I’m a 26 y/o college dropout who founded Bay Smokes, $100+ million revenue e-comm brand, AMA

Will Goodall here, founder of Bay Smokes, the most popular THCa brand. I’m 26 years old and have spent the last seven years operating in federally legal hemp, selling over $100 million in compliant hemp products. You may have seen our viral collabs with Tory Lanez, Playboi Carti, 21 Savage, Lil Baby and more. I've spent millions on influencer social promotions and celebrity endorsement, and have personally donated more than $250,000 to efforts focused on keeping hemp legal at both the federal and state level.

The business started through our personal struggles. My girlfriend Katiana has been in 2 car accidents, both ejected and nearly died, and lives with chronic pain. When the 2018 Farm Bill passed I got her into CBD, because I used it to help concussion pain from the 12 concussions I had from highschool sports, and we decided to start a brand together making CBD tinctures. I was 19 at the time, living in Arizona with her, and we realized it was our shot. Slowly it evolved into what it is today offering hundreds of different hemp products from edibles, flower, extracts, and vapes.

For the next two years, we lived like nomads, driving up and down the West Coast and visiting over 100 farms and extractors to find the best product possible. When Delta-8 started buzzing in 2020, we launched Bay Smokes, knowing it was only the beginning of the cannabis company we ultimately wanted to build. Two years later, we finally rolled out THCA flower – the real deal we’d been waiting for. Now we’re proud to offer it nationwide and help push the legal cannabis space forward. Today, Bay Smokes is based in Charlotte, North Carolina, with nearly 100 employees and growing.

We’re all about keeping cannabis accessible, federally legal, and someday, globally legal too. Bay Smokes isn’t just a brand; it’s a fight to make sure this plant stays in reach for everyone. We’re pushing hard to keep the laws fair so entrepreneurs like us can have a place in this industry and consumers have the most options. The journey has been an epic one and hopefully we can keep it going with looming regulatory changes.

That being said, this community helped me a lot and I'd love to give back – ask me almost anything!

Shameless plug, I plan to post more content about my journey and lessons learned on my Instagram @williamg4th – thanks for following along!