Paper Napkin Wisdom - Podcast And Blog For Entrepreneurs, Leaders And Difference-makers

If you’ve ever stared down a crowded market and thought, “How on earth do I stand out—ethically, profitably, and sustainably?”, Pete Olander’s story is going to land. Pete is the founder behind multiple wellness and cannabis-adjacent consumer brands, including Happie (a better-for-you cannabis seltzer brand) and Natural Recovery Greens (an early CBD-forward greens product). He cut his teeth in the nutrition industry designing performance supplements, then followed the data—and the customer outcomes—into functional beverages that blend taste, efficacy, and regulatory discipline. That arc is classic entrepreneur: find the pain, ship the fix, iterate faster than the market.   Pete’s path started with a simple observation from R&D work in the mid-2010s: consumers wanted recovery and calm without compromise. That insight led to Natural Recovery Greens—single-serve formats, travel-friendly, and positioned at the intersection of superfoods, probiotics, BCAAs, and THC-free CBD—years before “functional everythi