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The Hurdles For A Cannabis Startup

Tune in to learn more about the hurdles for a cannabis startup with Ryan Douglas of Ryan Douglas Cultivation. As Master Grower from 2013 to 2016, he directed cultivation for Tweed Inc., Canada’s largest licensed producer of medical cannabis and the flagship subsidiary of Canopy Growth Corporation. As one of the company’s first employees, he helped drive the organization’s early success by designing the production facility, selecting the genetics, and hiring and training staff to produce 70,000 plants and process 6 tons of dry cannabis annually. His work at Tweed has been featured in Vice, New York Times, Bloomberg News, and on National Public Radio.

The cannabis industry in its current form is relatively new and fresh and still quite entrepreneurial. A lot of “start-ups” being formed and launched, especially with every year, new states legalizing for medical or adult-use cannabis. There’s a lot of people listening to this show right now who might be launching cannabis businesses in their states soon. We discuss what advice Ryan has as someone who has worked directly with start-ups in the cannabis space. Also, some common challenges or hurdles that start-up operators might not think about.

 

Hope Wiseman – Mary & Main

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At the age of 25, Hope Wiseman became the youngest black woman dispensary owner in the country. In September 2018, her dispensary, Mary and Main, opened their doors to Prince George’s County with the purpose of serving and educating their clients about Cannabis. Hope’s mission is to continue to kill the stigma the country has created about Cannabis within the Black community and help African Americans realize the importance of their place in the cannabis industry. You can visit https://hopewiseman.com/ to learn more about her and https://maryandmain.com/ to get find out about Mary & Main.

The Georgia Medical Cannabis Legislative Roll Out

Tune in to learn more about the Georgia medical cannabis legislative roll out with Taylor English Duma LLP’s Reggie Snyder. Taylor English Duma LLP is based in Atlanta, Georgia, but boasts a full-service firm with 175 attorneys including a geographic scope of remote lawyers situated across the country, doing business also in California, Florida, D.C. New York, Tennessee, Texas, and so on, serving over 15 industries, Reggie is an experienced trial lawyer whose litigation practice primarily focuses on contract, construction, and real estate disputes, products liability, and personal injury.

We talk about what’s happening on the ground in Georgia where Reggie is based, where medical cannabis was just recently approved. It’s really exciting to see some Southern states moving in this direction, so we discuss what’s going on with the Georgia medical cannabis legislative roll out and what Georgia’s Cannabis Commission is up to.

Government Funding For The Cannabis Business

Tune in to this episode to learn more about Government Funding For The Cannabis Business with Shane Pennington of Yetter Coleman. Yetter Coleman is a litigation boutique specializing in high-stakes business and technology litigation around the country. Shane is recognized as a “Texas Rising Star” in Appellate by Thomson Reuters’ Super Lawyers. He was also a panelist on a recent NCIA webinar “Just Say No – Keep the DEA Out of Cannabis Research,” with NCIA’s Policy Council.

We dive into a lawsuit Shane’s firm is spearheading against the Small Business Administration because cannabis companies, who were otherwise deemed essential in many states during the COVID-19 shutdowns, are not eligible to receive these benefits. We break that down for our listeners and explain what that is, as well as why there’s a lawsuit being spearheaded in the first place.

Shawnee Williams – Illinois Equity Staffing

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Shawnee Williams is the Co-Founder of Illinois Equity Staffing. She is a Recruiter & Account Executive with a background in Business Operations, Sales and Recruiting. She has a MS in Business and years hands-on experience in cannabis. Illinois Equity Staffing played an active role in the Illinois cannabis community as it was the first state in the nation to approve adult use with Social Equity directly written into the legislation. The company specializes in Recruiting, Staffing, Onboarding and Benefits Administration, Training, Payroll, Tax management, Compliance, and Equity. You can learn more about Illinois Equity Staffing here https://www.illinoisequitystaffing.com/

Parallels Between The Wine And Cannabis Industry

Tune in to this episode to learn more about parallels between the wine and cannabis industry with COO of Fumé, Elissa Hambrecht. Founded in 2017, Fumé Brands is a vertically integrated cannabis company, operating four businesses from cultivation through retail. With active cultivation, manufacturing, and distribution channels, Fumé Brands recently launched its first consumer brand LAKEGRADE, and plans to launch other thoughtfully crafted cannabis products and experiences in the future. Nestled in the side of the mountains, Fumé’s plants are grown by a master cannabis cultivator with three decades of experience. The land has active hot springs on-site that we’re all jealous they get to soak in after a long day on the farm.

Elissa was previously in the wine industry which a lot of folks say shares a lot of parallels to the cannabis industry. Especially with her being located in the Napa Valley which is very much known for great wine, we discuss what wisdom Elissa brings from the wine industry that can be applied to the cannabis industry, as well the similarities between those industries and how they work. The science behind cannabis over the years has been great as we unravel the facts of cannabinoids and terpenes and how they impact us. We like to envision a world where we can reverse engineer exactly what we want. We want to relax but don’t want to fall asleep, we want anti-inflammatory properties but don’t want the munchies, for example. We talk about Elissa’s thoughts on that being the future of cannabis innovation and more.

Full Integration While Expanding Your Product Line

Learn more about full integration while expanding your product line with Michael Bostarr, Director of Strategy and Implementation of SPARC. Michael is a passionate organizer who produced Blunt Talks San Francisco, and helped bring to life Meadow’s first-ever camping retreat – Meadowlands. He is former Chief of Staff at Kin Slips and Michael is now the Director of Strategy and Implementation at SPARC. He is a vocal advocate for cannabis and can often be seen at local city council meetings. SPARC, whose roots began back as early as 1998 when CA Prop 215 was passed, opened its first retail facility in 2010 on Mission Street in San Francisco.

SPARC also happens to be NCIA’s first official founding member, and their executive director Erich Pearson spent many years serving on NCIA’s board of directors. SPARC is one of the oldest dispensaries in the Bay Area and has been serving medical and now adults since 2008. Starting with just that single location until expanding to 5 locations over the last few years, now they’re looking to expand even more, which is the dream and ideal for most dispensary owners who start with a single location. We talk about what that process is looking like in California which already has plenty of regulatory headaches, plus other hurdles they are coming up against. Being vertically or fully integrated, meaning they produce or grow some of what they also sell to the customers, there are other models that allow a dispensary to sell products from another separate licensee to grow or process. But full integration while expanding your product line sounds like a lot to handle so we dive into advice Michael has for vertically integrated cannabis companies like SPARC.

 

Christine De La Rosa – The People’s Dispensary

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Christine De La Rosa spent 20 years as a systems and database architect in tech before coming to cannabis. She is a well-respected business leader, advocate and activist.

At the top of her career she almost died from complications of undiagnosed Lupus. In 2015, she found cannabis as an alternative medicine to treat her the disease. She was inspired by her experience to help those who most need access to cannabis. Along with her co-founders she has established a  multi-state dispensary footprint and has built a fiercely sought after national social equity model and enterprise now known as The People’s Dispensary.

Find our more about The People’s Dispensary at http://www.mytpd.com/our-story/

Kevin Ford, Jr. – Uplift Maryland

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Kevin Ford, Jr., is the President and Chief Executive Officer of The Uplift Companies, a one-stop shop that has won contracts from the State of Maryland to develop and implement education and training programs for disadvantaged entrepreneurs, and to train dispensary employees.

Ford recently curated the Uplift Cannabis Diversity Symposium to help professionals and entrepreneurs transfer their current skills and knowledge into the cannabis industry, no matter their race, age, gender, or background.

Learn more about Uplift at https://www.upliftmaryland.co/

Cannabis and Taxes: The Future of Compliance

Learn more about cannabis and taxes: the future of compliance with Calvin Shannon from Bridge West CPAs and Nick Miller from Greenspoon Marder. Bridge West CPAs, where Calvin Shannon is principal, is one of the first accounting firms in the world to focus solely on the cannabis and hemp industries. Since 2009, the practice has expanded to more than 400 cannabis and hemp clients nationwide. Greenspoon Marder is a national full-service business law firm with over 200 attorneys and 26 locations across the United States. Nick Richards is a Partner in the Tax practice group at Greenspoon Marder LLP. He represents individuals and businesses in tax audits & trials, M&A, in managing tax debt, and he advises cannabis companies, owners, and investors regarding tax and regulatory compliance matters.

We start by talking about the burden of taxes in our industry, 280E in the IRS Tax Code. Cannabis businesses are paying 70-80% effective tax rates because cannabis is a Schedule 1 substance. But both our guests recently co-authored a blog about some other interesting nuances in the tax code that they’re taking a closer look at right now. We hear what a business owner should do from here to find out if they can potentially benefit from new tax provisions.

Regenerative Cannabis Cultivation

An NCIA Cannabis Cultivation Committee Roundtable

Learn more about regenerative cannabis cultivation with Tina Gordon and Michelle Carter. Bethany hands the microphone over to Jacob Policzer for this conversation on a very special episode of NCIA’s Cannabis Industry Voice. Jacob is with The Cannabis Conservancy and Sun + Earth Certified and is on NCIA’s Cannabis Cultivation Committee.

So what is regenerative agriculture? We’d say that it’s a holistic land management practice that goes beyond organic and focuses on building soil health by improving soil biodiversity and increasing soil organic matter. It also pertains to the human element of farming.

Sun+Earth, in addition to cultivation practices, is a human empowerment component that focuses on workers’ rights as well as community engagement – cultivating community.

Tina Gordon has been a traditional Cannabis farmer for over a decade at Moon Made Farms in Southern Humboldt County. Prior to being an amazing cannabis grower, Tina resided in San Francisco and has worked as a producer, documentary filmmaker, and musician, with an emphasis on underground and alternative subcultures. In all of her creative projects, Tina has endeavored to empower the self-expression of those who are underrepresented or marginalized. She now brings that focus to the traditional Cannabis farming community, with a desire to dignify the efforts of the pioneers who built this historic movement.

Michelle Carter hails from the other side of the country in Asheville, North Carolina, where she co-founded Living Web Farms and spent 8 years honing her organic and regenerative farming practices. Her focus is on bio-nutrient crop production, holistic management, microbial soil analysis, and biodynamic applications. Michelle is also a plant medicine certified instructor with the Appalachian School of Holistic Herbalism and a leader in the international pollinator resilience movement. Recently she has been researching hemp genetics in an effort to find more suitable strains for the Southeast and she is also the co-founder and board member of Circadian Craft Cannabis which will hopefully get a license in Illinois.

Shifts In Cannabis Stigma During COVID-19

Learn more about shifts in cannabis stigma during COVID-19 with Autumn Shelton, Chief Financial Officer of Autumn Brands. Autumn is a partner as well as CFO of Autumn Brands, a 50% woman-owned cannabis business located in sunny coastal Carpinteria, Santa Barbara County, California. In her position as CFO, Autumn is a strategic decision-maker for the family farm, which started in Holland more than 100 years ago. Along with overseeing the company’s financials, she is in charge of legal compliance on the local and state levels. Autumn champions the health and wellness benefits of cannabis and is committed to cultivation free of pesticides and other harmful chemicals.

We start by talking about current affairs, and how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the world. The silver lining is that cannabis was deemed essential in most states where it was legal during massive shutdowns. This implies that the public, and governments, see the value of cannabis. We talk about what shifts in the stigma have happened around cannabis since the COVID-19 pandemic began. Having gone through the process of launching a brand, and now Autumn is rockin’ and rollin’ and in business, we talk about the advice Autumn has for individuals who are starting this process, as well as any obstacles Autumn has come across that she can advise others on especially if you’re a woman business owner.

Advanced Transpiration Solutions

Learn more about advanced transpiration solutions with Adrian Giovenco from InSpire. Adrian is a passionate engineer with over a decade of experience designing, selling, and commissioning HVAC and process systems throughout North America. Recognizing that there is a knowledge gap around fully understanding plant transpiration rates and how they impact controlled environments, he founded InSpire to focus on Advanced Transpiration Solutions, which allow for precise environmental control throughout the growing cycle and into dry/cure and process manufacturing. Adrian currently serves on the NCIA Facilities Design Committee.

 

We start by talking about healthy plants, how we grow, and nurture healthy plants that will make it to the dispensary and ultimately into the happy customer’s hand. This is part of a healthy supply chain, so we dive into the controls needed in that cultivation room to make sure no little pests, bugs, COVIDS, or any other unwanted things get on that plant. As a leader who’s seen a few projects come and go. Ranging from successes and failures and lots of money being spent on investments, Adrian talks about big picture advice on choosing your project teams and how to assess who is legit, as well as who is a right or wrong fit, and who is a snake oil salesman.

Cannabis Jobs During COVID-19

Learn more about Cannabis Jobs During COVID-19 with Meadow CEO and Co-Founder, David Hua. Meadow is a software company built from the ground up for California cannabis, and Y-Combinator’s first start-up to operate in the cannabis space. Meadow’s all-in-one platform allows dispensaries to sell products, manage menus and inventory, reward customers, dispatch delivery and pick-up orders, and create exceptional in-store experiences for customers. Meadow has been Headquartered in San Francisco since 2014. Hua has also collaborated with California’s cannabis community and California regulators to draft, implement, and provide stakeholder feedback of medical and Adult-Use regulations. Hua sits on the boards of the California Cannabis Industry Association, the Cannabis Distribution Association, as well as the NCIA Retail Committee.

The cannabis industry in California has had some ups and downs in the transition to adult-use laws from Prop 64, and the COVID-19 crisis is no exception. In Colorado, as in California, they almost had legal cannabis shut down alongside bars and restaurants. The announcement was reversed in about 3 hours after everyone rushed the dispensaries. We talk to David about what it looked like in California and how they as cannabis software providers reacted. Cannabis is essential but federally illegal, so they didn’t initially get access to SBA COVID-19 financial relief. Perlmutter and Blumenauer introduced a bill specifically to include cannabis. We did get SAFE Banking Language in the 2nd coronavirus relief package approved out of the House of Reps, even tho some of the senates complained about seeing the word ‘cannabis’ in the bill. David explains his thoughts on this reaction even tho the industry has been an unbelievable job creator.

The Future of Colorado Cannabis

Tune in to this episode to learn more about the future of Colorado cannabis with Jonathan Singer. Jonathan is the State Representative for District 11 in Colorado and has been based in the city of Boulder since 2012. There he serves as the Chair of Public Healthcare and Human Services Committee. He has a background in social work, including work as a peer educator at the Boulder County Safehouse, counseling, and advocacy for abused and neglected children, and has been a champion of cannabis reform here in the state of Colorado.

We start by talking about the evolution of the cannabis industry and movement in Colorado, which had a strong medical program before legalizing for adults which rolled out in 2014. Johnathan explains if he was immediately a supporter of cannabis or did he have to come around on this issue. As we look back on the last few years, Colorado was one of the first two states to legalize cannabis for adults, Jonathan rates how the state did with cannabis implementation. As well as where they succeeded, and where they fell short. We also touch what issues are next for our industry as we continue to evolve and so much more.

Cannabis Industry Talent Acquisition

Tune in to this episode to learn more about cannabis industry talent acquisition with Bryan Passman. Bryan is the founder of the cannabis industry talent acquisition firm Hunter + Esquire and has more than 18 years of experience in executive search and recruitment. Founded in 2017, the experienced team is dedicated to providing a full-service, white-glove approach to every one of our clients. We are happy that “Cannabis Is Essential” during these tough times and we’re hopefully coming out of the tight restrictions here slowly and safely.

We talk about if Bryan is seeing impacts from COVID-19 on the hiring world as some companies perhaps had to scale down to save their budgets. Looking at the pace of how quickly our industry has moved in just the last few years as laws change so rapidly and licenses roll out, companies have been established, grown, and scaled up so incredibly fast on time. With that sort of growth, it means they perhaps had to hire handfuls or dozens of people in a short amount of time. Bryan explains how one carefully hires a team so rapidly while still getting the right people.

The Future Of Tradeshow Marketing

Learn more about the future of tradeshow marketing with Rhiannon Anderson, Chief Marketing Officer at Steelhead Productions. Rhiannon has served as the CMO and Co-Owner at Steelhead Productions, who specialize in custom rental exhibits for some of the most exciting brands in the country and has been awarded Exhibitor Magazine’s Top 40 Providers in the event industry. Rhiannon oversees all of Steelhead’s business development, as well as internal and external communications.

In that role, she has guided the company through the greatest recession of our time and gone on to help grow the business by over 630%, while becoming one of Inc. 5000’s Fastest-Growing Companies in America. Rhiannon’s company’s role in the cannabis industry is helping cannabis brands in an exhibitor setting like at trade shows. We’ve all seen the gigantic expo floor at NCIA’s national conferences, but social distancing means that’s going to look different whenever those restrictions relax. We talk about the future of tradeshow marketing and event marketing, as well as what Rhiannon is seeing or predicting when it comes to this subject.

Environmental Assistance For Small Businesses

Tune in to learn more about environmental assistance for small businesses with Kaitlin Urso. Kaitlin is from the CO Dept of Public Health where she serves as Environmental Consultant/ Project Manager/ Small Business Assistance Program Specialist. In her role, she protects Colorado’s air, land, and water quality by enabling small business owners/operators to achieve, maintain, and go beyond compliance with federal and state environmental regulations through technical assistance, education, and communication.

Kaitlin has a passion for working in the environmental protection field and holds a degree in mechanical engineering. She specializes in consulting for the commercial cannabis and craft brewing industries to reduce their environmental impacts. Kaitlin focuses on environmental assistance for small businesses through the CO Dept of Public Health. We dive into her role and her day-to-day, as well as what’s going on this year at the department.

Actionable Analytics In Seed-To-Sale

Learn more about actionable analytics in seed-to-sale with Colton Griffin, CEO of Flourish Software. Some operators in our industry see seed-to-sale tracking as a necessary burden and most legal states have mandatory or required systems, such as METRC. While operators have the option to use add-on supplementary software, Colton breaks that down for us about states like Oklahoma, Florida, Nevada, and Colorado. Flourish is a software platform that not only tracks the product from seed to sale, but also enables automation at each link in the supply chain, tracking inventory, recording and directing activity, and enabling operators to run their business cost-effectively, and providing actionable analytics. Colton’s career background and expertise are at the intersection of supply chain operations, enterprise software, and analytics.

By virtue of using Flourish, clients create and capture rich sets of data, which we present as actionable analytics to help drive decision making. Flourish sits at the center of the canna-tech ecosystem, and we have a robust external API to support integrations. The platform is comprised of modules such as cultivation, manufacturing, and inventory, and also has a mobile app that pairs with our web app. They envision a world in which Flourish drives core business processes and decisions, freeing their clients to focus on tasks that software can not automate. Flourish believes that they will be at the center of the industry’s ecosystem, linking companies together digitally and capturing rich data sets to support intelligent decision making.

Energy Usage Issues In Cannabis Facilities

Energy Usage Issues In Cannabis Facilities with Brian Anderson. Brian is a founding partner of architecture and design firm Anderson Porter Design. He also serves on NCIA’s Facilities Design Committee and has over 26 years of experience in the field of architecture, and over six years of concentration in architecture for the cannabis industry. Brian also brings design experience with a specialization in energy-efficient design and sustainability. When it comes to facility design, retail fronts are probably easier and more fun, but cultivation centers are an entirely different animal.Energy Usage

That’s where this energy usage we were just talking about comes into play, so we talk about how Brian works with growers to design facilities that meet their needs and address energy usage issues. We’re also seeing larger multi-state operators which means there’s going to be a desire to streamline each and every facility so they each are performing similarly. Brian details his insight into the thinking around design changes in those massive upgrade projects and more.

A Homegrown Legal And Business Advisory Firm Dedicated To Cannabis In Massachusetts

A homegrown legal and business advisory firm dedicated to cannabis in Massachusetts with Blake Mensing, Founder and Chief Counsel, of The Mensing Group and Counsel to Hoban Law Group. and brings a no-nonsense approach to cannabis law in Massachusetts. The Mensing Group is first, and only, homegrown legal and business advisory firm solely dedicated to cannabis in Massachusetts. In his capacity as associate town counsel for seven towns throughout the Commonwealth, Blake has written and edited zoning and general bylaws, advised boards of selectmen on medical marijuana dispensary regulation by the Department of Public Health, worked with planning boards and zoning boards of appeal, and represented municipalities before the Massachusetts courts and administrative regulatory agencies.

We can’t avoid talking about the COVID-19 pandemic and we dive into what’s happening in Blake’s home state of Massachusetts where the industry and consumers were disappointed to learn that the Governor did NOT deem adult-use cannabis businesses as “essential. Unlike so many other states like California and Colorado who did, so we talk about that and so much more.

The Mensing Group LLC is the first, and only, homegrown legal and business advisory firm solely dedicated to cannabis in Massachusetts. They are proud to limit their practice to the exclusive service of Massachusetts cannabis business clients and they bring that singular focus to bear on the important issues facing Their clients. As the green rush changes the landscape of business opportunity in Massachusetts, they’d like to help you enter the marketplace as quickly and painlessly as possible. They will work to accommodate you at every level—they’ll even come to your home or office so you can focus on your goals, not traffic.

Beyond Seed To Sale

Go beyond Seed To Sale with Strimo CEO, Helkin Berg. Strimo is a business-performance platform that helps cannabis operators go beyond seed to sale, offering solutions to improve data collection, streamline efficiencies, and manage growth. Developed by industry leaders and pioneers, Strimo integrates cultivation, manufacturing, accounting, and dispensary management for the legal cannabis and hemp industry. Designed from experiences of operators and pioneers in the legal cannabis industry, the software bridges critical gaps between key operations for legal cannabis operators. The innovative comprehensive suite allows cannabis companies to run their entire business on one secure platform, managing the entire workflow by organic data collection, eliminating the need for excessive spreadsheets.

In this episode, we discuss the cannabis industry’s supply chain beyond the retail dispensary storefront, and how the COVID-19 crisis is impacting that supply chain and how businesses operate. We also talk about ways cannabis operators can recession-proof their businesses, and not only survive but thrive during the pandemic.

The Future Of Cannabis As An Essential Business – #CannabisIsEssential

Tune in to this new episode to learn more about The Future Of Cannabis As An Essential Business with Nina Simosko. Nina serves as Chief Revenue Officer for Akerna, a global regulatory compliance technology company in the cannabis space. Akerna’s companies and investments also include MJ Freeway, Ample Organics, Last Call Analytics, Leaf Data Systems, solo sciences, and ZolTrain. Nina brings more than 20 years of technology industry experience to her role. We talk about current events, and the good news during all this is that cannabis businesses have been deemed “essential.”

But there are some differences in how we’re operating. There’s delivery and curbside pickup, for example, so we walk through that customer-to-sale process now and how it’s different. Looking even further into the future, we ask if she is anticipating any further changes than what we’ve already seen, as well as how dispensaries will reach their customers and what will be new and different in how we’re operating in this new normal. Nina is extremely well suited to her current role with Akerna. She oversees all of the company’s revenue generation streams, builds strategies to drive revenue growth, and plays a pivotal role in aligning revenue generation processes across the entire organization.

Carrying The Family Torch In Cannabis

Tune in to this episode to learn more about carrying The Family Torch In Cannabis with Dan Herer. Dan is the son of famous marijuana activist and author Jack Herer, of the book ‘The Emperor Wears No Clothes,’ who passed away in 2010. Dan balances multiple roles as an industrial hemp developer, hemp entrepreneur, and is the Director of the California-based Jack Herer Foundation. Dan Herer, son of the legendary hemp advocate Jack Herer, was born into the hemp movement. Today, Dan carries on his late father’s legacy yet on his own terms and in his own way. If Jack Herer could be called a “warrior” and “activist” for the movement, which he was, Dan carries the family torch in hemp advocacy in the role of an “educator” and “influencer.”

These titles are appropriate and reverent for today. When Jack was working to advance hemp and cannabis policy by championing a people’s uprising when it (cannabis) was an underground industry, Dan’s domestic and international work in the industry today is primarily in modern markets. The latter requires a new level of strategy and sophistication. Winning the hearts of minds of policymakers and voters starts with education, in Dan’s view. The Emperor Wears No Clothes, was originally published in 1985 and now the second edition is available on Amazon for an interactive digital download and print versions available. We talk about the original book, how it came to be, why it was published, and what it’s about.

Customer Loyalty Platform For The Cannabis Industry

Tune in to this episode to learn more about customer loyalty platforms for the cannabis industry with Jeffrey Harris, CEO, and Founder of Springbig. Today, we learn about an innovator in loyalty marketing technology, who serves 18 million users, establishing the company as one of the fastest-growing cannatech companies in the cannabis industry. Springbig has partnerships with some of the leading POS providers in the cannabis space, including Flowhub, Cova, MJ Freeway, Treez, and Greenbits. They have worked alongside retailers to send over 50,000 campaigns by way of over 90,000,000 text messages and have seen close to 600,000 rewards redeemed in return.

Springbig’s dedication and expertise have allowed retailers to see immediate and significant ROIs on their marketing initiatives. Billions of dollars in revenues have been created in more than half of the states in the country that now allow the medical or recreational use of the product. Growers, dispensaries, distributors, and a whole host of other indirect companies have benefited from the legal marijuana trend. Springbig uses SMS, loyalty marketing, and other tools to encourage repeat business for cannabis retailers. Prior to Spingbig, Harris founded a loyalty marketing company (Inte Q) that focused on developing and managing data-driven programs for large retail and financial services firms.

From Soil To Oil

From soil to oil with Brian Chaplin, founder of Medicine Box. The company provides Cannabis-infused herbal wellness solutions based in Nevada County, California. They produce a signature tincture, holistically crafted from a delicate ensemble of soothing herbs, superfoods, and mindfully cultivated cannabis. Long before the initial announcement of Medicine Box’s formation on April 20, 2016, its founders spent an entire lifetime of blood, sweat, and soil into preparing for the adventure to follow. Chief Brand Officer Brian Chaplin spent nearly a full decade in the cannabis underground honing his cultivation skills and learning valuable lessons in entrepreneurialism through his work in Lake Tahoe’s service industry. With his embrace of sobriety and entry into the 12-step community in 2012, Brian began considering his options at the peak of his cultivation career.

During a long winter convalescence from a ski injury in 2016, Brian researched the thriving examples of consciously-minded, community-oriented businesses, from Vital Farms to Blue Bottle Coffee, that were emerging throughout the country. Assembling the initial prototype of this business during a trip to Oahu, he envisioned a future where all the pharmaceuticals and drugs in an average person’s medicine cabinet would be replaced by cannabis and plant-based health and wellness products. This vision of a 21st-century “medicine box” served as the starting point of our “exploratory adventure” into the worldwide wellness movement. We take a deep dive talking about Chaplin’s product. This product is unique in that it is a tincture that not only contains what we would expect, cannabis, but also a whole host of other healing herbs. We talk about why Brian decided to take this approach when creating his product and much more.

In Studio At #NECannaBizCon: ELEVATE – The Northeast Cannabis Business Conference

Listen to this special episode of NCIA’s Cannabis Industry Voice brought to you from the podcast studio on the showfloor of the Northeast Cannabis Business Conference and Expo held February 19-20, 2020, in Boston, MA, with your host, Bethany Moore!

ELEVATE Northeast Events and Education exists because of the creativity, dedication, and passion of a group of activists and professionals with a shared mission to educate and empower a diverse and inclusive cannabis workforce and to work together to end the stigma against cannabis and the people who use and work with it. Cara Crabb-Burnham has been involved with the cannabis community and policy reform since 2009 at Emerson College SSDP. She volunteered on the board of MassCann for several years and was the Dean for the first cannabis vocational training school in New England for three years.

Cara is currently developing a class for Fremont College in California called Cannabis Business and Budtending, designed for people to become more familiar with the cannabis industry and help them devise their future in the space. She became involved with cannabis after she lost her job during the recession in 2008. It has been a personal priority that she supports this industry and prepares people for positions that they wouldn’t have experience with and has been able to do this through workforce training.

Crisis Communications Strategy

Tune in to this episode to learn more about crisis communications strategy with Jeanine Moss, founder of Outfront Solutions. Jeanine is also the Chair of NCIA’s Marketing and Advertising Committee. Jeanine is a product and brand development specialist and entrepreneur who has shepherded numerous organizations and brands through worldwide crises, acting as Chief Communications Officer for The September 11th Fund after the terrorist attacks and has supported crisis operations for international non-profits like the American Red Cross. Recently Jeanine appeared on an NCIA webinar about crisis communications during the time of COVID-19.

Jeanine’s background in crisis management and she also spearheaded a publication from NCIA’s Marketing and Advertising Committee about Crisis Communication. We talk about that in general, plus how and why companies need to integrate plans surrounding an unwanted crisis. Jeanine works closely with start-ups, innovators, and agencies and advises Fortune 500 corporations like Accenture, Booz Allen Hamilton, and Hewlett Packard on launch strategy, brand positioning, messaging, and go-to-market strategies. In her role as a product development strategist, she conceived of and tested new products for CPG companies like Kraft Heinz Company and Seven-Up. Outfront Solutions provides crisis communications strategy, plans, and implementation services that help business leaders gain control over chaos and lead.

In Studio At #NECannaBizCon: Sovine Consulting With Cindy Sovine

Sovine Consulting

Listen to this special episode of NCIA’s Cannabis Industry Voice brought to you from the podcast studio on the showfloor of the Northeast Cannabis Business Conference and Expo held February 19-20, 2020, in Boston, MA, with your host, Bethany Moore!

Learn more about Sovine Consulting with Cindy Sovine live from The Northeast Cannabis Business Conference. Cindy has over 22 years of government relations experience working on local, state, and federal issues. She is very effective at helping highly regulated industries achieve their goals and successfully navigate ever-changing legislative, regulatory, and political environments. She is a Colorado native who grew up farming and ranching in eastern Colorado. Cindy spent much of her career working in health care and early childhood education until she began working in the cannabis policy in 2016. This was after her stepfather’s journey with lymphatic cancer and seeing firsthand how cannabis alleviated his suffering and provided a quality of life that traditional treatments could not provide.

She now works in hemp, marijuana, and psychedelic policy and speaks all over the country helping states create sound policies. In addition to passing numerous cannabis industry and social justice bills, Cindy was the Lead Political Strategist on the Decriminalize Denver Campaign. This is the nation’s first successful campaign to Decriminalize Psilocybin (aka Magic Mushrooms). She also successfully led the statewide effort to amend the Constitution 2018 (Amendment X) to ensure Colorado’s hemp laws remain competitive nationwide.

The Importance of Clean Cannabis

Clean Cannabis is one of the biggest concerns for today’s guest, the president of ProKure Solutions, Alex Cushman. ProKure’s goal is bringing the benefits of ProKure products to a wider market in the growing cultivation space, with the transparency of product as a core differentiator, and a mission. ProKure offers a safe, cost-effective, hospital-grade solution for disinfecting and deodorizing all surfaces. He’s been with the company since 2017 and prior to his role at ProKure, he launched an energy drink from the ground up.

As we know, every state has its own set of regulations and compliance requirements, and at NCIA we are wrapping our arms around the federal policy and future of that. As it pertains to clean cannabis and ensuring the consumer is receiving the safe products, we dive into what is Alex is seeing as far as regulations that set good standards for this goal. We also mention the urgency around this issue of consumer safety. We already faced the lung illnesses and deaths from bad, unclean vaping products in the market from illicit players, and unrelated to cannabis, the coronavirus is a respiratory pandemic, so as cannabis is primarily ingested through smoke or vapor into the lungs of human beings, cleanliness of what we’re putting into our bodies is crucial.

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