Brandon Wyatt and Todd Hughes
Todd Hughes and Brandon Wyatt created a staggeringly effective tool to improve corporate and social responsibility simply by helping victims of the War on Drugs. They started the business development firm EntreVation to provide event planning, marketing, market research and project execution for various groups and individuals.
“Our special niche is being able to take communities — especially oppressed communities and businesses — and fortify them with the concept of
corporate and social responsibility to educate, legitimize, raise policy awareness and create a lasting bridge into the formal market,” Wyatt says.
EntreVation has consulted for 121 companies since it was unofficially formed in 2015.
Todd Hughes and Brandon Wyatt created a staggeringly effective tool to improve corporate and social responsibility simply by helping victims of the War on Drugs. They started the business development firm EntreVation to provide event planning, marketing, market research and project execution for various groups and individuals.
“Our special niche is being able to take communities — especially oppressed communities and businesses — and fortify them with the concept of corporate and social responsibility to educate, legitimize, raise policy awareness and create a lasting bridge into the formal market,” Wyatt says.
EntreVation has consulted for 121 companies since it was unofficially formed in 2015.
Hughes and Wyatt built EntreVation from the inside out, organizing fundraisers, setting up educational events, leading protests outside the White House and providing business and legal counsel, all for free over the past two years. It was only after the work was complete that the two realized what they had built.
“We were working so hard under the radar that at one point we looked up and said, ‘If we don’t form our own company, nobody is going to be able to connect all these dots,’” Hughes says.
“It was a labor of love,” Wyatt adds. “EntreVation is what formed after doing pro-bono advocacy work with groups like the Minority Cannabis Business Association, the Weed for Warriors Project, Patients Out of Time, Veterans for Compassionate Care, DCMJ, NORML, Students for Sensible Drug Policy and Marijuana Policy Project. We wanted newcomers to the industry to be safe and prepared with formal business documentation, legal business practices, and also to pay taxes.”
Wyatt is a decorated combat soldier, disabled Army veteran and business attorney who graduated from the Howard University School of Law. He’s also in the process of earning his MBA from George Washington University and is the principal at Wyatt Legal & Consulting.
Hughes is a mechanical engineer and program manager at the U.S. Department of Energy, working in applied research and development for the National Nuclear Security Administration and currently studying for his Ph.D. from George Washington University.
“I was a bit nervous about entering the field because I have a federal government job and I do not personally consume cannabis,” Hughes says. “I have been doing this from behind the curtain for the last couple of years. After lots of hard work and challenges, we are at a stage where we are really helping people break stereotypes and establish viable revenue streams and businesses.
“We are lucky to see cannabis change into a true industry in our generation, but many people truly don’t understand that it’s not just about cannabis or money. It’s about people. The people who are left behind and remain damaged because they don’t have legal access.”
Recently, Wyatt and Hughes were appointed as diversity consultants for Maryland’s Medical Cannabis Commission. EntreVation has been tasked with producing a disparity study and scoring all applicants for Maryland licenses.
“This is still a taboo field, especially for minorities,” Wyatt says. “There is a lot of groundwork policy coordination and true interactions with government leaders needed to survive in the industry. … The current issues regarding cannabis business is more than medical versus recreational or even diversity and race. The duty and responsibility bestowed upon our generation is not based on reparations but actual repairs to those communities, veterans and students who have paid the medical, educational and criminal price of prohibition.”