The Hustler's Digest StaffThe advent of the internet changed the world drastically. When the pandemic brought physical connections to a halt, people found the internet as a source of distraction, solace, and convenience. Allowing people to communicate, shop, and work from home also made the world rethink the possibilities provided by the internet. Henry Calix, founder and CEO of Weedsies, is an entrepreneur who sees the internet as the cannabis industry’s future.
Henry was born in Honduras and moved to the United States when he was 12 years old. He grew up as an only child raised by his mother and never met his father. After graduating from high school in 2006, Henry got his first job working at a local dry cleaner while attending Miami Dade College for two years. He then started his first business as a grant writing consultant. Unfortunately, due to the recession from 2008 to 2009, the business failed, and Henry had to go back to working at the dry cleaners, where he built an online onboarding and full-training platform after he taught himself to code and build websites.
In 2017, Henry bought the domain weedsies.com. While he was figuring out what to do with it, he considered selling it for $1,200 a couple of months later. But when he started researching the cannabis industry and noticed the different regulations in each state, he realized what he needed to do: build an online marketplace to solve the industry’s major problems.
He began to work tirelessly to achieve his goals, spending hours during the night as he worked from 7 AM to 7 PM on weekdays and 8 AM to 6 PM on Saturdays on his day job at the dry cleaners. After three years of work, Henry decided to put the down payment for the house in his business, maxed out credit cards, and finally launched the site on 4/20/2020 (Weed Day) while in the middle of the pandemic.
When Weed Day came the following year, Henry launched Weedsies Mobile, an ice-cream truck style venture to promote the vendors and products by selling samples for potential customers to try and go online to shop for what they like. Today, Weedsies is the fastest-growing marketplace in the cannabis industry, offering opportunities for shops and dispensaries to register as vendors on their platform rather than seeing them as competition.
What sets Weedsies apart from other online marketplaces is that it also provides an offline retail avenue to generate a circle of purchases. As a technology company, they provide a point of sale system to CBD shops, smoke shops, and dispensaries. A pioneer in the commercialization of the cannabis industry, Weedsies has established itself as a trailblazer with innovative tools and solutions like online payments (cryptocurrencies accepted).
As the Amazon/Shopify for cannabis consumers with its online marketplace, Weedsies has also become the Uber Eats/DoorDash for stoners with Weedsies Mobile.
