Schwank: Separate Corporate Entity for Cannabis Technology Play
Rock star Managed Services Provider (MSP) Blake Schwank from CCS (Colorado Springs, CO) has diversified his core business (focusing on small and medium businesses (SMB) and K-12 education) by creating a new company (“NewCo”) that focuses on the cannabis vertical. There were important reasons to do this including banking relationships and more. Watch!
read moreLatham: Cannabis and Animals!
Ready to expand your overall understanding of the cannabis vertical? Fasten your seat belt as a Denver-based Managed Service Provider (MSP) speaks towards a specific use case for cannabis – animals. This is a must watch because if you are going to play in the cannabis vertical, you need to have the “context” of what the workflow and use cases are. Prepared to get schooled by Clint Latham of IT Guru (with a niche focus on veterinarians) who is a true intellectual and speaks candidly about using cannabis as a tool in his dog’s cancer fight.
MSP Summary of MJBizCon 2019
A few Managed Services Providers (MSPs) in our orbit attended the enormous MJBizCon 2019 in Las Vegas in mid-December and we were right there with ‘em! We go around the horn in this interview to discover what was (and what wasn’t) important. Highlights include the maturity of the show and the industry, medical marijuana and HIPAA, compliance, the sheer size of the sector (e.g. architects now supporting this vertical). Take away? Attend MJBizCon 2020 with us for a real good time!
read moreRoebuck: Insights into MJBizCon 2019
A busy Duane Roebuck (BlueStar) shared his insights before leaving for the airport on the MJBizCon 2019 conference. Roebuck emphasizes that, if there is one show to attend, its this one. And there is a little secret to success here: only buy the expo pass, save money, and walk the floor “…the floor is where the activity is.” As a distributor, BlueStar doesn’t have a booth (Roebuck works the floor himself). Instead, BlueStar invests in its resellers to have a point of presence on the show floor. “The thought is that all ships rise with the tide.” Shared Roebuck. He said a few years ago he had two technology resellers on the floor and this year he had seven!
read moreRemke – State of Illinois Going Live 2020
Contributor Jim Remke from Chicago (POSRG) imparts deep insights into the State of Illinois going live for adult use in early 2020. Highlights from this interview include social equity components the law such as woman-owned and minority-owned business (that get extra points on their business applications), How the law also expunged past marijuana convictions. We briefly discuss the various types of licenses and the zones where cannabis-related businesses can be open. One example is that all medical use dispensaries have the right to apply for adult use. It’s all here in the interview.
read moreJames: Mr. Niche in Senior Citizen Cannabis Use
Long-time contributor Dennis James of MediCannaCare.com always delivers value in our monthly check-in. James focuses on both medical use with a specific focus on assisting seniors to SAFELY use medical cannabis. We turn our attention to 2020 and James shares his insights. As part of his ongoing outreach via seminars at assisted living centers et al, James plans to integrate cannabis retailers and other ecosystem vendors into his motion. James calls is his cooperative selling strategy. It’s all about getting vendors/retailers to ask the right questions to get the senior citizen customers the right products.
read moreWeiss: Put Yourself Out There in 2020 as a Cannabis MSP
One of contributors, Josh Weiss (an MSP at LA Creative), fancies himself a firmly affixed in the California cannabis vertical. He is and has earned that reputation because he is out there doing it. The past year Weiss started attending cannabis investment meetups and made four presentations. In 2020 he’ll be engaged with a cannabis co-worker space (talk about creative). First off – a focus on cybersecurity. “We’re putting ourselves out there.” Weiss shared in the interview. Spoiler alert – look for a second cannabis co-worker space in 2020 as well. One take away – you can make money as a Cannabis MSP without touching the flower but supporting the ecosystem. Another takeaway: focus only on ONE cannabis meetup – don’t try to go to every meetup. Weiss is gunning to go to MJBizCon in Las Vegas in mid-December.
read moreRoebuck: Barcode Scanning – Not Sexy BUT Essential!
Duane Roebuck of BlueStar checks in before we all go to the MJBizCon conference in mid-December. We invite viewers to join us. But back to business, we’re taking bar codes and scanning in the cannabis supply chain. “It’s not a sexy topic but its very important and essential.” Roebuck shares. The two obvious reasons are inventory control and trackability/compliance. But Roebuck asserts that people forget about driver’s licensing parsing and better customer service (lower wait times with improved retail workflow). Ya’ gotta watch to here all the good stuff.
read morePay Attention to Cannabusiness Technology! Part II
Join us on Thursday, November 7th for part two of a webinar series with Harry Brelsford and Nathan Ware covering the opportunities MSPs can take advantage of in the growing Cannabis industry. With the industry having only been legalized just a few years ago, this is an exciting time to get your foot in the door in a fast-growing industry. During part 2 of this 3 part series, we will be covering a few topics, including:
• What types of technology do they seem to use the most?
• Now that the cannabis business is a few years old, what are some of the mistakes that you’ve seen in regards to how technology is handled?
• What kind of data is being stored and what challenges arise from storing this data?
• Is the government involved in mandating how data is stored or will they be in the future?
• What regulations do you sense will be coming in the future?
• And more!
Should MSPs be Dauntless?
I interview the founders of Dauntless, an independent software vendor (ISV) in the cannabis vertical. While the Dauntless solution spans seed to sale for supply chain management and reporting, the firm emphasized its point-of-sale (POS) solution called Korona at RADexpo in Portland, OR. But the secret sauce is GIANT – a global API that connects the cannabis workflow/reporting to the different state’s cannabis control boards (to report inventory, sales, etc.). This interview ends with a basic question – is the cannabis vertical ready for Managed Services Providers (MSPs) to be dauntless?
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