40 Under 40: Jake Bullock CEO of Cann

Jake Bullock is co-founder and CEO of Cann, a cannabis-infused social beverage company based in California’s free-spirited Venice Beach. Their range of micro-dosed, all-natural concoctions provides a decidedly different alternative to alcohol. Bullock grew up outside Denver and experienced Colorado’s adult-use market unfolding in his youth. There, he perceived a gap in the reigning cannabis culture that he’s now working to fill.

Earning a degree in economics and political science from Duke University before working as an investment banking analyst in Manhattan, Bullock landed as a management consultant at Bain & Co in San Francisco. It was here he met Luke Anderson, now his partner in Cann. After a stint at Bain Capital in Boston, he entered business school at Stanford University with the goal of starting a cannabis company. Equipped with his master’s degree in business administration, he and Anderson launched Cann in 2019. The successful brand now sells in hundreds of dispensaries across 36 states, as well as CBD products online and in traditional retail stores.

“We’ve created something completely new—beverages that key off the heuristics we already have around drinking, but with cannabinoids micro-dose instead of alcohol,” Bullock says. “We’re subbing out the alcohol and replacing it with THC and CBD, while keeping the ritual—holding something in your hand, and incrementally building the experience.”

Cann’s popular “Social Tonic” products are available in a range of flavors, including blood-orange juice imported from Sicily paired with cardamom and agave sweetener—and just 2mg of THC per eight-ounce can (as opposed to high-potency products). For those seeking a bit more of a kick, a “Hi Boy” version delivers 5mg per can. Other flavors include grapefruit-rosemary and lemon-lavender and are also available as “Roadies”—packets that can be mixed with water.

The company now has production facilities in California’s Central Valley, as well as in Texas, Minnesota and Massachusetts. It has licensed partners in each market for extraction, manufacturing and distribution. Cann is hoping to start marketing beverages with hemp-derived Delta-9 THC in general retail outlets, as allowed for micro-dose products under Minnesota’s new cannabis regulations.

 “You’re in control—drink a little more to feel it a little more, or less for less,” Bullock says. “These are features baked into the culture of alcohol, and we want to replicate it with cannabis. There’s no anxiety or paranoia that you might experience at a higher dose, just a light buzz. It should be social, it should be uplifting. It tastes great, with no chlorophyll-type flavor. It has lower calories and is better for you than alcohol, and at end of the day, we’re helping people to get off booze.”