Age: 37
Company: Green Bits
Position: Co-founder and CEO
The Green Bits CEO and co-founder has been an entrepreneur in the software industry for many years. During his last venture, a web-based bookkeeping company called Outright, he grew more curious about the needs of the cannabis industry.
“I have a big list of ideas I tend to write down day to day,” Curren says. “After I sold Outright, I went to my list and I started really looking at the cannabis industry and the ideas I had.”
He sold Outright in 2014, and jumped right into Washington’s cannabis industry after realizing the desperate need for point-of-sale software to track and manage inventory.
“These are some of the most regulated small businesses anywhere, and what I found is they also had some of the worst tools,” Curren says. “I thought, ‘These guys are going to get crushed with regulations.’”
Fast forward to 2016, and 180 retail stores in Washington — about half of the total — now use Green Bits software. The company is working to fulfill needs of Colorado and Oregon businesses next.