Q&A: Chris Sinacori on Building 3WIN Through Leadership, Loyalty and the Long Game

Since its founding in 2015, 3WIN Corp. has grown from a distributor of CCELL vaporization hardware into a full-service cannabis solutions provider, offering hardware, stateside customization, packaging consulting and logistics support. Founded by Executive Chairman and President Chris Sinacori—a former professional baseball player and coach and 1988 Olympic gold medalist—the company has built its reputation on long-term partnerships, hands-on customer support and a team-first culture.

After reading one of Sinacori’s LinkedIn posts on leadership, sales and teamwork, Cannabis Now CEO and Founder Eugenio Garcia wanted to learn more about the philosophy behind 3WIN’s success. In this conversation, Sinacori discusses his unlikely journey into cannabis, why he coaches customers to prioritize sustainable growth over chasing “home runs,” how that mindset has earned lasting customer loyalty, and where he sees the future of cannabis vaporization technology heading as 3WIN Corp. prepares for its next chapter.

Eugenio Garcia: Let’s start with your background. How did you get into the vaporizer hardware business?

Chris Sinacori: So basically, my daughter Isabella was around five years old, and she was going to school and her best friend was Bella. I met Bella’s dad Brian, and we got to know each other. He used to be in packaging. He used to make the boxes for Mercedes Benz keys, and he also made the box for the Roku remote controls, things like that. So, he’s always in China. He came back from China one day—and this was 2014—and he’s like, “Chris, man, you got to come to China with me” because at the time I was in real estate. He goes, “I saw this vape hardware. I know you’re not a user, but you got to come check this out. It’s a business opportunity.”

So we flew to China. We went to like 10 different factories, and I was blown away by what was going on there. But we did meet with Smoore. When we came back to states, I’m like, “You know, if we can land them, I’ll jump into this. I’ll be an investor.” So, we went back to China about three months later, met with CCELL and Smoore again, and we wound up landing a distributorship, and that was in 2015.

EG: And at that point, was CCELL already selling into the U.S. cannabis market?

CS: They were not. Us and Jupiter were their first two distributors…So back to my background: I’ve been in baseball my whole life. I went to college at University of Tennessee on a baseball scholarship. I played on the ’88 Olympic team. I got drafted by the Dodgers. I played seven years in the minor leagues… I spent most of my life in baseball, so when this kind of came about, it was just kind of an entrepreneurial thing.

EG: You had been in baseball, and then you went into real estate. How were you even aware of the cannabis space?

CS: I wasn’t aware of it at all…I was going to invest in it. I had a couple investors give money to start it with a few million dollars, and then about four months later, I’m like, I need to help because I need to protect my own investment. All of a sudden I’m running the whole thing.

EG: Without leadership and coaching, you’re just a racehorse without a jockey or a trainer.

CS: And that’s and that’s one thing that when I started 3WIN, I wanted to develop a certain kind of culture. I’ve been a pitching coach and a coach for most of my life, and I wanted to have that same kind of environment. This whole team is my pitching staff, and not one person is better than any other person. I lead from the front, and I lead by example, and we have a special culture here. And gosh, we just don’t lose employees. I treat everyone with respect, and treat everyone well, and try to pay everyone great. It’s an environment that you want to be a part of, and I feel like if you create a certain environment, it sells for itself. They’re wanting their friends and their family to join the organization, and we take a lot of them on.

EG: Do you feel like you were able to understand how a team works more than a lot of leaders in cannabis because of your athletic background?

CS: 100 percent. What is my biggest strength? That is it. I have the unique ability of finding the right people and creating a team atmosphere, and it’s incredible.  It really has been a great ride in that respect, and I feel like I’m helping people’s lives and helping families. It’s so wonderful. And that’s another kind of reason why we were thinking about going public because I’m like, okay, “how do I give back to my employees?” I want these guys to have a great retirement one day as well.

EG: In cannabis, servant leaders—leaders that care about culture—it’s so rare. There’s a lot of good leaders out there, but the ones that really invest in their people, it’s very rare.

CS: My dad taught me something years ago. He said, “Chris, you’re only going to be as good as the people around you, and if you think it’s you, you’re wrong. You surround yourself with great people, and you will become great.” I kind of live by that. I try really hard to put the right people around me.

EG: You guys are doing millions of dollars in sales. Leading a company of this size comes with a lot of responsibility. How do you balance the demands of the business with your personal life?

CS: Number one, you have to have passion. My passion is to make 3WIN great. My passion is for everybody to have better lives. I’ve been so fortunate in my life to make some good decisions and work hard and persevere through hard times. If I could help people do the same, that’s a true win for me. That’s what drives me every day.

EG: Although you’ve diversified 3WIN’s offerings to include branding, packaging and consulting, is hardware still your core revenue stream?

CS: We’ve diversified, but [CCELL hardware] is still our leading horse by far. It’s still what makes our company roll. We are exclusively CCELL as far as hardware, although everyone wants us to sell their products because we have a really good customer list. We’ve been really loyal, and I think that in the industry today, loyalty is a hard thing to come by.

EG: It’s almost impossible.

CS: It is. We’ve been really loyal to CCELL, and we feel like they’re our true partner. We still believe they’re the best…I go to China every year. We see all their new factories, and we really get an in-depth look of everything they do and how much money they put into the technology, and it’s more than anybody. And then about five years ago, they built an SDR lab right here in Scottsdale, Arizona. It’s really convenient to test oils and to perfect people’s oil with the product. They’ve truly been a great partner for 11 years.

EG: Going back to 3WIN’s offer to go public, why is that the right next step?

CS: We were doing well enough as a company that we were getting approached by some large MSOs to acquire us, and that’s kind of what started it…We started getting people that said “Hey, if you go public, we will go with you.” So, we’re just looking at all the different angles. In the end, after 11 years, you have to start thinking about “what is the exit of the company and the employees here?”

EG: Yeah, as the gray creeps in…

CS: Exactly. It’s like, “What is the ultimate exit strategy?” So going public is one of the options. As I said, we’re kind of going towards that, but we still are a private company. We’re playing our options. We’ve had some amazing offers to go public. The biggest lesson we’ve learned in all this is to become “publicly traded ready.” It’s a grind and it’s expensive, but now if the opportunity comes about and we feel like it’s the right fit, we’re ready.

EG: What’s one of the biggest mistakes that you see business owners making in the cannabis space that you’ve been able to advise them to change to be successful?

CS: Everybody wants to hit a home run, and I really try to tell them, listen, the best part of your business is the base of your business. If you have a solid base, then you can grow a lot of trees off of that base. If your base isn’t solid, it’s hard to grow the right way. I’ll give you a “for instance.”

We’re in Michigan two weeks ago visiting a customer, and they’re like, “Hey, we want to order a million cartridges.” As much as my heart wanted to say, “Great, I’ll send over the PO tomorrow,” I said, “Listen, before we get over our skis and all of a sudden you can’t pay your bills because you just spent a million dollars on cartridges let’s have you do 300,000… I was like, “Go slow, man. Execute that first 300,000-piece order. Then you could always come right back and order another one after that.”

EG: I’m getting the chills here. It takes a lot of courage to advise your client to spend less because you have trust that it will pay off in the future.

CS: 100 percent.

EG: It’s hard not to take that million-dollar order. But it’s based on experience.

CS: In the end, I know we’re never going to get the million, but if we go slow, I know we’ll get it.  If we coach them along the way and make sure they’re in the right device, and hey, instead of ordering a million cartridges, let’s do this. Let’s order 700,000 cartridges, and let’s move 300,000 pieces into an all-in-one that you guys design, that meets your specs, that has great clouds, that you know can really be compatible with your oil, that tastes great, that has no burn. Let’s get into a great device. Now you have two offerings for your people.

EG: Where do you see vaporization technology heading over the next two to five years?

CS: I’ll say postless is a big thing that you hear right now, and then “heat-not-burn” technology with CCELL is a big one. But where we’re going is screens because it’s all being innovated from the nicotine business. [Cannabis users] want to see temperature. They want to see what their battery life is, simple things like that. I would say the industry for the all-in-ones is definitely moving towards digital screens. Every new customer that we have wants to compete in that world.

EG: How have tariffs and shifting U.S.-China trade policies affected 3WIN?

CS: We’ve been so lucky because three years ago we built Indonesia. That was part of the plan just in case. So instead of trying to hit grand slams, we’re trying to think of “Hey, how do we protect ourselves?” So we went to CCELL and what they did was phenomenal: Part of their nicotine business is out of Indonesia, so they built an entire automation factory in Indonesia. It was amazing. I want to say they’re producing up to 30 million pieces a month out of Indonesia.

EG: Do you see 3WIN expanding into terpenes?

CS: We decided not to overextend ourselves. Let’s stick to what we do well. What we do really well at 3WIN is we are a very good distributor that has 3PL and logistics. On top of that, we do customization. That is the core of our business…Instead of doing five things okay, we want to do three things great.

EG: What’s the one message you’d like to leave our readers with?

CS: I think the biggest thing is that I like to tell people, we are so fortunate to be in this space, and although we’re always looking for the next thing of federal legalization and the 280 and say safe banking and we’re always searching for these things, but sometimes you just got to sit back and say, “You know what, if that comes, great. That’s just gravy. But I can’t rely on any of that. Let’s just run a great business. Let’s just keep putting out a product that the patients appreciate, and it’s a little on the safer side.”