Meet Felix Alanis | HighDroGro developer & CEO

We had the good fortune of connecting with Felix Alanis and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Felix, what do you attribute your success to?
I don’t have a financial success metric per se, other than staying “in the positive.” My biggest success factor is driven by how well I sleep at night, and how well I sleep at night always seems to boil down to 1) are my customers happy? and 2) Are my tents and kits providing the quality that people who buy MY brand, are looking for? For the last year or so I have slept very well and we have grown significantly. So what does this tell me, 1) focusing on customer experience (which covers a multiple of factors) and 2) making the necessary changes to optimize our product designs improve quality has resulted in strong organic growth and left us well positioned to be a leader in the Grow tent space. . We are in our 4th year now and I feel we are very successful

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
As an over 60 years old guy, that’s a question you may regret asking! When my father saw that I was not making any plans to go to college after HS, he got me a job at this giant factory in California where we lived and where he was a fairly Sr. manager, called Rocketdyne. Turned out I was pretty good at factory, Not at making things but at doing the support jobs. I worked in the “tool crib” and basically handed out screw drivers and towels to wipe up oil. I worked my way into engineering departments like “design change control” ands “project liaison.” I enjoyed working and learning stuff in this environment, it seemed way more interesting than school, and it was a union job so I was making about 5 times more then all my friends from day one. After six years I left Rocketdyne and went on to work for 5 different multi billion dollar manufacturers over the next 35 years or so. I found that many of the core principles of being a good and respectful person paid off for me the most and also that I was a good listener. Aside from my :factory life” I was an avid music lover, I was a teenager in the era of early heavy metal, like Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple and Alice Cooper as well as other great artists from Leon Russell to Bob Dylan. I liked music so much that I opened a record shop, “Empire Records and tapes” around 1978 while still at Rockwell. And I would notice a pattern throughout the years that, whatever the hobby I was doing, I would look to turn it into a business. Quick example, I have three daughters. Growing up in southern California it was very common for your kids to try their luck at modeling and acting. All 3 girls had taken dance lessons since they could walk. To start this “career” the first thing that happens is you need to find an agent and then he will tell you that you need to get “headshots” and then he would give you the name of a few photographers. That would set you back about $500 a kid. And since they were kids you needed fresh pictures about every 4 months. Each time I went with the kids to see the “photographer” it was a guy in his garage with a background canvas, 2 lights and and a camera. After the second round I bought the camara, background lights and a how to book for portraits. The next time we went to the agent he looked at the pictures and asked, “where did you get these done?” I thought uh-oh he caught me. I told him I took them. He said he loved them and asked if he could send new kids to me. He said he sees kids everyday that need pictures. So I said sure and I start Visual Appeal photography. Within a year all of my free time was booked with kids pictures, then it grew to family portraits and then weddings. In the meantime all three of my daughters had gotten bored with Modeling and quit. I was stuck with this side job photography business! Somewhere between that business and my record store I also started to play in a punk rock band. This came about because I used to enjoy writing poems and song lyrics as my way of doodling I guess. One day while I was working at the record store and writing poems a customer walked in and asked what I was doing. I told him and he said, I’m a guitar can I have a look. I said sure and he flipped through a few pages and said, I can write some songs with those words. I said sure and he took off. About a week later he returned and had put a few of my lyrics to music. That was very cool, but when he tried to teach them to me, so I could sing them we learned I could not sing. That didn’t deter us and we continued to write more songs and get a drum and bass player to join us. The kid knew a manager and he asked him to come over to the back of the record store, where we rehearsed, to see us play. He listened to about 2-3 songs and then said, take that last song you just played and play it again as fast as you possibly can. The result of that was that instead of singing it was all I could do to just yell the words to keep up. The guy goes, yep, that’s it. We said, that’s what? He said, haven’t you heard of punk rock? He goes you have the biggest record store in the valley, hold on he said, and he went out into the store. He came back with a Ramones record, a Stranglers record and a Clash & Sex Pistols albums. He goes, haven’t you seen these? They’re in your record store! Listen to them and see where it leads. Immediately the guitar player and drummer became immersed in it. Fast forward, I used the band to start an independent record label (Smoke 7 records) and signed Bad Religion and many other punk bands to recording and record deals. By creating the label and signing bigger bands than ourselves we were able to get into a lot of clubs and play gigs that other new punk bands would not be able get on, as well as we were able to get a lot more visibility than maybe we should have. But ultimately we recorded 13 CD’s over 40 years and if I say “Alexa play RF7 (my band name) she has almost the whole catolog in her library. That was a big step to me. Also, Spotify and all those platforms have my bands music (RF7) in their catalogs. All that is to say this, I believe the culmination of all these various experiences and opportunities is what led me to HighDroGro. My background is now a combination of managing departments ranging from 20 to 60 people in top echelon companies. Environments where disciplined is stressed, and efficiency and productivity is measured, reviewed and continuously improved. But also in this background is the creative side which has been maintained through photography, songwriting and performing. Now the third leg of that stool is that through the entire span of those 40 years I was a home cannabis grower. Having gardens in the backyard of every house I lived in. That leads us to HighDroGro. As I was getting to my late 50’s and found out that I had done a very poor job managing money, I started a new side line dealing with outsourcing. You see, since 2001 I had been spending approx. 120 to 150 days per year in Asia. My jobs there had been first with a company called Teradyne and second with a printer company called Zebra. For both my initial job was to move their manufacturing from US to China, for cost savings. After 10 or 15 years I knew my way around China very well and had audited or evaluated companies all across Asia. I had started getting requests from lots of our colleagues and people I knew to help them find sources for different commodities. I helped a few and they would pay me for the help and so of course I thought this could be the business that helps make up for my poor retirement planning. Thus, New Trend Technology (www.newtrendtechnology.com) was born. One day in 2017 I was having dinner with a factory owner who I was meeting through another friend of mine. She had gone to university with this guy and now he owned a successful company that works with sewing different materials. That sounded good as I was getting calls from time to time from people looking to make a line of belts or something, so I agreed to meet the guy and see his factory. As it turned out I was only able to meet him for dinner due to other scheduling issues. We met for dinner and he was a nice guy and spoke pretty good English. He had mentioned that his biggest market segment was making Hydroponic grow tents. All through dinner these words Hydroponic Grow Tents kept rattling through my head. Then it clicked, I said, you mean hydroponic tents to grow marijuana? He said, yes, Marijuana. I said, “ok, now you have my attention.” I remembered where I had heard about it, it was all over the news, California had become the newest state to become legal for recreational marijuana including being able to grow your own 6 plants, and hydroponic tents were becoming the indoor way to do it. HighDroGro was borne that night and 18 months later in Feb of 2018 we launched HighDroGro at the Indo Expo in Denver Co. Wei was already on board at that time and this is where we met Mike and formed the nucleus of our company management team. I have taken so much tme here, but the last thing I’ll say regarding how we approached this business. After I returned home from China from that meeting with “Jery” the factory owner, I went to the biggest Hydroponics store I could find. Jery was going to send me a tent sample that would incorporate many of the ideas we had discussed that night. So I went to the hardware store to get the other stuff I would need. Jery had told me about needing lights and fans and stuff. I had no idea what he was talking about so I went to the store. I told the guy, “Hey, California is rec legal now, and I want to grow my 6 plants but all I have is an apartment right now. What do I need. He said, well, you need lights, they are on aisle 21, then you need a Carbon filter and fan assembly to reduce the smell and then you need timers, temp gauges, clip fans and…” and at that point my eyes had already glassed over. Don’t you just have one box that has all that stuff in it? He said, nope. This gave me the idea I needed. I had already been struggling with how to launch a new brand in this already occupied tent space. The brand Gorilla was the market leader by far. So my concept, which we launched was, HighDroGro the first “all in one box” Grow Tent Kit solution. Not only did we create the first ever kit, we also took the grow tent itself and changed the look. Virtually every other grow tent on the market had a black exterior and a silver metallic interior. Something I always say no significant other is going to let you keep that big nasty looking tent in the house. Grow tents were usually banished to the garage or basement or attic. So we created a beautiful grey exterior/white interior tent with lots of big windows that now becomes a decoration feature in your house. It will draw attention to a room not be something you are embarrassed of. Well this whole strategy worked beyond expectations. In fact, High Times Magazine Sr. editor Danny Danko was at the Denver expo when we launched and he happened to walk by our booth, As he walked by he stopped n his tracks and came into our booth. He said, “now this is what I have been talking about for 30 years. Everyone should be able to grow a few plants in there house without it being anyone’s business.” I didn’t think to much about it after that, except that it was cool to have the High Times guy like it, and the general launch went great!. In August, I received a phone call from a lady from High Times Magazine. She said, Danny Danko has awarded you the Best Grow Tent of 2018, would you please send us some pictures and info and you will be featured, with other winners in our October issue…

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
Well, this is not a strong suit for me, however I do get guests in from China fairly regularly (pre-pandemic) and that would usually cause me to hit all the standard spots, a ride up the 101 coastline with stops at Moonshadows toward Santa Monica or Brophy Brothers if we get as far up as Santa Barbara. Santa Monica pier is still a favorite and then the required Universal Studios or Disneyland. But for guests coming in from China I have found the most popular thing to do by far is invite them to spend a night or two at my house, with my family and live like us for a few days. Swim in the pool, play some billiards, BBQ on the patio, listen to music and play Bacce ball on the grass. Seeing how another culture lives is always a great experience.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
I am fortunate to gravitate towards motivated, encouraging and positive people. As an old guy, now I am able to utilize a careers worth of experience into developing another generation of good leaders. There are two significant contributors to HighDroGro, both have put there own imprint onto what the company has become. Mike Hankes joined HDG (Highdrogro) about 9 months after our launch, as sales manager. He has a traditional sales background having spent many years at Toyota. Mike was already a strong advocate of the cannabis culture and it’s medical and recreational benefits, so transitioning into cannabis sales has been a natural step for Mike. He is in his element when he’s talking about HDG products and the benefits of growing your own medicine. Except for about 6 months of being “grounded” during the pandemic, Mike has spent ~9 months of every year on the road managing booths at trade shows and expos, cold calling stores, hosting vendor days and staying very visible through social media as “mike the househusband.” Mike has become the face of HDG and proudly states he has been to the western most point of Hilo Hawaii and to the eastern most points of Maine for HDG. HighDroGro would not be the same without Mike’s contribution. On the the other side of the spectrum we have Wei Gao. Wei is a Chinese born US citizen and works as COO and managing partner of HDG. When I met Wei she had ambitions to run a small business. Her trained background is in IT and IT management. When I started talking to her about HDG my vision for the brand and the large China component (as all manufacturing is done in China) her curiosity was peaked. Once she was in, she was all in. Wei has had a hand in every facet of the business from managing manufacturing in China, booking overseas container shipping (including the mountains of complicated international paperwork!), designs the product packaging, handles the sourcing of many of our components, oversees our US warehouse, built the infrastructure of our website, manages the IT, manages the finances, , works the trade shows, manages a good percent of the travel, handles about 25% of the “customer issue calls” which include questions like, “does the G pole connect to the E pole?” and she has the answers on the top of her head. To say HighDroGro would not exist without Wei Gao is a monumental understatement! Thank you for asking!

Website: www.highdrogro.com

Instagram: @officialhighdrogro