Don't Try DMT Without Watching THIS First! I Adam Wilks DSH #465

What was DMT like?

That's on my list.

It was an experience.

That's for sure.

That was definitely an experience with a shaman internationally and proper experience.

Yeah.

And really just, again, life-changing, life-changing opportunity.

But again, doing something like that with Mike was monumental.

Legendary.

Did you see aliens?

I saw many, many things, many things out there, that's for sure.

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All right, Adam Wilkes here.

What do we got going on, my man?

Got a lot of exciting stuff here today.

Thanks for having me, Sean.

Appreciate it.

I see the Tyson earbudes.

I see the energy drink.

What are these?

We got our Woo Choos by Ric Flair.

We got our Blunt Wraps by Future, Evil by Future.

Nice.

We got our Mike Tyson vapes, pre-rolls, beverages, edibles.

Got it all, man.

Endless, endless options.

Yeah, so it all started with Tyson, though, right?

Yeah, so it all began with Tyson 2.0.

Karma Holdco is our parent company,

brand house for

celebrities and influencers in different categories.

It did all start with Mike Tyson.

Just to run it back, my background started in the licensing world about a decade ago.

I was working with SPE, Career of Private Equity, licensing fast food brands like Pinkberry, Coldstone, Taco Time, et cetera.

We had upwards of 80 fast food brands in 40 countries, 10,000 locations worldwide.

We then shifted focus to the cannabis world, started investing in cannabis brands as well as cannabis retail outlets from California to Florida to Toronto, Canada,

which got me into the cannabis world.

I invested in another business of Mike Tyson's, which started the relationship with Mike.

And from there,

him and my other co-founder, knowing my background in licensing and cannabis, said, hey, we're relaunching Mike's cannabis brand, Tyson 2.0.

This is about three years ago, 2021.

And they're like, we want you to be the CEO.

I'll never forget the night where it all kicked off.

Mike Tyson took me to dinner at Catch

in L.A.

It was me, Mike, a couple of our co-founders.

Mike took, he's like, hey, let's go on the roof and smoke a joint.

Go up on the roof.

On the way up, we see David Blaine sitting there.

He's like, David, come on up.

We're going to go smoke one.

So it's me, Mike, David Blaine, and the owner of Catch, Mark Birnbaum.

We go to the rooftop, smoking a joint.

David Blaine's doing magic tricks for us.

And I'm just thinking to myself, how the hell did I get myself in this situation?

Yeah, that's incredible.

So

that was, it was right there.

I remember Mike looking at me and saying, you know, I'm not taking no for an answer.

You're going to be the CEO.

Shook his hand and I said, let's do this.

So the rest has been history.

We launched Tyson 2.0 in 2021,

quickly became one of the largest cannabis brands on the planet by geographic coverage, now operating in 28 states, 17 countries,

and continuing to grow.

That's incredible.

And it's cool to see you not only crush it in the celebrity space, because a lot of celebrities try launching brands.

Most of them don't end up doing well, but also cannabis, because a lot of people tried getting into cannabis, and you managed to pull off both.

It's a tough space to operate in, being a regulated industry.

There's handcuffs all over the place.

We're excited about where the cannabis space is going with federal legalization.

Just recently, the FDA's mention of reclassifying cannabis from a Schedule I to Schedule III drug, which is huge for the industry.

It would remove 280 taxes.

It would open up just tons of cash flow for the industry

from investors of all types that may not touch cannabis now as a Schedule I.

For us, we're actually a non-plant-touching company.

We license the brand

cannabis operators in every state.

So we'll sell them packaging.

And whether they're a cultivator, manufacturer, distributor, they'll package the product in our branded packaging.

We sell them.

So we don't actually touch the plant themselves, which keep us

safe

and able to, again, operate in

a little more of a free manner.

Yeah.

And then outside of cannabis, we have all the accessories and

smoke shop, gas station, convenience store products like Woo Energy.

I don't know if you had a chance to try yet.

Yeah, I'm about to crack this open.

I love strawberry and mushrooms.

I've never heard the two of them combining until these ones.

This is functional mushrooms in these ones.

So, you got like rishi, you got lion's mane.

Wow, it tastes great, actually.

Yeah, we worked on this one for a while, developing an energy drink that

low sugar, um,

and again, just the non-crash, non-jittery energy drink.

So, yeah, really excited about this one.

We became the exclusive energy drink for the Cleveland Cavaliers, nice

NBA, uh, Columbus Blue Jackets for the NHL, Ohio State University,

as well as just recently announced AEW Wrestling.

That's massive.

And with Prime crushing it, you must be excited about the beverage space.

Oh, Prime.

I mean, kudos to them.

They've done a billion-dollar brand in two better years.

Had the privilege of working with Logan a few times.

Oh, yeah.

Super impressive with what they've been able to do.

Yeah, again, I couldn't say it.

Proud of all of them, what they've been able to do there.

So how did it start off from just Tyson into all this, like the house of brands?

Now you got, what, four more?

Yep.

So currently we're live with four brands, have another half dozen under LOI that we're excited about announcing and bringing to market throughout the year.

Started with Mike Tyson.

Second brand we brought on was Ric Flair, who is just a ball of energy, hence why we did the

drink around Rick, you know, botting his energy into a can, you know, the whole woo, right?

I mean, it's

been a monumental

saying of his for 30 plus years.

From there, we led to Future covering the hip-hop scene and two-time Grammy Award-winning hip-hop star and then Hulk Hogan as well.

What's different about us and most other, almost every other celebrity brand that's out there is the authenticity.

We've ensured every one of our brands is as real as it can be.

For example, Future called me the other night telling me, you know, one of the strains I sent to him, he does all the R D on his strains, he didn't like one of the strains because it was either too dry or the terpenes weren't right.

Or

for the first year, almost every Sunday, me and Mike were meeting up at either his backyard or mine for smoking sessions, trying different flavored cookies for the cookie drop that we were doing.

We'd get high off our

doing R D, but it was a blast.

And then Rick, Rick's been was using Xanax for about 30 years

until he met us.

We introduced him to Edibles.

He was always taught, you know, cannabis, stay away from it.

Growing up in the South, he

just never used it.

Yeah.

Stayed away from it.

Once I introduced him to Edibles, he said it changed his life.

Wow.

Got him off of the pharmaceutical drugs, and he's been using Edibles to sleep every night since.

That's incredible.

I love it.

And it's the authenticity behind it.

Mike smokes everything that we produce.

He fries it first.

Future,

Rick, Hulk Hogan, he's had 29 back surgeries.

Damn.

Insane.

You know, he's...

been through, we all know who Hulk Hogan is, lifting Andre the Giant over his head, you know, 30 years ago.

But he's now using a lot of his own products, the CBD products, hemp-derived for his own back pains and such, which again have got him off of the pharmaceuticals.

So

our goal has been and always will be continuing to bring plant-based medicine to the masses and

just

at an affordable price for everybody to try and connect to the talent, right?

I'm a huge fan of holistic healing.

I try not to go the pharmaceutical route.

I used to be on Xanax and it was an awful experience.

So that's amazing to hear.

And a lot of celebrities just throw their name on like a liquor brand or something.

They don't really give that passion like these guys do, right?

Well, we saw, and we we saw it in the cannabis space.

One of the biggest names in hip-hop, nothing against him, Jay-Z, lovely guy.

But they launched a cannabis brand under him.

I didn't even know that.

No, I mean, not many people did.

It never made it out of one state.

Oh, wow.

Lil Wayne, he's done a little better.

He's in a handful of states.

I think it's three or four states.

But there's massive iconic names that haven't been able to do it.

And I attribute that, one, to the incredible team we've been able to build, and two, just the authenticity behind the talent and their connection to the product itself.

Nice.

Which states are you excited about becoming legal?

My friend just got approved in Jersey, so I'm going to come back to you guys after this.

That'd be great.

He was saying in his research, some dispensaries in Jersey are doing $5 million a year.

Yep.

Yeah.

So certain markets are that you'd be shocked.

I mean, one of our most powerful markets was Missouri.

Really?

Which who would have thought?

Yeah.

Everybody thinks California, New York, you know, Florida is an incredibly powerful market, even though it's medical still.

Teeing up for recreational, I think it will be one of the most powerful markets.

There's a lot of states that we're super excited about.

I was most excited about New York being where Mike was from.

We just launched that beginning of December, one of our most successful launches to date.

I didn't know they recorded recreational.

Yeah, yeah, it's live now.

There's only, I think it's about 40 or 50 dispensaries open.

Oh, wow.

So pretty limited.

Massive.

But incredible market for us.

And again, it's bringing Mike home to, you know,

roots in New York.

So excited about that.

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Yeah, and we'll continue to tap into, you know, state by state every market that we can.

Absolutely.

But we are across the four brands in 28 plus states now.

That's amazing.

Yeah, I remember in high school, they were saying it was going to become federally legal like within years, and now it's been 10 years.

So we started investing in this space when I was on my private equity world side about 10 years ago.

Wow.

And then we were saying in five years, this thing's going to be federally legal.

Five years later, we were saying the same thing and it brings us to where we are today.

But it's incredible to see the progress that the government's making and the,

for me, moving cannabis from a schedule one to schedule three and for the whole industry is game-changing.

Yeah.

Again, just

the flood of capital that could potentially enter the industry once that happens from investors that would steer away from it otherwise, I think is just game changing.

It's going to be game-changing.

So, when it's Schedule 3, does that mean you can't get arrested for having it on you?

Yeah, it changes the entire, it's not,

it makes it

a mainstream, a mainstream, more of a mainstream product,

which again, just for us is game-changing.

Not that we're touching the plant, but my licensees are then able to gain more access to capital.

They will have less restrictions around taxes

and overall.

Now, that doesn't change it from crossing state lines.

We're still restricted state by state.

So every single state, I need to find a manufacturer,

cultivator, and distributor because you can't ever move over state lines.

Oh, wow.

That's why we have 28 different states.

Wow, so the supply chain is insane because that's 100 different partners, basically.

Correct.

It's not like when I was in the yogurt space or I

create a product, I can sell it across the whole nation.

The nice thing with the energy drink is that's a product you can sell across the nation.

But yes, on our cannabis products, it's very restrictive.

Nice, dude.

I remember being so paranoid in high school and college, smoking in cars.

Tell me about it.

We would get arrested.

We would be smoking.

I've been smoking for over 20 years.

I'm a big advocate of cannabis.

And

yeah, I remember many run-ins with the police, whether I was smoking at the park down the street from the house or whatever it may be.

So,

yeah, we work with multiple groups, including the Welding Clemency Project, on

incarcerated individuals and just raising capital to help them either post prison or getting them out of prison, whatever it might be.

We just submitted a letter to the Biden administration

from Mike and a video from Mike to assist in this process.

Many others have done it, and we hope that others continue to, from Drake and

many other big celebrity names.

So we like to do our part.

And

I find it crazy that people are still in jail for a product that

many of us are capitalizing on right i mean we're selling plant-based medicine now and cannabis products around the world all over the us yeah there's still people in prison for a few hundred bucks worth of weed like it's terrible i thought they were releasing them did they not do that they've made efforts but they're just scraping the surface.

I don't think it's, we're not even close to releasing everybody.

I'm just talking non-violent cannabis charges.

I mean, if you're in jail for an ounce of weed in a state that it's still not even medically legal,

in my eyes, there's a problem for that.

Yeah, that makes sense.

That was always a fear of mine, getting arrested.

We've had to swallow some blunts.

I mean,

it was scary, man.

Where'd you go growing up in?

In Jersey.

Oh, in Jersey.

I know so many people in my school that got arrested for just smoking.

Yep.

It's ridiculous.

Jersey is a great market for us.

I mean, we do have Tyson Live in Jersey.

Nice.

Working on a few exciting new projects in Jersey and Atlantic City, too.

Hell yeah.

Yeah, real excited about the market.

Are you trying to get in the medical marijuana space or just keep it racking?

So we're on both sides.

So there's a lot of markets that are just

medical, not recreational.

Florida's a good example of that,

where you're only able to sell to patients with a medical card and so on.

Then there's dozens of other markets like

Vegas here or California or Colorado or Michigan that are recreational and we sell on both sides.

The international side, we're super excited about.

A lot of that is still medical only.

But, I mean, just over the last few years, we've watched the evolution of the global cannabis space.

I mean, we're now signed in countries like the UK, Australia, Israel.

Wow,

Israel, we're excited about with a group called Intercure in Israel.

Interesting.

Germany.

We're all over.

I mean, it's wild.

And then outside of cannabis, there's another two dozen countries we sell our accessories into.

So I got rolling papers in 20 countries,

rolling trays, ashtrays, grinders, and cannabis accessories that we can sell anywhere that may not be, you know,

cannabis-friendly yet.

Yeah.

So what's the main focus moving forward?

You got so many different products.

Do you want to keep growing into other countries or where's the main focus at?

So our focus is continue to bring on nostalgic legends as well as new era talent, celebrities, influencers, creating products for them where we can continue to sell them into our distribution channels.

But with our existing talent, continue on the global expansion, new product lines for all of them.

There's always new stuff coming out.

There's some new and exciting mic bites coming out, actually.

One of our most successful products.

And then on the retail side, I don't know if we spoke about it, but I opened up a, well, we opened up a Tyson 2.0 retail cannabis cafe in Amsterdam.

Really?

Dude, that's awesome.

I love Amsterdam.

It's an awesome vibe.

I actually just did a five-country tour with Mike, which was one of the most epic trips I've been on, over a week, where Amsterdam was probably one of the busiest visits.

We shut down two blocks in Amsterdam of just crowds of people.

It was wild to see.

We quickly became one of the number one

coffee shops, consumption lounges in Amsterdam, in the Netherlands.

Incredible.

With the success of that, we have a second site we just locked down.

We're looking at new locations now in Spain.

We signed a deal in Indonesia.

So we'll be doing in Bali, a coffee shop out there.

So, really, with my retail experience in the past with Pinkberry, Coldstone, and all these other brands, we're now going to bring a retail focus into the Carmel Holtco house of brands, looking for retail opportunities for Mike, Rick, Hulk, and future around the world.

Incredible, man.

Traveling with Mike and becoming, you know, really close friends.

What's that like?

Honestly, Mike has become one of my best friends over the last three years.

If I could choose anybody to hang out with any day, he's always my number one.

He has one of the biggest hearts.

He loves his family.

And he's as real as it gets.

I mean, everything that comes out of his mouth is authentic.

It's real.

What you see is what you get.

Mike doesn't hold back.

He's not hiding anything.

And I can tell you almost every time, no matter who I'm in the room with, I mean, whether we're in Wall Street, whether we're in Greece, Germany, wherever it might be, Mike is always the hardest working person in that room.

Wow, I work my off.

I mean, I get up, you know, first thing in the morning.

I'm working out every morning.

Start my day right.

I work until, you know, I can't keep my eyes open.

Yet when I'm on these tours with Mike,

we're going to bed at 2 in the morning.

He's banging on my door at 4.35 in the morning, telling me, Adam, we're going for a run.

I'm like, Mike, we got a meeting in two hours.

Let's get our rest.

You know, it's impressive to see.

And I mean, I envy him.

I learn from him.

I absorb so much from the guy.

He's an incredible individual, and I couldn't be more blessed to have been able to, over the last three years, just really get to know him for the person he is.

Yeah.

And just had so many epic experiences with him.

His transformation is crazy.

Unbelievable.

I mean, I think psychedelics played a role.

Huge, huge.

He's a huge fan of psychedelics.

And again, he's got me,

he's got my head in an amazing place since we've met met

through different plant-based medicines.

Amazing.

Outside of some of the stuff we're even selling, whether it be the DMT or the

mushrooms and whatever it might be.

It just opened my eyes up to looking at this life in a different way than I had in the past.

And it's tough to get there without the aid of those because when I took mushrooms in Amsterdam, it's illegal there, it changed my life.

It opened my perspective because we're so used to what we're used to.

And psychedelics just help you think differently, I think.

Couldn't agree with you more, honestly.

It really opens your mind up.

Absolutely.

What was DMT like?

That's on my list.

It was an experience.

That's for sure.

That was definitely an experience with a shaman internationally and proper experience and really just, again,

life-changing, life-changing opportunity.

But again, doing something like that with Mike was

monumental.

Legendary.

Did you see aliens?

I saw many, many things, many things out there, that's for sure.

But back on the international trip and just Mike himself, everyone looks at Mike as you know, the baddest man on the planet.

And he is, don't get me wrong, he's a bad,

someone you're not going to with.

But one of the most monumental moments I ever had with Mike, we were in Amstram.

We finished our day.

It was about two in the afternoon.

And

he says, Adam, we got to go see this pigeon breeder.

I go, pigeon breeder.

And I I didn't know much about birds at this point.

What do you mean, pigeon breeder?

He's like, one of the number one pigeon breeders in the world is in the north end of

Holland.

So I'm like, let's go.

So we drive, we end up driving out five hours, found through contacts, reached out to this guy, got a hold of him, told him Mike Tyson's coming to his house to see him.

The family was like, what's going on?

End up in this little town in the north end of Holland,

as far up north as we can get.

Little town, little house, beautiful, little family.

We get there and just, I always have seen people envy Mike, look up to him, be blown away with, holy meeting Mike Tyson, the stories I hear.

And it doesn't matter your demographic.

I've seen everybody with the same reaction to Mike.

And to see Mike for the first time meet not necessarily his hero, but somebody he looks up to,

this simple man that breeds pigeons in northern Holland

was monumental for me.

It was just this waking moment to see just how simple this guy lived and how simple his whole life was.

And someone like Mike Tyson looking at him as his,

you know,

admiring the guy, really,

for what he's done in the pigeon world and breeding these world-renowned roller pigeons was just one of the most epic experiences of my life.

That's so cool.

You guys buy pigeons from him?

Mike spent a fair amount on some pigeons.

It was a negotiation because the guy doesn't want to sell his pigeons either.

He shows them and sends them all over the world.

Interesting.

Really cool concept.

Mike loves his pigeons.

He's got his pigeons in Florida, New York,

Vegas.

Yeah, it's a beautiful thing.

Wow.

Until you really sit there

and experience it and

watch these pigeons.

It sounds a little crazy, but it's honestly one of the most beautiful things to

experience.

Interesting.

Yeah, I don't think I've ever had an intimate experience with a pigeon.

But I know some people are very passionate about their birds.

Yeah.

And it's different than the pigeons we see outside, you know, eating off the streets and stuff.

Right.

Mike calls those the rat pigeons.

These are like beautiful, real, just, it's different.

Yeah.

Where's been your favorite places to travel with them?

Probably

the best experience I had outside of the pigeon farm was me and Mike and Mykonos in Greece.

It was beautiful.

We had a short visit to do for work and got to really enjoy, it was both of our first time there.

So being somewhere with Mike for his first time that was for me a first right um so just being able to experience the culture the food um traveling around the island i mean it was just beautiful i i loved it i've heard great things yeah it was amazing um and watching mike enjoy it with me the same way was unbelievable most places we go he's already been we've been to whether switzerland germany amsterdam um

Where else have we been?

He's probably fought everywhere.

He's everywhere.

He's all over the Middle East.

And this this was just for him to experience somewhere for the first time with me.

It was just combined.

It was a priceless experience.

Were you at his comeback fight a few years ago?

I didn't.

I was not.

I was.

I was not there.

No.

That was pre-so me and Mike came together in 2021.

That was right before

we started Tyson 2.0.

Got it.

But he tells me all the time he wants to fight again.

Yeah?

Dude, he's like, what, 60 now?

57.

Wow.

We were once stuck in a snowstorm in, where were we?

Mass, was it Matt?

Yeah, we were in Boston, Boston, Boston, Massachusetts.

And

we're in the room, me and him, we're high as on edibles, late at night.

We couldn't leave the hotel.

And he looked at me.

He's like, Adam, I want to fight again.

I want to fight.

I go, Mike, we're building this business up.

You know, let's stay focused.

This is two years ago.

I'm like, let's focus on the business.

He looked at me with the most serious look on his face.

I want to fight again.

So I know he really wants it deep down.

But he's become this business mogul and really, I want him to stay focused on this.

It's doing great.

We continue to grow, you know, month over month, incredible growth we do nine figures a year in revenue um and and yeah we'll continue to keep licensing this up that's incredible man it's cool to see you kind of take him because you're like the businessmind and he's an athlete and a lot of athletes struggle to transition but it's cool to see you guys partner and both crush it you know absolutely absolutely yeah he's he's a i mean the guy's a genius people don't look at him like he he's He's always the smartest guy in the room.

He sits there, he listens to what everybody's saying, digests it.

Again, I love Mike to death because of so many little things about him, but

he's an incredible individual.

And that's cool to hear because a lot of fighters, unfortunately, boxers and UFC fighters, when they get older, you could start seeing that brain health kind of deteriorating.

But he's able to just stay sharp somehow.

Absolutely.

He teaches me about history every time we're together.

Adam, do you remember?

Do you know this?

Or do you know this?

And it's like, Mike, I don't know any of this.

He's always teaching me something new, whether it's about a Greek god or about war or whatever it be he reads, he studies it's damn it's impressive that side of him most people don't know he was a reader that's impressive

man it's cool to see him you know he had some major demons growing up and it sounds like he's conquered them yep absolutely yeah his life now is about his kids his wife his business and just

um he's a completely new person from what i've heard he was in the past.

I didn't know him back then, but I've heard some stories

from family and for just, we all know, you know, the old Mike, but yeah, he's a completely new individual and less than thankful he is who he is today and that I get to do what I get to do today with him and Rick and my uh Hulk and future.

Yeah, who gets recognized the most in public, you tell

who gets recognized the most in public?

So they all have their own.

I mean, Mike is Mike, everybody knows Mike.

They see him, that's the tattoo.

Mike dies, Mike dies.

Yeah, we mess with people all the time.

Like, nah, he's a lookalike.

Rick is always dressed to the night.

So Rick always has his, you know, flashy flashy tuxedo or his suit.

He's hard to not

see.

So anywhere you walk with Rick, you're always hearing an echoing of woo, woo, woo.

I took him to SoFi Stadium.

We had the whole stadium wooing at him, which is iconic.

Legendary.

Hulk is 6'7 ⁇ .

Damn.

He's 6'7.

He was 300 pounds.

I don't know if he's 280 or whatever he is now.

He's a big guy.

He's hard not to recognize, right?

So I'd say the three of them are very recognizable.

future as well future is a little more low-key

doesn't walk around as openly as some of the other guys yeah but yeah so I think they're they're all somewhat equally

recognized absolutely yeah so for Karma on 2024 are you planning on raising money from additional investors so we're fortunate that we're in a great cash position we raised when we initially launched

fortunate we haven't had to raise anymore we're cash flowing would pump out some great numbers

Next steps, I'd like to bring in a strategic, not necessarily to raise, but maybe to buy out a big stake at the company.

Bring in a $50, $100 million check.

Somebody that's, again, strategic and can help us grow in additional categories in the licensing world is where my focus is for 24,

as well as executing on, you know, we got another dozen plus markets we've just signed.

We got to take all those live.

dozens of new product lines under each of the talent coming out.

So we got our hands full.

We're a lean team.

I try to hire the smartest people I could possibly find to work around me.

Best team, you know, can we create the best products and obviously the best returns in the end.

Absolutely.

And you're seeing this new wave almost of creator products with Mr.

Beast, with Logan, a couple other creators.

So I think we're on the forefront of something big happening.

Absolutely.

I love what social media has done to help build,

whether you're a micro-influencer or a huge influence, whatever your size may be, to help just build your brand awareness and the ability to scale

new concepts.

So we're excited about it and the idea of bringing in some of these influencers to add to the roster.

I'd like to continue this brand house with dozens of new individuals.

As long as they're authentic, they're real, and we'll put the time in.

The brands will be successful.

Yeah, I can't wait to see those products, man.

And maybe one day I'll be big enough to launch my own.

Maybe we'll get you your own product going.

That'd be great.

Adam, where can people find you, man, and learn more about what you're up to?

Absolutely.

Well, you can check me out on Instagram at AdamB.

Wilkes.

You can check out our Tyson page at It's Tyson20.

We got Ric Flair Drip, Evil by Future,

as well as Immortal by Hall.

Love it, man.

Yeah.

Thanks for coming on.

No, thanks for having me.

Appreciate it.

Thank you for watching, guys.

I'm going to eat all these right now.

We'll see you tomorrow.