15,000 Reasons Why: Meet the Charlotte’s Web Waitlist

It Started with One Girl

At a very early age, Charlotte Figi was diagnosed with a rare form of epilepsy. Her mother, Paige, extensively researched health options that led her to a little-known plant compound called cannabidiol, or CBD.

Meanwhile, Charlotte’s Web founders were working to develop proprietary hemp genetics that were high in CBD and low in THC. Back then (2011), most people didn’t know what CBD was or why you would want a product from the cannabis plant that didn’t get you high — most still thought cannabis was the same as marijuana and that intoxication was the intention, and hemp was just used to make rope and fabric. But the founders had been researching cannabis and had found information on CBD that caught their attention which is why they started developing cannabis plants high in CBD for the ultimate goal of creating non-intoxicating hemp-derived extracts.

In 2012, Paige contacted the founders looking for a non-psychoactive natural alternative for her then five-year-old daughter Charlotte. With the permission of a doctor, they shared the extract with Paige for Charlotte to use. After seeing Charlotte’s response to the extract, the founders were inspired to share their extract with others.

We say this a lot, but this company really didn’t start as a company; it started as a mission to help others. Starting with one little girl.

Word Spreads

People started to talk. So much so that from 2013 to 2015 thousands of families from around the world moved to Colorado to access CBD products to improve their quality of life.

In many cases, employees of Charlotte’s Web, the founders themselves, their mother, Charlotte’s family, and others joined together to help these families get settled, and in some cases opening their homes as temporary housing.

The founders were planting and caring for their plants by hand. The list of names of people who were waiting for the extract grew to 15,000. They expanded to a field of 30,000 plants, still planting, weeding, and tending by hand, and working nonstop to serve the looming waitlist. Finally, with that harvest, they did.

The World Takes Note

In 2013, Dr. Sanjay Gupta and CNN meets Charlotte and other families and famously changes his mind on the health benefits of cannabis; reversing course and speaking out in favor of Charlotte’s Web and the inherent benefits of hemp. Other media outlets follow suit and Charlotte’s Web becomes an internationally recognized brand.