Unscripted Small Business Podcast

Running a Botanical Wellness Brand: What One Founder Learned About Products, Regulations, and Building a Business Without a Playbook

🎙️ Unscripted Small Business Podcast

Running a Botanical Wellness Brand: Products, Regulations & Building Without a Playbook

Mark Gilliland of Kyoto Botanicals on six years building a THC-free hemp CBD brand without a paid media option — and why momentum is his most important business strategy.

▶ Listen to the Episode

What does it take to start a wellness brand in one of the most regulated and misunderstood product categories in the United States? Mark Gilliland, founder of Kyoto Botanicals, has been answering that question for six years — building a THC-free hemp CBD and functional mushroom brand from scratch, without a corporate safety net, without a paid media budget that actually works in this category, and without cutting corners on product quality or consumer transparency.

Building a Product Line with Scientific Integrity

Mark Gilliland: We use lion’s mane, reishi, chaga, and cordyceps — the four really main big functional mushrooms. We do a dual extraction process to break down the tough cell walls of mushrooms, called chitin. You can’t digest the cell walls of mushrooms, so you don’t really get any benefit if they’re not done the way that we do them.

These are not psychedelic at all. They are not in the family of mushrooms that have psilocybin. No high, no psychoactive impact. I do everything non-psychoactive — I’m here for wellness, not for altered states.

“Building a Spa Empire: Denise Dubois on Beauty, Wellness & Sustainable Business Growth” — the founder who opened her first spa in 1987 on why consistency is the only strategy that works in wellness, and how membership models change the game for small business sustainability.

— Denise Dubois, Complexion Spa | Listen: Denise Dubois on Building a Spa Empire →

Key Takeaways

  • Quality over quantity — in products and marketing. Focused product lines with scientific integrity beat bloated catalogs with shortcut production.
  • Know your regulatory landscape before you launch. For any product in a regulated category, understanding the patchwork of state and federal rules isn’t optional — it’s your competitive advantage.
  • In restricted ad categories, SEO is your primary growth engine. If you can’t run mass ads, you’d better own organic search. The fastest way to learn it is to build and break your own site.
  • Momentum is a strategy. Small, stacked positive changes in your health, habits, and business create compounding momentum that eventually feels unstoppable.

The Hot Take: Momentum Is Everything

Mark: I’m kind of obsessed with momentum over the last two to three years. It’s been a complete flip from the 20 years probably before that. Mushrooms, working out, going to bed at a reasonable time. Once you break through that unseen wall, all of these things are just great. I feel awesome when I wake up every day. What can I do next to make it even better? That’s been my enlightenment — I wasn’t expecting it and didn’t set out to find it. It just sort of happened.

Connect with Mark Gilliland

The Unscripted Small Business Podcast features candid conversations with founders and operators. Hosted by Jeremy Rivera.