After launching Dispensary Permits, her first consulting firm, at age 27 and starting several ancillary companies in the space, Gullickson sold Dispensary Permits and its portfolio of brands to a publicly-traded company in 2018.
As a rule of thumb, about five to seven people would apply for every one license that was secured.
Kot: You now have more access to funding and other industry professionals that are taking this industry seriously.
They have to factor wait times to get the testing of their products back in, and some of them have had to change their grow protocols to take into account things like pesticides, “natural” classifications and dosing.
If you do the math, that is not very many producers for one of the most populated states in the US.
That would give a lot of opportunities to companies that are local, especially social equity applicants, which includes people who have been harmed by cannabis criminalization, as well as women or minority-owned businesses.
But when you talk about opportunities, I think people have a hard time wrapping their brains around the fact that there’s more entry points to the industry than just a license.
Kot: A lot of people like the sexy part of marijuana and want to be on the plant-touching side of things.
If it doesn’t, that’s totally fine.’ But if you get enough of that mentality, it drives the numbers up even though some of the companies may not be real or functioning properly.
Gullickson: It is always going to be up to the person and what they want to do.
It’s good to be actively looking for things but it’s not like you have to throw cash at it today or you’ll never get to do it again.