Even just
we would present, we knew the people we knew miss so-and-so with the roof,
and you start to get to know the community and what they need and where
their money is going into and not just going, we would present to the town
and at this time it was CBD, the hemp bill had just passed too, but we just
started educating them and just having a basic informative educational
session on the agenda, not in the public speaking moment.

So it’s official. And so just educating them on CBD and cannabis and very,
very elementary stuff to get them to see that you start to create that
knowledge and people start to dig a little bit more. It’s power. It’s
powerful when they start to research everything and see that it’s not just
going to be a bunch of hippie standing around on the corner because that’s
what they thought. I mean, don’t get me wrong, you have your people on
council that are stuck in that old time ideology. That’s what you’re
fighting against because in the towns, those are the people that have the
vote and saying, you need an ordinance or you need zoning. So and educating
your local town council members and your local zoning officials to really
say, Hey, this is a secure facility, more secure than a jewelry store or a
casino shop, and it’s not going to smell eventually leading up to it.

But yeah, we did have a lot of pushback and we fought those battles too
with expungement events within the town, partnering with local communities
and local charities and showing that we were an active partner within the
community without even having a business yet, just having the idea of
wanting to have a business there. So it took us about probably two years or
so of consistently working with the town eventually where we knew that the
time was ticking on when to opt in if you’re going to be a New Jersey town
in New Jersey to opt in to have cannabis businesses within your town. And
then of course once you start that process, then you have to get your
zoning, your property. Originally we thought we wanted to go into the
medical side before recreational came legal in New Jersey, but that was
just a really big, you had to be vertically integrated and it was almost a
godsend that we didn’t go into the medical because there’s a big lawsuit,
New Jersey, it held those operators and manufacturers back about a year or
two.

That’s a year, the two of them paying rent and for something that they
don’t know that they’ve even got as far as licensure. And it took probably
another year for licensing and hey, we hit the pavement, we fundraised on
our own. We had fundraising, we had a fundraising coach for investment and
we for almost every day for a year, it was like, how many people can we get
in front of and tell our story and take the chance to invest and fine
tuning our numbers and our projections and the marketing and the decks and
networking, networking, networking. And you just keep working. You just
keep believing and keep having faith that you didn’t come this far to come
this far. And that’s something that still rings true for us today, even now
that we’re open.

TG Branfalt:

That’s reallys really good advice and it’s really incredible story. How did
you identify these people within the community to sort of partner with on
the expungement events that you mentioned and just sort of the community
outreach in general?

Amanda Terpstra:

So I’ll take that. This Amanda, I quit my job and was a hundred percent
full-time BestBuds and my goal was just to network, network, network, but
also learn at the same time. So as I was networking when the area I joined
the local chamber of commerce, we became 365 members of United Way through
networking and then I also was on the Gloucester County Economic
Development Board. There’s a lot that the county’s done economically to
continue to try to build things, but that’s where I kind of met people.
There’s a local nonprofit in Woodbury obviously that does expungements and
they focus on reentry programs in general. So as I was networking and
learning, obviously social equity is a huge thing in the cannabis industry.
At the time when you had to apply for medical licensing in New Jersey, it
originally had to be that you also had a connection with a nonprofit.

So a lot of people were creating their own nonprofits and I was like, there
has to be a nonprofit we can work with because it’s a lot of work to do
that itself. So luckily I found a gentleman and their company specialized
it. They already had, it wasn’t as attorney driven as some of the programs
that you see, which are great as well, but it was really just through
constant networking that we met all of these wonderful people. It’s where
we built the support with the town. When we had to rally, I mean even these
years later when we finally got to site plan approval, we were still
calling upon these people like, Hey, we’re hitting this roadblock. Can you
help? What do we do? Who do we talk to? So it it’s been the journey, but
nonetheless it’s all those connections and all that networking and time and
effort put in that has given us that validation and the capability to kind
of do things without having to do them ourselves. It’s about who sometimes
not how.

TG Branfalt:

And I do want to take a sort of step back a little bit too, and you guys
met in college and I do want to know how you each utilized your college
degrees in the cannabis business that you started.

Laura Trujillo:

Well, I’m a create graphic designer, bachelor of arts in college, got my
degree and my experience, I kind of took everything that I’ve run. I’ve
worked at a small business hand coding websites, HTMO, search engine
optimization. Back before there was WordPress, I was building and creating
and working in marketing and then I worked my way up to a medium sized
business where I laid out employment law handbooks and worked in the IT and
fixed the network. So I got that knowledge and then I worked at Samsung and
I got the security knowledge and managing global teams and international
and branding and logo registration and trademarks and setting up trade
shows and art and banners. And I took all of that and I put it into
BestBuds and I came up with the logo. You needed a slogan, you have to get
registered, you want to protect your intellectual copy. That’s Samsung
website from the very first job that I did. And I’ve always worked with
websites and I built our website.

We started with hemp, CBD to really understand the regulations and really
understand, I mean at that time too, it was like 20 19, 20 20 hemp CBD was
big on the market and we got a lot of questions from our family members on
what’s legit, what’s great. And we created a system to source premium
quality CBD. Amanda created this amazing questionnaire to verify lab
results and where it was grown to make sure, I think it was to the point
where some of them started using our questionnaires. It’s incredible
networking to just be able to provide, it’s always been about providing the
best product for our consumers to give them the best quality of life that’s
always been behind BestBuds. And throughout the journey we’ve become best
buds with our town, with communities, with our everybody that we know is
our best. But at the core it’s always been about education and just giving
human beings like ourselves and everyone around us that better quality of
life through the power of cannabis and CBD is a part of that.

And just applying all that to the dispensary side. Now, Amanda and I had
security. I worked at Samsung and I was in charge of setting up their trade
show booths for their security cameras. So what do you need in the cannabis
industry security? So I had my connections and my network backing of great
sales guys that are vice presidents and presidents now of companies and
just keeping that dialogue going and super, super supportive. Even when
back in the day when I was the only one with a med card in Las Vegas and we
had a Las Vegas trade show and I would go get some weed for the team, it’s
a little bit of full circuit. It’s like you go through the stage of life of
learning and absorbing and now it’s like how do you apply it to what you
really want to create in life?

And for me, it’s really applying all of my assets. I mean even now I work
part, I still have a full-time job and the pharmaceutical industry as a
creative director for a small medical communications company. So I see that
whole, I work with the FDA and regulations and passing pharmaceutical
drugs. So you see if federalization comes down, what that looks like in the
cannabis space as well. So it is really applying all those lessons to our
business and knowing, although it’s a different animal, I mean I’m sure
Amanda can speak to all her finance and business knowledge. So you can
start to see the clear lineage here between the till. It

TG Branfalt:

Is kind of crazy though the narrative that people who open these
dispensaries become rich overnight. You’re still working another gig.

Laura Trujillo:

We don’t even pay ourselves, man. For us, not yet Lauren, not yet. We’ve
been in this, we’ve worked the hardest. We’ve worked two jobs. I mean I
would say we work three jobs because we’re moms too

And wives. So it’s a constant balancing effort here. But for us it’s more
important to set the company off. First of all, it’s play our employees
before us and we’re actively involved. We’re there about two, three times a
week at the shop. Not to mention that’s about an hour and 50 minute commute
for me, sometimes a two hour commute for Amanda. So it’s balancing your
family and schedule and having the employees that are dedicated and really
understand that this is your baby and that they just, sometimes we just
need you to run the store and we’ll take care of all the other business but
can’t clone ourselves and look for us, it’s more important to have a solid
team that doesn’t have to worry about their paycheck and their solid 40
hours we’ve been making due for the past six years that we can make, do a
little bit more and make sure that we’re off on the right foot.

And that’s also Amanda too because I’m always, sometimes I’m like, man,
when we go get paid, you’re not a millionaire because you have a
dispensary. Unless you are someone that comes in it from a different
business and has made your money and you have the capital to spend, it’s
very slow profit growth at it at the beginning. Any qualified investor,
anybody will tell you that. It’s not like you get in and first of all, we
fundraise 2.25 million. So we had investors to, it’s not like we had it. We
went as door to door as you can get, as self-made as it gets, man. And I
don’t know if Amanda wants to add anything to it.

Amanda Terpstra:

Yeah, it’s very nice to have when you want a website change or a marketing
thing done, I just go, Laura, but I don’t have the wait. That’s the
on-demand part. It’s struggle sometimes. But yeah, so I am the all things
business. My background, my degree is in business management. Shout out to
FDU, Fairleigh Dickinson. That’s where Laura and I met. We also had some
fun jobs in college, but

So with business management, ironically Laura looking back and maybe I’m
going off on a tangent here, but I took management. I didn’t have a real
focus. I didn’t know if I want to do accounting marketing, I wasn’t sure.
And I thought I was really going to do marketing and I had someone copy
someone else’s work on my team and then we had to go in front of the dean
and all this stuff and I was like, I don’t think I’m going to do marketing.
Maybe that’s for a good purpose looking back. But yeah, I think growing up
in a business world, my grandmother owned title insurance. My grandfather
and my father were construction, so it was a perfect match, worked odd jobs
in several retail facets. And then out of college I thought I was going to
get in the mortgage industry and I left banking and went, I worked at Bear
Stearns actually in human resources of all things. I was in my early
twenties. It was quite the experience because I was on a Sunday, my boss
was calling me, I was like, why is my boss calling me? And it was like,
we’re not sure we’re going to open the doors tomorrow. And I’m like, shit.
I was like, wonder what is going on? I don’t know. I’m like 22.

TG Branfalt:

That’s a crazy story of itself, man.

Amanda Terpstra:

Yeah, so luckily we got saved by JP Morgan, but I went through, we did all
the hiring and I did all the orientation for New Jersey. So it was quite
the facet to go through that aspect of HR and learn a lot. I was going to
lose my job, but that’s when I got into financial advising. So I got a job
as an assistant and I just worked my way up, got fully licensed. I’m
actually A CFP by trade, so I was which a certified financial planner. So I
left wealth management. And that education I think is what really helped
us, not just on the business spectrum and understanding things through my
degree, but through that financial experience understanding how do you
fundraise? What do these terms mean? What’s a convertible note? What are
different ways of fundraising? It’s different when you’re applying those
things you learn. But yeah, it’s funny, I’m the legal compliance nerd. I
tell Laura, we can’t do that or we can’t pay or that’s not going to happen.
I’m always like, you get to do all the fun stuff. And I’m the HR legal
nerd. So it’s a fun combination, but that’s where we’re very yin and yang
and it works out in terms of being friends, but also because trust me, it
reaches the point where we have our moments, but we’re like sisters, then
we’ll be like, let’s go smoke a bowl and get some pizza. I don’t know.

Laura Trujillo:

Yeah, I mean look, and a lot of it’s from our soccer relationship, from
being teammates from you miss. She was defense and I was offense. I score
goals with my head. I am like, yeah, I hated playing. She hated marketing
me. But I think it’s just I know what I’m strong at and accepting what I’m
strong at. And I am completely, I don’t know, she runs the numbers and the
spreadsheets and she’s like Einstein over there and it’s really amazing
whenever we get together all the time because she learns something and I
learn something new every day and we see each other for that and we don’t
try to pretend or we really just bring out the best of each other. And I
think that soccer ball always allows you, if you miss a goal, you got to
let it go and move on. We go our thing goldfish, we go, yeah, be a
goldfish. It’s a hundred percent true. Be a goldfish. They’re the happiest
animals in the world. This

Amanda Terpstra:

Is an animal, not really.

TG Branfalt:

So tell me about hiring staff. How do you identify people that you can
leave the day to day I guess, or the shop to? How do you find those people
and what do you look for?

Amanda Terpstra:

I’m going to jump in really fast on this. Yeah, we had a lot of learning
lessons with staffing and I can’t explain to everyone how important
personality tests are. It is really interesting. I think if you’ve worked
in corporate job, you’ve probably taken a personality test at some point,
but from a small end perspective, it’s so much more intimate. And we did
not instantly take personality tests. We took them a couple months after.
We had hired four different managers at different levels of work and
everyone was a protagonist and I was a law ian, so I had all these empath,
creative free spirits. And here I am like, can we get to some spreadsheets
today? Where’s the order and the structure? And I was like, this is why I’m
losing my mind. I’m like, everyone has great ideas and we do get our work
done, but there’s there’s no real order. And it was eyeopening for me in
terms of how important that is when you’re hiring people, especially your
closer management team. That’s just one little facet. But we did all of our
own hiring really with our general manager.

Laura Trujillo:

We did our own hiring. And I think when it comes to hiring people, I think
the reality is is that some people are meant to be part of your journey for
the whole way. And some people only met for a certain amount of time, and
that’s the reality of business and to just really be grateful and thankful
for whatever presence they were in your journey. And that allows you to
grow and learn and narrow down what you really want. There’s a lot out
there when you’re opening a business of a lot of advice on you should have
this kind of structure or that kind of structure. But at the end of the
day, I think you have to go through some of these trials and tribulations
and projecting that. A lot of it comes down to how much money you’re
bringing in too. It’s a business at the end of the day, and that determines
your staff when you’re actually open. But I think a lot of it too is you’re
just constantly learning. You’re learning how different personalities work
you as an owner want. What are your core values? What are our core values?
We have a big poster in the dispensary. I think our dispensary is described
as really opening. It’s almost like a festival vibe.

Me and Amanda have gone to tons of festivals together. We’re big fish and
Dave and Keller and Tom Petty fans. So we created the dispensary as a
representation of us. And you want to have that open atmosphere of
everyone’s inclusive. We’re super inclusive, super supportive, but there’s
only certain people that can actually do the job that is required to at the
end of the day. At the end of the day, there is a hierarchy. There’s an
organizational chart that we don’t like to follow by labels, but you kind
of need it, although we’re kind of free flowing, but then Amanda, it’s
like, no, we need structure. And I’m like, you’re right.

Amanda Terpstra:

And I think to speak back to the personality test, it’s been interesting.
Now we’ve had our whole staff do the test and it gives us a better grasp of
like, okay, these people are in this role and they’re all the same
personality. It makes perfect sense, but what can I give to them to keep
them going on to what are they looking for? We have a lot of commanders and
they love to work with startups. And that’s the other part is we’re a
startup. We’re not an MSO. You’re not stepping into somewhere where you’re
kind of a number. And we do a lot more leaning on our staff for
information, asking questions, but at the same time teaching them because
they’re growing and learning with us. And I think that helps us too. That’s
always helped me. If I can explain things to Laura, then I’m like, okay, I
can it and I get it myself even more so now. So it’s not only does the
staff want to be part of that and do they want to learn and grow, and this
commander grow is great, but I’m like, how do I keep them wanting more and
growing and learning? And so it’s coming with creative ideas like that too,
around how to keep your staff because you have to find the right people,
especially in a startup phase.

TG Branfalt:

So how has the industry’s changed since you opened the business in New
Jersey and how have you sort of adapted to those changes?

Amanda Terpstra:

Sure. So we did get a later start, and some of that was to our learning
experiences. It is interesting. In New Jersey there was kind of a few and
far between dispensaries in Woodbury, we were one of the first to pass, but
we were second to open, and MSO came in and opened in Woodbury and another
experience operator opened not too far away, probably six to eight months
after that. So now we’re at the point where there is becoming saturation.
It’s not too heavy, and I think the opportunity is still there, but now
it’s battling changing consumer habits. It’s also you’re starting to see
price compression because there’s more brands coming out. So it’s where are
you buying and how do you maintain your margins through people dropping
their prices? And you can only get so many credits and things like that
from your vendors. So it’s interesting, we are still expanding in New
Jersey, but at the same time everything’s compressing because of
competition. So it’s interesting

Laura Trujillo:

Product variety. Before you were limited to what the big guys, the
corporate cannabis guys were putting out there with New Jersey, they
established the industry because they’re the ones that had the 20 million
to be able, they had had to be vertically integrated on a medical level as
well. And then you had to be able to have the supply on a rec level. And
let’s be honest, there’s not too many local small businesses that can bring
up 15, 20, $30 million to have that kind of operation. And then that’s just
a raise. That doesn’t mean to continue it, but now you’re getting what I
call is that craft cannabis in New Jersey, the local, the small guys being
able, so the product landscape is changing. Then within the next six months
to a year, you’ll see a lot more. And the regulatory commission has
recognized that edibles are a big part for consumers in New Jersey.

So they expand it to brownies and now there’s chocolates. Before it was
just hard lozenges, and now we have gummies and then you’re seeing drinks
come on, people having drinks come on board. So as far as product, what you
see in West Coast that’s slowly trickling over and then you’re fighting
consumer habits. People like the MSO cannabis had a guy come in and he is
like, I saw that you were women owned. I’m just looking for a different
vibe now because you tend to get bored a little bit. And we have a great
variety. So he came in and that for every person that comes in, it’s
probably like 10 other people that they tell. As far as on a marketing
level, it’s difficult. It’s nothing like it is on the west coast. I can do
podcasts and probably some more advertising in Philly with a billboard. I
can’t advertise in New Jersey, I can’t put anything out in front of my door
except park around the rear. I can’t advertise like a liquor store. I can’t
advertise on radio. Our Instagram gets taken down every time. So on the
marketing side of it, it’s very challenging to be able to let people know
that you’re open. So you have to constantly be thinking out the box
mailers, okay, what works? So it’s a constant evolution when it comes to
from then to now,

Amanda Terpstra:

What’s been fun though is like I’d say MJ unpacked last year in Atlantic
City was they moved from New York to AC and it was so much more Jersey
focused because Atlantic City’s like you’re only going there for a reason,

But they had the after hours event and it was at the pool and they have
this whole outdoor section, and it felt like it was, first of all, a lot of
the west coast is out here now, so that’s fun because you guys are, it’s
fun, but you guys, they brought that vibe with it and it was finally a
cool, fun consumption friendly, oh, that’s cool party in Jersey. It was
cool. And that’s the part where you get wrapped up in all this stuff going
on over here with the business, but it’s taking that back and remembering
those moments. And that was a really cool, fun time. And it was like, I
can’t believe this is my job.

TG Branfalt:

Well, you had mentioned about the consumer tastes are changing, and I know
that in New York, one of the top selling things is low dose edibles
followed by pre-rolls, and it may be flipped that pre-rolls are sort of the
bestselling thing followed by low dose edibles. What products are you
seeing sort of emerge in New Jersey?

Laura Trujillo:

I think Flower King where we’re at, and you got to remember pa, we’re 20
minutes from Philly, so what is it? I think it’s called.

Amanda Terpstra:

So

Laura Trujillo:

They don’t have any pre-rolls on the market, so you want to capitalize
that. And right now I think what we’re leading is vapes, flowers, vapes,
and edibles right now, very low on pictures. I think that’s, oh,
concentrates have been pretty big for us recently as well too. So you are
getting more of a somewhat educated consumer. You still have your new
consumers that come in, but you are getting more people that have tried
things into the market, but flour still remains king and try and get some
brownies and cookies in people, some of that all, there’s only so many
edibles. Woodstock, it’s pretty much

Amanda Terpstra:

Ies and chocolates butter case is the only one that does the cookies and
brownies right now. But you’re starting to see some of these new brands
come out just, but the manufacturing is probably going to be the biggest
expansion this year, I would say. But interesting low dose edibles. I feel
like jersey’s still in the market of cheapest price, highest THC, which is
so frustrating because it’s like all you do is educate, educate, educate,
and they’re like, what’s the highest DHC? You’re like, no.

TG Branfalt:

Do you guys trust the testing results that you get on those products?

Amanda Terpstra:

No, no. I think there’s so much controversy around that and there’s still
so much I don’t, yeah, I don’t want to tell stories.

Laura Trujillo:

I think we leave it to, we’re consumers too, and our staff consumes and we
are very open. I don’t know how it works in other dispensaries, but of
course we get samples and stuff. But I always tell, it’s funny because my
social media manager, we just brought in dog walkers and I’m like, take
this, go get high and walk your dog. Tell me what it’s like, videotape it,
take some pictures, videotape it for social media content. But a lot of it
is tapping into the different generations, first of all. So it’s important
to have a multi-generational workforce as well, because different
generations like different things. I have a couple employees that they only
dab and they love concentrates me, I love flower. I’m old school festival
pre-roll, give me any kind of flour, I’ll vape. I have some edibles. But
then you start talking about your bioavailability and how that affects your
tolerance and everything like that.

Amanda Terpstra:

Laura went down an edible patch and

Laura Trujillo:

Then it was very rough. Yeah, I needed a tea break as they cooked, but
that’s not an option. But I think for us too is testing the product,
talking to our customers. Amanda was in there this weekend and asked
customer feedback. What do you they know people know. I think it’s being
able to have that open line of communication.

Amanda Terpstra:

Yeah, and it’s interesting, I might like your brand of products, but
there’s some shitty disposable vapes out there. Sorry, I don’t know if I
can say that word, but it’s like I might buy your carts. I like your carts,
but your vapes always clog. So I’m not just talking, buy your bes and that
is what it is. And I think that’s where Laura was talking about the MSO
product versus these newer brands. You’re starting to see higher quality of
things and I think that’s going to change, but some of these high price
points got to come down no matter what.

TG Branfalt:

Are you getting more customers who are talking the sort of language of
chemistry? You’re talking about terpenes and flavanoids and that sort of
stuff. Is that something you’re starting to see more of?

Laura Trujillo:

Not so much when we, but definitely terpenes. Not so much flavors,
terpenes. We actually have a AI bud tender called Turly on our website and
on our kiosks by a great team. Eric Mercado does it and he learns
recommendation based on terpenes and it learns. You sign up, it learns what
you’re buying, and it’ll start to recognize because not everybody wants to
come into and talk to a bud tender. Although our average customer stays
about a half hour in our store, so chill.

Amanda Terpstra:

Really? No, not that long. It’s like six to eight minutes. It’s longer than
a, well,

Laura Trujillo:

I’ve had people stay longer, but it’s the dialogue of terpenes. What kind
of mood are you looking for? And I’ve had some more people that are a
little bit more terpene knowledge. I’m looking something with some Carlene
or what has the most myrcene in it. Fucking love myrcene. What are the
Terps in this? Yeah,

Amanda Terpstra:

That’s not are the, in this one, Laura makes beautiful, we have a whole
terpene festival thing. She makes these terpene posters and it goes over
different things. And we have on our website, you can have, this month is
Tural, what is it? Oh, lol. No, it’s Lionel this month. And so she has Icks
and then she has lion law focused heavy products. So we’re trying, that’s
cool,

TG Branfalt:

Man.

Laura Trujillo:

Some people are very, I make the poster, it’s like a festival, so it’s like
your artist lineup.

TG Branfalt:

That’s cool.

Laura Trujillo:

The wear stage in Bonnaroo, the over there stage can have full tilt, but
you’re being creative with dropping the names, but you’re not necessarily
saying the things that’ll get you banned. But I made a 12 month calendar, I
designed it all, and it’s almost like it’s a throwback to when you go to a
fish show and Madison Square Gardens, you go to a Keller show and then you
get a custom limited poster.

TG Branfalt:

That’s an amazing, amazing idea. So I do want to sort of switch gears a
little bit and ask you what could or should the cannabis industry be doing
broadly to support more women and people of color in this industry?

Amanda Terpstra:

For me, I think it’s the fundraising. I think fundraising in general is
very complicated. I think that there’s still a shortage of probably women
and I’m not sure, but I would say minority within the financial services
industry in general. But fundraising is very hard. And I think if as a
woman, we’ve all had those moments, no offense, but with men and it’s
complicated in itself and I think that people are often overlooked that are
really passionate and have opportunity. Yeah,

Laura Trujillo:

I think it’s definitely on the fundraising and when it comes to, I mean I
don’t know how it is in every other state, but in New Jersey, if you’re
going to do anything in the town with cannabis, it’s learning the ropes of
lobbying for yourself. Where do you go? What do you do? How do you speak up
for yourself at these town councils? How do you even begin to educate and
having that kind of representation there because people are making
decisions in your local town that you may not even be aware of when it
comes to cannabis and you’ll be the last one to know if there’s a specific
ordinance or something. I think it’s supporting them and even after they
get past all of these barriers of entry. I mean, forget about the town fees
and when you got to do a traffic study and it’s like you need your legal,
you need a land.

I think it’s overall supporting that small business minority and women in
having that network. I know women in cannabis and women grow is really big,
but having those local chapters really reach out and not just accept
membership fees but really make a difference and help people have
conversations. Don’t just throw all the big terms out, lay it out how it
really is. This is difficult. It, it’s not a road for if you want to make
some fast money real quick, they you’d be better off doing something else.
It takes a lot of resilience and you need to have that support network. And
having that support network to help women and minorities is huge. Even
after you open, because you’re facing competitors that have been out there,
they’re making 80,000 a day while you’re still making a thousand. And it’s
continuously trying to find those resources to succeed. So it’s like before
middle and after. You just need that help, that network, the trusted
network of who can help you. I think that’s important.

TG Branfalt:

So finally, what advice would each of you have for entrepreneurs who are
considering maybe opening a retail dispensary?

Laura Trujillo:

Go ahead, Amanda.

Amanda Terpstra:

So much advice. No, I think it is

Laura Trujillo:

Green nugget. Give ’em a green nugget.

Amanda Terpstra:

Well, I think most important it’s choosing your teammates. I think that you
have to choosing your team wisely, and that’s not just your business
partner, but it’s everyone you surround yourself with, whether that be your
attorney, your accountant, your insurance agent, your vendors. You’re going
to find people that you just prefer to work with. And that’s no offense to
anybody else, it’s just you got to find your tribe, but it’s also don’t
give up on any roadblock. You’re going to hit a lot of roadblocks, you’re
going to hear a lot of nos, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t get it
done. It’s just not the right point or time. So I think that’s probably it.

Laura Trujillo:

I think for me it is a green nugget that was told to us failure plan is
planning to fail, be resilient, and you got to believe, you got to believe
in yourself. You got to believe in your dream. You got to believe when you
have $2,000 left in the bank and you got to close on this building and you
have no idea how you’re going to get $600,000. And Amanda did a 3:00 AM
chat on LinkedIn and found us an investor and we closed within 20 days on
our building. You got to believe in the miracles or I always say we found a
jet, and this is a testament to our story, is when there was that big
hurricane in Puerto Rico and nobody could get any Aiden and my family’s
from Puerto Rico and I called him in and I was like, yo, you got a jet? I
know you could fly a plane.

Amanda Terpstra:

Another classic Laura,

Laura Trujillo:

Another classic thing. But within 24 to 48 hours, somehow she knew an
American Airlines pilot and we were able to get 600 pounds of food within
72 hours of the storm hitting, creating the lifeline for my family in the
surrounding communities to be able to have some water or some food until
they started to operate again. I mean, you really got to believe be a
goldfish and just never give up man. Never give up. If it’s what you want
to do and this is your destiny, find your tribe. Get the people that
believe in that vision like you do, and just keep going until you get it
because you only get one life man. And you might as well do it with your
best buds because at the end of the day, what’s life without your best bud?

TG Branfalt:

Dude, you guys are super incredible. The story is incredible.
Congratulations on your success, having the best buds and keeping that
dream alive despite many of the sort of roadblocks that you mentioned and
that you overcame. It’s a really incredible story. Where can people find
out more about you and more about BestBuds?

Laura Trujillo:

You can have the website, BestBudsNJ.com. Follow us on social media

TG Branfalt:

Until they shut it down

Laura Trujillo:

Best. Yeah, before they shut it down, we’re on LinkedIn under Best buzz, we
have Facebook under Best Buzz. You can follow our Twitter handle Best buds
nj. You can follow our Instagram handle Best buds, nj, of course, all our
social media is on our website and our menu and just continue to follow our
story, follow up on our newsletters, and if you’re in the Woodbury area or
in that south area, we deliver too. So we come to you now. There’s
something exciting thing for a small business to have is a cannabis
delivery and something that you never thought you would see in this
lifetime. But yeah, go to our website best buds nj.com.

TG Branfalt:

That is Laura Trujillo, COO, and Amanda Terpstra, CEO. They’re the
co-founders of BestBuds, a woman and Hispanic owned dispensary based in
Woodbury, New Jersey. Thank you so much for coming on the show and once
again, congratulations. This has been a really, really awesome
conversation. Thank you so much.

Laura Trujillo:

Thank you so much, Tim. Really appreciate your time. Thank you.

TG Branfalt:

You can find more episodes of the entrepreneur.com podcast and the podcast
section of Ganjapreneur.com and wherever you get your podcast. On the
Ganjapreneur.com website, you’ll find the latest cannabis news and cannabis
jobs updated daily along with transcripts of this podcast. You can also
download the Ganjapreneur.com app in iTunes and Google Play. This episode
was engineered by Wayward Sound Studio. I’ve been your host, TG Branfalt.