01
Early years
An entrepreneur by example
Raised in Kansas City in a family of business owners, Sanders learned customer service and sales close to home. His first venture was a car-detailing business.
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Founder biographyKansas City, Missouri
CBD American Shaman / Founder & president
Vince
Sanders.
The self-taught entrepreneur who helped move CBD from the legal margins into American main streets.
Founder profile
Field note № 04
Field note № 04
Entrepreneurship×Hemp advocacy×Retail innovation
01
The short version
One family crisis became a national business.
Vince Sanders was born and raised in Kansas City, Missouri, surrounded by entrepreneurs on both sides of his family. He started working for himself as a young man, first in car detailing, and built his career by learning through action.
His turn toward hemp began when an uncle was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. Looking for ways to ease his discomfort, Sanders researched CBD and began making crude extracts. The effort did not save his uncle, but it convinced Sanders that cannabinoids deserved wider access and serious attention.
“Pick a place
and go.”
Sanders on learning through action and building the ladder as you climb.
02
The path
From first extract
to storefront.
02
2012
A personal search
When his uncle became terminally ill, Sanders began researching cannabinoids and experimenting with early hemp extracts. The experience became the reason he entered CBD.
03
2015
American Shaman begins
Sanders founded CBD American Shaman in Kansas City, initially supplying CBD products to smoke shops, chiropractors and health stores.
04
2016–18
From store to movement
The first Kansas City retail store opened, while Sanders joined other hemp businesses in organizing and advocating for clearer state and federal rules.
05
Today
A national footprint
The company grew from a local experiment into a widely distributed cannabinoid brand with a large franchise and retail network.
03 / ContextA path with
A path with
rough edges.
Sanders’ story is not a polished, straight-line founder myth. Before hemp, he served federal prison time for a marijuana-trafficking conspiracy—history he later discussed openly with Kansas City public radio. His second act unfolded in another unsettled category: CBD, before federal and state rules were clear.
That past helps explain both his appetite for legal risk and his emphasis on second chances. Sanders lobbied lawmakers, worked with the U.S. Hemp Roundtable, and pushed for the rules that helped establish a legal national hemp market. Admirers call that persistence; critics see a businessman repeatedly testing the edge of regulation. Both are part of the record.
04 / What he built
The American Shaman idea.
Explain before selling
Brick-and-mortar stores gave a then-unfamiliar product a human guide and a place for questions.
Make absorption the story
The brand made water-soluble delivery and nano-emulsion central to how it described its product innovation.
Scale through partners
Wholesale distribution and franchising turned a Kansas City operation into a recognizable national retail network.
This biography summarizes public reporting and first-person interviews. It does not offer medical advice or endorse health claims about CBD.