Nina Lowman of Indica Dreams on growing a successful CBD business
Describe your business in a few words:
My name is Nina Marie Lowman, I’ve resided in Orlando, FL for 20+ years, and I own and operate a CBD wellness brand by the name of Indica Dreams. We manufacture and retail a growing line of full-spectrum vegan wellness products.
What was your background prior to starting your own business?
Prior to starting Indica Dreams, I held a corporate position in a business intelligence company for 9 years.
Did you always know you wanted to be an entrepreneur?
In a sense yes, I was an entrepreneur before I knew what the word was. While I always held a job, I often had a “side-hustle” and have had more than one business along the way. However, the main difference with Indica Dreams is its incredibly personal to me because of what my mother and I went through while battling her cancer.
Take us back to when you first launched your business, what was your marketing strategy to get the word out and did it go as planned?
Due to the nature of my business, traditional marketing such as Google, F& IG ads are difficult to obtain so we had to be creative and depend heavily on ambassadors, which we actually call Dreambassadors, social media, local pop-ups, and getting our products in brick & mortar locations as well as national and international marketplaces. This strategy has worked pretty well for us thus far, and we’ve definitely learned a lot along the way.
What is the accomplishment you are the most proud of to date?
This is such a difficult question for me to answer because I don’t walk around necessarily feeling proud of this or proud of that, I am definitely my biggest critic! However, for the sake of answering this question I’ll say it is pushing past my fear of starting another business at the age of 40 and being deathly afraid of failure. The fear was almost crippling at one point, so I’m very happy that I was able to get past that.
Do you believe in work/life balance? What are some of your best tips?
Absolutely, especially since a healthy work//life balance is part of self-care. However, this area can be pretty gray for me because I absolutely love what I do and because of that it often does not feel like work, which can easily lead to me over-working myself. My mother is very good at reminding to take breaks for myself, and not feel guilty about it,
What’s a piece of advice you can share that you wish you’d known when you first started your Entreprenista journey?
Be prepared to fail your way to the top or fall forward…I know it sounds weird, but hear me out.
I always thought the hardest part was getting the business off of the ground, and boy was I wrong.
For me the hardest part is managing, growing, and scaling the business once it has launched, all while making mistakes along the way. I don’t regret the mistakes, however, because they are simply lessons, and I am grateful for them.
Also, don’t ever be afraid to ask for help, and never feel guilty about taking time to rest so you are the best version of yourself for your brand, employees, and customers, In full transparency, I am still growing into the latter.
What have you achieved recently that you’d like to celebrate with our community?
I want to celebrate Indica Dreams’ 1 year anniversary with our amazing group of fearless badasses, as well as the launch of our new line of products (luxury bath bombs, creams, and Soy CBD candles. We’re just getting started and we can’t wait to grow with you all.
What’s next for your business? What can we expect to see over the next few years?
We’ll continue to develop our line of wellness CBD products, expand our brand, our reach, and put our customers needs first, the sky is the limit for Indica Dreams.
What excites you about being an Entreprenista League member?
I’m always excited to meet, chat, and collaborate with like-minded individuals because the possibilities are truly endless. We get to inspire, motivate, support, and cheer one another on, what can be better than that?