Marijuana Business Magazine - February 2018

said. Headset should have a presence in Canada by early 2018, he added. Headset started 2017 with seven employees but closed the year with almost 20 employees handling product development, engineering, data science, accounting and sales. Additional hires will be slotted into sales, marketing and engineering. Leveraging Business Connections Establishing, maintaining and leveraging relationships have been critical to the success enjoyed by Scott, Wansolich and Vickers. When starting INGREDIENTS FOR SUCCESS H eadset and Leafly co-founders Cy Scott, Scott Vick- ers and Brian Wansolich said their success stems in part from being a team. That means the hard work and countless tasks involved with building a company don’t all fall to one person. Rather, the workload and strategic thinking are shared. “Everybody’s recommendation is not to go into business with your friends. But I think it goes relatively smoothly,” Scott said. “We’ve never had to take a majority vote. We’re always on the same page and have the same path in mind. We challenge each other when assumptions are made, which is someone playing devil’s advocate and talking through it until you come to something that everybody’s happy with.” Given their experiences with Headset and Leafly, how do the three think marijuana business executives should capitalize on today’s rapidly growing cannabis industry? Marijuana Business Magazine asked each of the entre- preneurs to consider the current trends in the marijuana industry and to provide a key piece of business advice. Scott: “Look at category. Look at opportunity. Before diving in or committing to making a certain kind of product, do your research. Really understand what the opportunity looks like. Is there a gap in the marketplace or a low number of competitors? Is there a price you can provide that others can’t? Understand the size of the total addressable market. It can be expensive to build a brand. There’s straight branding, packaging, production. So you want to make sure that what you’re investing in is a high-growth segment of the market.” Vickers: “For retailers, having good product selection is important, where you can be a one-stop shop. Tiny cat- egories may not look like much. But it’s important to have small niche products like infused cooking oils or topicals, because the people that come to your store for those may walk out with other products as well. “For product manufacturers, it’s about cementing them- selves as good providers of product and then scaling out the selection of products that they offer. Then they’re in a pretty good spot – being in a lot of stores, being in that distribution network, being able to service a lot of accounts, being able to provide a lot of value. If that producer can service all those product categories, the better off they’ll be.” “Loyalty to brands is still to be determined. Consum- ers are still trying to figure it out. While it's getting more competitive, it’s not done yet. There’s plenty of room and plenty of opportunity for product manufacturers to create a successful brand.” Wansolich: “Budtenders are great assets for retailers, who should focus on how their budtenders sell products in different categories. Maybe your staff is really good at selling edibles but not capsules or topicals. Get to know your budtenders’ brand affinity and how they sell a brand well. And use that information to make your sales team smarter and tighter about what they’re selling.” – Omar Sacirbey Marketing associate Kayla Nawrocki, software engineer Marc Wilson, center, and catalog manager Cooper Ashley are part of the Headset team. (Photo by Steve Dykes) 58 • Marijuana Business Magazine • February 2018