Today we’d like to introduce you to Amos Lozano.
Hi Amos, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
After a health crisis involving muscle spasticity and spasms in 2013, I discovered the transforming power of juice fasting. I shared my experience of transforming my health with juicing, yoga/meditation, and plant-based living on Facebook and got an overwhelming response.
I had $29 left when I decided to start making and selling juice to my friends and family from my parent’s kitchen. This was the birth of the Famous Juice Company. In 2016, I began operating from a coop vegan store called Munch On and Beyond on the Northeast side of San Antonio. In 2017, I was selected to compete in American Ninja Warrior and was dubbed, The Juiced Up Ninja. I continued to bootstrap the business and grow as an entrepreneur learning the ins and outs of the business by doing.
Also later that year, we were the first juice bar in SA to began adding CBD to our juices, a local blog called Twenty Something SA wrote an article on that. I had always had a dream of juicing the raw cannabis plant giving my community access to the power of raw cannabinoids and educating people that Cannabis is much more than CBD and THC products. But due to the illegal nature of all cannabis at the time I was unable to get fresh cannabis leaves for juicing. In 2018, I launched the first CBD preroll joint company in San Antonio called Emjayze Hemp and became a speaker at local hemp/cannabis events and panels.
We also use hemp paper and hemp plastic packaging and offer hemp-made apparel. I chose to close Famous Juice Company in 2019 as it was a one-man show and I needed to focus on the booming hemp company. In 2020, I relaunched Famous Juice Company and Co-founded a Zero Waste store called the ReUp Station. In 2020, it became legal for local farmers to grow hemp plants and we became the first juice bar to offer raw cannabis hemp juices which were covered by Spectrum News. We struggled through the 2020 pandemic but were able to stay open.
At the end of 2020, I left that partnership due to different values and visions and decided to raise capital to scale Famous Juice Company as Texas’ first cannabis juice brand. Over 2021, I developed partnerships to redo the back end of the business in preparation for investors and our first location build-out. Today, we have built the first Hempcrete (a sustainable building material using cannabis fibers) building in San Antonio that will be our first Famous Juice location on the Northeast Side of San Antonio, we are looking to have a grand opening in March of 2022.
This location is also onsite of hemp grow enabling us to create a Farm-to-Bottle experience with our cannabis juices. We are the one and only raw cannabis Hempcrete juicery in the country currently and we plan to build 30 drive-thru locations in between Texas major cities to help solve Health Food Deserts while road tripping to other cities.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Entrepreneurship is always a rough road. Starting from nothing with no business experience, degree or mentorship adds even more to it. There were many weeks I was unsure if I would be able to continue the business or pay my bills. From closing to reopening to having to deal with restrictions in marketing cannabis and CBD on mainstream platforms it has been filled with struggles.
We have had 3 Instagram accounts shutdown, 2 bank accounts shut down, 1 Facebook page, 3 merchant processors shut down and I’ve even been held up by the DEA at an Oregon airport to “check-up” on me. Entrepreneurs deal with many unforeseen problems which are only amplified 10X when in a brand new industry that is transitioning in legality like the cannabis industry and especially in Texas.
Seeking investors and banks to work with is especially challenging. Finding good partners is also another struggle and I’ve been in and out of a few partnerships already, but I’m currently building a solid team to execute on the vision of being the first raw cannabis juice company in Texas and the country.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your business?
What makes my company unique and the core of our mission is teaching the community of San Antonio and Texas as a whole that Cannabis is more than just THC and CBD products. We SHOW how cannabis is more by utilizing hemp-made packaging, clothing, plastics, building materials, and even food and drinks using raw cannabis.
My CBD preroll company, Emjayze Hemp, packages our prerolls in hemp paper boxes and hemp plastic tubes while also offering hemp-made t-shirts, hoodies, and hats. Famous Juice Company’s first building is built out of cannabis Hempcrete and will serve fresh, raw cannabis hemp juices, smoothies, and bowls.
I am proud of the reputation we are building for being industrially hemp-focused with the ultimate goal of building a more sustainable and renewable future, not just using those buzzwords to greenwash our marketing, but actually taking legit action and direction that moves towards that sustainable future. We aim to make life easier to live healthier and more sustainable for our community.
In summary, Famous Juice company sells juices, smoothies, and bowls while utilizing hemp as a core ingredient in our menu as well as our sustainable building, Emjayze Hemp specializes in preroll joint manufacturing packaged in hemp made packaging. We also offer preroll manufacturing as a service to local Texas hemp growers, brands, and retailers.
Do you have any advice for those just starting out?
You can bootstrap the start-up, but you cannot bootstrap the scale-up. Build a team as early as you can, and develop a capital strategy for scaling. Take time to THINK and WRITE out your ideas and plans.
Lastly, building a great business or greatness, in general, is small wins daily so don’t look for the huge home runs instead seek to make little daily progress consistently. Practice aggressive patience and Know if you Put in the work the result will come IN TIME.
Don’t fall prey to instant gratification and think you’re failing because it hasn’t happened in one or two years. Commit 10+ years, and get to work getting 1% better every day.
Contact Info:
- Email: amos@famousjuicecompany.com
- Website: www.famousjuicecompany.com
- Instagram: @famousjuicecompany
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYt2KdmVME8rtsVZsfQ25FQ
