Seed to CEO

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. 

Being a small business in the cannabis industry is tough and getting tougher, especially with all the advantages that multi-state operators and other big businesses have over independent shops. But a small number of small cannabis businesses have succeeded, writing their own David and Goliath stories.  

One such entrepreneur is Hope Wiseman, founder and CEO of Mary and Main, a medical cannabis dispensary in Prince Georges County, Maryland. One of the youngest entrepreneurs in the business, Wiseman bootstrapped Mary and Main – in operation for four years now. 

Wiseman shares: 

• How she educated herself about the industry and mastered the application process
• How she funded her business plan, selected real estate, and found personnel to open her dispensary
• Why leaning into your base is the best way to survive tough economic environments
• Inventory management advice
• How to prepare for a possible recreational market 

Who is Hope Wiseman?

Hope Wiseman is the founder and CEO of Mary and Main, an independent medical marijuana dispensary in Prince Georges County, Maryland, that she opened in 2018 when she was 25. Wiseman is a graduate of Spelman College, where she founded the school’s Habitat for Humanity chapter and from where she graduated Magna Cum Laude. Before cannabis, she worked as an equity institutional sales analyst at SunTrust Bank (now Truist), and was also a cheerleader for the Atlanta Falcons.   

Arkansas wasn’t on many people’s radars a few years ago when it came to cannabis legalization. But since legal sales started there in May 2019, Arkansas has proven to be a robust market, albeit with its challenges. One canna-entrepreneur making a go at it is Matt Shansky, who was climbing the corporate latter in the fitness space when his family queried him about breaking into the industry. Before long, he was converting a barn in Bentonville, which became The Releaf Center, the dispensary that Shansky runs today. In this episode of Seed to CEO, Shansky will talk about: 

• How he and his team educated themselves about this new industry 
• Why he and his team chose to pursue retail business instead of a cultivation or manufacturing business 
• Choosing the right location for your store 
• How to compete against MSOs. 
• Serving a rural community 

 Who is Matt Shansky?

Matt Shansky is a cofounder and CEO of The Releaf Center, a medical cannabis dispensary in Bentonville, Arkansas, near the Missouri and Oklahoma borders. A personal trainer by profession, Shansky once lived in Memphis, Tennessee and was climbing the corporate latter at a nationally known fitness company where there was “room to grow.” When family members came to him with the idea of breaking into the cannabis industry, he initially had reservations, but was intrigued by the opportunity and motivated by the mission to provide medicine. He and his team scouted other markets, hired consultants, and submitted a successful application that helped them launch The Releaf Center.  

Vanessa Gabriel is only 30 but has already launched three highly successful software companies, with the two most recent being in the cannabis industry. Gabriel sold her first cannabis business, an order-ahead platform called Greenlight Technologies, about a year after launching it, for a high nine-digit figure. Well capitalized, she launched her current company Drop Delivery in 2018. But Gabriel, a proud Filipina who’s also built a diverse company, also encountered plenty of rough patches and “No’s” on her road to success. In this episode, Gabriel shares: 

-How she identified the opportunity for both her cannabis software companies 

-How she navigated the sale of her first company 

-How she and her executive team keep operations lean at the ancillary company 

-Why a “slow and steady” growth philosophy has served her well. 

Who is Vanessa Gabriel?

Vanessa Gabriel is the founder and CEO of Drop Delivery, a delivery technology software business serving cannabis delivery companies and retailers in seven states. Gabriel founded her first company aSociete, a fashion shopping platform for millennials, out of her college dorm-room, in 2011. In 2017, she founded her first cannabis company, Greenlight Technologies, an order-ahead and digital loyalty software platform. Gabriel sold that business for a high nine-digit figure, which gave her the capital to launch Drop Delivery. And she’s still only 30.  

Keith Villa’s jump from craft beer to cannabis infused beer 

Keith Villa created Blue Moon in 1995 while working at Coors Brewing Company. Blue Moon became a massive success and changed the brewing landscape forever. After three decades of brewing, Villa and his wife, who has a background in civil engineering, leveraged their knowledge to create Ceria Brewing, a Colorado-based cannabis infused beer company, in 2017. In this episode of Seed to CEO, Villa shares: 

• How he and his wife came up with the idea for Ceria 
• How they conducted market research 
• Complying with trademarks 
• How they developed formulations  
• Why they partnered with a co-packer. 

Who is Keith Villa?

Keith Villa is the co-founder of and brew-master at CERIA Beverages Company, which makes cannabis infused non-alcoholic beers, as well as non-alcoholic. Before launching CERIA in 2017, Villa spent more than 20 years as the master brewer at Blue Moon Brewing Company, which he founded in 1995. Blue Moon became a pioneer in the craft beer world. Villa got his start with Coors after getting doctorate in brewing from Vrije Universiteit Brussel.  

Matt Walstatter and his wife Meghan were among the first cannabis retailers in Portland, Oregon and enjoyed early mover advantages for a few years. But Portland grew into one of the most saturated retail markets in the country, so the couple instead decided to focus on their nascent craft cultivation business. The problem? It also happens to be in one of the most saturated cultivation markets in the country. The Walstatters not only survived but thrived.

This episode of Seed to CEO is a must-listen for anyone competing in uber-competitive markets, and covers topics that include:

• Raising capital

• Selling your business

• Contingency planning

• Building efficiency into your cultivation facility

• Branding

• Being politically connected

Chris Beals landed unexpectedly at Weedmaps in 2015 but since then has taken the famed ancillary business public and grown it into one of the most recognizable brands in cannabis.

Beals spent his pre-cannabis life advising start-ups and deal-making in highly regulated industries such as healthcare and technology, but it took some tough on-the-job experience to prepare Beals for cannabis’ realities.

In this episode, Beals talks about:   

• The importance of due diligence
• How Weedmaps handles the problem of unlicensed operators
• Taking a boots-on-ground approach to learning about the industry
• Expanding
• Preparing for federal legalization

Who is Chris Beals?

Chris Beals is the CEO of WM Technology, the parent company of Weedmaps, one of the best known ancillary brands in the cannabis industry. An attorney by profession, Beals joined Weedmaps in 2015 as president and general counsel and took over as CEO in 2019. Before cannabis, Beals was a senior vice president with Colbeck Capital Management, where he focused on deal origination in the technology and health sectors; Deutsche Telecom, where was senior corporate counsel and data privacy officer who managed and advised deal teams involved in acquisitions and partnerships; and the law firm Covington & Burling, where he advised startup and technology companies on deal structuring.

Brett Heyman had led PR efforts at Gucci and Dolce and Gabbana before launching a line of clutches in 2010, named Edie Parker, after her daughter, that quickly took off thanks to vocal fans such as Lady Gaga, Solange Knowles, and Kate Hudson. Heyman followed-up with a successful line of home accessories but for her third act pivoted to cannabis, launching Flower by Edie Parker in 2019. In this episode of Seed to CEO, Heyman takes listeners on her fashion to flower journey, discussing:

How she leveraged fashion experience to break into cannabis

The importance of partnerships to the company’s overall strategy.

The challenges of operating in California

How to assess new markets 


Who is Brett Heyman?

Brett Heyman is founder and CEO of Flower by Edie Parker, a three-year-old cannabis brand specializing in pre-rolls, prepacked flower, glass pipes and stash boxes. Before cannabis, Heyman led PR efforts at fashion houses such as Gucci and Dolce and Gabbana before launching her own very successful fashion label, Edie Parker. She’s also got a pretty killer country home in Connecticut that’s appears in magazine’s like Architectural Digest and Habitually Chic.

This former tech entrepreneur is shaking up the cannabis ingestible market, licensing fast-acting ingestible formulations to premium cannabis brands. 

Learn how:

Her interest in wellness led her to cannabis
Azuca is using science to improve the cannabis experience
Azuca's focus on quality runs through its brand
How Rael thinks about scale 

Tim Schuler spent 15 years with Anheuser-Busch, “moving product from the manufacturer into consumer hands in another regulated market.” He sold 48M cases of beer a year. 

When Michigan offered medical licenses in 2015, he applied. “I knew where the market was going.” 

His company now focuses on concentrates and edibles, with a new drink mix. 

Learn how he is tackling key obstacles, including:

Increasing costs

Winning over retailers and budtenders

Direct to consumer marketing

Who is Tim Schuler?

Tim built a career in Anheuser-Busch marketing and sales and invested in Detriot in a role building parternships for Palace Sports and Entertainment.
Now president and COO of Detroit Edible Company/Cannalicious Labs, he supplies the growing Michigan market with innovative edibles and infused beverages.