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These days, it seems like everyone<\/em> wants in on the green rush. Enticed by the prospects of a multi-billion-dollar industry, professionals from finance, pharmaceutical companies and even law enforcement are fighting for their corner of the marijuana market. Who would\u2019ve imagined that former Republican House Speaker John Boehner would find his place<\/a> at a marijuana company after he left Congress?<\/p>\n But don\u2019t be fooled by the headlines. Making money in marijuana is harder than it seems with the myriad of bureaucratic hurdles involved in a tightly regulated, federally illegal industry. But these barriers didn\u2019t intimidate 26-year-old entrepreneur Stephen Martin. A few years ago, he saw an opportunity to apply his intellectual property expertise in the cannabis space. It took him a few tries to break through, but in November, Martin found himself on stage in front of hundreds of investors. He was at the <\/a>Arcview Group\u2019s pitch forum in Las Vegas to sell investors on Redfield Proctor<\/a>, his cannabis waste management startup\u00a0\u2014 and he walked away with the top prize.<\/p>\n Illustration Daniel Garcia for Cannabis Now<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The Arcview Group is a cannabis investment and market research company which connects marijuana entrepreneurs to their network of investors. The company holds four or five live pitch events a year \u2013 a cannabis \u201cShark Tank,\u201d if you will. After a stringent screening process where entrepreneurs get grilled by investors and refine their pitches through webinars, about 12 companies make it into the live event.<\/p>\n Not only did Martin qualify to participate, but he also pitched his business so successfully in front of 200 investors that he won the competition\u2019s Best Pitch Prize and the Winners Fund \u2013 a $50,000 investment check. A spokesperson for Arcview said that these two prizes don\u2019t always go to the same company and that it does not have a Winners Fund in place for 2018.<\/p>\n So how did Martin do it?<\/p>\n Last year actually wasn\u2019t the first time that Martin applied to the Arcview pitch forum. Before he was in the business of cannabis waste management, Martin had a business idea for the vaporizer space. He applied to the pitch competition and promptly got turned down.<\/p>\n \u201cI managed to bulldog my way into [Canopy Boulder<\/a>],\u201d said Martin, referencing the cannabis startup incubator affiliated with Arcview. It turns out that his vaporizer idea would not work under Colorado\u2019s marijuana regulations. But once he made it into the accelerator, he was surrounded by people from all corners of the cannabis industry.<\/p>\n \u201cMy first week there, I discovered the problem,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n He listened to a cannabis cultivator recount a nightmarish story: The grower was using an industrial wood chipper to render cannabis waste \u201cunusable and unrecognizable\u201d per Colorado\u2019s marijuana regulations. The wood chipper, which was inside at the time, caught on fire. As you might imagine, the ensuing havoc caused great distress to his operation.<\/p>\n The cultivator decided to move the wood chipper outside. Unfortunately for him, the state\u2019s Marijuana Enforcement Division<\/a> saw the move through the cameras that licensed marijuana businesses must keep on their buildings. The regulators told the grower that the wood chipper had to be moved back inside.<\/p>\n And thus, the idea for Redfield Proctor was born. Martin started the company during the fall of 2017, through a class at Canopy Boulder. Redfield Proctor helps cultivation operations by shredding the plant matter, recycling it into soil and finding an organization to make use of the new soil. The company also combines new technologies with Bokashi fermentation, a composting technique that uses microorganisms to speed up the process. Meanwhile, cultivators can rest assured that their plant material is going towards an environmentally friendly operation, all while staying compliant and saving money.<\/p>\n Martin hesitates to speculate about why investors took to his idea so quickly, but did say that he received one consistent piece of feedback from the moneyed folk: \u201cI\u2019m an investor who owns three grows and I can\u2019t tell you how much we need this.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you\u2019re talking to investors who are intimately familiar with the industry and [they] see a need like that, it tends to appeal [to them],\u201d said Martin. \u201cWe found a good solution that everybody liked.\u201d<\/p>\n Another key selling point is that Redfield Proctor services other types of agricultural waste, not just cannabis, and investors frequently love to see innovation in the cannabis space that can apply to other areas of agriculture.<\/p>\n \u201cOne of the reasons that cannabis is at the forefront [of agricultural innovation] is that we\u2019re dealing with a much more expensive crop,\u201d explained Martin. \u201cWhen you\u2019re dealing with such an expensive crop, you can afford to buy more expensive equipment.\u201d<\/p>\n Now, the company has clients outside the cannabis industry too as their waste recycling methods can be used on all types of organic matter. Redfield Proctor recently began awarding its soil certification \u2013 \u201cSuitable for Cannabis Growth\u201d \u2013 to identify those soils that the fit strict regulations around pesticides and chemicals in cannabis growing. Only one company so far has received the soil certification: Pittmoss, a company that snagged investment from three sharks on the \u201cShark Tank\u201d television show in 2015.<\/p>\n Aspiring marijuana entrepreneurs are often advised to take whatever expertise they have and apply it to the cannabis space. But Redfield Proctor\u2019s story shows that success can be found if you just listen to what the industry needs from within. There are plenty of problems that still need solving, which don\u2019t involve ousting Jeff Sessions<\/a>.<\/p>\n When asked if he had any advice for aspiring marijuana entrepreneurs, Martin had two words: \u201cBuckle up.\u201d<\/p>\n TELL US<\/strong>,\u00a0do you have an idea for a cannabis company?<\/p>\n Originally published in Issue 32 of Cannabis Now.\u00a0LEARN MORE<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n The post What It Takes to Win a Cannabis \u2018Shark Tank\u2019 Competition<\/a> appeared first on Cannabis Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n
These days, it seems like everyone wants in on the green rush. Enticed by the prospects of a multi-billion-dollar industry, professionals from finance, pharmaceutical companies and even law enforcement are fighting for their corner of the marijuana market. Who would\u2019ve imagined that former Republican House Speaker John Boehner would findContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":42,"featured_media":29642,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2463,50,5091,1484,85,69,5279,6052],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29641"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/42"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29641"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29641\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29643,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29641\/revisions\/29643"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29642"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29641"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29641"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29641"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/p>\n
Identifying a Problem<\/h4>\n
Attracting Investors<\/h4>\n
Words of Wisdom<\/h4>\n
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\nRead More: What It Takes to Win a Cannabis \u2018Shark Tank\u2019 Competition<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"