Q. Nicole McNair of WH Farms discusses cannabis cultivation and how the herb has contributed to her success.
Q. Nicole McNair is leaving a long trail of success in her wake. She’s a real estate investor and serial entrepreneur that has more than a dozen properties and has used her experiences to inspire and teach other aspiring investors.
Her adventures in cannabis include WH Farms, where she uses the same determination and selfless attitude she’s applied to all her business ventures. WH Farms is a UDSA licensed enterprise that cultivates premium heap blends. A majority black women-run organization, McNair is excited about encouraging cannabis investors to become CEOs of their own hemp empires.
We sat down with Nicole to discuss cannabis cultivating and how the herb has contributed to her success.
Tell us more about WH Farms
“I have 20 years of experience in real estate investing so this is an area I’m well-versed in. I started to look at ways to monetize land through growing cannabis and once we identified what would be required for a grow operation we took off. I was not as comfortable in retail outfits like dispensaries, I wanted to be on the supply side, now we have 5 acres outdoors and 3 indoor greenhouses of organic cannabis.
We provide customers with robust education starting with preliminary courses like how to get a business license, merchant processing etc and then we get into the history of plant knowledge and CBD benefits. We provide DIY recipes on how to make your own products or you can purchase our white labeled ones. This is unique information that is not so common for a person launching a business in this field.
What challenges did you face when starting WH Farms?
“The cannabis world is new to business platforms so problems will arise with banks, merchant processors etc. That is part of the reason why we started WH farms white label service, because of the challenges people face during their own startups. It is not as easy as let me build a website, launch a product and I am in business. The older infrastructures make it viable to have a successful business, so we educate others about what we learned on our journey to becoming cannabis owners.
Also, our first year was trial and error, the first strain “ran hot” which means our THC levels were too high and we had to burn the entire field and start over again. So now I do not even get excited until I get past the initial difficulties of a startup, we learned a lot!
How has cannabis contributed to your success?
“This company would not exist if I did not have a personal experience with cannabis, I fell in love with cannabis because of my own need to self-medicate due to being diagnosed with delayed PTSD. My therapist thought about placing me on an opioid treatment plan and I stood up for a better alternative which was medicinal cannabis. I was able to see from a health perspective as to how it could help with my performance. We were told that weed made you tired and lazy but truly when you learn about strains and cultivars you can appreciate that each strain gives you a different outcome and helps with pain, anxiety, and stress. Once I became an advocate and enthusiast of the plant, I wanted to be a part of the industry.
What do you love about cultivating cannabis?
“I have a passion for rural communities especially because I was raised in a two-stop light town, part of what makes WH farms special is because I’m able to empower a disadvantaged community and African American legacy farmers. We specifically acquire legacy farms and work with their owners to monetize and maintain their ownership and create their own economy.
Many of our customers are new to cannabis and we provide them with the tools to build their own business and introduce them to the culture. We hope to be a part of the overall mission to destigmatize and elevate the conversation around the usage and benefits of cannabis.
If you are interested in a CBD business launch kit or creating your own cannabis products visit www.whfarms.co
