What Every Marijuana Retailer Should
Know About Building a Thriving
Canna-Business In Washington
Ben Curren
Who is Ben Curren?
A Family Man
A Nerd
An Entrepreneur & Engineer
Mission: Help online businesses thrive in a connected world.
CTO and Founder
Raised $11 Million in Capital from Top Tier investors
Grew from 2 employees to 50 in 4 years
800,000 small business still using the product
Sold to Go Daddy in 2012
I worked with the best mentors
Marc Andreessen – CoFounder of Netscape
Bryan Schreier- Partner @ Sequoia; Dropbox board of directors; Google
Rob Hayes – Partner @ First Round Capital; Mint.com investor
Mark Goines – Angel Investor; Everything small business
Ravi Mohan – Partner / Founder Shasta Ventures; Nest Investor
This is what
I learned
A successful business is a money printing
machine
How big can your business grow?
How fast can you feed your business cash?
How much time before money comes out?
What is the ratio of cash in and cash out?
Cash In Cash Out
Time
Your job as an entrepreneur is to build a
“machine” that fits your goals.
Lifestyle business.
Boutique business.
Large enterprise.
How to find a successful business model
Key Performance
Indicator (KPI)
Programs and
Processes
Business Model
Goals(should not change often)
Example Business Model
Goal: Replace my income of $60,000 / year. Meet new people. Control my
destiny and don’t work for “the man”.
Model: Hire 3 people. Sell $66,000 of product. Margin of 30%.
Example Key Performance Indicators
Choose 5 – 6 KPIs, key performance indicators, to work on at a time.
Margin
Transactions per month
Average amount per sale
Average customer rating of 80%
Track your KPI’s over time
KPI Jan 2015 Dec 2014 Nov 2014
Margin 28% 31% 29%
Sales 527 724 805
Average amount per sale $35.67 $47.56 $44.26
Customer rating N/A 93% 87%
Programs Jan 2015 Dec 2014 Nov 2014
Leafly Premium Listing No Yes Yes
Incentive to spend > $50 No No Yes
Collect customer survey No Yes Yes
Implement programs to improve
Key Performance
Indicator (KPI)
Programs and
Processes
Business Model
Goals(should not change often)
Be a scientist. Hypothesis,
experiment, analyze.
Time to change it up. Let’s get i502 retail specific.
CEO and Founder of Green Bits
The Point of Sale Designed for i502 Retail Stores
Benefits
Traceability happens automatically
Generate reports to help make critical decisions
Blazing fast checkouts with iPad based cash registers
Track all your inventory with ease
Robust auditing tools to help prevent theft
Green Bits Story
Founded May 18th, 2014
Launched with 3 Washington stores in July 2014
5 person team – most came with me from Outright
40+ i502 retail stores in Washington
Best Practices We’ve Seen
Automate traceability
Empower your bud tenders
Optimize your vendors and products
Automate Traceability
WSLCB Traceability Overview
The following actions must submit the product lot
number:
Receive Marijuana
Sell Marijuana
Adjust Quantity On Hand
Pickup Manifest
Submit once a month
Submit Excise Tax Obligations
Rules of Lot Numbers
All products with the
same lot number must
be at the same location.
Same product will have
multiple lot numbers.
Enable computers to track lot numbers
Make sure all product is bar coded with a lot number.
Bud tenders pick an item and scan it. No lists.
Inventory management should allow lot number tracking.
Let computers do the mundane tracking not humans.
Empower your bud tenders
Create a employee purchase program
Bud tenders must know your products to sell them effectively.
1. Ask processors to provide low cost “Samples” to the store.
2. The store sells the “Samples” to employees near cost.
3. Employees write an internal evaluation of the product.
4. Share data with vendors so they can improve their products.
5. Bud tenders can intelligently discuss your products.
Increase bud tender sales
Create a sales competition to improve your KPI’s
Sales amount per week
Average amount per sale
Post progress in the employee break room.
Create a bonus or prize for the winner.
Make it a big deal to win.
Optimize your vendors and products
Grade your vendors
Create a score card for your vendors based on their
performance.
Do products come bar coded?
Do shipments arrive on time?
Do shipments have accurate counts and labels?
Share this data with the vendor so they know where they
stand.
Determine the products that drive sales
Rank your sales by each product.
Normalize by dividing space taken up on shelf. More space
should drive more sales.
Promote top sellers with better real estate and more
space.
Champion versus challenger
Provide a way for new products to displace older products.
Allocate 5% of your shelf space for testing new products.
Add product for a limited time to collect sales data.
Calculate sales and compare to main products.
Promote the products that win, demote the products that
loose.
Questions?
The Point of Sale Designed for i502 Retail Stores
Visit Green Bits at Booth #241
Try it yourself
Over $500 in savings with a deposit at CannaCon
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