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Tag: Cannabis

  • DTC Brands Doing Incredible Numbers on Shopify, Says COO

    DTC Brands Doing Incredible Numbers on Shopify, Says COO

    Direct to consumer brands are doing incredible numbers on Shopify, says Shopify COO Harley Finkelstein. He says that Kylie Jenner has generated almost a billion dollars in sales on the platform and many other influencers such as Kanye West, Drake, and most recently Tom Brady are also doing very well.

    “Even if you go beyond just Kylie, you look at companies like Bombas and Allbirds and Tommy John and Fashion Nova, these are brands that didn’t exist five or ten years ago and they’re absolutely doing incredible numbers on Shopify with no slowing down in mind,” says Finklestein. “Shopify was built to help anyone that has an idea start a great business and sell to a global audience.”

    Harley Finkelstein, COO of Shopify, talks about the incredible numbers DTC brands are doing on Shopify, the huge success of Shopify Capital, and their quick acceptance of cannabis stores in Canada and potentially the rest of the world, in an interview with Jim Cramer on CNBC:

    DTC Brands Doing Incredible Numbers on Shopify

    We’re really happy with how we ended the year and certainly, the quarter was great and we’re really excited about our future. We’ve been at this now for almost 14 years. We’ve grown to 820,000 merchants up from 600,000 merchants a year ago. We have a big top of funnel with brand new entrepreneurs getting started on Shopify for the very first time. We also have some very large brands like the big CPGs and some big direct to consumer (DTC) companies all using Shopify to scale their businesses. We’ve got a really great business model and we’re having a lot of fun.

    It’s amazing. I think the Kylie story ($1 billion in sales) was surprising to a lot of people, not for us because we see so many stories like that all the time. Whether it’s Kanye West launching his Yeezy store on Shopify or Drake’s store or Tom Brady’s new store, we see all of these major brands and huge influencers using Shopify to create authentic products and sell it to the audience. I always sort of think back to if DTC and direct-to-consumer were around when Michael Jordan was creating the Jordan brand with Nike I think Nike would be a supplier and Michael Jordan would be the brand. He would own the entirety of his business as opposed to getting a licensing fee.

    We’re really excited about this. But even if you go beyond just Kylie, you look at companies like Bombas and Allbirds and Tommy John and Fashion Nova, these are brands that didn’t exist five or ten years ago and they’re absolutely doing incredible numbers on Shopify with no slowing down in mind. Shopify was built to help anyone that has an idea start a great business and sell to a global audience. We really do bend the learning curve to make it really easy to get started.

    Shopify Helping Democratize the Entire Business Process

    The ones that succeed, not all of them do, but the ones that do succeed they grow really large with us and over time we want to provide them with more services and more solutions. For example, we launched Shopify Payments a couple of years ago. We went to the payments companies and negotiated rates on their behalf. We launched Shopify Shipping and went to the shipping company and negotiated shipping costs on their behalf. We always are trying to find economies of scale to help democratize the entire business process for these small businesses.

    More recently we realized that a lot of these small businesses also need capital. Because we have so much information on them we’re able to make really quick and very effective underwriting decisions so we were able to go and offer them capital cash advances. We’ve given out hundreds of millions of dollars of cash advances to a lot of these small businesses who if it wasn’t for Shopify would not be able to get this money on their own.

    Entrepreneurs Want to Own Their Audience

    Etsy fundamentally is a marketplace. Etsy is a place where someone who makes a product can go to find an audience. But our feeling is that you know for an entrepreneur they don’t always want to rent the audience. They want to own the audience. They want to have a direct relationship with their customers. They want to own the entire to profit margin. They want to be able to sell and have long-term relations with the people that are buying their products.

    So companies like Etsy do a really good job of curating a bunch of products and renting those customers to those makers. We think the marketplaces are really great but we think ultimately makers and entrepreneurs and merchants want to have a direct relationship with the people buying their products. One of the things that is not well known about Shopify but one way to think about what we do is really this retail operating system. Merchants can start a store with us very easily and they can build a beautiful online store but they can also cross-sell to different marketplaces like eBay or Amazon.

    The idea is that it feeds all feeds back in one centralized back office which is Shopify. That’s where they can run the entirety of their business. Really the idea is let’s become the most important piece of software they use on a daily basis. The first thing they open every morning, the last thing they close every night. So obviously marketplace will play a role there but ultimately merchants want to find customers wherever those customers exist and more and more they want to sell direct to those customers.

    Shopify Facilitating Cannabis Sales in Canada

    The reason we started with Canada was there was clarity in Canada. The Canadian government, the legislature, they were very clear with how they were going to roll out the commercialization and the legalization of cannabis sales on the consumer side. We felt it was really important for us to act quickly and effectively to not only win as much of the Canadian market as we possibly could but also to show the rest of the world as they begin to think about cannabis sales that we are the first phone call that they should be making.

    Whether it’s the province of Ontario or British Columbia or most of the largest licensed producers like Canopy in Canada, Shopify is what’s powering those retail sales. We think that we can do a great job helping other countries and other regions do the same thing.

  • Cannabis Triple Venti at Starbucks?

    Cannabis Triple Venti at Starbucks?

    Starbucks CEO Kevin Johnson says that cannabis-infused beverages are not on the roadmap. However, he seems open to that possibility in the future.

    “You can’t get a cannabis triple venti today,” said Johnson in an interview on CNBC. “Certainly we’re well aware of what’s happening around CBD and THC and all the trends in the industry. There are a lot of of issues that we would have to think through on that. Right now that’s not on the roadmap. But we are mindful of the trends. We’re mindful of how CBD oils and CBD is viewed as a health and wellness item, so we’re going to keep watching this.”

    “We’re staying focused on the beverage innovation that we’re driving and right now and it’s all about nitro,” the Starbucks CEO added. “We talked yesterday during the earnings call about how we’re deploying nitro and nitro cold brew across our entire portfolio of company operated stores. But we will always stay on top of consumer trends and new ideas.”

    It does seem like Starbucks is leaving some room to jump into this market at a later date. So maybe someday, you will be able to order that cannabis triple venti! Could a future partnership with Canopy Growth be in their future?


  • Cannabis Zombies in Colorado Held at Bay

    Cannabis Zombies in Colorado Held at Bay

    For decades, small groups have tried to convince average Americans of a few simple facts about marijuana. They spoke to anyone who would listen about how no one ever overdosed on marijuana. They tirelessly campaigned against the mistaken notion that Reefer Madness was a documentary. They produced one scholarly paper after another showing that marijuana was medicine, and that it has a place in healing, rather than being scheduled as a useless substance.

    Groups like NORML and MPP slowly got the word out. Generations changed. Government policies shifted slowly. Even at the beginning of the Obama administration the president was laughing off any notion that marijuana taxation might have a positive effect on our economy.

    How things have changed.

    Governor Cuomo just signed a bill making New York the 23rd medical marijuana state.

    Washington state legalized medical pot in 2012, and has now started issuing licenses to stores.

    In Florida, 82% of poll respondents favor medical marijuana, and 48% favor recreational adult use.

    There is now a sharp divide between the antiquated federal stance against marijuana and the position adopted by individual states. It is the states’ rights issue of the decade.

    There was recently even a “pot farmers market” in California, where prescription holders could get discounted legal weed, cutting out the middle man.

    The result of all this reefer madness? Let’s look at Colorado, where medical and recreational pot is now legal. Denver now has about 340 recreational and medicinal pot shops. In the first four months of this year, marijuana sales came to more than $202 million. About a third of that was recreational, the rest medical. Taxes from recreational sales alone were almost $11 million.

    And what about crime during that period? Denver cops say things are actually easier, with burglaries and robberies down between four and five percent.

    Efforts to keep the now-legal Colorado weed out of the hands of minors are being taken seriously. Pot shops check IDs. sometimes twice. There have been 20 different sting operations attempting to catch shops selling to minors. None did. No one wants to lose their license for one silly sale. Many outlets sell their product in child-proof containers.

    It will take time for some to have their fears about widespread marijuana availability assuaged. Some never will be comfortable with it. But the times they are a-changin’.

    Image via YouTube

  • Nigella Lawson Granted Visa to New Zealand

    Nigella Lawson was denied entry into the United States from London earlier this month. Now New Zealand has granted her a visa to enter that country. Lawson was supposed to work in L.A on the cooking show The Taste, but because of her recent admission of drug use she was denied entry–or so it is believed. U.S. officials have declined to state why Lawson was prevented from flying to L.A. from London. New Zealand officials had the following to say about her entry into their country.

    “As Ms Lawson has been excluded from another country, namely the United States, she was ineligible to be granted a visa to enter New Zealand unless given a special direction,” the statement said.

    “A special direction was considered and granted and subsequently her visa application was approved.”

    Nigella Lawson admitted during a court case last year that she had previously used both cocaine and cannabis. British newspapers speculate that this is the reason she was denied entry into the United States. A spokesperson for the U.S. embassy in London confirmed that Lawson was denied permission to fly to Los Angeles more than two weeks ago but declined to say why because of privacy reasons.

    Lawson is in New Zealand for work as well. She is filming a TV ad for a chocolate manufacturer there.

    Do you think Nigella Lawson’s admission of drug use is the reason she was denied access to the United States? Is this something that will eventually be formally announced? It will be interesting to see if she is permanently denied entry, and if that is the case, who will replace her on The Taste? Anthony Bourdain serves as a judge on The Taste with Nigella. He is appalled that she wasn’t allowed back in to the U.S.

    If Lawson truly is a drug risk, why is New Zealand allowing her there? Perhaps their drug laws are less strict than those in the United States?

    Hopefully in the next few days more information about Lawson’s denial into the U.S. will be explained so people can rely more on facts and less on conjecture.

    Image via Wikimedia Commons

  • Colorado Marijuana: Buy Weed Legally Starting Today

    Colorado State has started the New Year  with an historic experiment in cannabis policy. More than 37 shops licensed to sell marijuana to anyone aged 21 and above opened their doors to eager buyers on Wednesday. At one point, the demand was so great that some shops raised the price of an eighth of an ounce from $25 to $45 while other shops limited the quantity that customers could buy.

    People travelled from all over the country to participate in Colorado’s historic day; some arrived as early as 2:00 am to be among the first to legally purchase cannabis.  Sales, however,  didn’t start till 8:00 am.

    The activists who were involved in legalizing marijuana in November 2012 organized a ceremonial “first purchase” at exactly 8:00 am at the Denver store 3D Cannabis.

    The person selected to be the first buyer was Sean Azzariti, an Iraq War veteran who bought the product at exactly 8:00 am from 3D Cannabis.

    “It’s huge,” he said. “It hasn’t even sunk in how big this is yet.” Azzariti was chosen because of his service as a U.S. Marine between 2000 and 2006. Azzariti plans to use marijuana as a remedy for his PTSD.

    Although recreational weed is being sold by more than 30 stores, there are about 136 applicants still waiting for their store license to be approved. The new law is expected to create many new businesses, giving a significant boost to Colorado’s local economy.

    Washington is expected to be the next state to legalize marijuana with a host of other states keen in following Colorado’s footsteps. Both Colorado and Washington have voted to legalize marijuana but Colorado will become the first state to allow legal sales. However, not everyone is applauding this development. Anti-cannabis groups like Smart Approaches say that legalizing marijuana is the last thing people need right now. They fear that the plants legalization will lead to young people using harsher drugs.

    Colorado was already allowing sales of medical marijuana which has been beneficial to both people with medical conditions and local business. As of today, Jan. 1st,  cannabis can be sold to anyone of legal age in Colorado but buyers must use it on private property. Colorado residents are restricted to one ounce of marijuana per purchase while those from other states can only purchase up to a quarter of an ounce.

    Image via Wikipedia

  • Marijuana Stops Young Girl’s Severe Seizures

    The push for the legalization of marijuana, even for medical purposes, is one of the top hot-button issues in the United States and has been for years. While the debate continues, the pro-legalization side may have won a major victory in the form of a little girl who was given her life back by a form of the drug.

    Charlotte Figi, the young daughter of Matt and Paige Figi of Colorado, was born with a rare form of epilepsy that caused her to have intense seizures starting when she was 3 months old. Dravet Syndrome, as the condition is known, is an extremely rare genetic disorder that causes young children to suffer from intense, repetitive seizures.

    The Figi family frantically searched for a treatment, eventually taking the advice of a Dravet specialist and placing Charlotte on a speciality diet designed to control her seizures. While it initially worked, it caused a series of harmful side effects such as bone loss, and ceased to work after two years.

    Just as the Figis were out of options and terrified for their daughter’s life, Colorado voters approved an amendment that required the state to set up a medical marijuana registry. The drug was approved for the treatment of only 8 conditions, one of which was chronic seizures. Charlotte’s father did extensive research and found other cases where Dravet was being treated with cannabis with success.

    After months of hearing no from doctors, the Figis were finally able to find two who signed off on the treatment after meeting with the family and examining Charlotte (Colorado state laws require the two signatures).

    Once they began the treatment Charlotte did not suffer a seizure for 7 days, when she had been suffering up to 300 a week (that is not a typo). The Figis continued the treatment with some help from sympathetic dispensary owners and Charlotte began to flourish, learning not only to walk, but also how to ride a bike and speak, although that is still a work in progress.

    Many people probably view the treatment merely as getting a child high. Those people could not be more off base in their assumptions. Charlotte is treated with two drops of cannabis oil in her food per day, and the strain being used has an extremely low THC content.

    While Charlotte’s treatment may not work for every case of Dravet or similar conditions, the reward far outweighs the risk. Matt Figi, in response to the treatment’s effectiveness, asked “My thought now is, why were we the ones that had to go out and find this cure? This natural cure? How come a doctor didn’t know about this? How come they didn’t make me aware of this?”

    Well Matt, now the world will know.

    [kudos to CNN for the original story]

  • Jane-Ome, Marijuana iPad App Looks To Educate Users On Scientific Benefits

    Everything is better with marijuana; this is the argument many users make and has been featured in a certain stoner comedy (hilariously played by Jon Stewart). However, many people are unaware of the true benefits marijuana has in the medical community, and how it can truly make life a bit better for people with various health problems.

    Medical Genomics looks to inform the masses, with a major step being the release of an iPad app which will inform users of their research. What are they researching? They’ve been sequencing entire cannabis genomes and mapping them for research. Their app will feature a wide array of functions, which you can read about below. If you decide to download the app, it will set you back $1.99.

    MARBLEHEAD, Mass. – January 12, 2012 – Medicinal Genomics, a pioneer in the genomics of medicinal plants, today announced the availability of Jane-Ome, an application designed for Apple’s iPad tablet, which offers a science-based dissection of medical marijuana.

    Jane-Ome provides a gateway to the Cannabis genome project led by Medicinal Genomics, which in August 2011 sequenced the entire genome of Cannabis sativa and Cannabis indica, assembling the largest known gene collection of this therapeutic plant.

    “Medicinal Genomics is excited to roll out Jane-Ome to help make sense of the extensive datasets created by the Cannabis genome project,” said Kevin McKernan, founder and head of scientific operations of Medicinal Genomics. “The company’s hope is that Jane-Ome will help make that data more relevant to the public and serve as a conduit for future Cannabis genomes.”

    Jane-Ome provides users with continuously updated, exclusive genomic information on various Cannabis genomes. In addition, the app provides users with access to several scientific news feeds that explore the science of medicinal Cannabis, making Jane-Ome the nerve center to explore the plant’s therapeutic potential.

    In addition to its encyclopedic information about the bleeding-edge science of Cannabis, Jane-Ome users can compete in Cannabis related trivia to earn the right to guide future sequencing efforts. Users can also explore never before released blueprints for the equipment used to crack the human genome project, as well as access videos which explain the impact DNA sequencing and genomics have had on the world. Furthermore, Jane-Ome provides users with access to never before seen videos documenting the history of the human genome project, as well as commentary from members of that scientific consortium explaining how research has led them to aim their sights on unlocking the genome of Cannabis.

    One of the more interesting reads from their press release is the medical benefits they list from cannabis use – “Ongoing scientific research suggests that the Cannabis plant harbors beneficial compounds as it pertains to cancer apoptosis, antiemesis for HIV and chemotherapy patients, reduction of muscle spasms for multiple sclerosis patients, as well as the treatment of glaucoma, inflammatory diseases, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder, among other health conditions.

    Of the 85 identified Cannabinoids in the plant, only one is independently psychoactive. The other 84 appear to be non-psychoactive and are still powerful therapeutics. Many Cannabinoids have been bred to low expression levels over the years but are excellent small molecule therapeutic drug candidates for cancer and inflammatory diseases. The genome sequence can be utilized to design breeding strategies to resurrect these nearly extinct pathways. In addition, Cannabinoids have also been shown to have a very favorable therapeutic index making them a unique class of anti-cancer compounds because the lethal dose is much higher than the effective dose. Furthermore, Cannabinoids are less addictive analgesics than opiates, and target different pain pathways in the body.“