At one point in 2017, Charles McElroy’s educational printing company, Goldleaf, was selling hundreds of its medical cannabis guidebook, The Patient’s Journal, every day through Amazon. But after spending years cultivating a niche in the cannabis industry, a simple change in Amazon’s algorithm during 2018 brought his company’s momentum to a crashing halt.
“I would say that our revenue dropped by 85%,” McElroy says. “We evolved a lot, we’ve pivoted, and we’re still here today.”
As creative director, McElroy, who founded Goldleaf in 2016, didn’t waste time lamenting what happened with Amazon. Instead, he quickly shifted the company’s focus from B2C to B2B. Goldleaf started specializing in white label projects for cannabis businesses across North America, handling everything from brand design to creating educational materials and even interior design elements.
Then the pandemic lockdowns hit in March 2020, and McElroy watched the B2B market dry up temporarily, necessitating another pivot.
“Our B2C stuff just exploded,” McElroy says. “We had more B2C sales than ever in those dark days of COVID.”
Now, with an expanded customer base and portfolio, McElroy says Goldleaf is readying for the explosion of industry growth on the East Coast.
“The niche that we fill is that we are a very specific kind of boutique design agency in the sense that we know how to combine good design with information that is the most accurate and the most understandable.”