The Cookies & Runtz Lawsuit? (Why They Split Up) — Transcript

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1. 0:01when runts was going you know we had a deal with  cookies right so when i was hearing about the deal
2. 0:08with cookies i was never at the meetings they  was just handing them the deal on their own and
3. 0:13would just tell me about the deal you know but  when you're in the business when you're in the
4. 0:16when you're in business with something with  three people is majority rules you know so i
5. 0:22was always getting outvoted and they were just  running to play and i'm like [ __ ] it i'm like
6. 0:26i trust y'all bro you know what i'm saying and  then we was in a deal with cookies for three years
7. 0:31and [ __ ] the [ __ ] didn't go how we we  presented it and wanted to go you know what
8. 0:36i'm saying really so yeah and when that [ __ ]  started going like i felt like that we weren't
9. 0:42getting the publicity or the support that we  was needed i was like man they got me [ __ ]
10. 0:47up i'm starting like jokes that became it what  kind of deal did you have with cookies though
11. 0:50it was like a distribution deal or we had a [ __ ]  we they we they got in on the company okay but did
12. 0:57you feel like they always wanted cookies to be  bigger that's i feel like that's every big dog
13. 1:06what happened between cookies and runs i've been  asking myself this for the last month or so what
14. 1:10initially sparked my curiosity was when i listened  to atom22's no jumper interview with young lb
15. 1:17that came out around two months ago where  we hear young albies say that runts was in
16. 1:22a deal with cookies for three years but  what does that even mean did cookie sell
17. 1:27its 50 ownership to someone or sell it back to the  founders of runs and what led cookies to do this
18. 1:35in this high design history episode we finna put  on our internet detective hats and see if we can
19. 1:41piece together all of the scraps of information  available online and see what might have led
20. 1:46to this split i think this is an interesting  case study in examining the relationship between
21. 1:52companies partnering up and the collaborative  cohesion or competitive friction that can occur
22. 1:57from that please hit the like button drop a  comment subscribe and follow me on all the socials
23. 2:04this is lmc welcome to high  design history let's run it
24. 2:18so if you haven't seen the high design episode i  did on runs earlier this year i highly recommend
25. 2:22you go watch that video first because it will  give a lot more context to the overall story
26. 2:28but we need to start with the founders of runts  so there's young albe who really serves as more
27. 2:33of the marketing promotion side of the brand and  for this specific story he isn't really involved
28. 2:38at all then there's ray obama who came up under  burner and our close family friends of almost 15
29. 2:45years and then there's the breeder grower nick as  i started to research the story i didn't really
30. 2:53find much at all until i came across a screen  recording of burner's instagram story from
31. 2:58about a year and a half ago where he says this  quote ray bama you're running your mouth around
32. 3:06telling people i made a diss song about you you  were family and if i had something to say i will
33. 3:12the fact that you think the shoe fits on  that record just shows where your head's at
34. 3:16you keep telling people we shelved you that's not  the case if you showed up to one of the multiple
35. 3:20sit-downs to understand your business and business  in general i think you would feel a lot better
36. 3:26ray bama you took a cookie hat off someone's head  last night and threw it on the floor and told them
37. 3:32we have issues i tried to help you with runs your  [ __ ] could have been global you let nick get in
38. 3:38your head how long have you known him i never  played rape bomb or runs i tried to teach them
39. 3:44legit business and build their brand globally you  let nick play us on glo tray and allowed him to
40. 3:50convince you that you got played on a deal none  of you took the time to sit down and understand
41. 3:56we never shelved runs they were number one selling  strains in tacoma okc and denver we helped you get
42. 4:02the strain of the year with leafly all we did  was try to plant real genetics instead of hella
43. 4:07white label that takes time if you showed up to  the meeting and looked at a production forecast
44. 4:13you would see how much is in the works  but you're too busy to meet with any of us
45. 4:17not sure how that's shelving sounds more  like you can't get your [ __ ] together
46. 4:22let's leave it at this if your revenue has  remained consistent and even jumped more than ever
47. 4:27in some months now how have you been shelved if  you haven't shown up to one meeting and continue
48. 4:33to ignore business conversations who's paying you  i never dissed you in any song i have so much love
49. 4:39for you i've known you for over 15 years this  was never a get rich quick scheme i wanted to
50. 4:45help my best friend build generational wealth  i wanted to teach you what i learned end quote
51. 4:52okay so before we break all that down  i want to say that i hope burner and
52. 4:55ray bama have patched things up and are still  friends at the end of the day family and long
53. 4:59time friends which you consider family matters  most and now that cookies and runs have split
54. 5:05there may have been or will be a healing process  but i truly do hope that they remain friends
55. 5:12from my own experience and i'm sure many of you  watching have had experience as well going into
56. 5:17business with a friend could potentially put a lot  of strain on the relationship also because you're
57. 5:24a friend they treat it like a friendship  when it should be a business partnership
58. 5:29anyways i just want to make that point now  let's break down the major points made in
59. 5:34berner's instagram story post to help us  understand what the conflict was about
60. 5:40we're sorry you have reached a number that has  been disconnected or is no longer in service
61. 5:46so it seems that ray bama had thought  that runce was being shelved on purpose
62. 5:50and honestly we really have no way at all to  know if that was the case now the definition
63. 5:57of being shelved is quote to put off or aside from  consideration to remove from active use or service
64. 6:05now berner said in the instagram story that they  never shelved runs they were number one selling
65. 6:10strain in tacoma washington okc and denver  now while those are relatively smaller markets
66. 6:17compared to california in comparison it doesn't  really seem like they're being actually shelved
67. 6:26now burner said that they wanted to plant real  genetics and not white label and that takes
68. 6:31time so the production must have slowed down and  that made robama and nick feel like it was being
69. 6:37shelved or at least that's my analysis of it and  definitely could see where they might think that
70. 6:43i mean couldn't they continue to white label while  planting the real genetics but burner did say in
71. 6:50the instagram story that runs his revenue has  not dropped at all and has actually gone up in
72. 6:54some months and we can't necessarily confirm that  because i don't really have access to the sales
73. 6:59data but i have no reason not to believe burner so  i don't think runts was being shelved technically
74. 7:08i get the sense that maybe ray bama and  nick felt that burner and cookies wasn't
75. 7:12putting as much effort into growing  the runts brand and well i'm sure that
76. 7:17that's a little bit true but you have  to take into account that cookies has
77. 7:22ownership stakes in multiple other brands as well  as their own so putting all of that their effort
78. 7:27into runs wouldn't be possible we also have to  take into account that it seems that cookies is
79. 7:33the one running the cultivation or at least  establishing cultivation partners for runts
80. 7:39in these different markets and they also own  the stores that the flower is being sold in
81. 7:45so really what the partnership entailed between  these two companies is once developed the genetics
82. 7:50and then developed the brand and then cookies ran  those genetics for flower production as well as
83. 7:55the distribution of the flower in their cookie  stores and potentially other places as well
84. 8:00the benefits for runts is that the  partnership they don't really have to run
85. 8:04the production or the retail as well as the amount  of the publicity that they got just alone from
86. 8:08being associated with cookies so heavily but the  trade-off really is that runs relinquishes control
87. 8:16and not feeling like you have control can  potentially cause friction in a relationship
88. 8:21and couple that with poor communication or  miscommunication from one side or the other
89. 8:26well that's a recipe for conflict now the glow  trays that burner mentions in the instagram story
90. 8:32post seems like that might have been the major  breaking point now i really don't know what that
91. 8:38deal contractually entailed but obviously nick  and obama thought that they got screwed on it
92. 8:44now we do need to acknowledge that if they  did not thoroughly read and review the
93. 8:49contract for the deal with the lawyers and  just signed it well that's kind of on them
94. 8:55but that's just honestly my surface level  analysis and like i said we don't really have
95. 8:58enough details to know for sure now i've heard  from a number of people that this glow trade deal
96. 9:05actually is what sparked the beginning of the  end of this partnership with nick apparently
97. 9:12suing cookies himself now i have no idea what  the details of the lawsuit entailed and claimed
98. 9:20given the court documents have been sealed but i  did hear rumors that nick actually won the lawsuit
99. 9:27now that is merely a rumor it is a small industry  and where it gets around quickly and that can't be
100. 9:33officially confirmed whatsoever so please take  it as so but if that is true then there must
101. 9:39have been at least a little bit of a mishap  on cookie's part with the glow tray deal
102. 9:45or whatever it was about actually to be honest we  don't really know now was this alleged lawsuit the
103. 9:52catalyst for cookies selling their 50 ownership  for runs well we can't know for sure but if i had
104. 9:58to guess i'm sure play a part in it or maybe the  courts force cookies to give up their ownership
105. 10:05stake but like i said we really don't know for  sure now i didn't do this story to rehash drama
106. 10:12from the past i'm doing the story because it's  a great case study on business partnerships
107. 10:17and really the big takeaways i have is that a good  partnership has clear and established expectations
108. 10:23for both sides but most importantly  that both sides of the partnership
109. 10:27are clearly communicating with each other so to  avoid any conflict communication is really the
110. 10:33key to any relationship whether it's a business  one or a personal one in my opinion i don't think
111. 10:38that there is any deliberate malicious intent on  either side and like i said that's just my opinion
112. 10:45but i do think it comes down to a combination of  poor communication as well as the universal truth
113. 10:51for this extremely new and competitive industry  that can be summarized by young lp like this but
114. 10:58did you feel like they always wanted cookies to  be bigger that's i feel like that's every big dog
115. 11:06trust me the big dogs and i've  talked to quite a lot of them myself
116. 11:12yeah while they are down to help others and  collaborate and partner up this is a brand
117. 11:17new industry and people are definitely nervous  about other brands getting bigger than them
118. 11:24now that's not to say necessarily that cookies  was worried about that and deliberately tried
119. 11:30to do anything like that but coming from the run  side i could see how they would see maybe cookies
120. 11:37not putting as much time into runs and take  that as them trying to shelf them or something
121. 11:43at the end of the day like cookies you know had  major control over portions of the runs business
122. 11:50and so it did in a sense kind of stunt the growth  of runs potentially you know who knows you know
123. 11:57we'll have to see how runs does moving forward  overall in any industry it's perfectly normal
124. 12:03to see business partnerships come to an end  for whatever reason but i do truly hope that
125. 12:10the personal friendships and relationships  between for example berner and ray bama
126. 12:15have not been destroyed long term time heals all  and in this life the people that you call family
127. 12:22and the friends you call family matter more than  anything else when it all comes down to it looking
128. 12:28to the future i don't see this affecting cookies  long-term upward trajectory at all and for runts
129. 12:35well they may take a little more time to build out  their production and distribution infrastructure
130. 12:41but i do think they're still very much on the up  and up but like i said time will tell and i do
131. 12:49want to make a disclaimer like i've said probably  a couple times throughout this video that this was
132. 12:54me piecing together little bits of information  online and definitely does not tell the full
133. 13:00entire story so make sure to keep that in mind i  have a lot of respect and admiration for everyone
134. 13:07at cookies and everyone at runs both brands and  the people behind those brands have contributed
135. 13:13so much the culture and the industry i've learned  so much just by observing the moves they have made
136. 13:20and while cookies and runs are now on separate  paths the future is still looking very bright
137. 13:28make sure to hit the like button  subscribe comment down below
138. 13:31follow me on all the socials links down below  in the description thanks for watching this
139. 13:36episode of high design history hope to see  you in the next one this is lmc signing out