Ex-Facebook Employee Enters Edibles Market with Hope

Image via PlusGum.com

Jake Heimark is well prepared to enter the cannabis marketplace thanks to a two-year stint on Facebook’s risk management team. Working with a giant like Facebook taught Heimark how to build a great product and how to cultivate a company culture that values “moving fast,” according to Business Insider.

Heimark is currently launching the second product from his cannabis edibles company, Plus, and admits that he indulges in cannabis only when testing his own product, a medicated gum.

Plus Gum, which tastes like spearmint and just a hint of cannabis, gets users their medicine faster than other edibles because it’s absorbed through the thin lining of the mouth. It also has less than five calories, making it one of the most trim-waist-friendly edibles on the market. Each piece of Plus Gum provides 25 milligrams of THC.

A California native, Heimark packed his bags and moved to Colorado when the idea for his new company wouldn’t leave his mind. He stayed in an AirBnB and joined a cannabis start-up accelerator called Green Labs before entering into the edibles market.

Heimark and his cofounders, Roy McFarland and Justin “Crunchy” Crunchington, studied different recipes and chemistry compounds in gums, in the Denver library, and spent every night crafting and creating their unique gum product. Since gum isn’t digested, but is taken orally, there was an opening in the market for a unique infused product that helps patients quicker than a brownie or cookie.

Now, Plus Gum delivers psychoactive effects within 15 minutes of chewing, Heimark says. He credits a “secret element” contained in their pending patent for improving taste, according to Business Insider.

Plus also offers a tin of cannabis-infused gummies in their brand line-up. Using some of the same science developed for the gum they aimed to make the gummies just as fast-acting as the gum, but it still doesn’t quite live up to the success of the gum.

As Plus gears up for recreational in California this November (and an expansion to Colorado in 2017), Heimark said these times remind him of being at Facebook. “What I love about this industry is that it is brand-new and growing. It’s so exciting and changing every day,” Heimark told Business Insider. “I was part of tech, and I’ve seen what that felt like. I can tell you this feels the same, if not even faster growing.”