ILGM Empowers Home Growers With Education and Community

In this exclusive interview, Cannabis Now CEO and Founder Eugenio Garcia and I Love Growing Marijuana (ILGM) CEO Ernst Rustenhoven discuss the rise of the cannabis homegrow market and how ILGM is responding to consumer interests with their proprietary online platform that connects home growers and offers high-quality educational information.

“What we are really good at is bringing the content and the information and all the knowledge about how to cultivate the cannabis plant to a big audience of consumers,” Rustenhoven says. “We are a platform that empowers people to start growing. It is our mission to lower the bar for you to get started. Obviously, we provide you with high-quality genetics, but most importantly, we provide you with all the information and analysis that you need to get going.”

While based in Amsterdam, I Love Growing Marijuana is solely focused on the US cannabis market. The seed company has seen significant growth since the 2018 Farm Bill and launched a rebrand this year that aligned with the launch of their new online platform and AI grow assistant. ILGM is a brand is changing with the times and aims to use their extensive network and online presence to help remove the stigma around cannabis cultivation.

“In the end, there’s a very big opportunity, in general, for the cannabis industry to mature—to become more in line with what other consumer brands are doing, and we really try to lead that change,” states Rustenhoven in the interview below. “That’s what people expect nowadays from brands—that they align with their values, that they can be part of their community.”

Keep reading to learn how ILGM is connecting with their community and bringing cultivation techniques to anyone interested in learning how to grow cannabis on their own.

Cannabis Now:  So Ernst, tell us, how long have you been with I Love Growing Marijuana?

Ernst Rustenhoven: I joined last year, so I’ve now been CEO of ILGM for a little over a year.

CN: What were you doing prior to being the CEO of ILGM? How did you get into cannabis?

ER: For me, it feels like it’s full circle. I drew up a couple of plans when I was still in high school, then I went to university, and I wasn’t really involved in cannabis anymore—I smoked once in a while. I graduated, then moved into investment banking and started working a lot more for online consumer brands. E-commerce, I did that for about seven years, then eventually joined a venture capital firm, only investing in online consumer brands again. And then I was kind of fed up with that. So what could the next challenge be for me? I got into talks with the founder and shareholders of ILGM. They were looking for someone to lead the company into the next phase. We got along quite well, and I think that my plans for the company resonated. So that’s why I’m here.

CN: You mentioned e-commerce, and you know what’s kind of blown my mind? I’ve been aware of the homegrow space since at least 2010—I think 2010 was the first time I saw an advertisement for somebody selling seeds, and then I think our first advertiser was 2012, but there weren’t really any online sales.

ER: Yeah, I’ve heard how things went in the early days of this market, and you had to be quite creative.

CN: To say the least. A lot has changed since then. I think the 2018 Farm Bill was the catalyst behind this global expansion in seed banks. How did the Farm Bill impact ILGM?

ER: It definitely played an important role. ILGM was already active before 2018, but the founders back then saw the opportunity of the US market. They actually thought, “Okay, let’s put all our resources and effort into becoming the market leader in the US within this space.” And they did.

CN: They were visionaries and pioneers. I read an article in just the last day stating that by 2031 the global seed market is projected to reach 6.5 billion globally.

ER: I know, the research is massive, and obviously that includes a lot. That includes the wholesale part of the market, the retail, offline part of the market, and the online part of the market in all the continents of the globe.

On the other end, that shouldn’t be surprising, right? I mean, the adoption and use of cannabis is constantly growing. Sometimes there’s legislative setbacks in certain markets, so you may see a dip in a market for some time. But in the end, cannabis is becoming a more normal product these days. I think that about 71% of people in the States are in favor of rescheduling cannabis. So the question is, “Why is it not happening?”  But that says a lot about the willingness to just see this as a normal product that you consume, and maybe more like alcohol.

CN: Is the US your main focus right now?

ER: Yeah, we only sell in the US.

CN: Oh, wow. So your online platform—you can’t order it from anywhere else, outside of the US. I didn’t know that—that’s interesting. You might be the only seed company I’m aware of that’s only focused on the US market.

ER: Yeah, I think that’s the case.

CN:  How do you feel that you guys are able to compete in an environment where there’s over 30 major seed companies coming to the US, and also there’s an environment where more and more people can buy cannabis from a store, rather than having to grow it themselves?

ER: Companies like ours, they call us seed banks. And I think seed bank is the least sexiest, least value-adding name that you can give to companies. It sounds like you have this warehouse full of seeds, and that’s what we are. But I really think we’re not. We are a platform that empowers people to start growing. It is our mission to lower the bar for you to get started. Obviously, we provide you with high-quality genetics, but most importantly, we provide you with all the information and analysis that you need to get going. So that’s what our company is all about.

And with the adoption of cannabis in general, I think that you will also see a further rise in homegrowing, because in the end, if you grow yourself, there are a lot of reasons why that is beneficial to you compared to just buying flower at a dispensary. We see that people really like to cultivate the cannabis plant, so it gives them a feeling of belonging to community. It’s good for their health and for also their psychological wellbeing—just the whole gardening aspect to it. And you can control your plant—you know what the plant gets. And in the end, it’s also cheaper. You have to invest a little bit of money in it, but eventually, it will be cheaper for you if you grow yourself.

CN: One of the things that I saw that was really impressive recently was the rebranding of I Love Growing Marijuana. I always read it aloud as “I Heart Growing Marijuana” because of the heart in the middle. When did that take place, and how has it helped the business for you guys?

ER: Once I joined a little bit over a year ago, the whole messaging and brand identity had already existed for about 12 years. The company has matured and developed over time, so we felt that the way the company presented itself to the community wasn’t completely in line anymore with what the company actually had become.

We also had a platform that we wanted to invest in in order to be able to really offer a lot more content—offer a lot more opportunities to connect on our platform among home growers. So we needed to build a new platform. And then when you feel that the old branding and how you communicate doesn’t resonate anymore with who you are as a company and what people out there r want to experience, well, that was a very logical choice for us to both launch the new platform and the rebranding at the same time.

CN: The rebranding is amazing. What I love about it is that it’s very clean, it’s accessible but still hip. How did you think about the education part of the rebranding? Because when I went on your platform recently, it’s full of education. It’s not just, “Buy our seeds.” It’s, “We will help you grow and consume and understand the plant.”

ER: I’m happy you experienced it in that way because that, in my opinion, is what it’s all about. The seed is the most important part to start growing. Without it, there’s no possibility to ever get the plant. But the knowledge on how to cultivate that seed properly is just as important, and I think that is the value that we really add for the consumers who come to our platform—the fact that they can find all the information in one place. They can interact with the platform and read the content themselves.

We also have an AI grow assistant that was trained only on our team. It’s proprietary knowledge. So we only use the knowledge that we build up through the years ourselves to basically unlock all of that content for our audience to just interact with, just chatting. You can ask any question there, and you will get an answer. But if you don’t like that—if you don’t like to work with AI—that’s also totally fine. We have an amazing customer success team, and they are always available.

CN: Tell us about the recent homegrow tour ILGM launched?

ER: The homegrow tour was a part of our big rebrand campaign, and we really went into communities, interacting with customers. We organized a lot of events where people came together and we taught them how to start growing and really doing it yourself, beginning with a cup and a little bit of dirt, the seed, planting it, and leaving with a seed that already starts growing. That was an amazing experience, to see people being so active and passionate.

CN: It all starts with the seed and passion.

ER: What we are really good at is bringing the content and the information and all the knowledge about how to cultivate the cannabis plant to a big audience of consumers. We have several very equipped, very passionate, high-quality niche breeders that are just super good at breeding these high-quality cannabis seeds. So, what we do is we open up our platform for them to make sure that their craft, their product gets more exposure. They can sell through our platform, which opens up a new sales channel for them, so they can invest more in bringing even better products to the market. That’s a double win.

CN: What’s the demographic of your main customer?

ER: Our customer group was actually one of the things that kind of surprised me when I joined. We have a lot of relatively old customers, and I think that is because of two reasons: 1) I do think that older customers have become more accustomed to growing at home. So I would say the penetration rate of old customers when it comes to homegrow is higher than for younger customers. We all know that Gen Z wants instant gratification. If they want something, they want it now. Home growing takes three months.

What we are also about is educating this younger generation of all the benefits of home growing. So our customers are a bit older, but luckily, because of the rebrand, we’re seeing a shift in that. We see an influx of young customers, and we’re also seeing an influx of female customers. Maybe cannabis historically has been a male-dominated industry and activity, but we think that that’s going to change over the upcoming years.

One of the great developments that we also see in the market is collectives of women grouping together and uniting in their passion for cannabis. So one of the things that we did throughout our homegrow tour was a collaboration with Latinas in cannabis, a group of super passionate women who share a similar background and a similar passion for the plant. We love supporting those types of initiatives.

CN: There’s a long way to go for the legal environment to protect people who are growing cannabis. When I’m out there talking to people about cannabis use, it’s one thing, buying it from a dispensary, and you kind of hide it in your home, but having a plant, whether it’s in your garden or in your garage or your apartment, it’s a little bit more exposure. A lot of people are still concerned about the legal ramifications of having a plant. How do we work with the politicians to evolve the laws so that people can really feel safe? Is that a part of ILGM or is it too much of a challenge?

ER: So we launched a report on this, and the working title of that report was “Out of the Basement and Into the Light,” like getting the cannabis cultivation out of that hidden basement and out into the open, and being confident enough to talk about it, sharing your experiences with others.

That is definitely a development that we’re seeing—that it becomes more normalized to do this and to talk about it and not hide it anymore. I think that goes with everything. In the end, if you want change, then you need to talk about it and you need to remove the stigma. In terms of removing the stigma, that is a focal point for us.

CN: Can you tell me more about that report?

ER: It was basically the first edition of an annual research that we will be publishing every year. We aim to understand what motivates people and how they cultivate because that’s very important knowledge for all our other growers. If we want to understand how people grow, we need to connect with the growing community, and we have the ability to organize that, to play a pivotal part in that, and that’s one of our missions.

CN: How important is the timing of the homegrown season?

ER: The US is a big country…It depends on height, climate zones, etc. But in general, I’d say the whole outdoor season starts around March, and that’s where we also see it in our sales numbers. The best months for home cultivation companies like ours, predominantly selling seeds, are February, March and April.

CN: When do you think we will see cannabis seeds in mainstream garden homes? I mean obviously we can buy them online. That has become a real revolution in the last two to three years. But when do you think we’ll be able to go into a garden center, and you know, you can have your tomato seeds and then your cannabis seeds? Is that already happening?

ER: It’s a very interesting question. I also find it very difficult to answer, because I would compare it with, when does Meta or Google allow normal advertising for a product that technically is legal, but they still don’t do it? So, I don’t know, maybe there are more things at play, but in general, I think that it’s more of a compliance aspect for those bigger companies. They are almost always listed, so they need access to capital markets, and that’s why they just say, “Okay, certain products, vertical certain industries, we don’t serve it, because otherwise the capital markets become less accessible for us.” So as long as you don’t remove the stigma in the market—as long as we don’t do that together—it will be difficult to see cannabis products within regular retail.

CN: Is ILGM only online? Or are you guys available in brick-and-mortar stores also?

ER: We are now only available online, but what we saw during the homegrow tour is that people love to experience the offline sharing of knowledge, so you will definitely see more things offline from us.

CN: We’re in June, going into the end of the major growth season. What’s the big focus? What’s the big goal for you? Do you have any tentpole initiatives? What’s upcoming and exciting in the next six months?

ER: Investing more in building the community. Our platform is state-of-the art, and we’ll keep investing in that, making sure that content and a place to connect are both in the same platform and that our user base really loves being there and can find a lot of new and interesting things.

We will also invest a lot more in connecting with the home grower, both online and offline. Expect a lot more meetups, grow classes, online grow seminars. I think that in the end, there’s a very big opportunity, in general, for the cannabis industry to mature—to become more in line with what other consumer brands are doing, and we really try to lead that change. That’s what people expect nowadays from brands—that they align with their values, that they can be part of their community.

CN: Are you seeing a trend in any direction for consumers of what they want? Do they want indica, sativa? Do they want high THC? Do they want more terpenes?

ER: Definitely high THC. And we also try to tell the story that it’s more than just high THC—that it is about terpenes. I think that’s something people are increasingly aware of, but the focus on just high THC is very strong.

CN: Does ILGM have an app or is it just the website?

ER: Not yet, but have a lot of things cooking.

CN: Well, I’m really excited to see what you have cooking in the kitchen. Is there anything else that we haven’t covered?

ER: I hope that everyone reading this interview interested in growing visits our platform, and I’m pretty sure that we will have a meet up and grow class sometime soon. So if people really want to experience our type of events and be together with like-minded people learning how to grow, I invite everyone to join.