Zechariah Lord On His NFL Career, Bad Edible Stories & Building a 9 Figure Cannabis Brand | DSH #157

If I had to guess a coach, who would you guess?

Smoke?

I'm gonna go

my guest.

I think Steve Kerr.

Nah, hell no.

I feel like Steve Kerr.

I can't see Steve Kerr.

I can see.

I'm not putting it out there at all just because, you know, I pleaded fifth on all that.

But it was a shame not it was banned everywhere.

It was ridiculous.

Like, checking out the badges.

And now the government is the biggest drug dealer in the world.

I thought it was falling out until they found out.

That was my first trip on the edible.

I called the hospital.

I said, hey,

she was like, you gotta come in here and i don't touch that edibles oh my god you were talking about earlier sean it just wouldn't go away like i was high for like eight hours yeah i was high high

welcome back to the digital social hour i'm your host sean Kelly.

You're my co-host, Wayne Lewis.

What up, what up?

And our guest today, Zach Lord.

Salute, man.

Big all, man.

Thank you, man.

Pleasure to be here, man.

Thank you for having me.

Thanks for coming.

You were up till 6 a.m.

Oh, bro.

It's Vegas, man.

Yeah, plus Summer League is out here.

So I know y'all been here.

That's why I was up till 6 a.m.

Yeah, man.

Summer League's been hectic for us, which is a good thing, you know.

But, yeah, just forget sleeping.

Plus, now that the NBAs are not tripping.

Yeah, they just legalized it, right?

They're not tested for it.

They're not even tested anymore.

So all the players have been pulling up left and right.

Even though, even prior to that, they were still pulling up all the time.

But more low-key.

Yeah, all the guys smoke.

Even some of the coaches smoke.

Really?

Yeah.

It's stressful.

Yo, if I had to guess a coach, who would you guess?

Smoke?

I'm going to go

my guess, the coach from Denver.

Mike Malone.

The coach from Denver, for sure.

I don't want to put anyone on blast.

I feel like Spolstra smokes.

I feel like.

I'm going Ty Lou.

Doc Rivers.

I feel like, yeah, Ty.

I think Doc.

Tyrone Lou.

I think Steve Kerr.

Nah.

Hell no.

I feel like Steve Kerr.

I can't see Steve Kerr.

I can see Steve Kerr.

Once again, I'm not putting it out there at all just because, you know, I put it fifth on all that.

But at the end of the day, just know a lot of the coaches smoke, NFL and NBA, too.

Oh, yeah.

I mean, NFL I could see.

Yeah,

I don't feel like there's anything wrong.

I don't personally do it.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with it.

Listen, man, they try to pump these pills on all the players, and, you know, it's way healthier.

It's traditional medicine, it's cannabis.

So at the end of the day, man, a lot of people have some kind of ailment, whether it's stress, anxiety, depression, pain,

hard time sleeping, whatever it may be, man.

Instead of putting these pills in your body that have all these negative effects on you,

this is just a way better solution.

And instead of putting a band-aid on a gun wound, you're actually taking care of your body.

Yeah.

Using cannabis the right way.

So

you can still get that social hybrid.

What's the right way to use?

I hear smoking is terrible for you.

I actually

inhale smoke.

I mean, there's studies go back and forth on saying that, but at the end of the day, it's all about how much you consume.

I consume, but like, I'm not a chain smoker.

Put it to you like that.

Shout out to the chain smoker.

But I'm not a chain smoker or anything like that.

I'll consume, like, even before I work out.

Like, I'll just take one or two puffs

before I get on the treadmill.

Because literally, it relaxes your body, lowers your heart rate.

And literally running, like my partner, that.

Do you want your heart rate lower while working out?

Yeah, I mean, for me personally, I do because if I'm running, I don't want it to just be speed up.

That's how you get tired when it's like speeding up like that.

Like, you get exhausted a little quicker.

So for me, I want my heart rate to be lower so I can just be calm and relaxed, just be able to run.

And my buddy, my partner, he runs marathons.

He smokes before he runs.

No way.

Wow.

Dead serious.

Yeah, so you'd be surprised.

Wow.

And I think everyone knows Michael Phelps.

Yeah.

Big top smoker.

Yeah, he did.

Before meets.

Yeah, before meets.

Wait, you're a lot?

Hell, Niels.

Not when he was doing it.

That's why it was like a big thing.

Even with Shira Curry Richards.

Yeah.

They were mad at her because she was smoking.

That's a track on her, right?

Yeah.

Yeah, but it's not going to enhance your athletic performance per se, but it just calms you down, calms your nerves down, which, you know, to some degree kind of helps you perform a little bit better.

But yeah,

I treat it from a medicinal standpoint instead of just getting high to get high.

I always tell people that come in, because I've had everyone from Travis Scott to, you name the athletes coming into the shop.

And I tell them, when it's smoking with a purpose, you know, so you can consume the product, just do it responsibly.

And it's surprising how many people just don't understand the science behind it.

And it's been around forever, but there's been a taboo and stigma around it for a long time as well.

And it's kind of cool that we're now starting to

see the industry evolving more and more.

So it's going to be really interesting to see what happens in the next five to ten years.

Are you guys getting into

mushrooms too?

Well, psilocybin right now is the next wave, in my opinion.

I think it's going to exceed, to be honest with you.

Wow.

I feel like it is, too.

Yeah, I know a guy that's really big in tech, and he was like, Zach, look, I mean, he just just actually.

Are you someone that doesn't have life insurance?

Why leave anything up to chance in a worst case scenario?

Luckily, Policy Genius makes finding the right policy simple and their team of licensed experts are on hand to help you through it.

Life insurance gives your family a safety net that they can cover expenses with so they don't have to worry about money while getting back on their feet.

I've had friends and family members that have passed away without life insurance.

It's definitely left us with financial instabilities.

Even if you already have a policy, it may not offer enough protection for your family's needs and it may not follow you if you leave your job.

With Policy Genius, you can find life insurance policies that start at just $2.92 per year for $1 million of coverage.

Some options offer same-day approval and avoid unnecessary medical exams.

Policy Genius knows how valuable your time is.

Their technology makes it easy to compare life insurance quotes from America's top insurance in just a few clicks to find your lowest price.

Policy Genius has licensed award-winning agents who can help you find the best fit for your needs.

They work for you, not the insurance companies.

They don't have an incentive to recommend one insurer over another so you can trust their guidance.

Policy Genius is for parents, caregivers, and anyone else who has people who depend on them.

They simplify the process of getting life insurance so you can protect the people you love.

They got thousands of five-star reviews on Google and TrustPilot.

Your loved ones deserve a financial safety net.

You deserve a smarter way to find and buy it.

Head to policygenius.com/slash DSH or click the link in the description to get a free life insurance quote and see how much you could save.

That's policygenius.com/slash DSH.

Stepped down from CEO, but he literally was like, I'll put up $5 million myself for psilocybin because he was giving his developers like mushrooms before, you know, before work.

Yeah, he's micro-dosing it, nothing crazy.

And once again, he said the performance and the productivity was way higher.

Wow.

And so he's like, he's a very big believer in it.

And outside of that, just from a work standpoint, it treats people with a lot of issues that that they have, too, like PTSD and all kinds of mental instability.

So there's a lot of positive information around it.

That's exciting.

I hope they legalize it.

Yeah, it's coming soon.

Oh, 100%.

We're pushing for a bigger.

It'll expand their business.

It'll 10x them.

Yeah, it'll probably 100x them.

And listen, like we just said, everything's okay when it comes to dosing the proper way.

You know, as long as you take care of your body and micro-dosing, too.

A lot of people that have stressed anxiety, that's why they're treating people with psilocybin.

It really helps with that.

Yeah.

You know, and I get bad anxiety going going on planes all of a sudden as we get older, you know, anxiety kicks in.

But now I'll take like just once again, micro-dosing, it really helps before I jump on a flight.

So amazing.

Yeah.

It's really cool.

Now, what age were you getting into this?

Because I know you played in the NFL, right?

Yeah.

So I was smoking back then.

Yeah, I was, to be honest with you.

I wasn't like some of my boys.

Some of my boys would smoke before the games.

For some reason, football was, I couldn't smoke four games.

Like, Ed Reed's a good friend.

He was a big smoker.

He smoked for every game, too.

But, you know, some of my buddies, and I played receiver, you know, I couldn't do it before a game.

But working out was a lot easier.

But I didn't, I mean, I would smoke after practices because for me, it healed my body.

I didn't like taking pills at all.

If I have a headache, I wouldn't take any pills.

And, you know, not to knock the NFL or anything like that, but they used to try to pump pills on us all the time.

Yeah, somebody did more tabs.

Like, you know, they could guys.

They shoot it back, and next thing you know, the running back leg not broke.

Exactly.

So, and it's kind of scary and it's messed up, to be honest with you, you know, because Big Pharma and the NFL kind of in bed together.

You know, they were giving them trial drugs and stuff like that.

And, you know, we don't know any better when you're 21, 20 years old.

You're having through.

You're just trying to get through.

And, you know, after a while, I just started doing my own little research.

And I'm like, I'm not taking this stuff.

So I literally stopped my rookie year.

It was a bunch of us, actually.

We were like, dude, we should just not take this,

take these pills.

And we all were smokers anyway.

And so we started doing a little bit of research on that because there's all kinds of YouTube videos and all kinds of stuff out there on the product and how it helps people with all kinds of different problems.

And so we're just like, all right, let's consume it the right way.

And once again, I didn't take it seriously at that point until I got into the space, but I was always an advocate of consuming like post-practice, after workouts, and stuff like that, just to like relax my body from being like sore and being in pain and stuff like that.

So that's cool.

Yeah, a lot of athletes can benefit from it.

It was a shame that it was banned everywhere.

It was ridiculous.

Like Josh Gordon and stuff like that.

Like, you know, I really feel bad.

Mickey Williams, all those guys

kicked out the weed.

Yeah, it was a joke, man.

Josh Gordon was literally the best receiver at that time.

And they kicked him out and it messed his career up.

And guys like that, it's like, guys, come on, man.

Castle went to jail.

Yeah, I went to jail over the stuff, so it's a joke.

Yeah, it's like, you know, it's for

c.

And now the government is the biggest drug dealer in the world.

Exactly.

You know, that ghost man until they found a way to monetize it for themselves.

That's the reason why it's still a schedule one drug.

Because, you know, Big Pharma and those guys got their lobbying power to keep it a Schedule I drug.

Because once it gets descheduled, they're going to see a big dip.

Oh, yeah.

You know, in their industry.

So how did you actually get into the industry?

What's the story behind that?

I mean, I've always been an advocate of we're talking about right now.

And

the biggest thing.

You guys own the biggest dispensary, what, in Vegas?

My biggest is Planet 13.

We're the biggest brand by far.

Yeah, yeah.

As far as size-wise, they're the biggest size-wise.

So Planet 13 is the biggest.

As far as size.

Size.

Yeah, as far as brand and relevance, definitely we're not trying to cap or anything like that, but we definitely have way more of a presence culturally than Planet 13 because we deal with everyone from every single artist wrapper.

Y'all marketing is crazy.

Yeah, we go hard on the marketing.

I mean we really understand the importance of brand because we look at the dispensary as just a platform

because once again, we take it on more of a medicinal level than just trying to sling right.

So like we were talking about earlier about helping out with all the different ailments you may have, we have a whole division in our dispensary at the property called Harding University.

Upstairs.

Yeah, upstairs.

And that's where the training goes in.

So every single girl that works behind the counter, you guys have been there before, they go through hardcore training.

They're not just cute girls that work there.

They have to pass a 30-day course, sometimes 60 days, before they can get behind the counter.

Yeah, so they have to know everything about terpenes, how to pair products, like, you know, and just everything there is to know about this.

Because once again, people are coming in with serious ailments.

You know, like you'll see people coming in with cancer, people coming to trying to get off hard drugs, heroin.

I mean, we see everything.

So, you know, you want to make sure that customers are getting the right treatment instead of just trying to sell the highest ticketed item.

I figured that's a good thing.

So that's been our approach since day one.

I think he's one of the owners.

Adam?

When I was there, yeah, he broke out because I was telling him I needed something for headaches.

Yeah.

And he broke all this differently.

Put a package together for me.

That was so nice.

No, for sure, man.

And that's the name of the game, man.

Like, you got to make sure, because people really come with serious issues.

And, you know,

humanity, man, we got to go back to the core of who we are.

You got to take care of people.

And, you know, the knock on Big Pharma, which we all can agree, it's just, it's just, it's all about capitalism.

You know, they're just trying to make a buck.

Yeah, and it kills you.

It really messes up.

But the side effects are like, bro, your liver, kidneys, heart.

You see these commercials, like, if you took this, you got, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da.

It just raised like, bro.

Slide it in there.

They show somebody running a lap.

And you experience nose, drama, diarrhea, exactly.

Exactly.

Loss of hearing.

Exactly.

And that's the problem, man.

You know, it's like, come on, man.

You don't see that with

you.

No one's ever died.

No one's ever died.

No one's going to have kidney failure and heart, all kinds of crazy stuff just happening.

I mean, my first trip on the edible, I called the hospital.

I said, hey,

she was was like, you got to come in here.

And I don't touch edibles.

Edibles, oh my God.

What exactly we were talking about earlier?

Sean, it just wouldn't go away.

Like, I was high for like eight hours.

Yeah.

I was high, high.

I'm like, bro, why do y'all make this?

I called the hospital.

We've all had a bad edible.

Everyone's had a bad edible story, man.

And now we have these drinks, too.

They're called sips.

Little mini killers, man.

So they're 100 milligrams.

We use them mini killers.

Bro, hundreds of hundred milligrams, right?

But you're not supposed to take it all at once, obviously.

But, you know, some people that think they can smoke, they're like, oh, I got no problem doing this.

So what they would do is try to bang it out because it tastes actually really good.

Okay.

And one of our influencer or ambassadors is, I think it was DJ Booth.

That's fabulous as DJ.

And he was in town, and he always pulls up to the shop whenever he comes in town.

And Fab had a show that night.

And so we gave him some product.

And we're like, hey, try this new sip.

So he gave him the sip.

And we're like, hey, listen, just put a cap full in your water before you drink it.

You know, don't take the whole thing at once.

He's like, oh, man, okay, whatever.

Because it tastes good.

He banged out the whole thing.

Oh, 100 milligrams.

Missed the entire performance.

He was sleeping.

He was just tripping.

Yo, he fell asleep.

Didn't wake up.

He couldn't even, he wouldn't even tripping.

He just was out.

Because it's 100 milligrams, man.

It'll put you out.

Yeah, dude.

I black out on my 10.

Yeah, man.

Like, I can't handle edibles at all.

And, like, obviously, the liquid obviously hits your systems a lot quicker.

But, yeah, man.

So, there's so many products that come online, nonetheless.

But it's all once again, it's about how you dose the product, how you take it properly.

What trends do you see coming up other than psilocybin in the

good question?

Trends,

I don't know.

I think more than anything.

I mean, CBD also is CBD is really big.

I take it every day.

It's like my multivitamin.

Like when I wake up in the morning and take CBD, I mean, there's tons of health benefits around it.

It lowers your blood pressure, good for like cholesterol level, lower your cholesterol level.

It just has tons of health benefits, and it's really good for anxiety, too.

So when you just keep it in your system, it's just good for you.

And it doesn't, it's non-psychoactive.

So it won't get you high because the THC is stripped out of there.

there's a couple.

I got the one Adam gave me.

I think it has a little bit of it in there.

Yeah, so there's some that have combinations of CBD and THC.

Then there's some that are just CBD and CBN, depending on if you have a hard time sleeping.

There's CBD and CBG.

What's CBN?

All these different CBNs, it's a cannabinoid that's specifically designated for sleep.

So it really helps people that have tissue sleeping.

Yeah, it knocks you out.

You had it before?

Yeah, CBN is really, yeah, it's really cool.

It's really good for you.

And a lot of people, that's the one thing that I tell you is most of the customers come in having a hard time sleeping.

That seems like the number one issue when people come in.

And I have it easy so I can fall asleep right now.

But most people have an issue sleeping.

So CBN is like one of those things that's like we're pushing heavy and like, you know, we're starting to do a little bit more campaigns around it.

Because is it addictive?

Like in the sense of if you don't take it, let's say you took it, you know, you may take it three, four days, but then when you don't take it, does the hard time sleeping come back?

That's a good question.

I'm not sure on that, but it's not necessarily addictive by any person.

But you'll notice when you're not taking it, because you're going to be like, oh man, I'm still up.

I can't go back to sleep.

So you're going to need it.

You're going to need it.

Are you going to become dependent on these as well?

Well, it's not necessarily dependent because it's not like you're going to be like itching, like, I need these.

You know what I'm not?

Like, okay, that's more of a giggle.

I'm thinking of it.

Yeah, no, like,

because, yeah, it's one of those things where, like, for me with CBD, I noticed because, like, like I said, I was getting anxiety as I got older.

When I stopped taking CBD, it's when I noticed, oh, it's kicking in a little bit.

Oh, okay.

You know?

And so I'm like, man, what have have I done differently?

And I'm like, oh, shit, I'm taking CBD regularly.

So you got it so.

So I got back on it.

But once again, it's a healthier way of dosing your body with medicine, in my opinion.

And in CBD, you take it before you go to bed, or you just take it.

Before you go to bed.

Yeah, because if you have a hard time sleeping, you want to take it like maybe 20, 30 minutes before you ready to go to bed.

Gotcha.

And then it'll have you sleeping like really nice.

So, yeah, and there's, like I said, there's so many different products coming online.

Back to what you're saying.

CBD is a big one.

But we're very bullish on the industry in general.

I mean, we have over probably 2,000 SKUs of products in our shop.

About 150 flower strains.

We have a very robust inventory because our whole mindset is the minute a customer walks in the door, you don't want them leaving with nothing.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And we want them to have something.

This is a new, very new industry.

It's almost like we're all startup companies, you know.

And we got to make sure that people are coming in, they're seeing all the different options they have.

And we keep track of everything on the back end, too.

So like, let's say you came in because, you know, this industry is new.

You don't have brands like Coke, Pepsi, Gatorade, and, and you know, brands like that that are very well established.

So, this is very new.

So,

most people, when they get a product, they don't remember what it was.

You know, they don't know.

There's no real because the branding isn't there yet in the space.

People haven't really invested.

So, we keep track of all that on the back end.

So, when you do come back 10 days later, however long later, we can look at your purchase history and say, hey, did that product work for you?

Or did that product not work for you?

And we look at those terpenes and we pair the terpenes with that customer based on, you know, when the button has that conversation.

That's like a medical history 100 so yeah because once again we're taking this serious we're a platform and that's what hardening university is all about right is making sure that we're treating the patients properly um because once again we i have a guy that owns like six pain clinics around town or seven he sends me a lot of his patients and so you know once again he's like i can't even deny this space anymore like people are asking about

he's like i actually feel guilty giving them the pills now so like that they're trying to push on these guys because they're still having these issues they're becoming dependent and addicting so you know he's sending them my way and you know it's like and that's a feel-good moment because it's like conscious capitalism man we're making a couple dollars but we're taking care of the people the right way um and we're getting them off this addiction to pills because a lot of people

youngest client or customer that you've seen that actually uses product well um if you have a medical card believe you could be 18 if you have a medical card what about seven year olds or five year olds well that's once again that's not legal per se but um a lot of people are treating their kids to have like, you know, whatever problem they may have with epilepsy or, you know, having seizures all the time, whatever it may be.

And these videos are out, you know, you can look at videos all over.

Like low dosages of THC

just to help out with that nigga to shake's gone.

And, you know, but once again, you got big pharma, man.

It's...

That's

why we're still scheduling drug because they want to push the stuff that they want to push on the kids.

And it's not really helping.

Are they still trying to go head to head with you guys, though?

Yeah, to some degree.

I mean, trying to find a way to get into the space and dominate the space.

Yeah, but if they get into it, they're going to mess it up.

Of course, they will.

They're going to add stuff to you.

Of course they will.

They want you addicted to it.

Exactly.

So do they own the medical facility?

The medical spots?

Is that how that works?

No, no, no.

That's still like ours.

So customers that come in, they're still ours.

So

it started off as just medical.

You needed a yeah, so we started off just as medical as well.

So Nevada started off medical 2016.

We're medical for like, I think it was four or five months.

and then we went rec.

But yeah, you had to have a medical card.

And all the medical card is you can purchase a little bit more and the taxes are a little bit different.

But outside of that, everything else is the same as a rec patient.

But yeah, so we started off medical and then go rec.

And the same things in every market.

Jersey is going to be the same.

And that's usually how the rollout is.

Florida is just like that right now as well.

Nice.

Usually it starts you off medical.

So do you see it going federally illegal?

Because I've been hearing this since I was in high school, but it seems to be slow.

For sure.

It's, once again, it's all politics, man.

And I think it's a bipartisan issue, to be honest with you.

I really think it's exactly

sitting down with the big boys.

You already know.

They're sitting down with the big boys and saying, hey, look, man, when do we hit this switch?

Yeah, because we know.

Exactly.

Because let's be honest, it is a bipartisan issue, in my opinion.

I mean, at the end of the day, you're creating jobs.

We have over 200 employees at our shop.

So you're creating jobs.

Extra income for

the U.S.

The tax.

Oh, the tax revenue.

I think Nevada did over $120 million in tax revenue last year.

And just came

And once again, like, so infrastructure, all that.

So you got to look at it from a bigger picture.

And I don't care if you're a Republican, Democrat.

At the end of the day, it's about money and the tax revenue going to the state, the schools.

Technically, it's all supposed to go to the schools.

We'll see.

But all that money's coming in.

And that's from just f ⁇ ing this.

$120 million a year.

$120 million.

And put it in perspective, this is a kicker.

And we don't have lobbying power, obviously, like alcohol and tobacco.

But alcohol and tobacco one month combined paid, I think it was like $980,000 in taxes or something like that.

Still going to pay $10.2 million.

Whoa, so one month.

It's alcohol.

But that's because we don't have lobbying power.

Our taxes are ridiculous.

Yeah, they're taxing us.

I mean, they're taxing the hell out of us.

It's almost like they want to tax you out of business.

Exactly.

That's exactly what they're doing.

And they're going to, in my opinion, my conspiracy theory, and me and my partner talk about this all the time, but I'm like, I really think the big boys are just trying to see who keeps their head above what can survive this because it really is hard.

It's challenging.

You can put your money in the bank, so you buy cash.

If you get robbed, you're more prone to getting robbed.

So they kind of want to either tax you out of business or put you out of business some other way, whether you keep getting robbed.

It's just too much.

It's too much.

And we've been lucky out here to where there hasn't been too much, you know, robberies or anything like that.

But at the same time, the taxes, I mean, the regulations are crazy.

I mean, it's very challenging to run these businesses.

You really have to be buttoned up.

And we're blessed.

You know, my partner is a lawyer.

We have a great

chief operating officer.

So we're very buttoned up from a, you know, from an operational standpoint so that we don't, you know, when they do come in and pop up, try to hit you with all these fines.

And I got you.

You know, they look at that.

You know, it's, we're always buttoned up to not get caught up on that.

But some shops, once again, they don't have the, you know, the manpower to be able to handle all that stuff.

And they're getting hit with fines and you get hit with too many fines.

All of a sudden that license is gone if you're not paying those fines.

And that's where it gets very tricky.

So, and I think they're doing that intentionally so that those licenses just hang out and then the big boys can just hold on to get these licenses and then all of a sudden then they hit that switch and you only have a couple people now you're competing with from, you know, it seems like that.

People are getting shaken up.

Yeah, Amazon bought like a thousand acres in North Las Vegas.

No, what?

Amazon?

Amazon.

They're going to sell it online?

Listen, they're positioning themselves.

Positioning, so they know something.

Of course.

Yeah, for structure.

They're positioning themselves.

Amazon, they're definitely going to have it available.

They have the infrastructure.

Look at their infrastructure.

It's already seen.

And they have the marketplace, yeah.

They have the market share, the infrastructure is just a plug-and-play for them.

Wow.

You know, so you got to think, man, when you got big boys like that, you know, and then, of course, Philip Morris and some of these guys are all trying to tap in.

So, how do you, so how do you guys compete with

those big brands and spots like Amazon?

Not even really worried, to be honest with you.

Yeah, because at the end of the day,

you guys are more of an experience

versus just a brand new business.

Exactly.

It's like a difference between walking into, you know, I don't know how to really give an example about it, but like walking into like a Supreme store or going to like, you know, the Gap or something like that.

Like, you know, it's, and that might be a bad example, but nonetheless, they don't really have, they're not going to have an identity.

Yeah, they're just going to be more so.

It's just,

it's an experience.

And we've created that.

And to be honest with you, too, like, let's say Bezos or some of these guys were to tap into the space, which they are, they're just going to look for the operators who's operating the right way.

They might acquire you.

They'll pay probably 10x of what you're actually worth, which is great for us.

And they'll say, okay, we now own it, but you guys run it.

You guys still be the face.

We'll give you a little percentage here, there, there, but we're now the, you know, we're now your boss.

Facts.

Which is okay.

As long as, you know, you step back and let us do our thing, that's cool.

But I think they're going to wait it out to see who are the better operators.

And that's why we've been so focused on operations at our shop.

That's crushing with that.

Yeah, we're big on that.

And we've controlled our own destiny.

We've had plenty of opportunities to partner with some bigger groups.

And we've kind of just stepped back.

Some of these MSOs, multi-state operators around the country in cannabis They have a lot of cash behind them But once again, like you know their their vision is different from ours

Yeah, they're trying yeah, they're trying to scale way too fast and corporate in all honesty is very frowned upon really you know oh big time you know and the streets really do talk when it comes to that wow yeah you and we're we see it firsthand.

There's one big company, I'm gonna put them out there on blast, but they're out of Chicago and great nice guys, but they had their chest out

early on because they went public and they were doing really well.

They had a bunch of stores, they had licenses all over the country and they wanted to acquire us, they wanted to partner with us and they sold us a dream at first, but the devil's in the details.

Yeah, it's wonderful.

And then all of a sudden, and then all of a sudden, we just felt like something was a little off with this.

Let's just step back from this.

And we tried to tell them, like, this is all about like having an identity and culture.

You can't step away from the essence of what this industry really is.

Right.

Because if you do, exactly, people are going to notice that.

Look at cookies.

You know, so when things like that start to happen, is that what's going on?

Oh, yeah, we'll talk about that in a minute.

But yeah, so like when you see things like that, you know, the streets do talk and they see that and they kind of stop going to those stores because you got to think about people are getting arrested for cannabis for a long time.

And it was those same suits that were pushing people to get arrested that are now in the space.

So why would I shop with you?

I mean, think about it, you know.

So

as crazy as it may sound, like there's this weird subculture

that's like, they don't want to mess with corporate cannabis.

They'd rather deal with the independence.

And so, once again, going back to that group out of Chicago, they have stores everywhere.

They were cocky as hell.

And then, literally, like maybe it was six to eight months later, they just saw their stock boom, boom, boom, taking a hit because what exactly were I was just talking about started to happen.

They had no identity.

They had no culture behind their stores.

It was just little, you know, pop-ups here, there, and the other, just nothing to it.

And dude, people stopped going to them.

So they came back.

It was like, hey, look, would you guys be interested in the conversation?

It's over.

No, but no, it's not even buying us.

It's just like, can we have this conversation again?

And it's like, no, man, look, we're going to go in a different direction, man.

Like, we try to give this to you guys.

We try to lay it out to you.

They want to listen.

And we know how that goes.

And then all of a sudden, you do give them the blueprint and then they change things up, get cocky again, and say, I see you're just screaming.

So we just said, we're just going to wait.

Exactly.

So we just said, we're just going to wait this out, do things our way.

And so far, so good.

So what's going on with cookies?

Cookies, man.

And look, Berners, shout out to Berner and those guys.

He's doing his thing, he's doing his thing.

But there's just a ton of litigation around him right now.

And, you know,

it's

where they, the mistake they made, in my opinion, is they tried to scale too fast.

They had an opportunity of a lifetime.

And they're, listen, not knocking them whatsoever because they're still out there.

They're still cookies.

Yeah.

There's one here, right?

Yeah, of course.

There's two here.

Maybe three.

No, there's two here.

There's one by Flamingo and there's one on the strip.

And there might be another location.

But nonetheless, they had a huge opportunity early on in this industry because they had a brand name already, which very few people in the space had that.

So if you just think about it, everything we just talked about, culture and everything like that, they had that a lot.

Bernie did a great job

of creating that brand.

Got a brand.

Great job.

But the minute they went corporate and started

just scaling so fast, that's when things started to go down.

Quality of the product went down.

So people started talking trash about the actual, you know, what's inside of the packaging.

Because, you know, cookies at, you you know, you can order, there's like five or six different cultivations that are growing cookies out here.

You know, so you know, and I don't want to get too far into the business model, but nonetheless, like, and some of the cultivations are not that good.

Some are actually good.

So, from a customer standpoint, you know, I see this cheaper cookies product, I'm gonna buy that one, and that's from the bad cultivation.

But then people start talking trash about cookies product instead of cookies saying, you know, what quality control, I don't care if I'm making better margins on it over here.

I just want my shit to be gas all the time, right?

You know, because that's what cookies are known for gas yeah that's what it's known for in california so if they had stick to that model if they had stuck to that model bro they would dominate the space

because they already had a brand name they had stores in california everybody knows cookies yeah the the hip-hop community the streets love cookies

bro you you have leverage but they wanted to just open up everywhere so fast and

this industry is not like a mcdonald's like you can't scale the same way because mcdonald's no matter what state you go to is going to taste the exact same it's not the same with

you got different growers all over the place growing your product.

Where's the quality control to make sure it's the same level of gas in every market?

Just not there.

You know what I'm saying?

So I think that's where they made a big mistake, man.

And that's why we haven't scaled fast ourselves.

We've taken the time because we know how hard it is to just run one store.

So to open up like multiple stores all around the country that fast, bro.

You're talking about getting like 20, right?

Yeah, dude.

It's impossible.

Yeah.

It's impossible.

Because if, yeah, there's no quality control.

And now all of a a sudden you have a store in New York City and people like man this place sucks the customer service is awful because you don't know you know who's running it over there you hire but there's no one there day to day to make sure that everything's up to a certain standard Wow, which is why we take our time and now we've in an opportunity we're in a good position now to be able to scale because everything's kind of locked in here.

We have great SOPs.

So we now, my partner and I and our C our COO, we can just walk away and look at other opportunities and say, okay, now we can step back.

We don't need to be as hands-on as we were early on.

And now we can look at other opportunities, which we're doing that right now.

That's awesome.

Yeah, your marketing is insane, man.

How do you get in bed with all these celebrities?

Because every day there's

crazy, man.

And it's cool, man.

It's great because, I mean, why did this relationship?

I've been in Vegas for 12 years.

You know, we just have a great staff and team.

And, like, Bonnicks is, I don't know if you know DJ Bonix.

Yeah, Wes Cleveland.

Yeah, I think he's Bonnon.

Yeah, so he started our ambassador program too, or he started running our ambassador program.

But even prior to him being on board, like, you know, we just had great relationships with a lot of these artists that come in town.

And we have great relationships with a lot of the clubs around town.

You know, and that's the big thing.

And that was our lane from day one when my partner and I sat down.

We said, all right, this is what we're going to do.

All the other best disembetries can do whatever they want to do.

Our focus is going to be hospitality.

Because that's what Vegas is.

You know what I'm saying?

So we're going to tap into these nightclubs because those customers are our customers at the end of the day.

Let's be honest.

They're partiers.

They're partiers.

They come into Vegas to party.

Don't get me wrong.

We got to focus on the locals as well, but we want to tap into that and we'll build up the culture from there.

You know what I'm saying?

And so we have great relationships around town at all the different Nikon.

And it's a tourist attraction.

It's a tourist attraction.

So many people be happy to take pictures.

Absolutely.

Absolutely, man.

And so legitimately, we've just stuck to the process.

As the Sixers said, trust the process.

We trusted that process.

We stuck to it.

And, you know, we have a board that's, you know, they didn't understand it at first or older.

But, you know, now they're starting to see like where that investment went and you know the results of that so but we're big on branding and you know we're it's just the beginning i mean we're about to take it to the next level um so yeah thanks

how do you feel um the introduction of the consumption lounges are going to do here in law oh man i think that's the next major wave um just because let's be honest you know the nightclubs it's after a while it's like all right what's next yeah you know like you can only do see chain smokers and some of these guys so many times so many so many times man.

I mean, and I love those guys.

They're good friends of mine.

But

you can only see them so many times.

And it's after a while, it's like, what's next, man?

You know, like, what's the next wave?

What's the next vibe?

And to me, there's nothing cooler than a lounge where it's not crazy loud, but you still have DJs there.

It's more of a social setting as opposed to just loud, rah, rah, pack, can't go to the bathroom, like 10K, 20k minimums to, you know, you get to sit down, see a group of pretty girls in the corner.

Oh, they smoke.

That's what, like, it's an easier conversation piece, in my opinion, because everyone drinks alcohol.

It's nothing worse than a drunk girl.

But someone that's high, it's cool conversation, you know.

So I think, and a lot of girls smoke, let's be honest, you know.

And so that kind of environment's more relaxing for everyone.

And it's just a change-up.

You're not getting banged over the head for these big minimums, and people have the money, but they just don't want to spend that.

So, you guys still have alcohol there, too?

No, so there's a firewall between that.

So, like, we can't sell alcohol there.

But, in my opinion, like I was saying earlier, the THC drinks is the next wave, too.

Because now you're going to see beverages on the THC side.

So,

and I think, in my opinion, which is why a lot of these alcohol companies are trying to get involved, high as hell.

So, no, no, so you got to think about it though, but it's all drinking THC, but it's just a matter of how you dose it.

Once again, it's just like drinking a beer, like instead of having it, you know, 10 milligrams in that drink, put two milligrams in there, right?

So, you can drink and you're not really be banged up.

And some people might want to just drink and not consume, like, smoke.

Oh, so it just kind of keeps the buzz, yeah.

Just keep just a nice little buzz.

Yeah, that's cool.

That's all you need.

And you'll have like a mixology bartender making fresh drinks.

Oh, that's cool.

Just man.

Change it open.

Changing up.

So we're looking at doing a huge project, which I can't get into much detail yet.

Yeah, so we're working on a really big project, but we're looking at doing like a, you know, something just next level.

That hasn't been done before.

You know, so

we're looking at opening up a lounge because we're not rushing to do this.

We got the license.

We're one of 20 to get the license out here.

So we actually have the license for it, which is cool.

And I think about 95% of the lounges are going to just be couches and some lava lamps.

Nothing major.

They're not going to go hard on it because once again, a lot of these dispensaries haven't invested in the branding and marketing to go hard on a lounge.

And they're not as creative.

Yeah, they're not creative people and not knocking them because everyone has their lane and they're just going to stay in their lane and trying to exit it when they want to exit.

But like I said, like...

the platform that we built is for scale and to you know open up in different markets major metropolitan cities so we do the same thing in florida same thing in new york so this consumption lounge dispensary like i mean we're doing some fun fun stuff.

You know, like, we're putting everything together.

And I don't want to get into too much detail, but putting everything together to create the ultimate adult playground.

So it's going to be fun.

Sounds exciting, man.

We got to stop off.

Oh, yeah, you know.

I'm there, bro.

You don't even smoke.

That's the funny thing.

No, I don't, but I'm there.

No, I mean, you could, the thing about it is, man, once again, you can do your THC drinks as light drinks.

So you're not banged up.

And, you know, like you could take smoke CBD just to make yourself feel like you're smoking.

But no, I'm not sure.

Taking care of your body.

I mean,

I can still be in the atmosphere.

I mean, I grew up around it, you know, so it's not something that bothers me.

I just personally, myself, I don't do it.

But have I tried edibles before?

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's no different than going to a nightclub.

Some people don't drink.

Yeah.

And I'm one of those guys.

You're just there to just like socialize and just chill.

Be in the vibe.

Yeah.

Just be in the vibe.

So just be with a group of friends.

And that's another thing, too, man, because you can do some fun concepts with these consumption lines.

Just imagine having a comedy night in a consumption line.

And everybody in there is smoking.

Everyone's smoking and it's a comedy.

It's a comedian up there going to be a good idea.

Exactly.

The right community.

Because we have relationships with Louis Duvall, Mike Apple.

We have have relationships with all those guys.

Chappelle, everybody.

So, you know, we're looking at it from that perspective.

That's sorry.

Like an esports night, too.

Like an esports night.

That'd be dope.

Yeah, just different concepts.

Oh, yeah, dude.

We're doing karaoke nights, esports nights, like, yeah, game, all kinds of gaming stuff.

Just fun.

Just something different, you know, that catered to people seven days a week, man.

And it's just an alternative to.

I think it's going to be 24 or 12 hours.

How you guys want to do that?

We're thinking about that.

I think it's going to be 24 hours, to be honest with you.

That's our thought process with this development business.

You really got to compete.

compete, you gotta out-compete everybody in our is not even not even trying to because we look at it, we're not even trying to compete with anyone more so.

We're just trying to figure out what's best for us.

Um, because we don't really look at other dispensaries as competition per se, um, because we have our own lane, right?

And everyone has a lane of what they're trying to focus on.

That's cool.

Um, so we're not technically trying to compete, believe it or not.

We're just trying to create our own vibe, which we've kind of created already, yeah, and just stick to that program.

That's so cool.

Yeah, that's been our mindset from day one.

Like, yeah, because we don't really think that, like, you know, some of these dispensaries, they're not even looking at the industry like we're looking at it.

So, even though Plant 13 is the biggest dispensary and, you know, they're close to the strip, they do great numbers, not knocking them, but they don't really have the same business model as us, you know, and that's fine.

So, um, because people always ask, like, so your biggest competitor is Plant 13?

And I'm like, no, man, like, not at all.

Like, they're not.

They're probably getting outside every day.

Yeah, literally.

We're like, no, no, we need to go around.

There's plenty.

Plenty, man.

You know, we average 1,000 to 1,500 customers a day, man.

Holy crap.

And that's on the east side of Las Vegas.

Think about that.

That's on the east side.

Yeah, I remember pulling up.

I was like, where am I?

Exactly.

So we know the minute we pick up our, you know, our dispatch, we relocate it.

You guys are off the strip, too.

Exactly.

Are you going to relocate?

Yeah, we're relocating.

This project I'm talking about is being like literally prime.

I'm moving everything.

Everything.

Nice.

Everything.

It's going to be a game changer.

Oh, it's insane.

That's what's saying.

36x.

We know the numbers exactly.

We know the numbers we're doing now.

And we're combining that with with the other businesses that we're going to be putting together.

And just create, it's going to be a massive project.

I've heard the Planet 13 numbers.

It's public, right?

Yeah, it's public.

Isn't it like 60 millier?

Yeah, they do.

Yeah, they do close to 60 million.

Yeah, crazy.

It's crazy, bro.

And they have nothing.

It's just based on location.

They're thinking about where they are.

You can walk to that from the mall.

You can walk to that.

You can walk there from the mall.

You don't mind walking to that from the wind.

Exactly.

That's a lot of their traffic is foot traffic.

Yeah, a lot of people.

You can go over there right now.

On every single

corner.

Exactly.

So it's like, it's literally like right there.

But wait, what's the other big spot?

Reef right next to it.

Yeah, so Reef is a dispensary or is that?

Yeah, Reef's a dispensary.

Reef, man, wants to...

Reef?

Reef is huge, bro.

Reef is big.

So Reef really messed up.

Oh, they did?

Yeah, man.

They had a huge opportunity.

They were right there before Planet 13 opened up.

They were the big town, you know.

Excuse my language, but they were the big town.

And once again, they had a huge opportunity, but they got too comfortable.

They didn't focus on the little things, the details around like building out their shop to make it presentable because you're dealing with all these tourists, so you might want to make it nice.

I haven't been in Reef, I don't draw it.

They were the first one, right?

They were the first one.

You said it's terrible, terrible, bro.

Like, you walk in there, you're like, come on, man.

Like, you guys, like, you guys are this location, and this is what you built.

Like, they had to be in the middle of it.

And that big-ass building is just, it's, it's, it's, yeah, it's just, it's, it's, it's, and once again, I haven't been there in a long time.

I don't know if they did any kind of remodel because planet 13 really kicked them in the nuts.

Yeah.

Because when they opened up their shop, they ate up probably a good 40-50% of their market.

They crushed them, you know, to the point where it's like

it looks good aesthetically.

outside and once again you got to play defense more than offense like reef had an opportunity to build out something really nice to deter plan 13 from even opening up right next door because if they built something nice and focused on like the design and like you know the identity of the place uh plan 13 would have never opened up because they would have just dominated that area but because they cut corners plan 33's like oh we got an opportunity here and so they just built a better mousetrap yeah and sure enough they ate up a ton of market share from them boys to the point where i think you know they ended up selling and i think another group just bought it not too long ago.

Reef, yeah, that's nuts.

Crazy, it's been fun, man.

Oh, for sure.

Talking to you, anything you want to close off with?

Oh, nothing, man.

Um, you can follow this at Hardy underscore Las Vegas.

We have fun with it.

Uh, yeah, just stay tuned.

We gotta go, we gotta go get right now.

Play, stop by if you're in town, guys.

Yeah, for sure.

Thanks for watching, and I'll see you next time.

Thanks, guys.