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be smoldering without them they break down stigmas build up equity and just say yes yes to good troublemaking yes to being empowered yes to fair access now more than ever weed map says yes and stands with the fighters for change hey everyone welcome to this very special conversation for green enterprise partnership between my company digital venture partners and black enterprise and this particular conversation is sponsored by weed maps we are having a virtual conference a series of conversations between powerful black executives and leaders in which we dive into very specific topics that we think can benefit people of color who are just interested and want to jump into cannabis or start to follow the conversation as it becomes more mainstream today i have with me two very esteemed professionals who i'm excited to give you guys their insight uh i'll give them both an opportunity to kind of give you a backstory of themselves the their current position what company they work for before we jump into the conversation i'll start with uh margot how are you doing today i'm well thank you how are you i'm great um my name is marco brunner i am a board of director member for the minority cannabis business association i am also the director of compliance and diversity inclusion for red white and bloom um i got my start in this industry about roughly five years ago um i was watching a show called witakit and there was an episode called the mary janes and they were talking about women and cannabis and how there were more women on power to have c-suite positions than any other industry and i was just completely intrigued at that point in time i was working in automotive industry and i was a benchmarking coach and i was kind of bored um so i was like what is this thing here and so i went to work the next day and i bought a ticket to denver because at that point in time my home state is michigan um michigan had legalization in the form of a caregiver system but we didn't have a seed to sell program that mimics what you know mainstream cannabis looked like at that point in time so i was like i'm gonna go to denver and see what this looks like and i just found random things to do from linkedin and meetup and i saw an industry which i i had not seen in my home state um so i knew that there was something that was coming uh that i would have a potential opportunity and so then i did a bunch of things it was not linear by any means um i became a market leader for women grow and then i started to work on our proposal one adult use campaign that brought legalization to michigan i was appointed by our former governor rick schneider to represent qualified and registered patients on the impaired driving committee and then i was on our attorney general dana nessl's marijuana policy work group and i was also a lobbyist for the michigan cannabis industry association so by no means linear um and just to come back around and do compliance now again in cannabis you are a one-woman insight i was committed i don't know in different facets of you know industry let alone cannabis had to be super valuable and i'm excited to dive into that i want to uh introduce jarrell registry he's actually he's modest about this but he had the most popular episode that we had outside of like you know a celebrity or something like that his conversation with us actually went viral and people wouldn't leave me alone about it so it only made sense for us to have him come back on but for your super fans who may have missed the first conversation i would love for you to give us a quick intro about yourself and just kind of how you came into the cannabis uh space sure well thanks that's kind of the coolest i've ever been going viral here right now no so my name is jerrell registry i'm the managing director of the curio wmbe fund it's a 30 million dollar private equity fund uh built from the ground up to put 40 to 50 diversely owned so women minority and disabled veteran owned cannabis dispensaries in the world 100 owned by those individuals based on the curio wellness wellness center platform right so we've converted the the existing business model into a franchise model that allows us to deliver branding and operational support to franchisees who the fund provides capital and uh and financing to in order to launch the stores my background in in the cannabis industry really is limited to the last two years i joined curio two years ago when curio wellness's ceo michael bronfine as a result of conversations with some of the curio investors and watching what was going on in the marketplace around the lack of diversity and licensing wanted to establish a a business ownership opportunity or a mechanism to create business ownership opportunities for diverse uh entrepreneurs right so michael called me because we'd worked together at sterling partners where he was the head of healthcare the healthcare investment platform for a long time but 10 years ago now he hired me there to work with the portfolio companies on various operational initiatives in terms of looking at their finances and taking a very finance based approach to what operational improvements need to be made at those businesses in order to uh to either improve their cash flow or improve their prospects for uh generating return to the fund right so before that i worked for jp morgan i covered reinsurers within the investment bank uh and before that i was in business school i graduated from the fuco school of business at duke and uh and then i started my career at general electric in their financial management program so a rotational program where you learned about the various aspects of really from in my experience the commercial financing uh industry and their big vertical there um as i joined curio the the intention was to create these these business ownership opportunities the way that we settled on a private equity fund combined with franchising was really uh the coming to an understanding of the two areas where uh where an entrepreneur needs support really regardless of their ethnicity the the two big challenges within cannabis are access to capital and operational support in the context of a marketplace that has a mix of uh you know it's small mom and pop shops and multi-state operators right so franchising really enables a smaller business owner to kind of pool resources with a network uh that allows them to gain some scale on a variety of areas but really most importantly on the marketing side so putting that together with access to capital which i mean historically there's lots of challenges within the diverse community but they're only compounded in the cannabis industry so being able to address those two signs we really felt positioned a business owner to be successful for the long term and that's a perfect segue i love the fact that you both are experts in different parts of what you need to do to operate a successful company and raise capital right so um i'm sure people come to you and they just talk about money right but before that you have to have pillars in place to kind of exemplify or signify that you have a successful company or project or idea right that needs to be scaled out and especially in cannabis there are a lot of ways you can lose that through like compliance through you know not being on the right side of how you're operating business so margot i would love for you to kind of give an overview to to an entrepreneur to you know before you get so money focused and try to raise a million dollars what are some of the things that you have to have in place as a company owner to even attract a potential investor um i think that it's very very important that you understand the laws in your home state and loc whatever local municipality that you hope to operate in um because it can save you money it can and it can prevent sometimes everyone who represents himself as an attorney or is giving legal advice may not be fully abreast of what the rules are um and when you don't have capital to burn it's important that you make very important strategic decisions on where to spend that cash um and and and listening to a webinar showing up to a local city council meeting like those are very passive things that you can do absolutely free um without a lobbyist you can physically show up and learn what's going on so that's the first thing another thing i would explain people is that when you go for licensure it's like a gaming license it's meant to be a complete entity so you do need a team it's not an individual license like a driver's license quite frequently as you hear people say well i want a dispensary well one person can't run an entity so the people that you partner with um having different skill sets is very important your partners uh so that you cover a lot of bases um and sometimes it's easy to join things like trade associations where you can kind of get more bang for your buck you can show up and meet a number of professionals and have just one-off conversations that you can pick up a bit of information that leads you down the right path i tell people things like that right because it's you have to be just as mindful on how you could lose money versus you know how you could gain more capital right so i would love for you to kind of follow up on that with what happens if you aren't abreast on you know certain policies certain compliance issues what could be the the negative effect that it would have on your company in cannabis particularly well it's interesting because i kind of have one foot in both worlds i do quite a bit of equity work um and i am you know aligned with many equity organizations but i do work in corporate msl cannabis and they raise capital large amounts of capital in ways that seem relatively easy to people who are not traditionally you know aware of how capital is raised and when you have a large amount of capital you can afford to hire the best of the best you can hire the best and most connected attorney you can hire the best and most connected marketing group you can hire the best and most connected lobbyists um and those things make the path easier for those people honestly um because they just raise the capital and they have the idea and the capital and then it happens but if you need to have a little bit more skin in the game then you need to be aware of all those different facets and all those different hats that need to be worn and you need to kind of you know get out and see what information you can find on your own if you can't afford to hire all those individual professionals to lead you along and if you have a great interest in a particular municipality where you think that you could potentially be licensed i want to put a pin in that there pre-licensure all of your capital is at risk so you don't know that you're going to get the license you can be the best of the best and you can still not be chosen and you will have lost that capital so understanding that this could go either way when you jump out there it's really important um because there are there are no guarantees here um but knowing those things and knowing that there are people that are going to come into the market with essentially a box that has all the tools in it you need to gather as many tools that you possibly can um also be aware that marketing and branding are evolving be aware that on a federal level the policies are evolving that will trickle down and affect the things that are happening in your own business um i think are all very important okay and then assuming that you know entrepreneur gets that right what you just spoke about in just the preparation of the process to even approach an investor drill i love to come to you and kind of explain because a lot of us don't know the differences between types of investors an angel versus a family office versus pe um what are kind of some of the main segments of investor and what are the differences that they look for and how you should approach them sure so i think sticking to the structure you laid out of of individuals or angel investors family offices and institutional and i'll call uh i'll wrap private equity and uh institutional really that includes a whole ecosystem of types of investors there but sticking with those three groups an angel investor is really an individual with the means to um uh to provide investment frequently they'll look to uh it's as much a passion for them as it is an investment or uh you know revenue generating activity um they they're looking to either support or take a hand in developing businesses and they can be a great resource for a first-time entrepreneur but that's uh there's an element of dating to that right you want to make sure that you find the right match of someone who both is who you align with on what you want to accomplish on your work style which probably i would expect that to be one of the more frequent areas that it can go wrong because it's easy to understand you know if your idea is investable what it is you've likely driven the clarity to what your goal is but um but knowing how you guys will interact on an ongoing basis is an important facet of choosing who to partner with uh in terms of that capital um and then in the long term they can be very valuable in uh kind of that handshake and transitioning you to more seasoned capital sources right so whether that's a family office network so those a family office is effectively uh a group of investment professionals who represent multiple people who you might otherwise think of as angels right so they may be a little bit more passive in their investments but they they've chosen to seek professional investment uh management for their capital so that can be a great network for a an early entrepreneur in terms of efficiently reaching out to to capital pools especially if you have a clear clear business plan and a real track record so that it's easy for that investment professional team that family office to understand what you're wanting to do and how uh kind of rule number one how they can get their money back and then number two how you'll grow their money that lets them uh have confidence in representing to their investors that your your idea is something that is worthy of their consideration from a an early investment perspective so if you're an entrepreneur taking your early investments a family office will look and feel similar to an institutional investor but typically an institutional investor is a much more significant scale and rigor right so that's when you're talking about um uh taking uh taking investment from a highly professionalized uh set of people who are really screening for a portfolio approach to their um to to what they're delivering to their investors right so there's a a matchmaking aspect to uh institutional investing that includes are you in line with what um what this group has communicated to their investor pool as their target market or part of their overall thesis about where the market's going or how they want to generate return those conversations can end up being very um seeming very formulaic because there's a lot of kind of check box aspects to their process that are put in place deliberately so that they have clarity with their investors about what they're willing to do and what they think works and so that's how they maintain their relationship with their investors so but it can be um you know margo's point kind of brings home even for me as i'm looking at raising dollars for the fund and that within two institutional investors their process is uh is in line with as she was talking about hiring the best of the best right so putting themselves in a position where they have expertise functional expertise on all the aspects of managing investments puts you in a circumstance where you have to be able to check a lot of boxes to uh to qualify for their consideration so we're not even talking about if your idea is great we're talking about if your idea is eligible right so that's i think that's probably the broadest strokes that i would paint those three groups with um but figuring out which one of those buckets is most appropriate for you that doesn't say whether or not your idea is best it's just kind of it's choosing which lane your investment kind of fits mo t naturally okay perfect i appreciate that explanation and i want to kind of dive into that in a more person of color way right and i'll go with margo so we see all of these headlines from you know jay-z opening a fund and chris webber just announced 100 million dollar fund for black people and it's like i think a lot of us are seeing these headlines like oh i could use a couple of million dollars of that right so what's that process of you know being a a minority owned or black owned business marco that because i know you work very closely with a lot of people coming into the space what advice do you give these people to see how they could benefit from some of these initiatives are targeted for black entrepreneurs specifically well there has been a lot of announcements in the news about people who have a hundred million dollars but we haven't seen those hundred million dollars work yet um so it's a great step because it's easier to communicate your idea sometimes to someone who has an ethnic background that's similar to yours um who has a a future an idea of what the future of cannabis should look like that is in alignment with what your missions are so there's a there's an opportunity for a lot of value alignment just as a floor of the conversation to start um because what some corporate cannabis companies do varies greatly with what some other company cannabis companies do that are in more alignment with social equity um can i just to throw out some names for example cookies cookies mirrors the underground market like there's a lot of different brands the brands switch out relatively frequently it is a marketing approach that is more in alignment with what the traditional market and those purchase patterns um whereas if you see a company like a cresco we're going to establish like these are our lines of cannabis and these are our brands and those are somewhat stable and might may not change from month to month or season to season um so that is one important thing um and just seeing other people like you do it it is it's empowering in some way because we hear a lot of conversation about social equity and it's always that you're disproportionately impacted and that you know you went to jail and all those things are very very real but if i understand that you went to jail and you were disproportionately impacted i'm not gonna say to you why don't you have four million dollars because those things just simply aren't in alignment with one another um so i i think it's really encouraging i think that it's an opportunity for us to come together and have opportunities for generational wealth and collective investment that we haven't seen before in this particular market um but i have seen people fall victim to predatory contracts i have seen people some people that were part of social equity programs actually become homeless during the process because there are a lot of things that we don't talk about you think that you're going to go for your dream and it's going to happen and it doesn't always work that way there can be a munich there can be a lawsuit at a municipal level that halts the program and you're still paying for your your real estate you're still paying either a monthly mortgage on your building or you're paying a lease on a building and that is burning up your capital there can be things that are completely outside of your control that cause your investors to pack up and go home so understanding that at the start is is very very important because it can be disheartening like people put everything that they have on the line um to to take part in this dream and it doesn't always happen as easily or as quickly as we would have hoped right and that that'll lead me into another thing i would love you both to explain from your professional perspective margo i'll come back to you quickly um the term predatory right because i've i've had conversations with people in the licensing process or when the state becomes legal a large company comes in and like oh we want to put you on our license we want to partner with you for this or that when in reality they're positioning it to eventually either buy your percentage back or figure out a way to leave you out entirely what are some of the things someone who a minority who checks a social equity box who's getting approached by a large company what should they be mindful of through that process and then i'll go to jarel for like the financial implications of that well if you come to me and you say i want to put you on my license then you are doing just that you are coming with essentially what is the turnkey you're coming with the funding for sure you're coming with potentially your own group of professionals that are support services to this license so the only thing that you're really offering as a social equity applicant is your zip code or your address so you can negotiate for more when you're worth more or you know more if i say that i just want you on my license because of your zip code then there might be half a million people that meet that same criteria you're not necessarily a better applicant than any other person that had not interfaced with this industry before and so some i mean that's important conversation to have too because i think that there's a false expectation sometimes among social equity applicants like i heard recently a conversation when they said well if somebody wants to put you in a license then they should give you 10 million dollars like well 10 million dollars is 10 million dollars no matter how you slice it and 10 million dollars when you're talking about things like 280e tax laws and you know all the things that come with operating a a business that's still federally illegal that might not be a fair um price for that partnership you might not be a good partner for that reason um i think you need to look at yourself and what makes you a good partner what what is the story behind you coming into this space what do you offer to the license because all those things are very important and all those things are part of the negotiation process for what it costs to retain you as a partner but it is a partnership and it can't be a seesaw where one person is bringing everything and another person is not contributing right my biggest advice to people is operate in reality you know you might think you're worth a lot reality you know is that's probably not the case and drill i would love for you to speak on predatory investment you know like all money does not come the same way or with the same expectations what are some of the things that you advise people who may have interest from an investor to say hey make sure these things are included or be wary of these certain terms or conditions from an investor yeah honestly it's very hard to give specifics there because people are kind of dastardly creative on the on the bad side right really the most important piece is making sure that you understand what's in there right because it this was this was an issue that we confronted as we designed the fund right so ultimately we settled on the way that we ended up at franchising was that we could be crystal clear and point to a hundred examples of exactly what we wanted to do and people there was a broad-based understanding of what franchising is in the world one of the things that was really awkward as we started exploring the idea of the fund and how we would offer operational support was the idea of you know operating agreements and management contracts that in the broader business environment are very humdrum and not very interesting but within the cannabis industry they've been kind of turned around and have a terrible name in a lot of cases when you combine that with a diversity initiative because of some of the more high profile um not cases but news articles and stories that have come to light around how those contracts have been manipulated to to create circumstances like the premise of your question where you're they're just looking to cut people out so the number one thing is understand what your uh what is in that contract and what it means for you and sometimes that'll be um you know uh negotiating with your counterparty the person who you're looking to partner with but other times if it's that complex it is worth getting a lawyer just to understand what it is you're signing right or or or a financial advisor or someone with the wherewithal to explain to you what's going on anytime you uh you look at a deal that kind of to your point looks too good to be true in cannabis it's a confusing circumstance because some of the um some of the kick points in this business can be very extreme whether it's caused by 280e or just natural scale or a particular market uh converting to full legalization right so you really do need to make sure you just understand the machinery of what's happening and and then decide if the numbers make sense right so uh you know kind of a a high level answer but that that really is the crux of it i mean the other bit is you know if somebody is uh it's easy the easiest context i can think of to give a concrete example is around lending right and making sure that the the terms of your uh lending agreement aren't uh out of step with think of like your mortgage right like you're allowed to pay off your mortgage early right you uh you can look at the marketplace and figure out what's a competitive mortgage rate right and you can understand if you have a debt agreement that no one anywhere has ever heard of the terms or the structure that it uses stop right there's no there are a lot of forms of debt agreements out there there's not uh there are not too many reasons that somebody should be coming up with a de novo agreement for your you know your beautiful snowflake does not require a unique debt agreement right so just be mindful of as as things become more arcane uh that would be a red flag for me okay great and i want to kind of go into a more future facing conversation right because i think we can all agree cannabis had a great year in 2020 overall in spite of the pandemic right new states legalizing the idea of someone like new york coming on board has huge implications right and then you know the democratic uh administration coming into the white house and taking back the senate now there's this interest in cannabis to the average person right and i tell people you're kind of late but you're still a little bit early like so and it makes sense to us inside here right so marco kind of what advice do you give to the person who's hopping in to it right now in 2021 who may not know the first thing about cannabis um i when people say well what should i do in cannabis i always say well what did you do before and there might be a way for you to transition some of those skills there are more skills and more opportunities in on the ancillary side than on the licensure side a licensure is very competitive for all people not just social equity applicants um and small minority owned business this is just a competitive landscape and so you need to be aware that if that's what you choose that you are entering you know shark infested waters this is free market capitalism that we're talking about here now um and i tell people all the time to take in every thing that you can from this industry you never know when you're going to come across a person that has a bit of information that you can reach out to they can give you some advice or some mentorship potentially in this space um and also when you go places and you well when the world was open this is kind of past tense but when you go places um see the other people that are there with common interests because those might be your potential partners in the future um when it comes to me i have a saying i only meet people on the coliseum floor like if i've never seen you in this space and i don't know where you come came from like i am a little bit hesitant to give you as much credibility as the people that i see sitting in the room absorbing the information yeah very much so agreed and before i go over to jared i would love for you to speak about ancillary opportunities for people of color because and i tell this in a motivational way but it may come across as discouraging i tell people if you come in and you think you're just going to have a dispensary or grow that may be a lazy conclusion i always tell people go around the industry do your research you know really develop an idea of where you may fit in and then if you still settle on retail or cultivation then do it but what are some of the other opportunities that aren't necessarily plant touching oh there are a multitude of end of opportunities for vendors um so just when you start with the structure of a license to begin with you're going to probably need an attorney you're going to need um potentially a lobbyist you're going to need a cpa for your attestations you are going to need an architect to do your renderings and your building um you're going to need people that have um experience in hvac experience in lighting um and then all the things that actually go into touching the plant so there is packaging there is marketing it's actually a whole universe that exists around cannabis the thing about cannabis is when you say i'm going to be into marketing or the cpa that's not the same as a person who is the owner of the retail establishment so i think that people come with really high expectations when it comes to cannabis like i'm going to be a millionaire in six months or next year and if you have the investors that jerrell was talking about then you got to pay those people back first before you become a millionaire so it's a very long commitment um if you un if you have you know an appetite for delayed gratification then certain things are are more appealing than if you want to earn revenue in the next three to six three to six months okay and then jarrell i'll go over to you with kind of the finance portion of that what are some of the benefits to coming up with a really feasible idea that's not plant touching how does that open you up to more favorable investment opportunities sure so you know even before getting to the investment opportunity there's there are kind of old sayings i think of them in the context of investing and kind of business management strategies but people talk about pick and acts uh strategies right so think of the california gold rush who made money in the california gold rush the guy selling picks and axes right that guy had a sale every time but every time someone crossed the border or or the the mississippi frankly right you know so so from that perspective the the ancillary businesses are important right because they sell the the the fundamental pieces that let the cultivators manufacturers and retailers uh conduct their business right so don't under um uh under-appreciate the value of those businesses and also keep in mind uh having a lens towards serving the cannabis community does it for a lot of those businesses doesn't remove you from having a broader business platform as well right so the cannabis industry can be one vertical of sales for your business or maybe you do go all in because you do have the connections and the expertise to kind of tailor your offering so specifically that it's it's particularly compelling right so just be mindful of what your um what your business can be and how you running it better suits it to one or another strategy right so that's that's kind of the first piece and then you know it it translates well in terms of seeking investment because to margo's point you want to have a strong business because if you take investment what your investors are going to want to see is that your your your investment your time your blood your sweat is flowing into that company in a way that protects their dollars and a lot of times the way that's reflected in a contract is that the investors have terms that protect their money before you have that cash windfall or that that um you know that financial success that you're seeking as the business owner right so you want to make sure that you design your business both to have a great uh shot at success and that you make it unique you're able to communicate that uniqueness to an investor nd then you're able to articulate that that uniqueness translates into their their financial success which enables yours right because um from an investor's perspective we we joke around but it's a very uh serious um uh standard that we hold everything to is if it doesn't make dollars it doesn't make sense right so if you uh you can't tell an investor this is going to be great you might lose some money that's not an answer that's not for for an investor that's not why they're there that's not why they they started this conversation with you and it is definitely why they will end one with you so just be mindful that uh as you as you approach a an investor they're they're first and foremost priority is preservation of capital and and uh and how to grow their capital so their support of you is uh is contingent on that right and it's not whether or not they like you they may love you that's probably why they're talking to you but they have to meet that standard you know okay that was great i really appreciate both of you guys perspective um the thing i enjoy about having this series is i learn so much because i get to talk to people like you guys on a daily basis and i just repeat what you tell me and sound like a genius so um wrapping up i would love for you guys to tell our viewers where they can follow you and your company on social media or where they can reach out to you if they have any particular questions um for me marco brunner i am on facebook and instagram as margo brunner my consultancy perpetual harvest sustainable solutions is also on facebook um and i answer questions all the time like just shoot me a message and i'll be of assistance as much as possible or hopefully be able to point you in the right direction can you talk about a little bit minority campaign can you talk about this because when i came into the space at the end of 2017 you guys were the first like informational uh hub that i could find that really was catering to like black people trying to come into the space and we do and we host boot camps and workshops and webinars that connect people to top-notch advisement which is very important because even if you can't go out and retain the top-notch person maybe you can listen to a webinar and get a bit of information that gives you the same knowledge because there's some deltas here that aren't just financial like there is a huge delta in information and exchange of information because cannabis is new and a lot of it is tribal knowledge like people sit down and have a conversation or they go to a golf outing it's not always something on the internet that you could potentially google so minority canvas business association is definitely a place to start um to connect yourself to other people who are on the same journey people who may be further ahead in the journey and can share wisdom and knowledge with you um as long as along with the actual structure of business ownership things like valuations that you might have never considered you're like you know i want to sell cannabis in a retail shop like i'm not thinking about all these abstract concepts that are part of either raising capital or just compliance that are essentially all of what cannabis is like the majority of your your revenue is going to go to taxes and compliance and there'll be a sliver of that that you have left over um once you start a business so it's very very important that we understand these things and that we make the right decisions because we don't always have capital to lose okay great um jarrell i would love for you to do the same and also kind of speak on just the fun that you're putting together with curio because after your interview no lie i probably had 20 people message me like hey give me that guy's number i got an idea like so i would love for you to tell the viewers kind of just the the state of that and how maybe they could eventually prepare themselves to be one of the franchisees with curio sure so um easiest way to find me is probably still linkedin so just jerel registry there aren't too many of us out there and uh and then my email address is very similarly just jerald.registry curiouwellness.com um in terms of the funds so we're about halfway through we're a little more than halfway through the fundraising process so we're hoping that we'll finish that up over the next few months and in line with uh getting regulatory approval on the franchisor so we've filed in several states uh to obtain the we talk about compliance and cannabis but there's a whole other compliance element to our effort on the franchising side and the ability to effectively sell stores uh to franchisees so we're in that process we expect that to wrap up over the next uh month or so and then at that point visiting curio wellness.com is probably the best resource to understand when the franchising opportunities are becoming available mostly just because we'll publish there and and it lets us um you know kind of present the opportunity as as we'd like but fundamentally um our franchisees um curio will will franchise more broadly than fund-sponsored stores for diverse applicants that's where i'll actively seek to either identify them in the application process or even make first contact and direct them towards the franchising process my goal is to identify people who have the the clinical and retail and honestly entrepreneurial uh fire to to push a business into existence right because my expectation is that uh most of our franchises will be de novo licenses right so we'll we'll match we'll we'll sponsor a franchisee who is seeking to submit an application for a license so from that perspective you know margot was talking about uh preparedness or how to inform yourself about entering the industry one of the pieces that i'd add on to that is knowing as much about your either your local market or the market you want to end up in as possible so learning as much as you can about that state-based program learning as much about your intended municipalities enthusiasm or inclinations around allowing cannabis in their space to the extent they have those rights it varies from state to state the more you're able to bring to the table as a candidate who's ready to uh either apply for a license or um or or are aware to engage with the community in anticipation of seeking a license the better positioned you're going to be not only you know from my perspective in terms of supporting you to become a franchisee of our program and receiving financing but also the better shot at success you have of getting a license because it uh the more thoughtful you can be with that application is uh what pays dividends right because they they're big applications in terms of even if they're not uh some states they're not particularly long but they can be very detailed and um and under have presenting a clear picture of what the business is that you're applying for a license for is probably the biggest um uh you know i i think of things in terms of superpowers but you know that that that that is a superpower too right like being able to communicate clearly what this thing will be in a credible way that um that suggests its success in the context of that states program is is really important so the more thinking you can do and the more information gathering you can do ahead of time the better so basically you're giving them all the tools and resources to build the house but as a franchisee you still have to build that house because i was having people they were like oh um give me jerrell's email i got this pre-roll machine i'm like you didn't even watch the interview so that's so my just for clarity so my mandate is very narrow so just the same way that we talked about the institutional investors they have that long checklist of things that they need to meet the agreement i have with my investors is explicitly to sponsor diverse entrepreneurs in launching uh uh franchise stores based on our model so that my investment activity is very uh very specific right to that mandate right so i you know i uh i love and enjoy uh speaking and to entrepreneurs and learning about what they're doing but honestly that's on the hobby side that my my business uh my business being the fund is targeted specifically at that that goal okay perfect i definitely appreciate both of y'all coming on i look forward to seeing where your story goes and having you guys on at a later date