Money, as your mother told you, doesn’t grow on trees. Still, vast fortunes certainly have been made with plenty of other plants.
Today, a new Gold Rush is underway in states where cannabis has been legalized for medicinal or recreational use. A majority of Americans now live in states with such policies, and modern-day Forty-Niners of every entrepreneurial stripe are looking to strike it rich.
As was the case with thousands of men who went bust two centuries ago seeking to pan their way to riches near Sutter’s Mill, most who endeavor to find wealth in the cannabis business will not succeed. This failure will arise from the fact that while growing a plant is a fairly simple process, the relentless intricacies of managing a successful cannabis enterprise are remarkably complex.
Managing finance, supply, distribution, human resources, a retail channel and the difficult and ever-changing aspects of compliance prove too much.While some may have adequate capital to launch the initial steps required in a cannabis business, few have the managerial acumen and business expertise to sustain it. Denver, the epicenter of the industry, is littered with half-completed cannabis greenhouses and under-performing retail dispensaries.
The conclusion is clear: Tending plants is one thing; nurturing an enterprise so that it may thrive is entirely another, and most growers are wholly lacking in this critical area.
Colorado-based Growth Industries Inc. is leveraging cannabis-legalization by providing turnkey business services via an exclusive franchise model to prudent cannabis growers who recognize the need for managerial prowess to fully exploit operational potential.
Growth Industries comprises three divisions. Our lead generator is our Real Estate division, which owns cannabis-production facilities and leases them to growers. These customers (and others) are further assisted by our largest unit, Business Services, which applies proven business expertise on a consulting basis to ensure maximum cultivation productivity, retail results, customer retention, regulatory compliance and human resource management.
Our third segment is a venture group that identifies and incubates significant industry innovations to bring them to market. Each of these three units, including lead generation, which is typically a cost, is engineered to be solidly profitable. We already own the state’s largest licensed greenhouse grow and are working with a number of its leading dispensaries, and we are actively pursuing the select opportunities for continued expansion.
The economics of cannabis are profoundly alluring: A 10,000 square-foot grow facility, excepting real-estate costs, requires roughly $1.2 million in investment. In its second year of operation, conservatively assuming five harvests per year, this grow will have an annual production capacity of 2,500 pounds. Each pound of dried cannabis flower has a wholesale value of $1,800 and hard costs of $400, which works out to a gross profit of $3.5 million.
This product, though legal for recreational uses in a handful of states, is far more valuable for its medical applications, which far more states allow. Cannabis can be used to treat arthritis, hypertension, obesity, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s disease and HIV. Cannabis has proven to be cytotoxic to several forms of cancer. It is also a well-tolerated analgesic and an appetite stimulator. These uses, however, only touch on the plant’s healing ability: Indeed, medical science has discovered receptors throughout the body that specifically respond to special cannabis compounds known as cannabinoids.
Further, new product breakthroughs allow patients to use cannabis as an inhaled vapor or in edible products, which obviates the need to smoke it. Once the forbidden devil’s plant, cannabis is now recognized as a great healer, and is helping scores of millions of patients overcome debilitating illness and disease.
Accomplishing this, however, necessitates more than pushing a few seeds into Styrofoam cups. It requires a highly specialized team capable of meeting and mastering the industry’s unique challenges. Growth Industries’ unparalleled and unrivaled combination of cannabis-related assets and our highly skilled team offer an enticing opportunity for sophisticated, high-net-worth individuals to achieve a substantial and sustainable return on long-term investments.
