Riversider Magazine Interviews Claybourne Co. Founders
WORDS: AARON SCHMIDT | PHOTOS: ZACH CORDNER
Magazine Issue: February / March 2022, Page 18 - 19
Located just on the outskirts of Riverside in Perris. Clavbourne Co. is a top-tier premium cannabis brand owned and operated by three childhood friends who grew up together in Riverside.
Launched around five years ago, owners Nick Ortega (CEO, Co-Founder), Jonathan Griffith (VP of Marketing, Co-Founder), and Brent Barnes (VP of Breeding and Cultivation. Co-Founder), has established their own mini empire in the IE that's catapulted the Clavbourne brand into one of California's premiere businesses in the cannabis industry.
When did Claybourne Co. begin as a company?
Nick: Claybourne Co. started back in 2017 – that’s when we had this idea. We all knew people in the IE that operated in the traditional market, and I ended up getting extremely interested in the cannabis industry, so we kind of started dabbling with them. I remember when I invited Jonathan over to my house one night and showed him some articles about dispensaries in the Bay Area, and I was like "Hey dude do you think you could design something like this?”
Jonathan: At first, we were going to make an Apple store with weed. We didn't know what the hell we were doing.
Nick: And then I hit up Brent. "I know you're like a plant geek and you're always talking about plants, but do you think you can grow weed, man?" He told me “No" at least two dozen times, and then eventually he was all, "Yeah, I guess I can try. I'm interested in it."
Brent: In my world, it was kind of a normal conversation. Cannabis was being legalized, and
I'd been working in plants my entire career. I'm a plant geneticist and I have my graduate and undergraduate degree from UC Riverside. Basically, I'm a plant breeder by education and trade-that's what I worked in prior, and that's what we do here at Claybourne. A lot of what created the brand and the marketing and everything allows us to also have genetics that people don't have. That's one of our claims to fame.
Nick: Technically, we started the company back in 2017. My kid was born in June of 2017 and I had these guys over at my house in July of 2017 to present them the Claybourne business plan idea in my living room. My wife still has the picture of us-she always sends It to me every year on the anniversary of when we were in the living room pitching the idea to Jonathan and Brent (and a few other friends who ended up not getting involved). But we officially started selling products in 2018-Bare Dispensary in Palm Springs was the first place where someone actually bought Claybourne weed, which is cool.
“All of us here at Claybourne are blue collar-we’re not some rich kids with maior backing. We built this company from the ground up with our own two hands”
So you guys are childhood friends-where did you grow up in Riverside?
Jonathan: I grew up in Wood Streets-skating at RCC and downtown. I met Nick in high school. We went to Poly High, and Brent was over at King High.
Nick: | grew up on the outskirts of Wood Streets over by Sierra Middle School and Ramona High School. I'd skate across town to go skate with these guys.
What does the name Claybourne mean? How did you guys come up with it?
Nick: Actually, when we were putting our business plan together was around the same time my first son was born. Jonathan and I had a childhood friend whose middle name was "Claybourne”. I was going to name my son Claybourne, but my wife didn't like that name. At that time we were starting this company, we were like, "Let's just name the company Claybourne." Jonathan came up with a cool logo that looked like an old Hobie Surfboards logo - it just said Claybourne inside of a diamond. And then at the last second right before we started to get our packaging done, he came up with our eagle logo instead. It stuck, and we just ran with it.
Jonathan: Claybourne is just a cool name. We didn't want to make the name too literal-we didn't want "cannabis," or "green," or any of that bullshit in the name. We were thinking ahead, so we can sponsor and activate outside of the cannabis industry. And it's something your grandmother could wear.
Brent: The very first design said "Claybourne Cannabis Co." and we took out the word "cannabis" very quickly because there was still a stigma attached to it." I mean, when you're branding, you need to reach out to people who don't use cannabis just as much as people who do.
In your own words, how would you describe Claybourne as a brand?
Nick: We're an extremely high-quality premium flower company, but we also offer a wide range of products. We don't just sell extremely expensive weed- the majority of what we sell is approachable to the everyday consumer and is high quality. We don't play the cannabis game of 420 or 710-like totally "cannabissed" out. Basically, we want to be approachable to as many people as possible, and Jonathan has done a really good job of building, branding, and marketing Claybourne-allowing us to do just that.
What else do you guys offer besides amazing flower?
Nick: Well, it all starts with the flower, as it goes into various products as an ingredient. We make three different flower product segments, basically. We have our Flyers pre-roll line, which is all the same indoor flower. It gets ground up and goes into the Flyers, so they're extremely high-quality pre-rolls. We also have our Power line of products, which is that same flower, but it's enhanced with kief - kief is basically tricones that falls off the plant as it gets processed. We process a lot of flowers, so naturally we generate a lot of kief and we decided to re-use that kief and give it to our consumers. And we have our Eagle extracts line, which is also from all our indoor raw materials. Our indoor flower also gets processed and turned into high quality extracts.
Jonathan: We've also got a little bit of merch like Claybourne hats, t-shirts, and hoodies to support the brand. We want to make things that almost everyone can wear to just be fans of the brand and rock it.
How can someone in Riverside get Claybourne products?
Nick: People from Riverside can either come into Perris, or they can go into Jurupa Valley, San Bernardino, or Moreno Valley. There're various cities around Riverside, but unfortunately the City of Riverside doesn't allow legal cannabis-maybe soon, though. Since Riverside is our home, it's where a good amount of our business is. We're one of the top three flower brands in California, period. And we're the only legal cannabis company from Riverside, which is cool. We're very proud of that. Nobody sells more flower in this area than Claybourne, that's for sure. We might be number three in the state, but we're definitely number one in this area.
So what's next for the brand?
Nick: We're expanding our product portfolio and launching new products. We're going heavy on direct-to-consumer, so that people can access our products where's there isn't any legal retail, like in Riverside, for example. Although you can buy our products from a lot of different licensed retailers in the cities surrounding Riverside, you can also buy directly from Claybourne and have it delivered to your house. We have over 90 employees, and we're expanding our sales team in Northern California so we can get more of our products out there throughout the state. We're taking the success we have here and are introducing our products in other markets outside of California. Brent is also expanding our cultivation facility.
Brent: By the time we're done, we'll have about 60,000 to 70,000 square feet of actual growing canopy-and that's in two buildings. It's one of the most hi-tech cultivation systems in California.
It doesn't look like it from the outside, but once you walk in-it's a different story. One of our biggest claims to fame is that we're blue collar. All of us here at Claybourne are blue collar--we're not some rich kids with major backing. We built this company from the ground up with our own two hands.