Itz Personal: The Journey so far

Itz Personal didn’t start with a business plan. It started in my granny’s basement.

I was in 6th grade when I copped my first half ounce. Me and my twin broke it down, bagged it up, and posted-up at Gateway Market. $50 for 14 grams. Every gram a dime bag. $140 in revenue if we didn’t take shorts.

Simple math. Simple plan. Flip it. Reup. Come up. DON’T GET CAUGHT!

I saw the economic power of cannabis. It was a “way out”.

Looking back, it wasn’t just about the money. I was fascinated with the hustle. The intention. The way the older guys around me moved. They were calculated, disciplined, and strategic. I had some solid role models. Not everybody can say that.

A lot happened between my first weed sale in North St. Louis and the beginnings of cannabis legalization in the United States - those stories and reflections will have to wait for another time.

For now, let’s fast forward to around 2014, right after the first legal, regulated retail sales began in Colorado. By then, cannabis was more widely accepted for treating pain - at least certain forms of pain for certain types of “patients”. The world of recreational cannabis retail was still new and there were lots of unknowns. I wanted to see a dispensary for myself. When my partner Emma and I went on a trip to Colorado, I got the chance to do just that.When I walked into the dispensary, it almost felt like a setup. You’re telling me I have to hand over my ID… to buy weed? Then they say, “A budtender will be with you shortly.”

I laughed. For real, laughed.

Because just like that, my perspective was challenged.

I looked around the dispensary and observed the “professionals” in line. People in scrubs. People in suits. It was calm, casual and legal. No one was worried about getting caught.

I couldn’t stop thinking about the people I came up with.

How was legalization impacting my community? Would all the clientele switch to shopping with these business owners? What is going to take the place of weed in the streets? Would the homies transition into the legal industry? What they gone do for people whose lives have been turned upside down because of the war on drugs?

These questions stuck with me.

When Minnesota legalized adult-use cannabis in 2023, I was working as a consultant helping organizations build equitable systems and advance racial equity. So when legalization hit, I didn’t just see a new industry. I saw a problem that needed to be solved. A chance to answer the question: What if the legal cannabis industry actually repaired the harm caused by criminalization and advanced racial equity?

That question became the foundation of Itz Personal.

From there, I went all in. Late nights researching the industry. Studying policy. Getting more familiar with the history and impact of cannabis criminalization. Learning the plant. One side of the work pissed me off. The other side made me fall deeper in love with cannabis.

I bought my first grow tent, popped my first seeds and earned a home grow certification through Minnesota Cannabis College. I listened and paid attention to how this industry was being built and who it was being built for - and who was getting left out.

In 2024, I started pulling up to industry events. Rooms where I didn’t fully know the play yet but I knew I needed to be there. At the time, my idea was a personalized cannabis subscription service offering tailored experiences. I would source products from BIPOC suppliers and reinvest profit into the community.

As I considered moving my idea forward, I looked into the licensing process only to find out I didn’t qualify as a social equity applicant. I was never convicted, and I had made it out of poverty. Somehow, that disqualified me from a “social equity” program meant to repair the very harm that shaped Black communities like mine. The system could acknowledge harm but only in ways it could measure.

The reality is, the full impact of racist cannabis criminalization is too complex and too uncomfortable to be accounted for by the same system that created the harm. How do you measure the impact of being a target growing up? How do you measure the impact of your loved ones getting swept into an unforgiving system of mass incarceration? How do you measure the psychological toll? How do you measure oppression?

You don’t.

At first, I couldn’t wrap my mind around it. But the more I studied it, the more I understood. For legalization to pass, it had to be “race-neutral”. So instead of directly addressing harm done to Black communities, it used proxies. Indirect language, casting a wide enough net to catch the necessary support with the hopes that people targeted through cannabis criminalization would be among those who benefit.

That realization sparked me.

While the government may have to play politics and be race-neutral, businesses don’t.

What if I built a cannabis company that explicitly centered Black communities?
Not indirectly. Not through generic language. But with intention and purpose.

That’s when Itz Personal took shape into what it is today.

In June 2025, I officially launched and was selected for the Finnovation Fellowship. That experience pushed me to move from intuition to validation, really understanding the problem I was solving.

What I found was clear:

There are consumers who care deeply about where their money goes but feel disconnected from an industry that talks about justice without proving it. They don’t trust corporations or government promises.

They want transparency and accountability.
They want to see impact, not just hear about it.

I started building for them. For you.

Itz Personal is a restorative justice cannabis venture designed to make legalization actually mean something.

We prioritize Black-owned brands in our supply chain. We reinvest a portion of every sale into Black communities. And we prove it through radical transparency. Itz Personal transforms every purchase into a measurable act of repair.

That clarity led me into Phase 2 of the Finnovation Fellowship and a $50,000 investment to move toward execution.

We’re still pre-revenue, but we’ve been building with intention.

We’ve developed the brand. We’re growing a strong Inner Circle. We’ve laid the operational foundation, from compliance to financial modeling to impact measurement.

And we’re just getting started.

I’m intentional about how I use resources because I understand the reality of this industry. It’s not easy for anyone, and for Black people like me - without inherited economic or social capital - the margin for error is even smaller. That’s why I’m focused on sustainability over speed. I’m not chasing money. I’m building toward liberation.

As part of this Inner Circle, you are part of the foundation.

What we’re building with Itz Personal is more than a cannabis dispensary. We’re modeling what it looks like to make conscious consumerism convenient, enjoyable, and high quality - while ensuring repair is not just an idea, but a reality.

The next step is funding.

We’re launching training workshops to support cannabis professionals who want to operate with social equity at the center. We’re rolling out apparel and merchandise so the Inner Circle can represent the brand. And we’re kicking off a fundraising campaign to fuel what comes next.

Once we’re fully operational, we’ll look back at this stage and appreciate how much impact we built from the ground up, together.

Itz Personal.