Any entrepreneur with enough experience will tell you that more often than not, success is found in the detours, rather than the main road. Casey Flippo, founder and CEO of Dark Horse Medicinals in Little Rock, learned that lesson firsthand. While completing his degree in marketing and management at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, Flippo worked for a company that specializes in value-add real estate development. After moving to Houston to work at the corporate office, he spent a year and a half in market analysis and facility optimization across the company’s portfolio. He found he had a passion for real estate, and the thought of settling into his long-term career seemed like a no-brainer.
Life, as it often does, had other plans. Flippo’s wife, then girlfriend, was accepted into the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in Little Rock. In Little Rock, Flippo landed in a sales position at Cintas with the intent of making it a short stay while he transitioned into pharmaceutical sales. Instead, he fell in love with the organization and stayed on for two years.
With an abundance of sales knowledge and real estate experience under his belt, Flippo was primed to strike out on his own. Following the passage of the Farm Bill in 2018, which legalized hemp manufacturing and extraction across the United States, he and two partners founded Natvana, a multi-state, Arkansas-based, high-volume hemp manufacturing company. A few years later, Natvana became Dark Horse Medicinals, the state’s first cannabis processor.
“I like to use the terms ‘starting a business with an Excel document, a PDF file and a dream’ because that’s really what we did,” he said.
In Houston, Flippo had seen how a family-owned operation was able to stay true to its core values and culture in order to flourish and grow. In Little Rock, he learned the ins and outs of corporate structure and organization. Being able to blend those two experiences gave him the foundation for Dark Horse Medicinals, as well as the confidence to jump into the rapidly evolving cannabis space.
“The biggest uphill climb for me was truly immersing myself in the cannabis culture,” he said. “Cannabis is obviously a new industry. It’s not one where there’s an effective playbook that I can revert back to. I had to familiarize myself with how that culture worked.”
While the industry is still not far removed from its “Wild West” days, that uncertainty has certain advantages for agile players like Dark Horse, especially compared to legacy operators attempting to enter the space.
“A lot of operators that have been around for a long time struggle in this new environment,” Flippo said. “What we do that’s a little bit unique is that we took the time to truly assimilate ourselves into the culture. We all are huge proponents and advocates of cannabis, both in medicine and for recreational use. That, accompanied with our business acumen, has served us extremely well.”
In less than 24 months, Dark Horse has already expanded its footprint across the state in impressive ways. However, Flippo’s business experience keeps him cautious not to make the same mistakes that can plague other startups.
“There’s so much growth potential in a new and emerging market. You can really get your head above your skis pretty quickly because everybody’s excited and everybody sees the revenue potentials,” he said. “One thing that I learned as a young entrepreneur is that revenues don’t always mean profits. Because of that, I see a lot of cannabis companies looking at those revenue numbers and seeing that they can expand, expand, expand, and they enter into less-than-ideal opportunities.”
Instead, Dark Horse’s approach to growth is a strategic one: look for opportunities to add value, build a solid regional presence and become one of the most reputable cannabis brands coming out of the mid-South.
“I want to make sure that our brand is known for quality, consistency and transparency,” he said. “How big that becomes following those core values is going to be up to the test of time. We don’t enter into arrangements or agreements just for the sake of growth. We always want to make sure that that growth is going to be accretive for us and for our business partners.”
While Flippo said he enjoys working and learning at the forefront of the cannabis industry, he is a multifaceted entrepreneur at his core, and he will apply those skills wherever he decides to go next — even back into real estate.
“I think that knowledge base and that approach to business transcends the cannabis space,” he said. “I do think that if we have this conversation five, 10 years from now, my portfolio will not be 90 percent cannabis. It’s going to be in a much more diversified portfolio that is focused on taking the exact same tactics into multiple markets.”
