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…you do not know what you think you know. There’s a saying that if you’ve been in this industry for a couple of years you’re a dinosaur. The reality is that cannabis goes back tens of thousands of years, and in our communities here on the West Coast, is a multi generational discipline. As part …
Five Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started a CBD Business, With Corey Mangold Co-Founder of Gigasavvy If I could inspire a movement that would have the most impact on people around the world, it would be to develop a standardized manufacturing and testing protocol to be adopted globally. If we all adhered …
Seed Technology CEO Matthew Cutone: Operate with authenticity and transparency, with Fotis Georgiadis I am sure this will sound cliche, but hire people who are smarter than you and do your best to empower them. It’s very inspirational to witness your team solve problems and “grab a hold of the controls”. Don’t just hire smart …
The cannabis industry is an incubator in a lot of ways, by not being able to leverage traditional platforms it forces organizations to come up with something unique to generate awareness and adoption. I had the pleasure of interviewing Cy Scott. Scott is co-founder and CEO of Headset, Inc., turning retail data into real-time cannabis …
Hire excellent people. Don’t skimp on paying for experience. It is better to pay someone more money who gets the work done in half the time. We’ve spent more time running in circles because we failed to invest in human resources. Align yourself with people smarter than you. Take advantage of their perspective. I had …
5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started Leading a Cannabis Business, with Ray Landgraf and Fotis Georgiadis Don’t take the simple things for granted, like access to banking. I knew from the get-go it would be challenging in ways it hasn’t been for me in other industries, but I had no idea …
Five Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started a Cannabis Business, with Billy Levine and Fotis Georgiadis For a little while I wondered whether we did ourselves a disservice by not including CBD in the name of our business. But now I can honestly answer: How do you get people into a CBD …
5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started Leading a Cannabis Business, with Lindsey Holthaus and Fotis Georgiadis Know how to adapt quickly: suppliers take longer than expected, farmers run low on flower and raise prices, payment processing is near impossible to get. It’s a new industry, regulations change, there isn’t a set …
5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started Leading a Cannabis Business, with Dr. John Oram and Fotis Georgiadis Keep focused. Decide on a strategy and stick to it. The business culture in the US is one of controlled risks. Hedged bets. But that is antithetical to true entrepreneurship. A true entrepreneur has …
5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started Leading a Cannabis Business, with Aaron Riley and Fotis Georgiadis As part of my series about “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started Leading a Cannabis Business” I had the pleasure of interviewing Aaron Riley, the President of CannaSafe, the first ISO …
“Digital marketing is the future of cannabis. It is the standard for every other industry, but cannabis is reluctant to adopt it due to the lack of traditional advertising options.” with Cain Castor Digital marketing is the future of cannabis. It is the standard for every other industry, but cannabis is reluctant to adopt it due …
“It’s important to make connections in whatever industry you’re in, however in the CBD business, your connections mean everything.” with Mason Ghrannie and Fotis Georgiadis High Stress: The CBD industry is a fun and exciting industry to be in, however there is still a ton of stress that comes with being in this industry. The …
5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started Leading a Cannabis Business, with Elisha Millan and Fotis Georgiadis I’m looking forward to the cannabis educational opportunities that will be available at the collegiate level. Today at a college fair, my daughter was able to say to an admissions representative, “I’m interested in majoring …
5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started Leading a Cannabis Business, with Steven Trenk and Fotis Georgiadis I have chosen the cannabis legalization movement as taught to me by my friends in the ArcView Group. It is my honor to promote the mission of creating a large scale, sustainable industry for the …
“I wish someone told me that the CBD industry would continue to have a stigma associated with it.” with Vincent Vitale and Fotis Georgiadis I wish someone told me that the CBD industry would continue to have a stigma associated with it. Even though we make 100% CBD products we are constantly stigmatized and treated …
5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started Leading a Cannabis Business, with Derek Thomas and Fotis Georgiadis Being boxed out of the traditional advertising channels like Facebook, search engine marketing, major ad network channels, and even most print/radio/tv, we’ve become very creative! We started really finding success in social media influencer relationships, …
5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started Leading a Cannabis Business, with Casey Georgeson and Fotis Georgiadis This is the wild west. Stay true to your belief system. You will be challenged by competitors (or people who think they know more than you). Know your facts and stick to your guns. The …
“Turns out that being radically transparent and honest with your consumers is the best marketing strategy you can invest in!” with Brandon Beatty and Fotis Georgiadis Turns out that being radically transparent and honest with your consumers is the best marketing strategy you can invest in! Bluebird really sets itself apart in the industry with …
“Without every employee’s full support and understanding of the cannabis market, your business will not have the wherewithal to survive” with Trish Lucy and Fotis Georgiadis Make sure everyone is drinking the Kool Aid. Without every employee’s full support and understanding of the explosion of this market, as well as the impact these products can …
“We are in the Wild West phase of this business, and it is constantly evolving.” with Jeff Gallagher and Fotis Georgiadis Even now that the Farm Bill has passed, making it legal to grow industrial hemp and sell the products made from it, some state health departments have different rules about how those products can …
“We need everyone to understand what they are buying to help dispel any confusion behind CBD and the industry.” with Chase Terwilliger and Fotis Georgiadis In a new space like CBD, current and potential customers desire content to educate themselves and require brands to be transparent with them. Recognizing this, CBDistillery is one of the …
“I wish I would have known how to talk with my mom about cannabis to get her off pharmaceutical pills. Maybe she would still be alive”, with Wendy Robbins & Karen Paull of The Marijuana Show We see the industry as a community of visionaries, rebels taking on a system of big pharma, the Federal …
“5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started Leading a CBD Business” with Andy Wilson and Fotis Georgiadis This situation was a big eureka moment for me. Why were the benefits of cannabis and CBD oil not more widely known? This was the start of the journey on my current career path. What …
“5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started Leading a CBD Business”, with Maya Page and Fotis Georgiadis CBD is an amazing product, but it is not a cure-all. People get really excited when they hear it helped with someone’s ____. They expect it to do everything for them, and it’s not like …
“5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started a Cannabis Business”, with David Bulick and Fotis Georgiadis I’m concerned that not enough states are ensuring industry standards and guidelines. Some states are like the “wild west” or issuing too many permits. This burdens the states’ Departments of Agriculture and can overwhelm their attempts …
Chris Roth of Highline Wellness: “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started Leading a Cannabis Business” I had the pleasure to interview Chris Roth, CEO + Founder of Highline Wellness. Chris spent the last 6 years at Cowen and Co, an investment bank in NYC. He spent a majority of his early …
This answer could go on forever …… I would say the take away for this question is: Bring in super talented people who are the best in their fields and can adapt to this ever changing industry and environment. Don’t just hire “Cannabis” talent or experts to find solutions. We see this as a wellness business …
“Why you need to speak to your users and quickly adapt to their needs” With James West CEO of Arfinn Med We also stress the importance of speaking to our users and quickly adapting to their needs. What our company looks like today is completely different from our original idea. We prepared as best we could, …
“Share your real stories. In an era of falsehoods and misinformation, telling stories in good faith matters more than ever” With Michael Trzecieski and Lisa Harun Real stories. We live in an age where transparency and honest values are revered. I must build with integrity and marry that with innovation. In an era of falsehoods and …
“Why you need to speak to your users and quickly adapting to their needs” With James West CEO of Arfinn Med We also stress the importance of speaking to our users and quickly adapting to their needs. What our company looks like today is completely different from our original idea. We prepared as best we could, …
The Future Is Now: Drone Racing, with Nicholas Horbaczewski and Fotis Georgiadis Autonomous drone technology is creating the next “Deep Blue” moment, and it’s going to change sports forever. In 1997, IBM’s “Deep Blue” computer defeated grandmaster, Gary Kasparov, in a match of chess — a historic moment, marking the end of an era where humans could defeat …
Capture the moments you live in, and live in the moments you capture. Our family and friends deserve our attention, our connection, and our love. As a part of my series about “Bleeding edge” technological breakthroughs that seem copied from science fiction, I had the pleasure of interviewing CEO and Co-founder of OPKIX, Lawrence “LG” Greaves. …
“Be prepared to be an expert if you want to succeed in the cannabis business” With Ron Silver, Co-Founder of Azuca and Fotis Georgiadis Be prepared to be an expert: Everyone is in a steep learning curve. I tend to assume everyone knows a lot more than I do, but, well, often that is not …
Capture the moments you live in, and live in the moments you capture. Our family and friends deserve our attention, our connection, and our love. As a part of my series about “Bleeding edge” technological breakthroughs that seem copied from science fiction, I had the pleasure of interviewing CEO and Co-founder of OPKIX, Lawrence “LG” Greaves. …
Hire a good therapist. The life of a business owner and community leader is difficult. If it was easy, everyone would do it. The struggle is tough and not only unavoidable but necessary for our growth. There is no growth without struggle. Hiring a therapist was one of the best moves we’ve ever made. The …
Attorney Braden Perry: “Independent compliance audits of your company by a third party will add to the trust the bank has with your company” The key to high-risk areas and banking relationships is to have a strong compliance program and transparency. Independent compliance audits of the company either by a third party or someone not actively …
The Future Is Now: “Using VR and motion capture technology, we almost have Star Trek’s Holodeck” With Steven Zhao, CEO of Sandbox VR We combine motion capture technology with virtual reality technology to create the closest thing to the holodeck that exists in the world, and we make them available to everyone in convenient retail Sandboxes …
If you have seen a video produced by mass-market VR cameras where you get an awkward “goldfish” view with an obvious distortion in perspective, the difference between the Obsidian is clear. To produce a higher-quality video, the Obsidian’s stitching algorithm helps to put together the images real-time so that less editing time is required by …
The Future Is Now: “Instead of waiting on a platform, you could be sitting at a coffee shop and alerted when the train is coming” With Greg Shepard …a cloud-based technology that leverages data from riders to learn patterns and to let people know when trains or buses are arriving. This means that instead of waiting …
MediNav isn’t necessarily changing the world, but we’re contributing to the larger global navigation picture… indoor navigation is becoming just as important as finding your way outdoors. Hospitals are just one area Connexient is focusing on. Other companies are developing wayfinding apps for airports, stadiums, college campuses and malls. How many times have you gone …
The Future Is Now: “A hi-tech solution to help stroke survivors recover” With David Ellzey, CEO of Torque3 I had the pleasure of interviewing David Ellzey, the CEO of the Silicon Valley healthcare-tech startup, Torque3 (pronounced torque-cubed). David is a designer turned serial entrepreneur who previously co-helmed the interactive development studio Xpletive. For 12 years he …
The Future is Now: “A slower, quality over quantity approach to dating” with Jean Meyer and Fotis Georgiadis Jean Meyer is the CEO and founder of Once, a dating app that selects one match a day for its users, focusing on quality over quantity. He studied Computer Science and Engineering at at the Université de …
I had the pleasure of interviewing Caleb Chapman, the founder and CEO of Caleb Chapman’s Soundhouse, the contemporary music training studio and program in American Fork, Utah that develops critical life skills through performing, recording, touring, and mentoring from top-tier musicians and educators. Dozens of Soundhouses will be opening all across the United States as …
The Future is Now: Combining psychology and machine learning to solve problems with Igor Volzhanin and Fotis Georgiadis I had the pleasure of interviewing Igor Volzhanin, the CEO and Founder of DataSine, a London-based startup, which is using AI and psychology to empower companies to personalize their customer communication at scale. Inspired by his PhD …
The Future is Now: “A medical alert wearable smartwatch to keep older adults safe” with Geoff Gross and Fotis Georgiadis” I had the pleasure of interviewing Geoff Gross. Geoff is the Founder and CEO of Medical Guardian, a leader in connected care and one of the nation’s leading providers of personal emergency response systems (PERS). …
The Future Is Now: “Improving the ticket buying experience with AI, Machine Learning and NLP” with Micah Hollingworth and Fotis Georgiadis I had the pleasure of interviewing Micah Hollingworth, CEO and Co-Founder of Broadw.ai. With two decades of experience in creating, operating and marketing live events, Micah Hollingworth is an innovator in the entertainment space. …
“It is never a straight line to success, there are always ups and downs, and you have to prepare for that” With Matt Holleran …when you fund a company, it is never a straight line to success. There are always ups and downs, and you have to prepare for that. What’s more, the financial markets and …
The Future Is Now: “Now we can overcome healthcare’s traditional silos with AI” With Adam Sabloff and Fotis Georgiadis We’re going to get to a place where we can monitor patients in real time using passive sensors in smart devices and wearables and delivering targeted, intelligent interventions based on billions of data points across tens …
The Future Is Now: “AI that can recommend the right job, a cooperative roommate, someone to loan money to, an expert in a field, a mentor, and more” With Sarbojit (Jit) Mukherjee Through this unbiased intelligent party, Baanda is able to assign an intricate scoring system called DCCS (Dynamic Cooperative Chemistry Score). Individuals will be …
The Future Is Now: Now you can try out a DIY project in augmented reality before you make it in real life Our XR (extended reality) platform enables our users to not just view and design the world virtually, like most other AR apps, but our hardware also bring them to the corresponding points in the …