CBD interview, infomercial with Nicola Stephenson from OHHO

OHHO informercial

PM •: 15:45

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

CBD, product, hemp, plant, buy, cannabis, TCH, today, knee, knee replacement, interview, marijuana, pain, OHHO CBD, pain-free, pain management, CBD gummies, CBD balm, CBD Oil

SPEAKERS

Charlie Ponger & Nicola Stephenson, Nicola Stephenson OHHO, Charlie Ponger

Charlie Ponger: 00:00

Hey officials, teenagers, how are you? It's never too late. It's never too late to change your thinking, never too late to be non judgmental. And it's never too late to learn or try something new. And that's what this episode is about today. I'm Charlie ponger. And along with Debbie Niagara, who has on a well deserved vacay, I decided that we're going to do an interview with a company named Oho. It's a CBD company. And it just happens to be down the road from the official teenagers studios. So I got to tell you what happened with CBD with me first. So I've tried a bunch of different CBDs, right, and some worked, okay, some were kind of moderate, some didn't work at all, probably a handful, like five to seven, I think that's in the interview. And when I came across Ohio, I was sort of at a wit's end was CBD for me. And I tried it, and it worked instantly, I just couldn't believe it. So I'm, you know, I'm rubbing it on my knees, my elbow, my lower back, my upper neck, wherever there's pain, right? And then so I use a balm. And I actually take gummies every day, I do this, maybe twice a day, depending on my workout. And I can work out almost every single day now without paying. It's just remarkable. So obviously I vetted this product, or I would never do an interview like this. And it works for me. So ultimately, what ended up happening was that I decided that I was going to be a reseller for them or a seller for them or a community leader, whatever. Oh, calls call says stuff.

e Ponger & Nicola Stephenson: 01:38

And you get a 15% discount if you go through me. So if you walk into the store in Bedford village, or if you buy the product online, and you type in Charlie ponger just mentioned my name either way, and you'll get that 15% discount to and complete disclosure, I get a tiny little commission might buy me a soda pop or something. Alright, so here we go. This is Nikki, Nikki, how are you?

Nicola Stephenson OHHO: 02:02

Good. Thank you. How are you?

Charlie Ponger: 02:04

I'm good. So your headquarters are in Bedford Village, New York. And it's probably the cutest headquarters I've ever seen in my life. So how long have you been in this area?

Nicola Stephenson OHHO: 02:15

So we had no place in the city. We just started the brand in 2020. And so we, you know, took the little space in, in the village. And then it was sort of so gorgeous and cute. And so we made a little pop up shop originally, I see about a year and a half ago. And then you know, I used to sit in there on a Saturday waiting for somebody to come in. In came in. And you know, slowly as you know, this is an incredibly special community. And so people want super kind and spread the word and yeah, here we are.

Charlie Ponger: 02:57

Wow. So I have to tell you, the reason why you saved my ass. I had been trying a bunch of different CBD products. Maybe I'll say five to seven, I can't really remember. And some of them didn't work at all. Some of them work. But it was very, very temporary, maybe 20 minutes. And I had a knee replaced about I don't know how many years ago now maybe it seems like two but it was probably more. And I can literally only walk 500 yards before I was in, like pain. So of course you can't work out anymore. You blow up like a tech and things are starting to fall apart for the golf. Good for the golf game where the female game. And then I met you at the local pub and you guys bought me a drink and then you bolted you had to bounce because you had to go get your kids, right. I thought what a lovely woman, she told me what she did. I'm gonna go and try that product. I swear. And I was blown away by it. I mean, I put it on my left knee. And almost instantaneously, the pain went away. I'm like, You gotta be kidding me. And it lasted a long time. So now I'm a loyal customer of yours. And so that's why I thought I'd have you on. Oh, well.

Nicola Stephenson OHHO: 04:15

We're very grateful and glad the knee is going up a little bit.

Charlie Ponger: 04:22

Thank you. You have no idea what you've done for me just by inventing this product. What made first what made you think of doing this?

Nicola Stephenson OHHO: 04:30

So I was actually in PR and marketing for a long time. And we had got some exposure to the marijuana industry in 2017. Some friends of ours set up a company and we were fortunate to spend some time with them. And James at the same time I had been diagnosed with cancer, and it was a super stressful time for me Buddy, and my husband Jay, who is the co founder of the company, with myself, and our friend, Tim, started taking a CBD product called Green gorilla, which at the time, you could only buy under lock and key in a pharmacy in Los Angeles, or a very high end kind of wellness store. And he found it so incredibly helpful for helping him stay calm, felt like it really improved his state of mind. And so through that really firsthand experience, he sort of felt that this was a very exciting, you know, business to get into. And in 2018, when the hemp bill was passed, a lot of people started growing hemp, and there was an opportunity to kind of enter the CBD market nationally. And so that's what he did. And kind of to your point earlier, he found that there were a lot of inadequate products. Wait, so there was a lot of snake oil had hit the market, you could, people were adding CBD to everything. That was a lack of education. And so even though it felt like there was a lot of excitement, the market was very underserved, which kind of means the consumer is super underserved, right. And so you get a lot of people who were like, Oh, I tried it, nothing happens, which is the most frustrating thing we hear. Because we know when it's done well and correctly and thoughtfully, that it can be incredibly powerful. And given the opioid crisis and where we are today, looking for natural plant based alternatives, you know, is something that I think more and more people are alive to that idea, you know, to try things

Charlie Ponger: 07:00

right. And so tell me the difference between CBD and regular pot.

Nicola Stephenson OHHO: 07:10

So that is a great question. So I think about I'm gonna explain it how I understand it. I'm like the world's most simple puzzle, and I'm sure there's many more complicated explanations, but I think about it like this. So cannabis is the one plant. And there are two like strains or Janis, or whatever you want to say one would be what we traditionally call marijuana, and that has a high percentage of a cannabinoid called THC in it, which is known to be more psychoactive and is what people think about when they smoke pot in college or smoke pot today. And then you have hemp, which actually is much richer in a cannabinoid called CBD. And while CBD is also a little psychoactive, it's not intoxicating in the same way that THC would be. And so we have hemp derived products that are very rich in CBD. And they have all sorts of other cannabinoids and terpenes in them. And then you have marijuana, or cannabis as it's now being renamed and rebranded. You know, this plant was driven underground in the 1930s, by corporate America, and they said, you know, we want to make it sound illegal. So we'll give it a Mexican name like marijuana, and that will help us arrest people who were using it illegally, so that we can use it to make paper. So that was the beginning of the stigmatization and driving this plant that's been around in, you know, from Afghanistan in the early, you know, forever. It was driven underground for pure play commercial reasons. And we were then, you know, PRT, I guess, into believing it was, you know, an illicit drug. And so all the propaganda began from the 1930s. And it wasn't until very recently that, you know, there was a big push back against, you know, what have been, you know, so long we've been conditioned to accept, wow.

Charlie Ponger: 09:42

So I was sitting in front of your store, you've got this beautiful little yard in the front of your store, and a bench, and I was sitting with one of your partners or employees, I don't know. And he was describing to me, I said, you know, I My understanding is that There are a bunch of fields in certain parts of the United States that grow hemp. Right? Right. What makes yours different? And he said, Ah, because most distributors are getting it from the same. And he said, it's all about going out and choosing the right plants. And I said, like a vineyard, like any said exactly right, like, so it's the same thing. And and I find it. So if you're particularly savvy in your business, then you're going to know what plants to choose and how to process it properly compared to other people. Right? Right. So that meant to me, to me, that makes a big difference. So I related it to what I kind of know which you know, is wine. Yeah. Right. And so it's the same process. So you can probably buy cheap CBD, or really good CBD. And I guess you have really good CBD. And by the way, I don't, you know, in order for me to do an interview like this, I've got to use the product and vet the product and believe in the product. And know that it works. Otherwise, I would never I mean, we'd be friends. But I would never have Yeah.

Nicola Stephenson OHHO: 11:16

We could just, you know, buy one another drink? Yeah. I think it's so important. Right? Yeah, you are sharing with your audience, right? You know, ideas and things you come across and like anything, you want to share things that walk with a good or that, you know,

Charlie Ponger: 11:36

good stuff. Yeah, that's the key thing. Tell me about the distribution of you doing this throughout the United States is that was that has that been a big task for you.

Nicola Stephenson OHHO: 11:48

So the farm bill for him, which was the the big firewall kind of game change meant that a lot of states got comfortable very quickly with CBD. And so whilst there was, you know, maybe North Dakota wine, other, you know, that took a little longer, it is pretty much legal in every stage. So that is the difference. The big difference between CBD and THC, which is obviously only legal in today, 18 of the states. So it means a couple of things. One, you can, we can get our products to everybody. And we believe if you make good products that work, then you know, people come back and they use them again. And so we were very focused on you know, making products that that really, as I say, elevated this particular sector that was very, you know, underserved, or perhaps more inconsistent. And so you know, from now we'll we'll make a decision, you know, about what to do in the THC space. Oh, cool.

Charlie Ponger: 13:02

So all right, so now, the brand name oh, whoa, yes. I just can't believe I mean, how did you come up who came up with that name and why and when and

Nicola Stephenson OHHO: 13:15

so it's such a simple when I tell you your display. So our co founder, Tam is James's best friend. And someone that I would say has been a huge fan of the plant for probably going on 25 years. And so he came up with a name and if you put into a Google such cannabis or CBD, and you hit images, somewhere along the you know, line it will give you a an image of the chemical compound of cannabis. And it's Oh h h Oh,

Charlie Ponger: 13:56

no. How awesome is that? It's very

Nicola Stephenson OHHO: 14:01

awesome. And so you just put them together. And we have oho which you know is also a palindrome so you can write it back to one upside down and I just in the O's is so friendly, you know, yeah, you guys like you. You just you know, it makes you want to you want to say it you already kind of It's curious and it's kind of fun because it's very difficult to buy know a brand name you know, Apple obviously is a great example but you need apple you get also apple so, but oh it's kind of been a really fun, you know, net it's a fun name to play with. And it's it's pretty memorable, I think because it sure

Charlie Ponger: 14:50

is but and I and I was dying to ask you how you came up with that name.

Nicola Stephenson OHHO: 14:55

I wish it was me. Thanks

Charlie Ponger: 14:56

so much for doing this. You have Hang on. Yeah. It's been tremendous and what an education I got today.

Nicola Stephenson OHHO: 15:04

Thank you so much.

Charlie Ponger: 15:06

You're welcome. And thanks, everyone for listening. I'm Charlie ponger. Remember Debbie Niagara will be back. She's on a little vacay. You're listening to the official teenagers podcast. You can hear us anywhere. You can find us on our website. You know what to do. Come on. We'd love to hear from you. All right. See you later. Bye.