The episode elucidates the innovative journey of Daniel Johansson, the founder of Helsama, a burgeoning hemp brand that commenced its sales in March.

In a remarkable endeavor, Daniel has established a cross-border supply chain that leverages the historical significance of Gotland, a Swedish island renowned for its hemp production during the Hanseatic period.

This strategic choice is not merely a marketing ploy; it stems from the island's unique environmental conditions, which yield hemp strains with 35% higher CBD content than those cultivated in other regions.

Daniel's approach, characterized by transparency and a commitment to education, navigates the stringent compliance landscape of Europe, where he cannot disclose specific health benefits of his products.

As he shares his insights and experiences, we gain a profound understanding of the intersection of history, agriculture, and entrepreneurship within the hemp industry.

he episode features an enlightening dialogue between Tyler Hemp and Daniel Johansson, the visionary behind Helsama, a burgeoning hemp brand that has recently entered the market.

Daniel's journey is remarkable, as he has ingeniously established a cross-border supply chain that utilizes the rich historical heritage of Gotland, an island renowned for its historical significance in hemp cultivation during the Hanseatic period.

This geographical advantage, combined with innovative farming techniques, has enabled Helsama to produce hemp with an astonishingly high CBD content, approximately 35% greater than that derived from crops cultivated in regions like Italy or Bulgaria.

The conversation delves into the intricacies of hemp farming, the environmental factors that contribute to the superior quality of Gotland's hemp, and the regulatory challenges that Daniel faces in Europe, where he must navigate stringent compliance laws that restrict the sharing of health-related information about hemp products.

Through candid discussions about his experiences and the hurdles he has encountered, Daniel embodies the spirit of transparency and authenticity, making this episode a profound exploration of the intersection of history, agriculture, and entrepreneurial spirit in the hemp industry.

Key Takeaways:

• The conversation highlights the unique attributes of Helsama, a hemp brand established in March, emphasizing its innovative cross-border supply chain, which facilitates sourcing from Gotland, Sweden, and processing in Estonia.
• Daniel Johansson, the founder of Helsama, possesses a remarkable narrative that intertwines personal health challenges with a passion for cannabis and a commitment to quality hemp production.
• The historical significance of hemp cultivation in Gotland, which was a prominent hub during the Hanseatic period, is intricately connected to Helsama's mission and product sourcing strategy.
• The podcast underscores the challenges of operating within Europe's stringent regulatory framework, particularly regarding the marketing and communication of product benefits to consumers.
• Daniel's approach to building his brand is marked by transparency and a focus on consumer education, leveraging customer experiences while navigating complex compliance realities in the cannabis industry.
• The discussion also touches on the importance of community engagement and local marketing strategies, including participation in events and the utilization of social media to foster connections within the hemp industry.

Links referenced in this episode:

• Helsama
• HempAware.com

Companies mentioned in this episode:

• Claude code

Foreigners.

Welcome to another hempisode of Hemp Aware Radio.

This is your hemptrepreneurial host, Tyler Hemp, here to hemp power your hemposphere as usual.

And on today's show I have Daniel Johansson and he's the founder of Helsama.

It's a hemp brand that only started selling this past March.

So they're brand new, fresh startup and I'm really excited to share his story.

He's done something that most operators never attempt, which is he built a cross border supply chain that turns a Swedish island's history into an amazing hemp based product.

Helsama sources hemp grown on Gotland, process it in Estonia and ships it across the eu.

But the Gotland choice isn't marketing.

During the Hanseatic period, that island was one of the great hemp hubs of Northern Europe.

English and Dutch warships were rigged with ropes grown from hemp, the same conditions that made it work.

Then the drainage, the soil, the intense run off near 19 hour summer days.

These are Daniel's, you know, kind of strategies for building an amazing strain of hemp that produces like 35% higher CBD than crops grown, you know, like from Italy or Bulgaria for example.

So what makes him a great guest is that he's not a hemp lifer, he's a builder and a researcher who fell into the plant through its history.

He's coded the entire Helsama site and hemp history mapping app that he actually built with Claude code.

We'll talk about here in a little bit.

And he can talk for hours on Norse, if I'm pronouncing that correctly.

The hemp seeds in, you know, the, that were utilized by the Vikings and the DNA trail linking Scandinavia and Indian spiritual traditions through cannabis.

He's running all of it inside Europe's brutal compliance reality where he legally can't tell customers what this product does.

So he's got to let kind of the overall industry information out there educate people and just essentially present exactly what he has to offer.

So after two months of, you know, being on this journey, he's being completely transparent about what he's still figuring out and what's working, what's not working and what kind of makes this an honest conversation.

And I'm really excited to share with you guys what he's up to.

So thank you so much Daniel, appreciate you being here.

Thank you.

Tyler, I was amazed that you have done your research.

You got everything there.

Totally, man.

Yeah, appreciate you.

It's important to know knew who I'm Talking to.

For those that don't know who you are, can you kind of share a little bit about, like, your background, like, where you came from and kind of your roots and ultimately what led you up to being introduced to hemp?

Yeah.

That was the only thing you didn't.

Didn't know.

I think my.

My story is not on the website or anywhere like that, but I was.

I got sick when I was 16 and in the hospital, they didn't really know what it was until much later, and I got paralyzed and.

And a lot of symptoms from Lyme.

A lime.

A thick bite.

Wow.

So I had the.

The antibiotics didn't really work for me after I had that for many months.

So I got into alternative things, and cannabis was one of them I found when I was 16, and then I was growing for 10 years.

Now I haven't done that for 10 years, but I have a long history with the plant.

Wow.

And I've been.

Yeah, it's been close to me for.

For most of my life now.

How did cannabis help with Lyme's disease?

I mean, that's a pretty serious thing to be dealing with.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

It didn't cure it like that, but it made life much easier.

My body was not in a nice state.

What were some of the symptoms you were going through that cannabis helped you navigate through?

I was very uncomfortable in my body.

I don't really know how to explain it because I was very active when I was young, playing football and these things.

And then I was in the hospital for many months and they were trying to figure out what it was.

And.

And then it.

Antibiotics was like, helping for a week.

And then it.

Symptoms came back all the time.

So I had.

It was.

It felt like I was a bit locked in my body.

Nothing was.

I wasn't really feeling good, you know, but everything was stagnated, especially, like headaches and things like that.

My head was not good.

And so cannabis made it much more bearable.

Okay.

So you kind of help dull that fiery, inflammatory, like, uncomfortable feeling in your.

In your body.

Yeah, I still had the symptoms, but it helped a lot.

So I got very close to it.

There's not that many herbs or plants that have the same results.

I think is a very powerful plant.

Right.

Big support.

Wow.

And so you were introduced to the plant from that sort of cannabinoid, psychoactive pain relief sort of benefit.

And then eventually you began discover some historical events that occurred within the area that you're from in Sweden.

And you learned, like, about warships being rigged with Hemp rope and how this area was just rich with.

With hemp in cannabis growth.

How did you actually come across that history?

Like what, what led you up to that?

During all the years when I was growing, I didn't really know so much.

But you know, you research things as you go along and the Internet is great.

You can find all, you know, other people's research, like the.

Now like the DNA things came out two years ago connecting Scandinavia to India and.

But those things have been looked upon for, for many years, like in comparative studies.

You know, when you see the same type of archetypes there, like Tour has his thunder and in India you have the Indra character and the same characteristics.

This, and this is like for so many things you have the sua.

In India and in Scandinavia we call it M or M. It's like.

And it's the same like explanation.

And there's so many things in the whole Norse mythology, like it's just a copy paste of the Indian, basically.

Interesting.

So same story, just different names, different characters.

Yeah, well, some names are the same also.

Okay.

And bizarreness is basically the same character.

And it's the goddesses that protect Soma or Mia.

And it's many parallels.

Yeah, interesting.

Yeah.

But I got interested.

The plant helped me a lot.

So I want to know everything about it.

And I, when I was growing also myself illegally for many years, I noticed also there is something special with all the sun in the summer.

As I told you when we first had a talk, there is a lot of sun up here near the more close to the Arctic Circle you get the more light in the summer.

And in the winter we have three hours of daylight, but in the summer we have a lot of daylight.

And you can taste and experience and feel that in the.

In the plant, in the, in the.

Yeah, in the experience of the cannabis.

When you grow with her, it's different.

Yeah.

Right.

So based on some tests, you guys found that like there's 35% higher CBD levels than some other strains that might be grown in like Italy or Bulgaria, other regions.

We just compare the same seeds and strains growing in different countries from, from our distribute where we buy the seals from in Bulgaria.

And we got the analysis from him from the other customers.

And we can compare, but it's just two seasons in with these new CBD strains that were.

They haven't been legal to grow for that long time in Europe.

But we will see more data in the years coming now.

But I definitely think there is something here that's very interesting.

Yeah, well, so do you think that it's strictly because of the daylight hours, or do you think it has something to also do with the soil or the environment in Gotland?

Why it grows so well there?

Is it pretty much the sunlight?

No, everything sunlight is, I think, a big part of it, but you can find a clean environment anywhere in the world.

But Gotland has limestone.

It's.

Has no allergens.

It's.

It checks the boxes of all of many things that hemp likes.

Drainage and sun hours and me soil.

Yeah, it is very.

Like, everything grown on Gotland is famous in Sweden.

Like, all the food just tastes better.

Nice.

I've heard from a gentleman named Paul Stanford here in the United States is that the plant produces the oils as a result of, like, a sunscreen.

It's like a protective sunscreen.

And so the more sun that you have, the more cannabinoid and resinous compounds are produced because of that counteracting balance of the sunlight.

So it's almost like the plant's natural sunscreen to protect it from all of that sunlight.

That's.

That's kind of been a theory that I've subscribed to over the years.

That could explain it.

Mm.

Interesting.

Your farmers have.

Have never grown hemp before, Right.

Like, you're working with newer farmers to this plant.

Obviously, they've been farmers.

And yet even though they're just getting started, you guys were able to pull in, like, over 300 kilos off of a half of an acre within experienced hemp growers.

Is that.

Is that right?

Yeah, the first time they grew the first harvest.

And this year we have two new farmers also trying it for the first time.

But I think we have to give the credit to the plant.

It's very.

Has a lot of life force.

Yeah.

It becomes good even if you don't do anything.

Right.

Yeah, of course, you can do a lot of things also, but you just throw it out there, basically.

Nice.

So to kind of shift into more of, like, the compliance topic, like, in.

In Europe, you legally can't tell customers what the product does and how it works in the body.

And.

And you.

You can't really go into, like, any sort of health verbiage.

Right.

Like, you have to be very generic and pretty much just say, this is the product.

Right.

Is.

Is that been difficult for you?

Like, what.

What do you kind of do to navigate that conversation?

Or, like, how do you approach that?

Yeah.

So that's a very hard aspect of it.

I think in the future, it will be rewarded to start now, even Though it's hard to educate like this and talk about how you use it in these things.

The only way we can is to let customers tell their stories.

We don't say anything, but other people can say what they want and we can talk about the origin, where it comes from and the beautiful island and these things and not do like.

So there are so many loopholes and I think what other companies do is their business and I don't judge it, but I think we, we don't need to do those things.

I think we want to make it spread from the quality itself.

Yeah.

Let the speak for itself essentially and the customers speak for the product.

Yeah.

And I have to thank the States and all the other countries who we also can refer to.

We can say in Sweden we can't say anything but you can look up, you know, other markets.

Yeah.

Like what are people saying about this plant in United States or Canada or Europe?

Other places in Europe like Denmark and stuff like that, they're a little more open about it.

Yeah.

You can refer to also the old Chinese medicines and India.

It's a very old plant.

All this legal things in Europe is, is.

I don't know.

It's so, you know, obviously something very strange when they change the definition of novel foods and whatever.

It's a thousands of year old plant people have been using.

It's not a new food on the market.

Right, Exactly.

Yeah.

There's I think enough information out there for you to be able to navigate this.

But at the same time like wholesale CBD prices have collapsed not just in the United States, but all across Europe, you know, Italy, EU markets, you, you can't really compete on price with small scale northern farming with what you're doing.

Like how do you actually build a brand where quality and, and origin carry, you know, the premium.

Like are you still able to offer it at the prices that you're.

You're wanting to and like how do you kind of work through that?

It works because we have a unique product.

So at the moment we're the only ones growing this, these new CBD strains in Scandinavia.

So there is no other like of the same genetics here from north at the moment.

And then also I don't want to talk about all the other companies, but wholesale has dropped a lot.

The price to consumers have, have not dropped as much.

That's good to know.

Our pricing in Sweden is actually not the most expensive.

They are more expensive that still buy much cheaper than we produce from Italy or other countries.

So.

Yeah.

Mm.

Gotcha.

That's.

That's good to know.

So you have more margins to work with, basically because you're producing your own powderized, like extract.

Right.

It's like a raw powderized form of, of the plant.

I don't know if you can call it an extract.

It's just, we just mill the flowers and we have some other products also the hemp seeds and these things.

But for this 3D product, it's just the hemp flowers.

Okay.

So just like a ground up powderized version of the plant.

So it's in the raw form.

Yeah, yeah, gotcha.

Okay.

And that's how I enjoy to use it myself.

Yeah.

Where do you, where do you think the benefits are?

Like, what do you see as eating the raw plant with the, the cbda, the, the acidic version of CBD in that raw form?

Like what, what is the benefit of consuming it in that form versus decarboxylated, kind of already converted into cbd?

I think both are good in their own ways.

There was one like, you know, animal study and there's not so much studies on CBD yet, but this one, like, it connects to how I experience it also.

And other people and one interesting thing they saw was that the CBDA and the CBD connects to different receptors.

So it has not the same feeling.

Like everyone who's used it know CBD is more a body feeling.

It could, you know, maybe be a good sleep or recovery thing.

CBDA is not that even though you convert in the stomach, in the metabolics, CBD to cbd, you still also get the cbda and that has a different effect.

Doesn't have the CBD feeling.

But I, I think it's, it has more of could affect on like mental.

I don't, I have to get stuck here because I don't know how to explain it without, you know, making a mistake.

But sure, yeah.

So rather than a body experience with the cbd, with the cbd, a.

It has more of a, a mental, emotional, kind of like more psychotropic effect.

Even though it's not psychoactive, it has more of that mental balancing effect.

Is that kind of what you're saying?

It connects to serotonin and these things.

I.

Lighter and a bit like positive maybe.

You know, that's how I experience it.

Gotcha.

Very cool.

So kind of getting into like your, your company and the vision of the brand and what you're working to do here.

You've got a public facing partner whose audience like you're activating.

He's kind of helping you get the word out there with like the next harvest, you guys are going to kind of document that, share what you're doing.

How are you thinking about the timing of that bigger launch?

Do you feel like your overall strategy is to just share your story on social media, organic, or what's your main method of marketing and getting your message out there?

We're gonna try.

We want to do everything we can.

Not just one avenue.

We want to expand.

We built some affiliate system also.

At the moment it seems we're adapting our strategy a bit and we're gonna use my partner's Instagram and his socials a bit sooner than the next harvest.

So we're gonna be like working on his.

That introduction to do that as soon as possible.

Now instead, let me also, you know,.

Sorry, what is his handle on Instagram so our audience can go check it out.

Do I write it or I can say it?

Yeah, say it and then I'll put it in the show notes as well.

It's his name.

It's Eric Hogbag, which is his first and last name.

I'll just check here.

So I stayed correctly.

Yeah, I can link it in you to you.

Yeah, you can see, that's great.

I'll make sure that it's in the show notes.

Cool.

So your, your objective is kind of do it as much as you can to get the word out.

So if we were to consider the different avenues of marketing, like the different channels, would you say you're.

You're going it after like direct mail, like sending postcards to people?

Is it live events, like online social media like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, etc, YouTube?

What do you feel like are going to be the core channels that you guys go go after?

We at moment we are using Facebook and Instagram and they started a YouTube channel also.

And we're going to do podcast now in the summer.

We're going to start with some pods and build SEO with time.

Not sending postcards, haven't thought about that, but events.

We're going to go to the Hemp Festival in Sweden and try to be active at least in the summers here and then also spreading out to other countries.

And it's, it's a lot of fun to talk about Sweden and all this history.

You know, that you introduced me with.

A lot of people don't know these things, so it's.

I enjoy that a lot also.

Mm, very cool.

Okay, so I guess in terms of the, the, the methods that you're using.

So you said Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, kind of getting on podcasts, getting the wor.

What have you Found so far, even in the embryo stages, the very beginning stages of launching a company.

What has been the most effective way of generating sales and getting interest and getting out there for.

For you guys personally?

For us, it has been Facebook groups.

We have used.

It's free and we can talk about what we do to the audience who are already like, into alternative medicine or hemp in Scandinavia.

Nice start.

Started locally, you know, with our own markets.

Gotcha.

Okay, so Facebook groups, basically, is that particularly in Sweden or groups that are based out of the EU or around the world?

No, it's Scandinavian groups.

Okay.

There are communities for all these things that have thousands of members and we just are active in them and share what we do, the origins and these things.

And people have picked up on it and been very interested because they're from.

You know, that sets us aside a little bit.

There is no one else in Sweden doing this cbd.

Yeah.

Right, Right.

Awesome.

We got viral into posts and a lot of people share them and it's fun.

Cool.

So just getting out there, providing value, networking, connecting and.

And doing that within your region has been pretty effective.

So I. I'm curious about the.

Yeah, small events also has been a lot of fun.

Went very well.

Like just a few hundred people, but then you get a lot of time to speak with people.

Yeah.

More quality than quantity.

Yeah.

Nice.

So I'm always curious about kind of the origin of.

Of words and the meaning of words, like definitions of words.

Can you tell us a little bit about how you came to Helsama as the name of the company?

Like, what's.

What's the story behind that?

So the root is heel, and I'd say that's the word like healing and whole came from in the English language and it's the word in Scandinavia for mother Earth, the mountain.

It's like Pachamama.

If you go to the Amazonas, you know, it's like a name for the planet.

Right.

In the ice age when it was very cold a few.

Few thousand years ago, 10, 12, 000 years ago, people actually took shelter in caves and like it was a protective, like, survival thing.

And you can trace the oldest archaeology like artifacts you find in the earth.

When you dig in archaeology, these are like, like women shape like, you know, a mother symbol kind of thing in Europe.

And I think you can also find that in other parts of the world also.

Like it.

Yeah, it's a like he almost like a mother kind of thing is it became a goddess in north mythology.

Nice.

So Hillsama is also like, you know, we call our indigenous people in Russia, Norway, Finland and Sweden they have like reindeer still like they always have had for.

For thousands of years.

And they live up in the north and so amazed like the other part of hill Hill Sama.

And in Swedish to be healthy, you say health like helsam.

It's like the same but you spell it a bit differently instead of E. But it sounds like being healthy.

Right?

Almost sounds like the word wholesome as well.

Yeah.

Something that's perfect, whole and complete.

Yes.

And I love it.

You have that kind of the mother earth energy with.

Combined with healing.

Like that's, that's a beautiful story behind the name.

I appreciate you sharing that.

Thank you for appreciating it.

Yeah.

So just kind of a couple last questions here before we wrap up.

And I appreciate everything you guys are doing.

I get the, the vibes from your overall story and product and the fact that it's raw, straight from the earth and just the quality of the environment.

Like probably some of the best products in the world from, from what I can tell from over here, it's no small words.

So as far as your overall vision with this company, like what would you hope to achieve and what's kind of the long term vision with this brand and with this company?

We would love to make it, you know, Alzama, like a healthy relationship to the plant.

You know, I, when I got into it, I smoked for many years also.

Like I know a lot of people like to do and, and that could be also, you know, good.

But I did it too much and I think that's not.

I think eating and like being using it that way is much more better and I prefer that much more now in later years.

And also the raw plant, you know, so how I like like it myself basically and everything about Islam is just how we want it ourselves.

We want to with our experience also let people know how we found a working relationship with the plant.

Beautiful.

Have that spread.

Awesome.

And for those that are just getting started or maybe thinking about launching a hemp company and working with CBD or any other aspect of the plant?

They just have this dream and this vision to work with hemp and bring hemp products to the market.

What bit of advice would you share or what are some of the hurdles or challenges that you faced that you would share with somebody just wanting to get into this industry?

The biggest obstacle is the fear to start because everything is so messy.

But I think that's what we chose to do is to take risk because we think eventually it will be Open market and everything you do now will be worth it it in, in the future.

But yes, start would be my.

If you want to do this and if you can't let it go, maybe you should do it and, and see, you know, there's always going to be problems and maybe there's a lot of problems to solve, but if you can find, if, if you, if you have like a strong will for this plant and you will find a way and you will solve problems along the way.

What was that one thing for you?

Like, what was that one like that first step that you took to get your, your vision to come to life?

With Helsama, I didn't actually have all the parts.

I've been wanting to work with it for a long time and then I just decided that I want to work with this now.

So I, I just, you know, said, let's start to my friend and we started making, you know, first you do the blueprints, like the concepts and maybe you put up the website a little bit just to have, you know, you do.

You start by taking some steps, but we didn't know how everything would.

We didn't even have the hemp, you know.

Yes, a few steps.

And then I started calling people and that's how we found the farmers on Gotland and we started working with them and when we saw the quality, it was like, okay, that gave a lot of motivation because it was like so good.

And then we just went from that point we went really full into it and started working.

Like when we could see how it could actually work, then it was just fun to.

But then there's been, you know, more problems and issues and you found ways.

But I think just starting taking steps, even if you don't have everything on a plate in front of you and you will find ways, just take that.

First step no matter what.

It is like getting a website, having conversations, calling companies, just taking action is what's going to help you get past that fear.

Yeah.

And you know.

Yeah, exactly.

Love it.

You decide and you do it.

And then you at least will not have regret.

When you're old saying, I should have done that.

But if you tried and it failed, you will not have the regret.

So just do it.

You will be rewarded even if you fail.

Absolutely.

Very well said.

Well, as a couple less questions here on, we talked about Claude code and how you use cloud code to build a really cool map of the world and then you used it to build your existing website.

Can you tell us what inspired you to want to use Claude Code versus any other platform.

And kind of what your process was like a very brief version.

You don't have to get into detail, but curious how you that I just.

Want to correct one thing there because the Hemp Signal website, the world was.

I just did that very recently and that was like a fun thing.

Yes, they could do with cloud code, but I started building website and these things many months ago, so I started with that and I wasn't using cloud code in the beginning, but I got like tips from other entrepreneurs and when someone told me to use cloud code a second time, I listened and I looked into it and then I noticed everything was better than the tools I used before it.

And since then I've been into building all the organization things and wipe coding with cloud code and highly recommend it if someone haven't tried it yet.

You know, you have your terminal on your own computer.

You can create, build things and it's really good at building things.

You have ideas you can build, it can help you a lot.

Absolutely.

Well, one final question I have here that I like to ask my guests is if you were on a world stage and you were speaking to every single human being on the planet and you could share one message with them that you would want to leave them with or say to them to inspire them to.

To one thing, what would you want every human being on the planet to know?

So if.

If I get that opportunity, I want to make the best of it.

And I wasn't prepared for that question, but okay, I'll say something.

Maybe.

Yeah, yeah, maybe something cliche that will sound cliche, but trust yourself, be kind and yeah, do what you do, what you love to do.

It's quite simple.

Trust yourself, be kind, and do what you love to do.

Yeah, the.

Don't let anything else decide, like let fear hold you back from living your life.

Mm.

Don't let that fear hold you back.

I love it.

Well, Daniel, this has been thoroughly enjoyable and really love your vision and purpose, what you're doing and I look forward to helping you in other ways get this out there.

And for those of you who haven't already visited, can you share where people can find you?

Like, where are you hanging out?

Where can you invite them to come order your products or just come follow you and check out your work?

Anyone can write me.

If you write Hilsama, I will be answering emails on the socials.

So if someone wants to reach out, you're happy to connect.

It's Hilsama Puntless.

Maybe you can provide a link or something.

Definitely.

And I appreciate talking with you a lot also.

It's.

It was really nice, and I look forward to speaking to you again.

Awesome.

Well, thank you, everyone, for tuning in to another hempisode.

This is your hemptrepreneurial host, Tyler Hemp, and I'll see you on the next one.

Thanks, buddy.

That was fun.

Yeah, thank you.

It's very appreciated to have space to speak.