Out of Thin Ayr: How to Make Money in Cannabis in Three Short Years

Justin Dye was brought into to Schwazze to help pivot it to a plant-touching business.

In this final episode of Seed to CEO, learn:

• How and why Dye chenged the focus of the company
• How he decides which companies to acquire
• Why Schwazze remains focused on mature markets, like Colorado, instead of newer markets

Who is Justin Dye?

Justin Dye is chairman and CEO at Schwazze. He cut his management teeth at Albertsons, the grocer, leaving as chief adminstrative officer. He went on to advise the PJ Solomon on investments in food, retail and restaurants. He also ran his own private equity firm.

Gary Allen has leveraged lessons from the high-tech and advertiisng industries to lead New Frontier Data as it provides the booming cannabis industry with accurate data on trends and insights.
The company now serves over 30 markets.

In this episode:

• Discover the vision behind how big data can help in cannabis
• Learn how lessons from the tech boom and bust should inform your cannabis strategy

Who is Gary Allen?
Gary Allen is CEO New Frontier Data, a data, analytics and technology firm specializing in the global cannabis industry. Gary’s expertise in operations, marketing and technology, applied to a high growth company in a fast-moving, emerging market, is perfectly aligned with this evolution of his 24-year career as an executive.

His career is founded in advertising technology. By the end of 2015, some of his former colleagues were entering cannabis, and he made the leap to join them.

Chad Bronstein started his first businesses in high school. He built an agency working with major brands, but things had gotten too corporate. So he took the leap to build Fyllo, helping cannabis companies market. Over time, he has built a method to segment and target audiences, while educating brands on regulatory constraints.

In this episode, find out:

• The mindset needed to jump into a high-risk, new role
• How he used networking to speed up his education in the industry
• The importance of building a strong team
• How his businesses provides a crossover opportunity with mainstream companies
• How he makes decisions about acquisitions

During his twenties, Ryan Smith had already started and sold two companies before he broke into cannabis in 2015 with the launch of his B2B technology platform Leaflink. One year later, he made Forbes’ 30 Under 30 list highlighting software technology entrepreneurs, buttressing his wunderkind reputation. Seven years on, Leaflink operates in some 30 markets and has some 12,000 business customers.

In this episode of "Seed to CEO," you’ll hear what Smith did to get this far, including:

• Spotting opportunity in the cannabis industry landscape
• Conducting market research
• Picking winning markets in which to operate
• Keeping a fresh perspective

Who is Ryan Smith?

Ryan G. Smith is the CEO and co-founder of LeafLink, a B2P platform catering to the wholesale cannabis supply chain for brands, distributors, and retailers in 30 markets. In 2011 Smith founded his first business, a green office supply company named EcoCampus. And in 2013 he founded Trupoly, ant investor management relationship software business. Smith and his partner Zach Silverman founded LeafLink in 2015. Smith was listed on Forbes’ 30 Under 30 list in 2016 and LeafLink was named on Fast Company’s 2018 list of Top 10 Most Innovative Companies in Enterprise. In 2021, LeafLink was named one of Inc’s Fastest Growing Privately Held Companies in America.

Greenlight, led by John Mueller, is one of the fastest growing multi-state operators in the United States, with operations in Missouri, Arkansas, West Virginia, Illinois and South Dakota.

Mueller is executing an unusual strategy, buying licenses in "undiscovered" locations. 
In this episode, learn:

• The logic behind his strategy
• Why he operates in off-the-radar locations
• How to adjust to changing conditions
• How he scores licenses

Who is John Mueller?
John Mueller has previously served as Chief Executive Officer of Acres Cannabis and Acres Cultivation, and currently serves as Principal of Mid America Capital. John brings extensive experience with state regulations and compliance in all areas of cannabis cultivation and dispensing. John has two successful decades of working with Federal and State regulatory agencies including USDA and FDA. John has served in all levels of executive management primarily in the cannabis, food, manufacturing, and construction industries.

Rebecca Colett spent most of her professional career in analytical and leadership positions at some of the best-known financial and tech companies in America, including Morgan Stanley Smith Barney, GE Capital, IBM, and Red Hat. But that didn’t quench Colett’s professional passion, so the Detroit entrepreneur and her business partner started a caregiving business, teaching themselves the craft of cultivation and product manufacturing. They learned it well enough that in 2019 they expanded that caregiving business into a licensed grower and product manufacturer – Calyxeum - that grows flower and creates edibles, concentrates, topicals, and other products, and employs 20 people. 

In this episode, Colett will share: 

-How she used her finance, tech and analytics background in cannabis  

-How she bootstrapped her business after an unsuccessful capital raise attempt 

-How to bounce back and raise capital successfully after not succeeding to raise capital the first time 

- How to scale a caregiving operation into a thriving business 

- How small businesses can use the power of branding to compete with big businesses 

Who is Rebecca Colett?

Rebecca Colett is the co-founder and CEO of Calyxeum, a cultivation and product manufacturing business headquartered in Detroit. Colett and her business partner LaToyia Rucker launched Calyxeum in 2019 after several years as registered Michigan caregivers. Colett has also served on the national board of National Organization for the Reformation of Marijuana Laws, and as Committee Chair for the National Cannabis Industry Association. Before cannabis, she launched a successful gym franchise, and held analytical and leadership posts at Morgan Stanley Smith Barney, GE Capital, IBM, Red Hat and other well-known American companies. 

Jim Cacioppo cut his teeth in the financial world in the early 1990s with investment bank Wasserstein Perella. The bank was co-founded by Bruce Wasserstein, the hostile takeover pioneer portrayed in Barbarians at the Gate, the book about his 31 billion dollar takeover bid for RJR Nabisco.

Cacioppo, after working at some of New York’s most storied hedge funds, broke into the cannabis industry in 2018, and co-founded Jushi Holdings, a growing MSO.

He brought a "buy big" strategy with him into cannabis, spending tens of millions of dollars on licenses and acquisitions in states like Illinois and Virginia.

In this episode of Seed to CEO, Cacioppo will share:

• How his finance experience helped him in cannabis
• How to identify lucrative acquisition opportunities in an ever-changing economic environment
• How to pick markets for new launches
• How expand and scale

Who is Jim Cacioppo?

Jim Cacioppo is the CEO, Chairman and Founder of Jushi, one of the biggest MSOs in the nation. Before breaking into cannabis in 2018, Cacioppo spent more than 20 years with some of the most successful hedge funds in finance. Cacioppo is also Co-Founder and Managing Partner of One East Partners, and previously served as President and Co-Portfolio Manager of Sandell Asset Management and Head of Distressed Debt for Halcyon Management, a global investment firm with over US$9 billion in assets. Cacioppo earned his BA from Colgate University and his MBA from Harvard University.

Fife Symington IV is the CEO and Managing Director of Copperstate Farms, a vertically integrated cannabis operation he launched in 2016. This year,  Copperstate Farms was named to the Inc. 5000 List of Fastest Growing Private Companies in the U.S.

Copperstate started as a 40-acre greenhouse; today it's a 1.7 million square foot canopy colossus.

In 2019, Copperstate launched dispensary brand, Sol Flower, which now has five locations, including one that features a café and wellness classroom open to the public.

In this episode of Seed to CEO, Symington will share: 

• Expertise from commercial agriculture that can be applied in cannabis 
• Developing a long-term business vision 
• How to upgrade, update, and expand your greenhouse grow 
• Keys to low cost production 
• The importance of community involvement, especially when you are getting your business started 

Who is Fife Symington?

Fife Symington IV is the CEO and Managing Director of Copperstate Farms, a vertically integrated cannabis operation he co-founded in 2016. In the 1990s, Symington co-founded and developed several commercial scale greenhouse operations in Mexico, including International Greenhouse Produce in Culiacan, Sinaloa; Nueva Agronomia de Nayarit in Jala, Nayarit; and Apache Produce in Nogales, Arizona. Collectively, these greenhouses covered 850 acres and shipped more than 175 million pounds of vegetables to the U.S. each year. In 2016, he transitioned his vegetable growing expertise to medical cannabis with the purchase of a 40-acre glass greenhouse in Snowflake, Arizona that became Copperstate. Today, Copperstate’s greenhouse operations cover 1.7 million square-feet of canopy, and it employs more than 700 people. 

Oregon entrepreneur Arron Morris and his partners launched Wyld, an infused cannabis edibles brand, in 2016. Morris admits their first cannabis-infused candies were terrible. But he and his team persisted, pairing a winning recipe with a bold business plan that’s made them one of the top edibles brands in America. In this episode of Seed to CEO, hear Morris talk about: 

• Bootstrapping your business 
• Branding your business 
• Efficient distribution 
• Expansion in other states and other countries 

Who is Aaron Morris?

Aaron Morris the co-founder and CEO of Wyld, a multi-state edibles brand that is headquartered in Portland, Oregon. Morris graduated in 2011 from the University of Oregon where he triple-majored in economics, history, and political science and had plans to be an academic. But entrepreneurship called, and in 2013 he founded Cascade Spirits – where he still also works. That experience led him to found Wyld, which is now one of the leading edibles brands in America. 

Barbara Fox planned on becoming a doctor, but then the cannabis industry came calling.

In 2016, when Fox was 20 years old and still in college, majoring in biology and public health at the University of Nevada Las Vegas, her plan was to go to medical school.

But her father and brother needed help coming up with packaging for their Nevada medical marijuana cultivation business, so Fox chipped in, and the Cannabiz Supply Co was born.

Today, the company generates millions of dollars annually, and has a second office in Oklahoma. Fox will share how she got there, including: 

• Identifying the opportunity 
• Educating herself about packaging, accounting, and other skills necessary to succeed 
• Expanding into new markets 
• Creating new product lines 

Who is Barbara Fox?

Barbara Fox is the co-founder and operations director of CannaBiz Supply, a Nevada-based company that bills itself as a one-stop shop for cannabis packaging. Before launching CannaBiz Supply, Fox was in college majoring in biology and health policy and planned to attend medical school. But her father and brother asked her to help them come up with packaging solutions for their own Nevada cannabis cultivation business. Her packaging solutions solved some critical packaging issues for her father and brother, and soon after, other cannabis businesses started calling Fox for packaging solutions, and CannaBiz Supply was born.