Max Hofert & Al Puig - The Holding Company (A Colorado based CBD Brand)
When and where were you guys born? Are you originally from Colorado? What was growing up like for you? What was your household like and do you have any siblings?
Al - I was born in 1993 in Pennsylvania. Grew up moving a little bit and then lived in Massachusetts with my family (parents and a younger sister) til I moved to Colorado in 2011.
Max - I was born in 1991 in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Spent the majority of my childhood hangin’ out in the woods in that area. I moved to Colorado with my family in 2010.
When did you first become interested in CBD as well as skateboarding, music, surfing,and all the other awesome elements and different cultures that make up what would eventually become The Holding Company? What other interests, jobs and pursuits were you participating in prior to The Holding Company?
Al - I’d say I’ve been skating since I was probably 8 or so, snowboarding a little before that, and have been on dirt bikes and things that go vroom since around 4. I started seeing quite a bit of music in high school, and then in college, jam music took over and I got pretty heavy back into skating/snowboarding. The overall vibe we’re going for isn’t specific to any one single thing we do - we both love to see live music, explore psychedelics, skate, enjoy art in many forms - weed and CBD/CBG go great with all of those things. I think my love for CBD specifically came once I started getting injured and realized pot can be used for much more than getting high. I was working at a dispensary in Boulder in 2015 and actually started taking our products back then. It was the first CBD I had tried that did anything at all - and not only that, it helped immensely.
Max - I started skateboarding when I was 4 and was pretty addicted to it my whole life. Would skate all summer long and snowboard a shit load during the long winters. It was pretty epic. My first job was at a ski hill called Pando (all tow ropes) when I was 14. Basically grew up there. Place is legendary. Similar to Al, music has always been a major influence. It goes hand in hand with skate/snowboarding. I started going to music festivals in high school and never looked back. Music just has so much power, it’s always fed my soul. I think The Holding Company is a melting pot of all of mine and Al’s experiences through skateboarding, snowboarding, music, and our love for psychedelics and plant medicines, which is how we wanted the brand to be. A reflection of ourselves. Something we’re truly passionate about and care to share with others who could benefit from it like we did. After suffering 3 herniated discs in my back from skateboarding, I was in severe and chronic pain. I couldn’t sit, stand, lay, or take a shit without being in excruciating pain. I had Cortisone injections, physical therapy, pain killers, and have even tried loads of CBD brands - nothing touched the pain. I couple of years ago Al had brought me some of his CBD he had (which is not The Holding Company) and told me to pop a few everyday for a week and let him know if it helped my back. I shit you not the first day I had felt like the vice grip that was clamped onto my spine had been released. It was honestly unreal. I have been taking it every single day since, and I have been pain free. Fuckin life changing for me.
Max Hofert.
What initially inspired you to start The Holding Company? When exactly did you launch the brand and what were those early days of running the company like for you guys? What would you say is the overall vision and drive behind the brand?
Max - We launched officially after some hiccups in April of 2021. I guess you could still say it’s still the “early days” as we just passed our 1 year anniversary. We started talking about the idea probably the summer before that (2020) and it took quite a bit of planning and organizing everything before we could launch (setting up a CBD company has a lot more red tape and BS to deal with as opposed to a more “normal” business). We are self funded, both have families with kids 2 and under, work full time jobs on top of The Holding Company, and do this mostly via text or email in our spare time. So, I guess you could say the early days are… Hectic! The long term vision and dream is to have The Holding Company become a more fully integrated cannabis company at some point - dispensary/storefront, in-house grow, who knows. We’d also love to explore and share the world of other plant medicines as things become more legal… But that’s awhile out. The drive to get there and the reason we really started this company is to share quality hemp/cannabis products with people. We have been told by hundreds of people in this short time how our products have changed not only their perception of CBD, but their lives. They had never had an experience that they truly felt did anything positive for them, so we love hearing that our products changed that for them. Hearing people's responses to our products and hoping we can continue to bring quality goods no matter what path we end up on is what really keeps us pushing to find a way to keep this running forever.
Al Puig.
When did everything begin to click and you thought to yourself “Hey this could work!”? What do you hope people get from The Holding Company and what would you say separates you from other brands that have a similar approach and style?
Max - For me it was the first time I took our product. The relief I felt was like nothing I had tried before, so I knew it was something special. It was pretty motivating to know that we could supply that type of medicine that can genuinely change peoples lives. We wanted to start this brand because we truly believe in the power of plant medicines. Whether it be cannabis, hemp, psilocybin, and beyond - plants have the power to heal people both mentally and physically. We hope to expose as many people as we can to our medicines, hopefully allowing them to take less prescription drugs. What we hope people get from The Holding Company is the cleanest and highest quality products on the market. Products they can truly feel working in their bodies. There’s so much garbage CBD out there, we hope we can expose people to the true therapeutic power of our full spectrum hemp products. Our patented solventless extraction process provides hemp-derived CBD and CBG products that are unmatched in the industry, and we hope that once people find The Holding Company, they’re down for life.
How has the pandemic affected you both as individuals and as business owners? How have you managed to stay not only positive, but above ground these insane times? Are you currently working on any new projects, or launches?
Max - The pandemic has for sure created some difficult situations, but we are so thankful to not have been drastically affected as a business. We are a 100% self-funded company so we have had to play it really smart as far as where we are investing our time and money to keep our risk low. We’ve had to limit our event exposure a little bit (especially in the early days), and we did have to deal with some big opportunities being canceled due to Covid. With that being said, we have had the privilege to take part in some amazing events with some incredible folks. With people being cooped up inside for so long, there have been some pretty gnarly mental health issues that have resulted from the pandemic. The stories our customers share with us about how our products have helped them in these difficult times have been pretty damn incredible. It’s what keeps us going. We just launched some solventless CBD and CBG gummies we are really stoked on - they’ll kick ya in the ass! We also just announced our new subscription model so folks can have our products automatically sent to their house every month which has been a huge hit. Other than that, we plan to really ramp up merch and non-cannabis products - we want to be much more than just “where you get your CBD”…we want to create a community and share our creative ideas with the world too!
Is there anything else you would like to further share with the readers?
Max - Thanks for reading and check us out at @the_holding_company on IG, www.the holding company.co for our products and tons more info. Appreciate the opportunity and hope to chat again soon!
Dakota Brown
