Kate Miller

When she moved from her home in New Jersey to Los Angeles to go to college, Kate Miller says her “mind was blown” by the access to cannabis through her new state’s medical marijuana program. But working as a budtender in 2007 but she noticed a gap in the product offerings.

“There was no product, no service, that I felt really authentically represented how myself or many people in my life were consuming this plant,” Miller says.

So in 2008, she bought the MissGrass.com URL. But she sat on it for nearly a decade while she built a career in the entertainment industry, working with a TV producer and then moving to New York City, where she ran brand partnerships and IP licensing for Saturday Night Live creator Lorne Michaels’ Broadway Video.

In 2018, Miller left the entertainment industry and officially launched the Miss Grass website, leading with education and building an online community of what she saw as a valuable and underserved segment of consumers: women.

By the time Miss Grass was ready to launch product — pre-rolls and flower — in 2021, the company had built three years of brand recognition and community through events and partnerships. Today, Miss Grass cannabis products are available in California, Nevada, Illinois and Massachusetts, and Miller sees it becoming a national and even international brand, all based on the community and brand recognition she built through the website.

“I think a lot of brands in this space launch product and then turn their attention to trying to build a community around that product,” she says. “We did the complete opposite focus.”