Founder Feature: Todd Harris of Plift

Meet Plift: the hemp-infused beverage brand on a mission to democratize the cannabis industry

Co-founder Todd Harris describes Plift as a “classic cocktail-inspired THC-infused soda brand.” That said, their mission goes far beyond product alone. Todd explains, “We have a big broad mission to not only democratize access to cannabis but also provide people who may have issues with alcohol with an alternative to unwind.”

This mission is personal for Todd. His family has a history of alcoholism and Todd has struggled with it himself. When founding Plift, he asked, “How can we create something that provides people with a great feeling and taste but is also better for you than drinking?”

As a Black man, Todd is also deeply committed to bringing Plift to underrepresented communities. He explains, “Underrepresented people typically come from areas where they have more access to alcohol than they do a meal in a lot of instances…It has been at the core of our mission to bring [Plift] to every corner. We always say we want to be within a quarter mile of every consumer…For us to do that, we have to create a broad distribution, but we also have to be at a price point that allows anyone to approach it.” Even their name reflects their mission toward inclusivity: “Plift is a made-up name, intentionally one letter short of the word uplift, because all that’s missing is you.”

Winning with flavor

To develop Plift, Todd and his co-founders began with consumer polling. “We polled about 400 people and asked them about their experience with cannabis, why they do or don’t use cannabis, and what their favorite cocktails are. We were trying to understand flavors that people gravitate toward. The results were Margarita, Paloma, and Moscow Mule…so we said, let’s win with citrus-forward flavors. We invested heavily in flavors…and used the same flavor team that developed Waterloo sparkling water and Cantina ready-to-drink cocktails.”

Though they were inspired by these cocktail flavors, Todd and his co-founders intentionally avoided naming specific cocktails on their packaging. Todd explains, “So much of the flavor in a cocktail is carried by the alcohol, so if you give consumers the expectation it tastes like an alcoholic beverage, it could fall flat. The other part of it is that we didn’t want to box ourselves into being consumed only around alcoholic drinking occasions. When you say cocktail or mocktail, people’s brains say this is a drink for after six or seven pm.” Plift, Todd explains, is for any time of day customers want to unwind.

Educating consumers and retailers on hemp

The hemp and cannabis industry is still finding its legs, Todd explains, so there is a fair amount of education that he and his co-founders have to address as they expand Plift’s presence. “We recently made a hemp guide, which answers questions like, What should I feel? How is this legal? It’s a small quad-fold pamphlet, and we’ve given them to our distribution and their sales teams so that when they’re out in accounts, they can drop them at liquor stores or bars and restaurants and educate the marketplace,” Todd says.

The biggest myth that Todd and his co-founders want to dispel about cannabis is simple: “Derived cannabinoids are safe.” Todd explains, “Are there bad actors? Of course. There are bad actors in every industry.  But we test our products rigorously — we test three to four times prior to a consumer ever trying [Plift]. We have a complete chain of custody, and we go above and beyond because this is an emerging category and it’s necessary for us to lead from the front. We’re not cutting any corners. We’re investing the proper resources, time, and energy to legitimize this category at the largest of scales.”

“There are many professionals in this industry who have been lobbying for regulatory guidance. We want to be regulated. We want to pay our fair share of taxes. We want to keep these products out of the hands of children…The reality is that it’s going to take a village and unfortunately, there’s a lot of fear-mongering and scary messaging put in the market that these products aren’t safe and it’s fundamentally not true.”

Personal and professional challenges

Beyond educating consumers, Todd explains that time management and fundraising are two of the biggest challenges he faces as a founder. He explains, “On a personal level — a lot of things need my attention, and a lot of times those are the things that, frankly, I don’t like to do in our business and take away from my family. They don’t get as much of me as I wish they could and part of that is for the longer-term goal of what we’re trying to do.”

“The professional side is that it’s hard to raise money. We have business that we can’t take right now because we don’t have the inventory to fulfill it. It’s slowing us down from being able to run like unbridled horses. We’re ready to run, but we need more capital…We have a paper that says we have this much revenue committed every month. We’re taking that to investors and saying, ‘We’re asking you to invest money that’s going to fund the growth of the business, and here’s proof.”

Expanding access to the industry

“I want to create a [cannabis] industry that looks like us,” Todd says. “Underrepresented founders are getting left behind in the more traditional licensed marijuana space. 2% of ownership in the regulated market is Black and less than 10% is women-owned. That doesn’t come close to mirroring society. I want to create an industry that’s accessible — where the costs of entering are not barriers. You need hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars to apply for licensing that you may or may not get, and it’s by nature inequitable because the people who have resources will almost always get to the front of the line.”

To combat this, Todd and his co-founders offer resources in brand and business consulting to underrepresented founders across the industry. Todd explains, “Not everyone who looks like me has the same path, so I want to do what I can to smooth out the road in front of them. And whatever that is — time, money, etc. — I will offer it up. When I die, I want my daughters to be able to say, ‘My dad fundamentally changed this industry and people’s relationships with cannabis and alcohol. To do that, I need to be super inclusive and pull out seats for more people to sit at the table.”

To learn more about Plift, you can check out their website.