Today we’d like to introduce you to Nicklas Brandrup.
Hi Nicklas, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I’m a Danish native, although not from Copenhagen originally, but rather a tiny town with a population of fewer than 500 people that’s formally known as the oldest zip code in Denmark. As an energetic kid with a taste for adventure I had my sights set on moving to the city as early as possible, hence when I turned 18, I left the nest and settled down in Copenhagen to pursue a degree in International Business at the Copenhagen Business School.
Immediately upon graduating, I had a great desire to test myself in an entrepreneurial setting. In addition to being an entrepreneur, I also had big dreams of living and working in the United States, so and my brother decided to make the move together and start a business.
Our first venture together was in the world of LED lighting. Right out of the gate, we experienced quite a bit of success and mastered the art of sales and e-commerce on Amazon. That said, I’ve always had a deep desire to create a business that would have a positive impact on people and their health and well-being. Being originally from Denmark, my family and I take a lot of pride in our heritage and we’ve always wanted to incorporate our Scandinavian values into our business.
Growing up, I watched my grandmother drink hemp tea every morning using the hemp that she grew in her backyard to help her lessen the pain from her arthritis. I was always amazed to see the powerful impact of hemp on reducing her pain and its overall health benefits. In 2016, when the conversation around CBD started to grow in the US and lawmakers were opening up to the idea of expanding research around cannabis and cannabinoids for medicinal purposes, I knew right away that I had to pursue this path. Natural remedies and plants such as hemp have always been a really big part of my life since childhood and with everything happening in the CBD space, this was a natural springboard into entering the industry. Neurogan was founded in 2017 here in San Diego and my father and brother joined me as key founding members of the company to build our legacy together.
From there, we partnered with a family farm in Denmark to get immersed in the industry and gain a really good understanding of the CBD cultivation process and how to identify crops that are more potent than others, and how to find good cultivators. This incredible educational opportunity at the start of our CBD business journey now enables Neurogan to offer the highest potency CBD products that are available on the market.
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle-free, but so far would you say the journey has been a fairly smooth road?
There have been a plethora of obstacles and challenges that I’ve faced during my journey as an entrepreneur and a whole set of unique challenges specific to the CBD industry. The CBD space is filled with challenges and hurdles that are so different from other industries because the FDA has yet to set regulatory and compliance standards for the industry. It’s definitely still like the Wild, Wild, West! Some of the big challenges I’ve faced during my journey with Neurogan include:
Advertising: Running ads across social media platforms is nearly impossible as they don’t allow CBD advertising. Driving traffic to your site becomes about demonstrating value outside of the traditional advertising channels, which is time-consuming and slow.
Rules and Regulations: The ever-changing nature of the CBD industry and its rules and regulations that vary from state to state is extremely challenging and the FDA still doesn’t consider CBD a supplement and hasn’t properly categorized it, which limits our ability to market our products in the most impactful way.
Marketplaces: Amazon and Walmart restrict the sale of CBD products. As a result, many bad players will sell hemp seed oil masked as hemp oil, causing a lot of confusion among customers.
Negative Stigma: There is a lot of misinformation and false advertising within the CBD space which has caused big setbacks for the CBD “white knights” who are providing high quality, good CBD products to its customers. There are a lot of products that are labeled as CBD but it’s really hemp seed oil that’s priced really high, so not only is the consumer not getting the CBD product they are led to believe they’re buying, they’re also paying a premium price for it.
As you know, we’re big fans of Neurogan. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about the brand?
Neurogan is a San Diego-based CBD company with Scandinavian roots, offering the most potent CBD on the market with its CBD, CBG, and CBN products including gummies, oils, topicals, teas, mints, and smokables.
Neurogan is a really innovative brand and we pride ourselves on being able to offer the highest quality and the highest potency CBD on the market at competitive prices. We can guarantee this because we make our own CBD at our San Diego-based facility located in Miramar. We source our ingredients from local farms in the San Diego area, creating CBD that’s artisan-batched, high-quality, and high-potency.
As we were building Neurogan, we saw a lack of high-potency products on the market, which is what we are filling for our customers today. We see a huge need for this as people start to see more and more medicinal potential for people’s health. There is currently a lot of research being done on the health benefits of CBD and we are excited to be able to continue to offer consumers high-potency CBD at affordable prices and make a positive impact on their health journeys.
We also love to partner with entrepreneurs and businesses who want to enter into the CBD industry and bring their own unique product to market as their white labeling partner. Having put all of the pieces into place ourselves over the past 5 years, we love being able to help others by offering them our proven roadmap for success. It’s fun to see others wanting to enter the industry to make CBD even more accessible to consumers and we are excited to see the impact we can make in this way as well. There are so many great business people and creative entrepreneurs out there and it’s been really fun to partner with them in this capacity to further amplify our mission to make high-quality CBD more and more accessible.
Neurogan CBD is sold in the United States and globally and we are currently working on breaking into the European markets.
Can you tell us more about what you were like growing up?
As I mentioned earlier, I was born in Denmark in a really small town by the beach. I was a really energetic kid and loved adventure from a young age. I lived right by the dunes, so my brother and I would ride dirt bikes and reenact our favorite Star Wars scenes there. I also took an interest in plant medicines from a really early age. I and my brother loved to hunt for mushrooms in the woods and would bring them to our local botanist to get an idea of which ones we could cook and which ones were poisonous. These early experiences have inspired me to live a life that’s more connected to nature and aware of all of its natural remedies.
My passion for entrepreneurship developed at a young age as I watched my dad transition from being a ship engineer at Maersk to starting his own IT hardware business eventually and managing over 60 employees from 3 locations worldwide.
Pricing:
- CBN Calm Gummies: $69.95
https://www.neurogan.com/cbd-products/snacks/cbd-cbn-gummy-squares/ - CBD + CBG Balance Gummies: $59.95
https://www.neurogan.com/cbd-products/snacks/cbd-cbg-gummies/ - High Potency CBD Oil (12,000 MG): $169.95
https://www.neurogan.com/cbd-products/oils/cbd-oil-12000mg-2oz/ - CBD Mints: $39.95
https://www.neurogan.com/cbd-products/snacks/cbd-mints/ - CBD Tea: $24.95
https://www.neurogan.com/cbd-products/snacks/cbd-tea-20bags/
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.neurogan.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/neurogan/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/neuroganinc/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/neuroganinc
- Other: https://www.pinterest.com/neurogan/_created/
