Bongs Away! A Daily High Success Story
Daily High Club Founder Harrison Baum and Tommy Chong
“I had a highdea...”
An early DHC monthly subscription box
Introduction
By Caroline Phillips, Founder, National Cannabis Festival
I first met Harrison Baum, founder of Daily High Club, at a Women Grow meeting in Washington, D.C. I was impressed by his focus and certainty in his vision.
Harrison and I started hanging out socially a year after the inaugural NCF. We would go on long runs around the city with friends, talking about our businesses and sharing ideas. On top of being a good dude, he’s one of the brightest minds in marketing that I’ve ever met, and he’s a great example of an entrepreneur taking an unorthodox route to finding success.
Enjoy Harrison’s story below and visit Daily High Club for all the fun.
Bongs Away: A Daily High Success Story
By Harrison Baum, Founder and CEO, Daily High Club
As a University of Maryland Student, I was more interested in being an entrepreneur than being at parties. Instead of parties, I spent hour upon hour researching business ideas, learning about production and occasionally studying for my classes.
When I wasn’t holed up in my room researching, I was fixing iPhones on campus. A weekend hobby to help a few clumsy friends soon became “On Campus Repairs,” my full time gig. I fixed over 1,000 phones during my time on campus and used the money I made to help cover my college tuition. I also learned everything you could ever imagine about shipping glass screens and other fragile items - something that would come in handy a few years later.
When I finished at UMD, I stuck around on campus fixing phones. It turns out fixing iPhones to make money works when you live in a dorm, but with rent and utilities to pay I soon realized it was time to settle into a more steady job and found a role at Vistaprint.
“I found myself happiest after work where I could relax with my smoking accessories and explore the r/trees thread on Reddit.”
Harrison (middle) and the DHC team in 2016
The folks at Vistaprint treated me really well. I was a Fraud Specialist which basically meant that I researched faulty chargebacks and spam. I found myself most interested in the structure of their subscription service. I got to see how they operated from the back-end and experience good customer service first-hand. Working at Vistaprint paid the bills, but it really wasn’t my passion. I was still an entrepreneur at heart, I just hadn’t found my dream project.
For years I had been a big fan of cannabis culture. I found myself happiest after work where I could relax with my smoking accessories and explore the r/trees thread (cannabis culture topics) on Reddit. If you haven’t explored Reddit, it’s worth a few hours of your time. I could jump from topic to topic and read answers and opinions on a myriad of issues around cannabis culture and policy. And contribute too! It was on those late nights after work that the idea for Daily High Club started to form.
I knew all about shipping fragile glass.
I observed and worked for a successful subscription company.
I loved cannabis culture.
“I worked up the nerve to put my idea on Reddit... Overnight, I gained HUNDREDS of subscribers. That week I walked out of my job, uncertain of what lay ahead, but as inspired and excited as I’d ever been. ”
The Reddit post that started it all
One evening, I worked up the nerve to put my idea on Reddit: A $1 subscription smoking supplies box. Overnight, I gained HUNDREDS of subscribers. That week I walked out of my job, uncertain of what lay ahead, but as inspired and excited as I’d ever been.
I wish the rest of this story was about the meteoric rise and success of DHC, but that would be too easy!
A few days later, my initial Reddit post was deleted for violating Reddit’s advertising rules and the traffic to my fledgling website screeched to a halt. Our payment system got shut down, and I realized I had no plan and no idea what to do next.
Not sure who to turn to for help, I decided to go to the DC State Fair where they were holding the “Best Buds Cannabis Competition”. It seemed like a good place to meet people in the cannabis community and I was right!
That day I met Laila Makled. At the time, Laila was running a chapter of a networking group in DC called Women Grow. Laila invited me to the meeting and, despite not being a woman, I decided to go. I met so many great people that night and started building the network of friends and supporters that helped make DHC possible. (Note: Laila now works on the NCF team coordinating the advocacy committee!)
Shooting DHC’s viral Reddit video
As my network grew, so too did my creativity and ideas for resurrecting DHC and getting word out about our boxes.
On April 20, 2016, we made a parody video for DHC. The plan was to give the video to a bunch of Twitter influencers and have everyone retweet all at once, but alas, our Twitter account was frozen right after we launched. Instead, I put the video on Reddit where it went viral, soaring to #1. We were back in business!!
As it was time to start fulfilling customer orders, I originally started packing boxes by hand in my room. I lived amid walls of boxes of smoking supplies and walls of boxes for shipping. It was madness!
Within a few weeks, I moved my packing operation to the living room of the group house I was staying in. My 5 roommates tried to be understanding, but it quickly became clear my plan wasn’t going to work. Instead I set up shop in the garage which worked well until a freezing winter settled in.
I spent all day and night packing boxes, answering customer emails and taking shipments. It was hard work and the wear and tear on my body soon became evident. One night in my sleep my shoulder socket tore apart, painfully reversing a socket repair surgery I had after a bad skiing accident when I was 19. I had to get a major surgery called Latarjet shoulder socket reconstruction which meant having a tube in my neck pumping painkillers for a week followed by months of recovery.
My time in recovery had a silver lining. I had no choice but to slow down and spend time thinking and strategizing the future for DHC. When I recovered, DHC came back with a vengeance, moving into our first warehouse, a defunct bridal studio adorned with pink walls and love quotes.
The garage in Harrison’s group house that briefly housed the second DHC “warehouse”
Harrison’s bedroom “warehouse”
Decor from the bridal boutique…also known as DHC’s first REAL warehouse
“Within months we hired a glassblower... Our unique designs and celebrity collaborations kept our fans coming back every month.”
Within months we hired a glassblower, which allowed us the opportunity to design and manufacture everything within the team instead of buying cheap imported glass. Our unique designs and celebrity collaborations kept our fans coming back every month. We’ve partnered with cannabis-super celebs B-Real, Chanel West Coast and more. Perhaps our biggest collaboration to-date is with Tommy Chong — he’s a real legend!
The Daily High Club story is still being written. Every month we deal with the same challenges that many other businesses in the industry struggle with like online marketing censorship.
Despite the challenges, I am so grateful for where we are today. I have the most dedicated team of people helping me grow DHC and I can’t wait to see what happens next.
In 2019 we hit 500k followers and sold over 500k bongs online. Not so bad for a business that launched with a single Reddit post!
Learn more about Daily High Club.
Harrison Baum
About Harrison
Harrison Baum, Founder & CEO at Daily High Club™
Harrison Baum is the Founder & CEO at Daily High Club™, the world’s most popular smoking subscription box company and online headshop. Harrison is a serial entrepreneur with expertise in digital marketing, social media and influencer marketing, e-commerce, and business with vast, forward-thinking knowledge in the cannabis space. He is a comedian with a knack for connecting with the masses. Harrison founded Daily High Club™ in 2015 with the idea of a “$1 smoking subscription box”. The idea immediately saw traction from a single Reddit post and Daily High Club™ was born. In addition to monthly themed subscription boxes (like its popular Tommy Chong box, Halloween box and Pride Box), Daily High Club™ is renowned for its fun, high-quality glass bongs. The bongs come in colorful shapes and sleek designs including its Scientific Bongs, Honey Bear, Tank Bong, and the Champagne Bottle bongs. Daily High Club™ remains the powerhouse in the industry and go-to place for bongs, boasting 600K+ social followers, recurring partnerships with high-profile brand advocates including Tommy Chong, Cypress Hill’s B-Real, Chanel West Coast, and others. The company has sold over 500,000 bongs to date. Harrison is a member of WeedWeek Council and has been featured in Forbes, Entrepreneur, HuffPost, Benzinga and other top tier media.