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Message from the publisher: Running a lemonade stand

by Garrett Rudolph
written by MV Writer

BeenAroundAWhile at English Wikipedia [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

BeenAroundAWhile at English Wikipedia [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

A few years ago, my daughter, who is now 13, ran a very successful lemonade stand for several weekends in the summer. She made me proud, because she generated some really decent money and donated all of it to a big hospital in town.

It was a wonderful way for her to learn about business. However, it was also an appropriate thing for a 10-year-old to do because it wasn’t very complex or difficult. There were no taxes, no employees, no lease (we set up in a park), no insurance, no business license, no inspections, and it was all cash. In fact, her lemonade stand was so simple to operate, that I’d suspect most 10-year-olds could run one successfully (with a bit of help from mommy or daddy, of course).

I’m guessing a few readers might see where I’m going with this. Operating a lemonade stand is a far cry from running a real juice business, in which the competition includes heavyweights like Minute Maid and Tropicana (owned by Coke and Pepsi) and various other smaller, but no less experienced, competitors like Naked Juice and Odwalla (also owned by Coke and Pepsi).

When people ask why a fair number of cannabis businesses are struggling, I use the lemonade analogy. It requires a vast leap of experience, knowledge and skills for marijuana growers who learned their trade from the pages of High Times to go from an indoor, illegal, garage grow to a successful commercial ag operation.

As tough as it might be to acknowledge, it’s no different than my daughter going from running a lemonade stand to managing a commercial juice factory.

(A few issues back, Tim Smale, co-founder of Remedy Compassion Center in Auburn, Maine, wrote: “The transition from a small cultivation to a sophisticated production process where cultivators follow standards with no deviation from formulas to create consistency is a big leap for many, and we haven’t found anyone who could make that transition successfully.”)

In the past, I’ve listened to a few speakers at the numerous marijuana conventions and shows, and often leave feeling completely underwhelmed. Many of the so-called “experts” are the same tired speakers who travel the show circuit and possess very little real-world business experience. To put it bluntly, winning a Cannabis Cup 20 years ago is not the type of qualification I’d be looking for in someone to advise me on setting up a commercial cannabis cultivation business.

Recently we published an article on pest control written by Suzanne Wainwright-Evans. Several readers commented on her article, and thanked us for publishing content from a highly-qualified expert on agricultural pests. I found Suzanne while researching the Cultivate’16 show in Ohio. For those unfamiliar with Cultivate, it’s an annual trade show in Columbus, Ohio that is organized by the American Horticultural Society. This year, it will be July 9-12. For most traditional businesses in controlled environment agriculture (CEA), it’s a must-attend annual event. If you’re a commercial marijuana grower, or aspire to be one, I strongly suggest that you investigate Cultivate. At Marijuana Venture, we’ve decided to attend — and exhibit — this year because we believe that the future of professional cannabis cultivation lies outside traditional “pot culture,” and with the same folks who have run commercial ag businesses for decades.

I’m not suggesting you skip the traditional pot shows. However, I’m convinced that it makes good sense to occasionally step out of the comfort zone where “preaching to the choir” has become standard operating procedure.

Greg James

Publisher

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