Roger Volodarsky started Puffco in the basement of his mom’s New Jersey home in 2013.
He spent a lot of time in New York City, which was not cannabis-friendly at that time, he said. Eight grams of hash (cannabis concentrates) was considered a felony.
When he was introduced to vape pens, he said he “really enjoyed the freedom they gave to be able to walk around the city and consume discreetly."
But he was not impressed with the quality of the pens.
“Eventually, my friends dared me to create something better,” he said.
He took on that challenge. The result was Puffco, which makes vaping devices. Its first office was in Brooklyn.
He had one main supporter along the way — his mom — who “didn’t have much to give,” he said, but nonetheless loaned him $1,200 to start the company.
“Her support in my vision to create something new and different for hash consumers is really what kept me going,” he told L.A. Inno. “And since the launch of our first product, we’ve continued to invest back into the company, so that we can continue to innovate and grow the hash community.”
The U.S. is witnessing a continued “Green Rush,” Volodarsky said. With that, hash is becoming more popular with consumers in legal markets.
That Green Rush, in turn, is producing a Gold Rush. Legal U.S. cannabis sales are expected to grow 14% by the end of the year, with a projected market size exceeding $59 billion by 2027.
Foundation
Volodarsky did not like the quality of the vaping pens when he first tried them because they tended to melt since they contained plastic.
“As concentrates continued to evolve, the technology wasn’t keeping up,” he said.
Puffco offers a coil-less ceramic bowl, a ceramic built-in loading tool and a silicone mouthpiece with a stainless-steel exterior.
And, with the pens he first tried, he found that the vaporizing chambers had coils that burned the hash. To prevent that, Puffco’s ceramic bowl and the preset heat settings enable the hash to be vaporized evenly at a low temperature, “without burning or losing the flavor,” Volodarsky said.
The first-time entrepreneur said there were still a few challenges in starting the company, including finding a manufacturing partner.
“Having a vision in your mind, and trying to bring that to reality, isn’t something I knew how to do or where to even begin,” he acknowledged. “I think I just had the right amount of ignorance to get it started. I really had no idea Puffco would become as big as it did, or have the global impact it does now.”
The company’s target demographic is anyone above the age of 21, ranging from cannabis connoisseurs to newbies trying it for the first time.
Funding
Unlike typical startups, Puffco has not looked to outside investors for funding.
“We don’t want to have to answer to anyone besides ourselves, our customers and our community,” Volodarsky said.
To date, the sole investment has been the $1,200 from his mom, he said. The rest of the money that’s funded the company has come from his savings and company profits.
Volodarsky declined to disclose revenue for last year.
Location
As California is the largest legal cannabis market in the world, in 2018 the Puffco leadership team made the decision to move the headquarters from Brooklyn to Los Angeles.
“Cannabis was still very stigmatized in New York at the time, and we were finding that while people did want to work in the industry, they were worried about how their inner circle would feel about it,” he said. “Once we made the move to California, it was a game-changer in terms of the available talent.”
Eventually, some even relocated from Silicon Valley to join the Puffco team.
The company has more than 100 employees, mostly based in Los Angeles, with some scattered around the country as well. It also has a team in Asia.
While some L.A. employees work remotely, Puffco's office is downtown, occupying the entire eighth floor of L.A. Center Studios. It also has additional office space on the ninth floor, exceeding 22,000 square feet in total.
“When we moved in, we wanted to create a vibe that would both inspire our team to develop top tier products, and enable us to host, educate and nurture our community of hash lovers,” Volodarsky said.
Milestones
Puffco is celebrating its 10-year anniversary.
“In an industry like ours that isn’t federally legalized and is still stigmatized, it’s a huge accomplishment to have made it 10 years,” Volodarsky said.
Later this year, Puffco plans to host its third annual hash and music festival, Puffcon, at LA Center Studios.
Recently, on 4/20, the company collaborated with AriZona Beverages to put an “iconic spin” on Puffco’s coffee cup-style water pipe, known as the Cupsy.
“The drop was so limited that we only produced 420 units and it sold out within hours of us making it available to the public,” Volodarsky said. “We obviously put a lot of emphasis on taste, and so does AriZona Beverages, so it felt right to team up with another Brooklyn-born company to do something fresh for the occasion.”
And as for the $1,200 investment from Volodarsky's mom? She's been paid back in full, he said.
