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Benjamin Cassiday

All work

Chapter 02 of 06 · 2016–2020

True Terpenes

Co-founder · founding COO, briefly CTO, then President of Customer Experience

The situation

Cannabis companies wanted consistent flavor and aroma, but terpene supply was new, and every state we sold into had its own rules.

What I did

I co-founded the company and served as its first COO. There were no systems yet, so I built the first version of each process myself, then hired and trained people to own it and moved to the next gap.

I oversaw the build-out of a cGMP manufacturing and hazardous-materials shipping facility, served as an internal ISO 9001 and cGMP auditor, and represented the company at more than 100 industry conferences, where I taught the science of flavor and aroma.

When the company outgrew what I had built, I hired an experienced operator from a Fortune 100 company to take over as COO and moved to lead customer experience.

What changed

True Terpenes went from an early-stage startup to roughly $13 million in annual revenue in about 24 months, selling into more than 20 states. As customers asked for custom blends, it grew from a raw-materials supplier into a formulation and flavor house.

What we werea raw-materials suppliera formulation and flavor house, because customers asked for custom blends

On the record

Press, talks, and a podcast from 2017 to 2019, when I went by Ben.