Aaron Morris

If Aaron Morris would have listened to what the “experts” were saying, Wyld probably never would have become the company it is today.

Now operating in eight markets, including Canada, the Oregon-based edibles company generated $107 million in revenue in 2021 and is on pace for nearly $200 million in 2022 — all with just 10 core products.

“We’re the little gummy company that could, I guess,” Morris says. “We did it our way instead of everyone else’s way.”

Perhaps the most amazing part of Wyld’s story is that it’s become one of the most popular edibles brands in the country without raising any money on the capital markets. Since its launch in 2016, the company has had to survive — and expand — on its own revenue.

In that first year, “we were literally making products and selling them the next day,” Morris says. “The second it came off testing, we would package it and get it going.”

The company developed its own method for expansion, converting other peoples’ licenses and bootstrapping it from there. Rather than just licensing the Wyld brand, company executives maintained control of the entire process, allowing them to launch in Nevada for less than $150,000 and in California for about the same, at a time when everybody said you couldn’t launch a successful product there for less than a million dollars.

The company is expanding into four new markets this year and plans to keep growing by four to six new territories each year — but Morris is adamant about remaining flexible to ride out the turbulence of an evolving industry.

“Everybody in the world tells us to set a structure and have a plan,” Morris says. “I’ve never written a business plan in my life. I never intend to. Flexibility over structure all day, every day.”