Anyone who’s had any level of experience working in the cannabis industry and running a business can attest to how tumultuous it can be. With tremendous highs (chuckle) and even gut-wrenching lows, running a successful cannabis business is unlike anything in other more established industries. From memorable collaborations and exciting expansions to issues with regulatory bodies and, unfortunately, the occasional lawsuit, it’s a journey worthy of a memoir.
Few figures embody the evolution of the cannabis industry quite like Gilbert Anthony Milam Jr., better known as Berner, who rose from the era of small medical dispensaries in the San Francisco Bay Area to lead Cookies, a billion-dollar cannabis and fashion enterprise.
In his new book Becoming Legend: The Billion-Dollar Blueprint To Be A Whale In A Sea Of Sharks, the renowned musician and entrepreneur traces Cookies’ rise—from its humble beginnings in San Francisco to its ambitious global expansion—while reflecting on how cannabis personally helped him during his most troubling days.
The first few chapters cover the multi-faceted skills and core values that Berner learned from his first job in the cannabis industry, at early San Francisco-based medical-only dispensary, The Hemp Center.
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“First and foremost, cannabis is a medicine no matter what,” Berner tells me emphatically. “No matter how recreational cannabis becomes, this helps people. That was the biggest lesson I learned at The Hemp Center, and I’ve implemented that into Cookies—the menus we curate, the way we educate people on them. Second, it’s about understanding the customer and making the experience about the customer.”
Writing about the founding of Cookies, Berner advises readers to, “Never lose sight of the value you bring to the table,” a sentiment that belongs in any field. “You have to stand strong on what you bring,” he writes. “That’s almost as valuable, if not more valuable than money. Whether that be cannabis or music or fashion. When you have an eye and knowledge for something, when you have experience in certain industries, that’s very valuable.”
Throughout Becoming Legend, Berner goes into great detail about how Cookies so successfully expanded into a fashion and cannabis brand, all without sacrificing the authenticity that the brand was founded on.
“We do things that make sense, and that’s where our marketing is,” Berner says when I ask him about Cookies’ marketing strategy. “The way we place products in peoples’ hands is very authentic—it’s very real—which leads to natural brand support. We gave products to people who actually enjoy them and can spread the word. It’s very organic that way…It’s not like traditional marketing. It’s not anything you can get a playbook for. We sort of wrote our own playbook, and that made us very authentic.”
Along with Cookies’ journey as a brand stretching from Los Angeles to Bangkok, Berner also candidly discusses the dark episodes of life in which cannabis was a healing tool for him, everything from the grief of his mother’s death from stomach cancer to his own diagnosis of Stage 3 colon cancer.
Toward the end of the memoir, Berner memorably writes, “You have to be down to come up, and it’s the struggles that make the success so enjoyable.”
That ethos extends beyond the page and into his day-to-day reality as a businessman.
“When you’re an entrepreneur, when you’re CEO and when you’re the face of the company, life is tough,” Berner says. “I feel like you really have to enjoy the moments when you’re up and realize you wouldn’t feel so good if it wasn’t for all the trials and tribulations you went through.”
For any aspiring entrepreneurs who want to learn the billion-dollar strategies that turned Cookies into a global enterprise, Becoming Legend is definitely a must-read endeavor.
Originally published in Issue 53 of Cannabis Now Magazine.
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