From Corporate America to Cannabis Tech: Adelia Carrillo's Inspiring Story Today I had the pleasure of chatting with the incredible Adelia Carrillo, CMO of Event Hi. This episode is packed with inspiring stories and valuable insights that you won't want to miss.
Welcome to another inspiring episode of the Bodacious Women in Cannabis podcast! Today, I had the pleasure of speaking with Adelia Carrillo, the Chief Marketing Officer of Event Hi, a cannabis-focused event ticketing platform.
Adelia shared her compelling journey from corporate America to becoming a pivotal figure in the cannabis industry. Her story began with a personal health crisis that led her to discover the healing benefits of cannabis. This transformative experience inspired her to leave her stable career in the consumer electronics industry and dive into the cannabis space, initially founding Direct Cannabis Network, a cannabis tech and entrepreneurship platform.
The conversation delved into the challenges Adelia faced, particularly with mainstream ticketing platforms that flagged and froze funds for cannabis-related events. This significant hurdle led to the creation of Event Hi, a platform designed to support cannabis event organizers by providing compliant payment processing and banking solutions. Adelia detailed the arduous process of finding a bank and a payment processor willing to work with them, ultimately partnering with Partner Colorado Credit Union and a supportive merchant processor.
Despite the setbacks from the pandemic, Event Hi has grown significantly since its launch in 2017, now operating in 47 states. Adelia highlighted the types of events that thrive on their platform, particularly intimate gatherings and infused events centered around food and crafts.
Adelia also shared her insights on marketing strategies, emphasizing the effectiveness of newsletters over social media due to the risk of shadow banning. She stressed the importance of organic growth and community engagement in their success.
Towards the end of our conversation, Adelia reflected on the most joyful moments of her journey, including winning the Best Tech Company award at the Cannabis Business Awards in 2019 and receiving heartfelt messages from event creators who appreciate Event Hi's support and customer service.
For women looking to enter or feeling stuck in the cannabis industry, Adelia offered valuable advice: leverage your unique skill sets, honor the legacy of the cannabis plant, and seek support from women-focused organizations like Blunt Brunch and Empower Her Cannabis Society.
Adelia's unique brand of 'Bodaciousness' lies in her unapologetic authenticity, sharing both the highs and lows of her entrepreneurial journey and personal challenges to remind others that they are not alone.
Thank you for tuning in to this episode. Be sure to check out Event Hi at eventhigh.io and Blunt Brunch at bluntbrunch.com. Stay bodacious!
https://www.linkedin.com/in/adeliacarrillo/
Announcer:
Welcome to the Bodacious Women in Cannabis podcast, the show where the bold and brilliant women cannabis business leaders share their journey and their expertise. Here's your host, Susan Burns.
Susan Burns: Hello, this is your podcast host, Susan Burns. I'm a cannabis lawyer by profession, and I love nothing more than showcasing bodacious women in the industry. Today, we have the pleasure of talking with Adelia Carrillo, and she is the CMO of Event High, which is Event High HI, is the cannabis event ticket platform. Welcome, Adelia.
Adelia Carrillo: Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here and chat about being a bodacious woman and about Event High, of course.
Susan Burns: Delighted to have you. So tell us about EventEye. Tell us a little bit more about it besides the cannabis-focused ticketing platform. And then, what's your inspiration? How did you start? How long have you been in business?
Adelia Carrillo: Where are you? What's up? Yeah, awesome. All the things. So EventEye really evolved from a problem that we experienced. So I'll go back to the beginning. I came from corporate America. I was in the consumer electronic industry, and I found myself having to become a cannabis patient. I had some health complications with a pregnancy, which led to having an emergency surgery. And I basically was having an ectopic pregnancy. And so I was going through a lot, I was going through a physical loss, an emotional loss, a surgery, all these things. And After going through the route of healing traditionally through the doctors, you know, prescribing medicine, things like that, it just wasn't helping me in the way that I felt like I wasn't coming back to normal. I was, you know, at home, I wasn't living my life. And so my fiance noticed that and he's the one who said, you know, look into cannabis. you know, try it out and see there's so many medical benefits. For me, I kind of laughed it off because I always thought of like stony munchies, you know, when I thought of cannabis, I was very uneducated. And but I was at that point where I'm like, I'm willing to try anything. And so that's really kind of what evolved into coming into these fruitions of where I'm at now. So as I began my journey in cannabis, I literally saw all the benefits that it helped me personally through my health journey. And I wanted to be a part of it. I wanted to do something bigger and help with destigmatizing, help educating, help doing things that I thought I could bring value to this industry, which led to my first company, which I don't have anymore. It's called Direct Cannabis Network. It was a cannabis tech and entrepreneurship platform. We were like a media platform, almost like a tech crunch, but we were hosting B2B events. And These B2B events were just networking events. Some were speed networking, some of them were pitch events, some of them were just, again, mixers. A mainstream ticketing platform ended up flagging us. We ended up getting shut down. They froze our funds. We didn't even have access. We were going back and forth with them for months, just trying to- Oh, horrible. Yeah. And we already had produced the event, all the things, so we were at a huge loss, but that struggle kind of was like, is this a problem for others? Are other people going through it? And we started reaching out to other event organizers. And in fact, we found out they did. They were either getting their funds frozen. They were getting kicked off of these platforms. They were losing access to the data. There's a variety of things that they were all going through. And so for us, we're like, well, you know, tech is more in our realm of things. Maybe we can help be a part of this. And maybe that's where we pivot to.
Susan Burns: That's great because there are so many problems, even in the hemp side, which is legal. And you're not the first that I've heard of having total funds frozen. And what, I mean, what do you do?
Adelia Carrillo: Yeah, exactly. And, and we found out it, it went back to, you know, they, uh, mainstream ticketing platforms look at it as a prohibited event, prohibited, uh, transaction and a prohibited merchant. Even if you're not selling cannabis, it's still, they consider these funds still coming from cannabis. somehow. So your sponsors, they're a cannabis company. They still look at it as that way. That's what they look at it as. And so we decided to figure out how we could solve it. It took us a few years and we had to figure out how we could bank, how we could process payments. That was the biggest hurdle.
Susan Burns: We actually- Do you mind talking about how did you do that? Because it's a huge hurdle.
Adelia Carrillo: Yeah, yeah. A lot of it was timing. We went through so many doors that said, no, no, no. But there was a bank and it's still around in Colorado called Partner Colorado Credit Union, and they were coming to California. And they started talking to the cannabis, the California treasurer, and they were hosting these events about cannabis banking. And my business partner connected with the CEO of that bank. And they ended up being on a panel together. And so they started talking and You know, we found a way to where, you know, they normally work with dispensaries or cash focused businesses, which we're not. We're a tech company. So this was a little bit different, but they decided to almost build a new model around tech companies with Event High and their platform with their cannabis banking. So we were able to kind of knock that door down, you know. But next came the processing, the merchants. And so what we had to do from there was find a merchant that was willing to talk to us. And we literally connected both CEOs. We connected both CEOs of both companies and said, this is how we can process. You know, you have what we need. How can we make this work? And somehow we were able to, it worked. It took a lot of time, but we can now, we we've been able to, once we launched, we have been always able to say we have compliant payment processing because both companies, the bank and our payment processor know exactly what we're doing. We do have a lot of audits, we do have a lot of regulations we have to follow, but it's worth it knowing we can sleep at night that our banking's safe.
Susan Burns: And not going to be shut down or taken away or your business frozen. Yes, exactly. Sometimes the people that paid for things don't receive them and they are Everybody's just out of luck. Exactly. Exactly. I know of one woman who had her funds frozen four years ago. Oh my gosh. And she had to shut down her business, but she still doesn't have the funds back.
Adelia Carrillo: And it was hemp. Wow. See?
Susan Burns: Yeah. Yeah. It's a nightmare. It's still happening. Bravo to you. Bravo, I should say, to you for figuring this out and pursuing it. Yeah. stopped you in your tracks to talk about this, because it's a really interesting point to me, at least. I hope it is to everybody else as well. Continue.
Adelia Carrillo: Yeah. Yeah. So, so that, you know, we, we've passed through those hurdles and we started building the technology for Event High. We officially launched in 2017 and we've been able to grow the community and the marketplace nationally. We work in 47 states now, not all of those states have full cannabis regulations. So what we're seeing is those states are more education focused or, you know, workshops, getting people ready for when cannabis comes. Or we have the other states that do have cannabis, whether it's recreation or medicinally, and we're seeing everything from health and wellness to dinners, to festivals, to business events. Even brands are utilizing hosting their own events now because they see how important it is to get right in front of their community and, and ho, you know, host something that's more intimate to really showcase what their, their products are. And so, so yeah, since 2017, here we are, we, we passed The two years of no hosting events of, you know, of that whole thing, which was, which was very scary. I know for all of us, but especially for the event from the pandemic. Yep. From the pandemic. Yeah. Yeah. It was, you know, we. As a platform that was working in multiple States, we literally saw shutdown after shutdown in every state.
Susan Burns: We didn't know if you start. Yeah. And if you started in 2017, you would be just like in a normal small business development, startup development. You would be just hitting your. Yep, that's how we felt. You're in a sweet spot where you're growing and your revenues are growing and you're seeing where you can make it. So that would have been a shock as well.
Adelia Carrillo: It was. It was. 2019, we were on a high horse and we were like, oh, 2020 is going to be our year. And we woke up after that.
Susan Burns: Yeah. So thankfully, you're still here. Yeah. Yeah.
Adelia Carrillo: We're very thankful to be here. It was a lot of grit. We ended up doing a lot of virtual during COVID. We ended up teaching a lot of event organizers how to host virtual events. And we just did the best that we could do to keep the community together online and helped educate people as much as we could of what was going on. When would events come back? Because there was a lot of unknown. But after that, yeah, things started picking up again. We're now in what we're in April, 2024, and we're starting to see numbers back in over that we were hitting in 2019. So, so things are looking good.
Susan Burns: Oh, you're coming back. You're back. And so I know Event High is for cannabis focused events. Along with that is, is there an area that seems to that you focus on or that seems to find you the most or within the cannabis industry or is it all over?
Adelia Carrillo: You know, I will say there's a variety of things when looking at like the data and what people like. So, you know, we do have big festivals. However, what we found is our sweet spot are those more intimate events. anything ranging from 50 to a couple hundred, which is still not that intimate, but it's not these huge festivals. We found a lot of those. We found that the community, these are event organizers in their own communities creating these intimate gatherings, whether they're monthly, bimonthly, quarterly, however they're holding them. We also see that people really like infused type of events, things around food. I think it's, it's in general, people like going to dinners and things like that.
Susan Burns: So, you know, yeah, what's better than food, you know, good, really good food and beverages.
Adelia Carrillo: Yeah, so we've seen a lot of those. We're starting to see a lot of pickup around crafts, which is really cool. I've seen people design their own, you know, just create different things around crafts. So like the puff and paint classes. So yeah, so there's a diversity, but I would say where we thrive is these, these more intimate events and, and things around activities. These social experiences are really thriving when it comes to that.
Susan Burns: And what is your primary marketing vehicle? Is it social media or do you rely on newsletters or mailing lists? What's your primary marketing vehicle?
Adelia Carrillo: Both, but I would say our newsletter is really, it's easier to not get shadow banned like other platforms. And so our engagement on our, we do a weekly newsletter that highlights our events. We do a monthly newsletter that focuses on the sponsorship opportunities for these events as well. And then we also do a newsletter to educate event creators. So we really try to thrive in educating and informing and sharing all these unique events. But I would say newsletter is definitely thriving for us when it comes to engagement, open rates, click rates. People really are in tuned with that. But a lot of our growth has come from organic. It's really been about, you know, the community sharing these events, sharing events. Best kind of growth. Yes. Yeah. So it's been really awesome seeing that, you know, we get excited when we, before, when we first started, we knew the people that were using our platform. Now it's like, what? There's an event here. There's an event here. And, you know, people are resharing these links that are just like, again, attending the event or sponsoring the event. So yeah, we're really excited to have something that works that way.
Susan Burns: Good for you. So what is it that made you, if you were in the tech business before, I realize you're still in the tech business, but in the more traditional tech space, which is pretty secure, I think, in terms of job security, what made you decide to step out of that to create your own? It's a big risk. It's a big risk. It is a big risk. It takes a lot of guts to do that.
Adelia Carrillo: Yeah, no, I had, you're right. There was a lot of backlash, to be honest, you know, especially leaving an industry that, you know, is, is massive. The consumer electronic industry is massive. There's a lot of companies. There was in a way, a lot of opportunities, but where I was at, I was kind of stuck. There was not really. any more room where I was going to be able to grow within that company, even though I love the company I was with. So it was like kind of those things of like, Oh, do I try to find another company to go to? Or, you know, what was it? And again, it was just the timing, the timing of my health, kind of those, those, that transition of everything I was going through and needing to take some time off during that time. And I was like, I want to do something that makes me happy right now. And I feel like I've always had that entrepreneur spirit. And so it was kind of like, well, now's the perfect time because there's so many changes happening in my life. And, you know, let's, let's try it. Let's try this and be a part of something new and exciting. And, and it has been, it's been, it was new. It's exciting. Now, you know, it's been years and it's still exciting for me, but I'm like, wow, like, to still be in this industry that is hard to go through. You know, many people, we always say it's dog years in this industry because it feels like so much has happened in even one year, you know, but in over 10 years, it's a lifetime, it feels like.
Susan Burns: Yeah, plus just even the regulations changing and all that. Keeping up with that is incredible. Or, you know, trying to have some input on what you don't want. Yeah, it's a lot. It's a fun industry, challenging, and I guess that's, I mean, for me, that's one of the things I love. And it's new.
Adelia Carrillo: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. No matter what people say, it is still new. It really is. So there's still so much opportunity for people to be a part of this industry and find out what they can bring to the table.
Susan Burns: Agreed. Well, so far on your journey, what have been one or two of the most joyful moments of doing what you're doing and feeling like, yes, this is why I'm doing it?
Adelia Carrillo: You know, there's, there's two moments, but one that was back in 2019, I remember vividly is, you know, it was the end of the year. It was during MJBizCon. It was the Cannabis Business Awards and we were nominated for best tech company. And, you know, thank you. Yeah. And, you know, I, I, I didn't know how this organization worked, you know, I never know what the word shows. Some are like, no, it's pay to play things like that. I didn't know what it was like. I was just like, I don't know if we're going to win. We're newer compared to a lot of these companies. I was shocked, but we ended up winning. It was the coolest experience. I remember my whole team couldn't come. I FaceTimed them after with the award and I was like, we actually won.
Susan Burns: And so it was just not like- Oh, big congratulations.
Adelia Carrillo: Yeah, that's an achievement. Cause again, we were, I still felt that we were still new. You know, we actually were still in public beta at that time. We, we didn't even, we were still in public beta. So we weren't even officially in V1. We've now launched V1 since then, but we were still in public beta. So I still felt- Hold on, V1? Yeah. Like our version one, official version one. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, so yeah, so we, we were still in public beta, we won and it was just really exciting. The next part I would say is something more recently, you know, it's, it's, it's more what we get from event creators and it's just their emails thanking us, thanking us for a platform, thanking us for, you know, being communicative with them and just all these things. Like one of the things my business partner and I strive is to make sure that we have the best customer service. We see outside of the industry, wherever it is, big companies, they close so much money and then their customer service is horrible. You can't get in touch with anyone. It takes forever. And so we're like, no matter how big or how small we are, we want to make sure our customer support is there. We want to make sure we're answering calls no matter who it is. And so that's what we do. And it does help because again, the messages that we're receiving from event creators, It just really reminds us that we're on the right path. We're doing the right thing. We're listening and we're learning. We make mistakes. Our technology can continue to get better. We don't have all the bells and whistles yet, but we're striving for that. We're continuing to build and grow. We're actually in the middle of building our V2, which is version two of Event High. After 4.20, it'll come and that'll release more technology, more features. Yeah, so I would say those two moments is just the emails that we get from event creators and then that award.
Susan Burns: Awesome. Yeah. Adelia, do you have any advice for women entering into the profession or maybe in the profession finding themselves stuck or?
Adelia Carrillo: Yeah, you know, for those that are looking to come in and again, we kind of mentioned a little earlier, the industry is still new. It's still growing. It's still learning. There's going to be a lot of changes even in the next few years of where we are as an industry. But know that there's still an opportunity for you to come in. Again, look at your skill sets, look at where you thrive. You don't need to… I do not have a green thumb. So I know for a fact I could never be a grower. And that's fine. That is fine. I acknowledge them. We wouldn't be here without our growers, but that's not my skill set I can bring. And so that's the one thing is Don't feel you have to go mold yourself into something that is not the skill sets you can bring into this industry. We need a tax accountants. We need all of these things still. And just be open to learning. The thing is too, we need to honor and recognize the legacy, where we've come from, the challenges that have happened, the history of this plant and how we got here, so that we also don't make some of the same mistakes we made back back in the day for this plant. So, but yeah, I would say those things for the newcomers that are interested or coming in. For women that are in the industry feeling stuck, there's many different organizations out there. Put yourself out there. I'm going to do a little plug here. I have another company called Blunt Brunch. We are a women empowerment event series. We host events in a variety of cities and we host a big national event every year during MJBizCon. And it's really to bring women together and uplift them, empower them. We have blunt conversations, which is really where we thrive. We have these conversations about imposter syndrome, about things that we may not be able to talk to in front of our male counterparts. But there's other women organizations. There's amazing online women organizations in case that you don't have any in your city. I'm part of, which I believe is where I met you, Susan, a part of Empower Her Cannabis Society, which is an online community as well. So again, there's so many groups that you can connect with that can get you out of that kind of stuck feeling. I've been there before and it is hard to get out of. So again, a simple, maybe reaching out to someone and asking them for coffee or joining a Facebook group or coming to a event for women. You never know who you're going to meet or what conversation can help you get unstuck.
Susan Burns: Excellent advice. Yeah. And if you're feeling stuck in your profession or I need this kind of information and collaboration is, I find most of the women's groups to be very collaborative and collegial. So I think that's a great thing. Good advice. Is there anything else you'd like to add?
Adelia Carrillo: No, you know, I think, you know, 420 is, uh, well, I don't know when this will be released, but it might be passed or it might be coming up. Probably will be passed. Yeah. So, uh, so next, so, so I would just say, you know, keep an eye on event high. If you are looking for events in the United States, there are different events happening all throughout the U S that are on event high. So definitely check us out.
Susan Burns: But other than that, where can people find, where can people find both? Event High and Blunt Brunch, but so let's do Event High first, the website, and how do we find you on social media?
Adelia Carrillo: Yeah, yeah. So to find Event High, our website is www.eventhigh.io. So it's, as you're saying hi, like HI, hi, hello. So event and then hi, hi.io. On Instagram, we are at eventhigh.io as well. And you can find us on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Threads, all the different social media platforms. We try to stay communicative on all of them. And then for Blunt Brunch, it's bluntbrunch.com. And our Instagram is at blunt.brunch. And you can find us on all social media platforms as well.
Susan Burns: Awesome. So just to ramp things up, why don't you tell us what your unique brand of bodaciousness is?
Adelia Carrillo: Yeah, you know, I would say, and I don't know if this is like something everybody says, but I'm unapologetically authentic, which means when you follow me like on social media, I share the ups and downs of being an entrepreneur. I share the ups and downs of my, as I mentioned earlier, I've had some challenges with, with, uh, pregnancy loss and things like that. So I'm very vocal about educating and having these conversations around that as well. And just giving a voice, giving a voice. I, my goal here is to really in life is to remind people that they aren't alone. And so any way that I can do that by sharing the ups and downs in life or reminding them Everybody feels this way, whether it's imposter syndrome as an entrepreneur or some of the things I've had hurdles with in the past where I don't feel woman enough because of the challenges I've had with pregnancy. So just, yeah, just trying to stay authentically me by giving a voice and reminding others you're not alone. I would say that's what I bring.
Susan Burns: Thank you so much. What a pleasure.