When Launching a Cultivation Business, ‘Be Your Most Convinced Champion’

What makes a cannabis cultivation operation successful?

Success is often measured in more than just high-quality and high-volume yields, and decisions made before launch will have long-lasting impacts on operators’ chances of success.

Here, ahead of her session at the all-day “How To Launch a Cultivation Business” workshop at Cannabis Conference 2023 (Aug. 15-17, 2023, Paris Las Vegas), Christina Betancourt Johnson, owner and CEO of Standard Wellness Maryland and Rooted Therapeutics, provides insight into how to successfully launch and operate a grow, from securing a location to building relationships with dispensaries.

Melissa Schiller: What are some important considerations when it comes to finding a location for your cultivation facility?

Christina Betancourt Johnson: As new operators consider locations for their cultivation facility, the two most critical considerations are access to their distribution points—ease of logistics is a serious consideration—and the second one would be access to a strong and competent workforce. And, obviously, a third [consideration] would be the price of the location and suitability for use.

MS: How should operators approach hiring for their grow?

CBJ: Luckily, I think there are a number of staffing firms that people work with these days. [They] are all great resources for new operators to tap into. Cannabis in general is one of those industries that is still pretty nascent and therefore, by attending conferences, you can really get access to incredible talent. By vetting in your local areas, you can get access to incredible talent, as well, depending on the size of the state or city that you live in. The larger markets, I think, have talent that has traveled from the West Coast to the East Coast, and they’re constantly looking for great businesses.

What would be critical in any business is still critical in cannabis, and that is having a well-functioning business that has a really strong culture that people are attracted to, that offers good pay and respectable benefits. You want to have either your ownership group or yourself constantly networking and scanning at events for people who could potentially work at your facility.

I also think that universities and colleges—that includes community colleges—are also a great source of talent in our space. Here in Maryland, we have several universities with really strong cannabis-focused and agricultural-focused programming.

MS: How can cultivators build relationships with their dispensary customers to ensure long-term success?

CBJ: In Maryland, we have an incredible dispensary association, and that is where you should start if your market is already established. They can also learn about what dispensaries’ needs are, as well as learn about the marketplace because those dispensaries have firsthand knowledge about what clients in the marketplace want and need and desire. If it’s a brand-new market, I don’t think it hurts to reach out to operators on the dispensary side that are going to be entering the market at the same time to start building those relationships early with supply agreements and just for information exchange.

MS: What is one of your favorite lessons that you’ve learned from launching a cannabis cultivation business?

CBJ: The best lesson that I’ve learned going in is to expect small failures along the way and to see them as an opportunity for refinement. I don’t think that you can set down a path of entrepreneurship without understanding that failure will be inevitable in some things, but at every single turn, you have to be your biggest and most convinced champion.

MS: What is one thing you’d like attendees to take back to their businesses after attending your session this year?

CBJ: The idea is to give attendees a playbook for building a cultivation operation, from pre-application through operationalization. We’ll give them a step-by-step process, and my goal is really to speak to smaller entrepreneurs about how they can leverage their existing experience and knowledge base and resources to be incredibly successful.

Editor’s note: This interview has been edited for style, length and clarity. Read a longer version here: bit.ly/cultivation-workshop-johnson

Melissa Schiller is Senior Digital Editor for Cannabis Business Times.