Eivan Shahara
Age: 38
Company: Mint Cannabis
Title: Co-founder and CEO
Mint Cannabis co-founder and CEO Eivan Shahara has been on a hot streak since opening his first retail location in 2017.
The company now has three retail stores in Arizona, with two more under construction and plans for a 125,000-square foot cultivation facility. In Michigan, Mint Cannabis has a cultivation facility and one retail store open, with three additional shops on the horizon. Plus, the company is in the initial stages of building out a 45,000-square-foot cultivation facility in Massachusetts.
Mint earned more than $9 million in its first year and expects to break $100 million in 2022, Shahara says.
“Things are pretty good,” he says.
The flagship Mint Cannabis location in Tempe, Arizona, is 12,000 square feet and includes viewable growing and manufacturing facilities, as well as a kitchen that serves hot, cannabis-infused meals with customized levels of THC (to-go only).
Shahara says Mint also has a St. Louis retail location that is ready to open, but the company is holding off on opening the store until more of the state’s producers are up and running.
“It will be a very good market,” Shahara says of Missouri.
A Michigan transplant, Shahara started working at his parent’s car lot at the age of 7.
“My dad would bring me in after school, to clean, wash windows and the next thing you know I am buying and selling cars,” he says. “It taught me hard work and responsibility and helped me get to where I am today.”