Felons involvement and costs of building a business in the new industry

That last post was SUPER helpful, I really appreciate your time and willingness to share the information that no one considers and most likely fails their project.

The duct for the Excel Air units are fabric. I wonder how they feel about that. You obviously dont run them the same as any HVAC system. There's no real duct involved.

thanks for the advice on treatment of water. Def got all that part down.

I know what you mean with HPA. It's something that hasnt had enough attention and will get better with time when company's spend the money on good R&D. Which is why I like Indoor Harvest.

Although I'm a fuzzy root aero guy, these systems are not for the hobbiest who is attempting to acquire the root fuzz. They are commercial systems that blend the benefits of HPA but keep the dry spots out of the picture which has been hard for HPA guys who make their own system. Not getting coverage to the center of the root mass when the roots have gone out of control and taken up the chamber (that is normally too small). IH has a nice 2 foot deep system that has two tiers of nozzles. But at a commercial level they build to suite for cheaper price per sq ft. I'd prefer 3 feet.

As you say, need to train the team and that's something that wouldnt be doable right away. I have a team now that run the drain to waste system I will run. I am a consultant for their medical grows and they learn the way I teach. So that will be beneficial to start with a team that grows my way, and they also work well together and have savings enough to get them through the hard times in the first year of operation.

Indoor Harvest is doing R&D with Tweed Canada. Cant wait to hear the results.

Yeah maybe we should rename the thread.

But this is the most informative business thread so far, thanks to you!

Hey man, you've done your homework. I'm grateful for the chance to put something useful on here. Thanks for the good questions and glad to be of service! This just isn't the sort of stuff I think to write down unless I'm being prompted.

Dont suppose your going to attend the maximum yield convntion up in seattle in March?

Unfortunately not. I was invited a few times but I just can't make it then. We're set to open a week before it and I need to be at home to baby my first batch of clones.

Priorities.

When you say open, do you mean open for production operation? Or is your company doing production, processing and a retail outlet?

How do you feel about doing both as opposed to just production? I can't afford to do both but just picking your brain on your opinion of the matter as you watch the industry adjust to what works and what doesnt.

Are their processing (edibles/concentrate) companies that are knocking your door down to sell them your trim material? I understand it's more lucrative for you to process your own, but I'm just curious about the market up there and how other businesses are working.

Oh god, if only we could do all three.

All of the money is in retail and it's going to stay that way for decades to come. Period. Trust me.

We haven't gotten into business, but there are a shortage of processing companies in WA because zoning and coding bullshit made a bunch of producers/processors drop that part of their plans. Seemed like we'd do better focusing on growing than trying to bring in what the state saw as a side job. Seriously. Processing is a nightmare.

It's actually ending up looking the other way around. Since we're licensed to do processing, even though we're only making bubble hash, we're likely to have as much trim as we can get our hands on if we're willing to take a low enough cut on it. No one is buying trim and there are a lot more growers than retailers in WA right now so the price of 502 bud is tanking on the wholesale end even though it's still way overinflated on the retail end. Hell, four fifths of the bud that has been grown under I-502 hasn't been sold yet. Lots of them are looking to turn it in to hash if it means they can get it on the shelves. A lot of folk are selling at a loss and going out of business right now.

Here's a reference from the local paper (and for more of my never-ceasing opinion sharing, I post on the comments pages of the Spokesman under the same username)

http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2015/jan/20/glut-of-legal-pot-has-growers-struggling-to-stay/

I'd also stay out of the edibles market if I were you. Edibles is likely to have a couple huge players dominating it. An equally big problem that makes the edibles market even worse is solvent based concentrates. They're the best stuff to make edibles with and the only stuff to make e-cig inserts from, but they're a nightmare to get licensed. No one wants to touch it with stories in the paper every other day about some douchebag making BHO on his stove and blowing up his kid. Six figures for a two ounce closed loop rig, last time I checked. You gotta make a WHOLE lot of hash and jack the price through the fucking roof to make that kind of return on a two thousand dollar piece of equipment. Everyone will hate you, even if you're just doing what you gotta do. So basically, if you want to do concentrates commercially on a budget you're stuck with either bubble hash, pressed kief, or having a gajillion plants feeding into a single machine 24/7. Also keep in mind laws on concentrates are probably the most frequently changed part of I-502, so a fancy, multi-million dollar weed soda company can be here today and gone tomorrow with the stroke of a pen. It's happened two or three times. No one wants to touch it. You can sink a bunch into the processing side of things if you want and some people are going to come out way ahead from it, but it looks too much like a roulette wheel to me and I've had enough of that nonsense. It's never ending and I'm not looking to add more.

As for us, we're getting licensed by the state to move plants in late February or early March. Tier 1 producer/processor. Our business name is Premier Cannabis LLC. I'll put a link to our facebook page in my sig as soon as we get up and running. If you like what I do and the priorities we are setting, then we can use all the support we can get on the social media end of things. I grow plants, I don't do branding and advertising. Hate it passionately. I just refuse to pay someone else to sit on the facebooks for me. I bet that's going to be the part of this thing that finally does me in. So it goes.

Thanks for the advice.

It would be nice to have solventless extract companies like Nikka T's to be able to work with.

I'm glad that the public has a disliking toward BHO personally, thats just me though. I like the translucent pieces of QWET that has the same appearance as BHO shatter, as well as some dry seive press techniques that also make shatter-like products. The key is getting all these solventless dabs to look cosmetically appealing like Nikka, Mike Ryze etc

So plans to expand to retail eventually seeing thats where all the money is?

SirStynkalot said:

Our business name is Premier Cannabis LLC. I'll put a link to our facebook page in my sig as soon as we get up and running. If you like what I do and the priorities we are setting, then we can use all the support we can get on the social media end of things. I grow plants, I don't do branding and advertising. Hate it passionately.

Click to expand...

Absolutely, thats the only reason I stopped my 10 year lurk session on IC mag. I hate branding. But thats what we must do, as this is far from the industry we grew up on.

Did you find alot of warehouse landlords didn't support mj? Or did they just want to get 3x the rent?

How much research have you done on greenhouses with blackout curtains and the costs associated with purchasing a small plot and building a GH, obviously in an agriculture zone if you could find one.

It's not so much that warehouse landlords don't support marijuana... well, it is. They don't fancy the idea of getting someone in who's going to totally remodel their space and change around all the paperwork for what activities can be done inside it only to go out of business a year later. No one knows the failure rate of new MJ businesses yet but everyone knows it's going to be high. So that's a problem.

Also, if they're financed (and let's face it, what warehouse development complex isn't), they'll get their funding pulled if the lender finds out they rented to one of us since the lenders are all insured by the federal government and the feds have said no lending to the MJ industry. They basically have to track down reliable but non-government-insured funding sources to have us and still be completely above board, and getting a venture capital company to take over a loan that size is a big deal and is very expensive.

Uh, light dep ghs are better the further south you go. I'm, like, right on the border to canada. It's cold and gray up here. I think a GH might have been a reasonable option if i were to start over with what I know now, but my gut reaction at the time was that I'd be spending just as much on environmental controls in a GH as I would indoors but with a lower level of control than straight indoors. Other than that, I know a commercial greenhouse around town that lost a contract to WalMart or something and converted part of its business to a 502 grow to try and stay afloat. I'll be happy to share how it goes when I learn more... But not a lot of people are trying it in my neck of the woods.

I understand CO didn't allow greenhouses at first and everyone got all up in arms, so they're slowly starting to trickle them in and now all the people who were told they HAD to build in indoors are all up in arms. Around here greenhouses are permitted but no one really wants to try it. We just have the wrong climate for most marijuana strains up here. Our side of state is dry, gray, and buggy, the other side of the state is wet, gray, and moldy, and south central WA is hot, dry, and buggy (but sunny!).

People move up to WA from Cali all the time thinkin they're gonna make it big with their years of experience and our cheaper land and less enforcement and then go under in blazes of glory. Our pest and fungus management is on a different level than down south from what I understand. All the local commercial greenhouses treat with pesticides and sometimes fungicides preventively rather than in response to an outbreak. That's another big reason why I went indoors but even then I'm anticipating huge problems...

Although i know GH's are utilized in the winter as indoor operations, I was considering a "sealed" GH that would do indoor style year round. East WA or southern or east OR with dry climates for intake/exhaust.

Blackout curtains during the summer. Grow hydroponics not soil. Not attempt to grow massive plants. Flower on the smaller end of a plants veg time. When the sun is aiding maybe raise the gavita's up to 10ft above for summer and use 1/4 of the amount i would in winter . Drop to normal height in winter. I havent checked the specs of massive exhaust systems but I would hope it would be just slightly more cost effective over the required AC units for whatever space were talking about. maybe 20% less amps?

Obviously this would strip some of the benefits of the GH, it's more of an option over leasing the commercial space? Possibly acquire 2 acres for 100k-200k and build a nice 5000 sq ft GH for 100k, a truly sealed one. Acre is approx 43,600 sq ft so youd have quite a bit of room to grow.

Whats your thoughts?


I also think it's hilarious when Cali people goto OR and WA and try to run intake/exhaust systems instead of sealed rooms in humid areas. Blessed with dry and warm climate (mj's favorite) they think they can go to the rainforest as well as take dry climate strains as opposed to strains that could do well and expect success.

It's puzzling that metal buildings are up to code but a light industrial warehouse with metal roofing needed to be insulated.

These buildings look like a good option when purchasing land, but I'm surprised these are ok when so many warehouses are so strictly regulated.

http://armstrongsteel.com/network/contractors-central/legal-marijuana-steel-buildings/#.VMmOZEB3sgs

I don't really know anything about greenhouses unfortunately. No help there. Others are free to chime in though... Lotta pros running those on this forum...

And those metal buildings aren't up to code for conditioned spaces. Not in WA anyway. No way no how. If you're running a bunch of HVAC inside an industrial building, you have to have I believe R-24 insulation on all the walls. Energy efficiency standards in construction for WA state. I have the reqs sheet for insulation somewhere in my files. That building has all R-4 insulation on the walls and no idea what on the ceiling. That may fly in CO but in WA he'd need to spend easily another $250k to get that building up to code for marijuana production.

Also, just so you know, building codes in WA are some of the strictest in the nation. This sort of expense may vary regionally. Could be a good argument for building elsewhere.

I really have to check county building codes for OR. Nice to hear WA is THE worst in the nation, but I feel OR is right behind them, being such a eco-green state.

Codes are different county to county though correct? So I should check codes on all counties I may be possibly ending up.

Does intake/exhaust systems count as HVAC? Or just AC?

Codes are a little different county to county. More different state to state.

Yes it does. HVAC = Heating, Venting, Air Conditioning.

I know someone in Mi. that went and seen an attorney and they said if you have a felony you can only work while the owner of the grow is on site. This is coming from an attorney who when you need his help you better have !0k in your pocket to fork up. He is big time they say he is very good.

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