Jesce Horton is the kind of entrepreneur that builds the blueprint while others are still sketching. An engineer by training and a cultivator by trade, Horton has spent the last decade navigating cannabis from nearly every angle: nonprofit advocate, policy contributor, licensed grower, educator, and now brand builder. His fingerprints are on some of the most influential equity initiatives in cannabis, including the Minority Cannabis Business Association (MCBA) and NuProject, which has awarded over $4 million in grants and loans to entrepreneurs affected by the war on drugs.
His latest venture, Grand National, is focused on the next generation of cannabis brands—those that can speak fluently to the culture while building lasting equity.
Co-founded with NBA Hall of Famer Carmelo Anthony and award-winning creative director Brandon Pierce, Grand National is the branding and strategy behind STAYME7O, a lifestyle brand inspired by Anthony’s personal connection to the plant and built on rare genetics.
From phenotype hunts to multi-state rollout strategies, Horton and his team are approaching cannabis brand development with the same rigor he once applied to industrial systems. And with active operations in Oregon and New York—and more states on the way—he’s proving that cultural relevance and business fundamentals aren’t mutually exclusive.
In this wide-ranging conversation, Horton breaks down how engineering principles shape his cultivation strategy, why brand authenticity matters more than ever, and how partnerships with companies like Phylos Bioscience are helping STAYME7O deliver more than hype. The interview offers a detailed look at the systems behind the storytelling—and why the cannabis industry is still missing the mark when it comes to honoring the culture that built it.
Q&A with Jesce Horton
Cannabis & Tech Today: How does your engineering degree and plant sciences background help in the cultivation space?
Jesce Horton: Industrial engineering is all about designing systems for efficiency, particularly in manufacturing. That directly translates to cultivation. It’s about optimizing facility layout, workflow, and process—all while staying people-focused. Cultivation isn’t just about having a green thumb. It’s about designing systems that can consistently produce high-quality product. My plant science education helped me tie it all together: understanding how these systems affect plant physiology, quality, and yield.
C&T Today: You’ve been a leading voice in cannabis equity for nearly a decade. How do you see Grand National reshaping what success looks like for cannabis brands in 2025 and beyond?
Horton: For me, it’s always been about creating access. I got into this through advocacy—first with MCBA to work on policy, and then with NuProject to address capital. Now, I see branding as the next big lever. The biggest brands today often don’t speak to the real cannabis consumer—the people who built this culture. That’s a missed opportunity. With Grand National and STAYME7O, we’re focused on building brands that reflect cannabis culture and elevate legacy voices. That’s the future—brands rooted in authenticity that actually resonate.
C&T Today: What drew you to partner with Carmelo Anthony and Brandon Pierce on Grand National, and how did STAYME7O come to embody that shared vision?
JH: Brandon is my cousin. I’ve known him since I was really, really young. We have a family reunion next week—we’ve been going 135 consecutive years. So we’ve got a really great foundation of family. Growing up and just seeing what Brandon was doing with the amazing agencies he’s been leading—he is one of the top ad executives and creative directors in the nation. Forget the fact that he’s Black—just period.
So in understanding his growth and what he was doing and me wanting to start my brand, LOWD, that’s when we first started working together—creating that brand and launching that in Oregon and helping that to grow. What happened next was Carmelo happened to be traded to the Portland Trail Blazers. I had a few connections and was able to link with him just through love for cannabis and different cultivars and methodologies for growing.
That’s kind of how we started connecting—nerding out, Mello and I specifically. We started working on the STAYME7O brand—him, Brandon, and I—just kind of similar process to doing LOWD. And as we were doing that, we were like, “Man, we make a really great team.” There’s a really big need for these services—to connect brands with operators, to help operators differentiate, to help brands grow and to grow that offering on the dispensary floor. So soon after we started working on STAYME7O, we said, “We need to continue doing this work.” And we started Grand National.
C&T Today: What differentiates STAYME7O from other celebrity brands that can sometimes lack authenticity or that grassroots connection?
JH: I’ve been in Oregon and on the West Coast, and we’ve seen so many celebrity brands pop up and die. So much to the point where you almost get that feeling that just celebrity brands don’t work because people don’t like celebrities. And we all know that’s not the case. I think it comes down to the lack of authenticity in those brands and the fact that the cannabis consumer has been hoodwinked for many years, has been taken advantage of for many years, has been abused for many years.
So as this market is growing, when a cannabis consumer gets that feeling that you’re trying to take advantage of me or you’re trying to hoodwink me or pull the wool over my eyes just by slapping a name onto a bag—with most of the time mediocre product—there is a massive pushback against that idea.
And I think that’s where we do things differently with STAYME7O. First of all, Mello is a real cannabis consumer. Mello consumes at the level and appreciates cannabis at the level of the biggest connoisseur out there, even in Oregon. So he’s very closely connected to the plant through the idea of plant medicine and just a love for cannabis in general, with how it helps his body and how it helps his mentality—the STAYME7O mentality.
So it starts off with that—he’s just a really big lover of cannabis. And what comes next is, hey, let’s not just take the easy route, what everyone else has done, because we know that that’s not going to work. We decided to actually go into genetics. We decided to work for a couple of years on finding genetics that really worked. We did some breeding with Phylos Bioscience—was a great friend and one of the best genetics companies in the industry. We started working with them directly to do breeding, to do some phenotype hunting, a lot of testing and things like that to determine what would really work and what aligned with Mello.
And finding that home or finding that base in genetics to where we can really add value with something different to the market—that was number two. And after that, I think it’s Carmelo being extremely involved with the development of the brand, the selection of the cultivars, the marketing, talking to the consumers. I mean, we were in New York and we went from what we thought was going to be two dispensary visits—that jumped up to seven dispensary visits—and Mello made every one. For the last dispensary visit, not only did he make it, but he stayed the entire time longer and missed the first game of the Knicks series because he wanted to stay and hang out with consumers and with the staff of that dispensary.
So I think that’s exactly what it is—it is his love for the plant, it’s the fact that we have been very focused on designing this brand, designing these products, and doing it through breeding and through genetics. And the third is that he’s very intimately involved in connecting with consumers and connecting with his brand to really push and make sure that it becomes a staple in the market.
And I would say the last thing is that we don’t see this as a celebrity brand—not at all. We see this as a lifestyle brand. This brand, STAYME7O, connects with the idea of cannabis consumers. This brand STAYME7O—and our visuals—it lives without Carmelo. And the fact that Carmelo is there and is involved is really more of the cherry on the top. And I think that’s why this is a lot different than any celebrity brand that you see out there.
C&T Today: How are you integrating community impact and business success in STAYME7O’s rollout across New York?
JH: In New York, we partnered with Flower House, which is a large producer in the state and processor. And we also partnered with a minority-owned operator, a Native American operator in Buffalo. And that’s very much a part of the STAYME7O mentality—that we are, along the entire way, very conscious and very conscientious about the partners that we work with to ensure that we’re shining a light on those, like I mentioned, those legacy operators, those who may not be the most resourced, but have a real connection and a love for the plant and have really great talent and ability.
That was first. Next was about deciding where these products were being held. So we worked very closely with some of my regulator friends to identify some of the best Black- and Brown-owned dispensaries in the state and in the city. And we made a very concerted effort to ensure that the availability of this product was representative of the real diversity in the industry. So we made sure that we didn’t just throw it out there to whoever can buy, but we worked with the retailers to ensure that it would work in their stores and in the right stores in the state.
And I think it’s continuing to do that—as we grow and add brand ambassadors, as we continue to add staff and support in New York, it’s very much a focus on working with people who truly represent the amazing diversity of this plant and making sure that that’s intentional. And we also have a strong giveback, where we are working with organizations that we feel are doing amazing work in the industry. First is Last Prisoner Project, where we’re giving back a portion of the proceeds to fund their efforts to get cannabis prisoners out of jail—out of prison—for doing the same thing that some of our partners are doing legally in these states. And then also with NuProject, which is an organization that I co-founded, again helping to fund the businesses that truly need to be a part of the growth of this industry.
C&T Today: Can you tell me more about your work with Phylos Bioscience—building a proprietary genetic library, the science behind it, and why that’s important in today’s market?
JH: I’ve been working with Phylos with LOWD probably close to when we first got started—doing some breeding and doing some hunting. And we were able to carry that program to focus directly on STAYME7O, which we kind of incorporate with all of our brands. Being able to use their testing capacity, but also being able to work with their cultivars that are rare, like the THCV cultivar that they have, that we’ve incorporated into some of the STAYME7O stuff.
C&T Today: What’s your advice to entrepreneurs of color entering the cannabis space now, especially as the market matures and barriers to entry are getting harder?
JH: I have a very general piece of advice essentially—don’t just come into the industry. Find a place where you can add real value. And that’s the only way to ensure that you have the ability to grow. If you just want to have a dispensary, then how is that dispensary adding value to the consumers and adding value to the market, right? It’s not just selling products—it’s got to be more.
If you want to have a cultivation operation or ancillary business, you’ve got to focus on having true value for consumers and your partners. You can’t just have a product or—you know, it’s not like it used to be where if you grow it, you’ll be able to sell it, right? You’ve got to really focus on creating that business.
The last piece of advice is that perseverance is key. There are so many times in this industry where I thought my opportunities were over. I thought my business was done. I thought there was no way I’d be able to raise money. I thought there was no way anyone would join my board to do some of these advocacy efforts. But each and every time, there were absolutely barriers—many barriers—but you’re not going to be able to make it in this industry unless you just have a heart full of perseverance and have dedication to getting through any of those barriers, because there are definitely paths to getting through them all.
