Today we’d like to introduce you to Leah Lakstins.
Hi Leah, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
I grew up in Kentucky in a very strict religious household where the community-centric culture is similar to Texas. Although I could have lived with a little less ministry work, emphasis on taking care of one another and approaching business from a local perspective set the basis for my future values as an entrepreneur. I spent 17 years in the commercial roofing industry helping contractors build their businesses by incorporating new technologies and training their management teams. Working with family-owned small businesses and helping them grow was an amazing experience.
In 2017, I started hearing about CBD and the hemp movement. I saw the opportunity to help new entrepreneurs enter the space as well as she’s light on some of the wrongs from the war on drugs. So in 2018, I founded Higher Ed Hemp Tours and we began bringing consumers on educational journeys through Texas cannabis culture and the rising hemp industry. We are also able to provide real-time consumer data to our member brands and retail stores and help train their budtender teams.
It’s been a wild ride navigating ever-changing industry regulations and the many scammers in the space. The culmination of much hard work recently occurred when we were acquired by Greenlight Events in February. Greenlight Events holds assets like Texas Cannabis TV and sits at the intersection of technology, music, and cannabis which is a perfect fit for my eclectic interests. I’m so stoked to step out of day to day operations and help guide the vision of leveraging our combined media assets to continue our message of regulation reform from a community-based perspective.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Being an entrepreneur is always a roller coaster so you must be ready for the highs and lows. Early on, it was navigating an industry dominated by men and finding the courage to speak out in the room. I learned everything I could about the industry from a technical perspective so they knew I was more than just a pretty face, I was there to add value. With Higher Ed Hemp Tours, I’ve faced much of her eater challenges. Pandemic pivots, fraud, navigating cloudy regulations, working with government officials, it’s a lot! But the hardest part was splitting with my two business partners. It was necessary for our growth but personally very difficult.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I think every artist is an entrepreneur and every entrepreneur should be an artist. For me, I found an outlet in DJ-ing and went to our local DJ school Dub Academy. Shoutout to Kid Slyce for being an amazing mentor there and still holding it down at Barbarellas every Friday night. My music has evolved a lot from the early days loading up gear at 3 a.m on West Sixth, grabbing a few winks of sleep before a 9 a.m meeting. As I progressed and found the confidence in my work, I started to incorporate visual art and create more of an original sound. It helped me immensely with the vision for Higher Ed Hemp Tours because I was able to understand the consumer experience from a much more emotion-driven place. At Greenlight Events, I hope to push this further to the edge by using local creatives to build a fully immersive edu-tainment experience for the cannabis curious.
Is there any advice you’d like to share with our readers who might just be starting out?
My advice for anyone starting out as an entrepreneur is to get very focused on what the long-term mission is for your business. Go out and learn your industry inside and out. Pinpoint exactly who your target audience is and keep your branding consistent across all platforms. Build an amazing team. Lastly, remember, we can’t cheat death but our business can. So have a clear exit strategy whether that’s keeping it in the family or getting acquired at some future point.
Pricing:
- Join my Inner Circle – $99/month
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.greenlighteventsco.com, https://www.flowcode.com/page/dos_ls
- Instagram: @dos_ls
- Facebook: @leahlakstins
- Twitter: @dos_ls
- Youtube: @lsmedia
Image Credits:
Nicole Park
