Successful entrepreneurs and companies find inspiration from everywhere and constantly look to plug gaps in new markets, keeping an open mind to potential opportunities. Within a co-working community like ours, there is no shortage of great ideas to learn off. We host companies from a range of different fields.
Enter KXC – King’s Cross Cannabis. The company has weaved in and out of various sectors of the growing recreational cannabis market and have had to be resilient and adaptive along the way. Recently, they have begun to develop their first original product. We chatted to Dan Cohen about the company’s latest at this exciting time for them. It’s certainly an interesting story!
The recreational cannabis industry is one of the more interesting here at AW. Fill us in.
With an up and coming industry like CBD, there are so many different angles, potential products and entry points to explore. That’s what we’ve found on our journey within the industry. Since moving into Argyle House in July 2019, we have expanded from a company focusing upon the distribution of CBD-based products towards marketing, venture capital and even inventing products ourselves.
You’ve been with us a while then. How did it start out?
We started the entire gig out of our space at AW back in 2019. The community here really helped us find our feet, being a small, friendly and collaborative workspace. Today, it still functions perfectly for our needs. When meeting suppliers within the recreational cannabis industry to discuss distribution, it’s great to chat with them in a meeting room or up on the roof terrace for a smoke. (CBD-based vapes, of course).
Working in a space such as AW, we are used to multiple different businesses and skill sets rubbing shoulders and sharing skills. That’s essentially how KXC came about. We are a combination of distribution, marketing and advertising companies, all of which help CBD providers to enter the UK and European market. For example, we were the first UK company to get recreational cannabis advertising up on the Tube.
Has 2020 put the brakes on any of your plans?
For obvious reasons, it’s been a year of ups and downs. However, in some ways, this year has accelerated our plans as a company. The recent lockdown led to the closure or retail and slashing of marketing budgets, leaving us potentially in a bit of a pickle. However, as per usual, we adapted and changed with the times, initially moving into PPE and face mask distribution, before realising it was time to move forward and start inventing our own cannabis-based products...
Can you lift the lid on these plans?
When talking to suppliers, we always try to look for the most innovative ways of entering the recreational cannabis market. Often, this market can become crowded with similar, generic products that lack in a targeted demographic.
We’ve therefore teamed up with a large LGBT community and events company to produce a CBD-based lube, designed for the LGBTQ+ market. We have worked alongside community experts, those in the sexual wellbeing market, as well as supplying our own recreational cannabis expertise to produce something we feel is truly unique, fun and definitely fills a gap in the market.
Sounds exciting! When can we expect it?
We needed everyone back in the office to start this exciting process, meeting face-to-face and collaborating, which remains crucially important for the creative process. We found that it just couldn’t be achieved over Zoom. Fortunately, AW made sure it was safe to come back, host meetings and collaborate. We are planning to launch our product very soon and there’s areal buzz around the office about its development.
Amazing. We’ll be sure to check it out!
KXC are living proof of the diversity of ideas and industries that we host at AW. It is fascinating for all our members to learn from industries that they would not encounter day-to-day and helps to boost the creative process for everyone.
