Blunt Business

Today we welcome back a guest, CEO, and Co-Founder of Simplifya Marion Mariathasan, who appeared on the program in May 2020 during the peak of COVID. He manages the cannabis industry’s leading regulatory and operational compliance software platform. Under RMA, eligible cannabis operators can easily opt in and take advantage of best-in-class insurance coverage and services with partner carriers and brokers. They can also access industry-leading compliance tool Simplifya services as well as have the majority of the cost paid for, which will help businesses stay compliant and up-to-date with ever-changing state regulations – a crucial step in ensuring financial strength and consumer safety.The new offering brings qualifying cannabis operators working with participating RMA insurance carriers and/or brokers to receive 70% off the cost of Simplifya’s core suite of operational and regulatory compliance solutions – paid for by participating RMA insurance carriers and brokers. Simplifya customers are also eligible to

Our next guest is an entrepreneur, investor, and corporate dealmaker with more than a decade of experience building and scaling businesses personally and professionally. She has presented alongside Tony Robbins in the U.S. and Canada and has six cannabis licenses that are minority or women-owned. She has more than a decade of experience building and scaling businesses, including a tech platform and turnkey retail model tailored to the cannabis industry. MJBizDaily recently wrote that the cannabis industry is expected to endure more layoffs and pain in 2023 – and perhaps beyond – after a tough year marked by companies cutting hundreds of employees amid falling wholesale prices and slowing demand.Sara was interviewed for an article by Cannabis and Tech Today about how while the cannabis market expands worldwide with new strains, upstart cannabis manufacturers, and many established entities, the need for cannabis companies to differentiate themselves is immediate. She said that people involved in the cannabis wo

Paul Dunford is Co-founder and VP of Knowledge at Green Check Verified. Paul has extensive experience leading digital transformation initiatives predominantly in the healthcare and retail verticals. Previously he was retained by a Fortune 100 insurance company to design and implement a sophisticated solution for managing their field sales teams. At Green Check, Paul leads the compliance team that designs cannabis banking programs for financial institutions. Paul is an active member of the cannabis banking regulatory community, contributing to trade publications and speaking virtually and in person across the country on the subject.Established in 2017, Green Check Verified brought together leaders in banking, compliance, and technology to build a company that enables financial institutions to safely and successfully offer services to the legal cannabis industry by utilizing best-in-class technology solutions and advisory services.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https:/

Our next guest is a nationally recognized marketer with a background in cannabis, fashion, beauty, and wellness. She is recognized among Green Entrepreneur's list of "Top 25 Cannabis Brands that Killed it in Marketing in 2019 and has been awarded three Cannabis CLIO Awards. Before joining Statehouse Holdings, Angela led a dynamic team across marketing, research and development, and scientific affairs, she launched two new brands, introduced 70 new products, and directed an existing portfolio of 12 brands at CannaCraft. StateHouse Holdings Inc. recently joined the Cannabis Research Coalition, a collaborative research partnership between The Hemp Mine and Clemson University. The partnership will address cannabis cultivation and postharvest challenges.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Angela Mays, CEO and Founder of the Blunt Accountant runs an innovative cannabis accounting firm that works with new licensees and new plant-touching business owners to help them become IRS compliant. She created CannAccounting in a Box™, a turnkey accounting solution designed for newly licensed plant-touching startups to ensure they are IRC 280E compliant and audit-ready before they open their doors. CannAccounting in a Box™ is part of a comprehensive set of cannabis accounting services The Blunt Accountant™ developed to help plant-touching canna-business owners better manage their accounting operations. CannAccounting in a Box™ is a proprietary solution that gives canna-business owners the tools they need to set up IRC 280E-compliant accounting operations. The solution is based on the three audit areas the IRS will focus its audits. The goal is to make sure a new business is IRC 280E compliant before generating the first sale.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://

Qredible Transparency, Integration, and Quality for Cannabis, CBD, and Hemp as we talk with their CEO, Brian Fitzpatrick. Qredible is a cloud-based platform for transparency, integration, and quality in the Hemp, CBD, and Legalized Marijuana supply chain.Brian Fitzpatrick is the chairman and CEO of Qredible and has been a CEO and Executive Leader of software and related platform companies for over 25 years. His specialty is innovative cloud-based software that solves complex industry issues using advanced technologies like machine learning, robotic process automation, and blockchain.Brian explains: "A CBD company owner was literally in tears when she saw how our platform helps her to stand out in a crowded space and that our only mission is promoting trust and transparency. She was amazed that we don't take revenue from her when a consumer or wholesale buyer finds her on the Qredible platform." He told her that "this would be a conflict of interest". Qredible's goal is to vet and verif

Our next guests represent the industry-leading cannabis software suite and point-of-sale platform for cannabis retailers and delivery services, recently launched a new e-commerce product that combines the best of their software with technology provided by their most recent acquisition.  BLAZE ECOM is a native e-commerce technology that indexes retailer product menus, improving retail sites' SEO and driving more organic traffic. BLAZE ECOM also provides enhanced store branding and advertising opportunities while offering retailers the ability to set up their own e-commerce mobile applications at no additional cost, allowing for marketing via push notifications that typically prompt higher conversion rates.Delivery services allow cannabis companies to reach customers in areas where dispensaries are not allowed. While cannabis delivery is an incredible opportunity for companies to reach new customers they would not otherwise be able to, following the law can be difficult in an environment with a patchwork of

Adam Bierman is the co-founder and former CEO of MedMen Enterprises, the first American cannabis unicorn. During his decade at the company, it grew to five states, 32 retail stores, and 1500 employees. In 2019, MedMen lost 95% of its value and Adam chose to invest even more in the company despite advice to diversify. This led to lawsuits and MedMen essentially disappeared from the industry. Adam is now working with cannabis companies and investors to expand consumer access on a global scale. He was also responsible for setting the trend of dispensary design, with a layout similar to an Apple store.Adam, the founder of MedMen, a cannabis unicorn, had a ten-year run of building the company and brand. He left the company and gave up his board seat and voting rights. Since then, MedMen has gone through three CEOs and has not recovered. Adam's biggest takeaway from his experience is that even though he was the face of the company, it didn't matter as people expected that person to be a party animal. He bel

This week's episode of Blunt Business featured a roundtable discussion on advertising and social media with Ashley Fields, the Senior Vice President of Marketing Communications at Cann, and Aaron Rivadeneyra, the Director of e-commerce at Kiva. The two discussed recent updates to Twitter's advertising policies, which allow cannabis businesses to advertise in states where it is legal, with some exceptions. These exceptions include that the ads cannot promote or offer the sale of cannabis, with the exception of topical or non-ingestible hemp-derived CBD products that contain equal to or less than 0.3% THC.Twitter recently announced that it will allow cannabis advertising in 2023, with a few restrictions. These restrictions include only targeting geographical areas in the US where cannabis products and services are licensed, not targeting users under 21, and complying with all applicable laws and regulations surrounding cannabis marketing. Ashley and Aaron weighed in on the announcement, noting that it i

Our next guest operates a compliance strategy and services provider serving the hemp and cannabis industries nationwide. She brings a regulator’s keen eye and wide-reaching knowledge of evolving compliance and safety mandates to support businesses in tightly regulated industries.Allay Consulting and The GMP Collective are now joining forces amid the rapid national growth of the cannabis, hemp, and emerging psychedelics sectors, with a focus on current Goods Manufacturing Practices (cGMP) compliance. Through this partnership, The GMP Collective will now have increased availability to focus on working with governments, standards bodies such as ASTM International, and ancillary service providers to lead the development of a cohesive regulatory framework that will align the disjointed statutes of the cannabis and hemp industries, both domestically and internationally. According to the Journal of the American Medical Association, there are more than 50 publicly traded companies related to the development or admini

Adam has 30 years of business, strategy and leadership experience in both Private and Public Companies. In 2021, Adam believed the timing and opportunity was right for him to bring his passion for business, innovative financing and entrepreneurial spirit to the Cannabis sector by creating funding products for all areas of this early stage, growth industry by founding FundCanna. FundCanna provides short term funding to all areas of the sector; cultivators, manufacturers, vendors, suppliers, distributors and retailers. In just its first year, FundCanna has underwritten roughly 500 files and funded approximately 250 unique files bringing much needed liquidity and financing solutions to the legal Cannabis industry.While growing rapidly, and now in more than 35 states, the cannabis industry still faces a massive shortage of debt financing from traditional bank and non-bank lenders. Today, what little debt financing is available to the industry is generated by high-cost sources of capital including sale-leasebacks,

Sarah Evans is a tremendously talented singer and songwriter who has left an indelible mark in the world of country music. She has released ten studio albums, the most recent being 2020's Covers collection, and has five number-one hits. She has won numerous awards and accolades, including the Academy of Country Music's top Female Vocalist accolades, as well as numerous American Music Awards, Billboard Music Awards, and CMA CMT Grammy Awards nominations.Sarah is now on Blunt Business to talk about her new luxurious CBD product line called Born to Fly, which is named after one of her chart-topping signature songs. She expresses her gratitude for being on the show and for the kind introduction. Jorge reveals that he first heard her music in the form of the song Suds in a Bucket and found himself compelled to stop and watch the video every time it was on.Sara is discussing how CBD has helped her to manage the chronic pain and anxiety she still experiences due to a hospital stay she endured at a young age.

The guest was Roy Bingham, the CEO of BDSA, who provides businesses with cannabis market intelligence, consumer research, and advisory services. He was welcomed on and apologized for the 50 emails. Roy thanked Leo and mentioned that everyone in the company is smarter than him. The host remembered meeting Roy's team at the NCIA's Cannabis Business Summit in 2016 and said everyone was delightful. The host also remembered having Roy on the 2018 show Cannabis Connection.Roy Bingham, CEO of BDSA, recently released an updated five-year global legal cannabis market forecast, predicting that legal cannabis spending will grow from $32 billion in 2022 to nearly $60 billion by 2027 at a compound annual growth rate of 13.2%. The US is predicted to drive this growth, especially with adult-use markets in Missouri, New Jersey, and New York, as well as the top four markets of Florida, Illinois, Massachusetts, and Michigan, which will see an increase of nearly 10% in 2023, adding $770,000,000 in new spend. Despite the

Today welcome back a returning guest who has extensive experience helping scores of clients, from individual entrepreneurs to publicly traded companies, navigate complex cannabis disputes and successful business strategies. She is a partner and lead of the cannabis practice at Holland & Hart, based in Denver.Elevations Hotels and Resorts, based out of Arizona, announced in January they will convert the Artisan Hotel Boutique, which is just off the Las Vegas Strip, into The Lexi, a 64-room hotel with the entire fourth floor designated as cannabis friendly. Elevations also own and operate the Clarendon Hotel & Spa in Phoenix, which lays claim to being the state’s first cannabis-friendly hotel. We discuss how amenities and the guest experience will ultimately be different and how this Vegas location will be able to perform. The Street reports that Las Vegas has a cannabis conundrum. The city allows the sale of marijuana for recreational use, but it only allows it to be smoked in private residences. That

Our next guest is a legacy cannabis entrepreneur. Serving California and Michigan recreational cannabis markets, he is here to tell us about a recently launched cannabis brand that they say “gives customers a sweet escape in the form of aptly-named vapes, edibles, flowers, prerolls, and concentrates.”Gelato Canna Co. is not even a year old and has already landed its product line of vapes, edibles, concentrate, pre-rolls, and flowers in over 400 cannabis dispensaries throughout California and Michigan, with the bulk of its presence in the Golden State. They have yet to take a single investment dollar and hit their first million-dollar month in October at their eponymous Lake Elsinore store.A distinctive aspect of Gelato’s founders is that they followed and understood the simple laws of offer and demand. In the midst of the hype, even while they were succeeding in the vaping segment, they got into concentrates. Now, once again ahead of the curve in market trends, they circle back to the basics. They went into p

Our next guest’s company is quite familiar to Cannabis Radio listeners. We featured this company last fall and we are happy to welcome back the folks from Paybotic, the premier payment solutions company that excels in tailoring solutions to the cannabis industry. Paybotic specializes in advanced technological solutions for payment processing providing financial solutions to help cannabis businesses in the United States. throughout the nation grow and succeed.One major issue in the cannabis industry is the lack of financing and payment processing programs available. We continue to await some federal relief to legal barriers that have continued to create difficulty for dispensaries to obtain services, record sales, process payments, and hinder the growth of many marijuana dispensaries. All you have to do is look at the crisis ongoing with the industry in California. While we are still waiting for legislation like the SAFE Banking ACT to be implemented.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy &

Our next guest has years of experience in cannabis investing, including financing, fund management, and consulting for early-stage cannabis businesses. He advises entrepreneurs looking to gain in-depth expertise on raising capital or securing financing, working with investors, and the legal ins and outs of starting a cannabis business.More private lenders are entering the space and bringing with them innovative approaches to working with cannabis businesses. These lenders are not afraid to maneuver around historic industry barriers to financing and are opening up to cannabis companies' lending opportunities that have been available to other industries for decades.For starters, cannabis businesses with assets can now use those assets as collateral for a loan. If the business already owns property or a building, for example, or if it has substantial stockpiles of equipment, these assets can be utilized to take out a loan against the value of these assets. These loans are classified as real estate loans or e

Our next guest oversees a fast-growing card network brand allowing cardholders to spend at general everyday merchants but also at Cannabis related merchants. They have created a new credit card that has been developed as one of the first payment processors to allow the use of their technology for the Cannabis industry. Similar to Discover and American Express, SuperNet acquires new credit card holders by partnering with financial institutions and cannabis merchants and is the only payment network that officially accepts and grants permission to process transactions from cannabis merchantsSuperNet is getting ready to launch a new credit card that will be the only credit card to be accepted at marijuana/cannabis dispensaries. SuperNet will also allow for the transactions of NFTs, letting consumers spend their crypto – another first.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Our next guest is in based in the fast-growing New York State cannabis market where he counsels clients on various business matters including, structure, expansion, formation, and sale. He also deals with the dissolution of business entities and partnerships, regulatory compliance, internal and external best practices, compliance audits, and general advice concerning complex and novel issues of law.   We talk about Conditional Adult-Use Retail Dispensary licenses or CAURD licensees that have been granted to the first retail dispensaries to open for legal adult-use cannabis sales in New York State. On the recent decision to allow licensees to select their own site, Jason said "They didn’t necessarily rush issuing the first CAURD licenses and still did not have leased space or funding committed (although FYI, per DASNY (or Dormitory Authority of the State of New York) they are ready to go – they just do not have leased space to start). It shows the lack of practicality of the OCM mission."He fills us in

Our next guest’s platform has been referred to as the Salesforce of Cannabis. It is active in over 25 markets and processes over $2.5 billion in annual sales. They have partnered with some of the largest multi-state cannabis operators and are responsible for over 35% of all cannabis wholesale orders nationwide and have more than 600 brands listed on the platform.Leaftrade helps facilitate ordering and fulfillment. It’s more than a marketplace for wholesalers and retailers in the cannabis space. Leaf Trade streamlines the entire ordering & fulfillment process, payment process, and post-sale reporting. They go on to write about GMPs and How They Could Potentially Have a Financial Impact on the Cannabis Industry. Deciding to “Go GMP” could potentially have lasting financial impacts on cannabis businesses willing to do the work. They go on to write: More profit could also be made from higher prescription revenues when consumers are covered by state or private insurance providers.Advertising Inquiries: https:/