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TRANSCRIPTION WITH SPEAKERS
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[00:00] SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Canada's podcast.
[00:05] SPEAKER_00: Hello, this is Robert Smigel with Canada's podcast where we talk to the entrepreneurs who are making it happen here in British Columbia.
[00:13] SPEAKER_00: Today, our guest is Serge Villan, born and raised in East Vancouver.
[00:18] SPEAKER_00: Our member, BC Serge is the CEO and co-founder of Inspired Cannabis.
[00:24] SPEAKER_00: Equipped with a diverse entrepreneurial background, Serge is a serial entrepreneur.
[00:31] SPEAKER_00: Serge, welcome to Canada's podcast.
[00:33] SPEAKER_00: I appreciate you taking the time to share your entrepreneurial journey with all our listeners.
[00:40] SPEAKER_01: Robert, I appreciate the opportunity to connect here.
[00:43] SPEAKER_00: It's good to meet you.
[00:43] SPEAKER_00: Great.
[00:44] SPEAKER_00: It's nice talking to you local Vancouver, right?
[00:47] SPEAKER_00: Okay, tell us a little bit more about yourself and your current business.
[00:51] SPEAKER_00: So give us your background and then how you got into the Canada's business.
[00:57] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so as you indicate I'm a born bread vancouverite.
[01:00] SPEAKER_01: I spent a little time in Toronto when I was a banker.
[01:03] SPEAKER_01: So I progressed out of high school, got myself a job in the mail department of a bank, moved my way, I've got my accounting degree, ended up at the vice president level at some point.
[01:13] SPEAKER_01: And so I was always a business banker lending to businesses.
[01:17] SPEAKER_01: And so I wanted to be on this side of the desk.
[01:19] SPEAKER_01: So in 2005, I opened my first pharmacy and subsequent years.
[01:24] SPEAKER_01: I opened up another six more.
[01:26] SPEAKER_01: And then in 2019, we started looking at retail cannabis business, my stuff and my main partner, Jesse Dami.
[01:35] SPEAKER_01: And the two of us, and along with others now, have built up the Inspired Cannabis.
[01:39] SPEAKER_01: We have 16 stores across the country.
[01:42] SPEAKER_00: Great. Now, why an entrepreneur, how did you get into the mindset of being an employee to entrepreneur?
[01:48] SPEAKER_00: How that was that look like?
[01:50] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I might be in your DNA.
[01:51] SPEAKER_01: And again, so I loved my banking career.
[01:55] SPEAKER_01: And so, and I did it very well and it was a progressive career.
[02:00] SPEAKER_01: But I always felt I wanted to be out.
[02:03] SPEAKER_01: I didn't want to be reporting to the man.
[02:06] SPEAKER_01: And it actually might be a long time ago.
[02:08] SPEAKER_01: So authority is a little harder thing for me.
[02:12] SPEAKER_01: So I grew up in a single parent house.
[02:13] SPEAKER_01: I'm on my two jobs.
[02:14] SPEAKER_01: She wasn't around.
[02:15] SPEAKER_01: Dad wasn't around.
[02:16] SPEAKER_01: So no authority.
[02:18] SPEAKER_01: So maybe I wanted to be my own guy.
[02:20] SPEAKER_01: But as that business banker, I dealt with a lot of successful entrepreneurs and I liked their messaging.
[02:27] SPEAKER_01: I liked how they were able to run their own lives, supposedly control their own time and business.
[02:33] SPEAKER_01: Turns out you can't do that neither.
[02:34] SPEAKER_00: But yeah, okay.
[02:36] SPEAKER_00: What job or experience helped you the most both for work where you currently do where your role is an entrepreneur.
[02:44] SPEAKER_00: So job experience, what helped you make that transition for on the job experience?
[02:50] SPEAKER_00: I guess in the counting would be the natural stack.
[02:53] Speaker UNKNOWN: Yeah.
[02:54] SPEAKER_01: So for me, foundational financial piece of having that foundation financial understanding it.
[03:02] SPEAKER_01: To me, there's a lot of direction you can get out of the financial statements.
[03:08] SPEAKER_01: What you're doing sales, what you're cost or what your wages are.
[03:11] SPEAKER_01: So if you're able to read that stuff well, it helps direct you on what you should be tacking, tackling next stuff like that, focusing in on.
[03:20] SPEAKER_01: So the financial accounting side was that piece.
[03:24] SPEAKER_01: And then with regards to inspired cannabis, where you know our businesses, that's where we're focusing a lot of our time.
[03:30] SPEAKER_01: Prior to that was the pharmacies.
[03:32] SPEAKER_01: And so again, working with pharmacies for that 15 years, working in community, working with employees direct stuff like that.
[03:40] SPEAKER_01: That really helped this sort of this last piece of our business.
[03:45] SPEAKER_00: Okay.
[03:45] SPEAKER_00: Inspired cannabis in terms of starting this company.
[03:48] SPEAKER_00: Did you need financing and how do you currently make money in the business now?
[03:52] SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
[03:52] SPEAKER_01: So, so I had chased a cousin in law of mine, Jesse about let's look at this cannabis file, this opportunity in 2019.
[04:05] SPEAKER_01: And so we had a meeting in my backyard.
[04:08] SPEAKER_01: And I invited about 15 to 20 some other friends.
[04:11] SPEAKER_01: And we had this vision.
[04:13] SPEAKER_01: We go out and build two, three, four cannabis stores.
[04:17] SPEAKER_01: So, likely only in the lower mainland.
[04:20] SPEAKER_01: But our first store actually ended up in Courtney on the island where somebody took us.
[04:25] SPEAKER_01: And our third store ended up in the NIMO where somebody had taken us in that backyard.
[04:29] SPEAKER_01: So we had offered a reward.
[04:31] SPEAKER_01: Of to find sites.
[04:34] SPEAKER_01: If we closed on that deal, we'll pay you a reward.
[04:37] SPEAKER_01: With regards to the financing piece of it, Jesse and I put in a fair amount of personal money.
[04:43] SPEAKER_01: And then we also raised matching essentially friends and family.
[04:48] SPEAKER_01: So, I don't know if you want to know the dollars or not.
[04:51] SPEAKER_01: No, that's okay.
[04:52] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, just do family and friends in your own, your own.
[04:54] SPEAKER_01: And our idea.
[04:55] SPEAKER_01: So we capitalized it.
[04:56] SPEAKER_01: We put our money where our mouth is.
[04:58] SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
[04:58] SPEAKER_01: We spoke to our friends and family.
[05:00] SPEAKER_01: Pulled them our vision.
[05:01] SPEAKER_01: And this is what we think we could do.
[05:03] SPEAKER_01: And they came along for the right.
[05:05] SPEAKER_00: Okay.
[05:06] SPEAKER_00: Cannabis and the industry one piece of knowledge or information about your industry.
[05:10] SPEAKER_00: That you can share that would benefit our listeners.
[05:13] SPEAKER_00: Something unique or different about say pharmacy compared to cannabis or anything about industry in general.
[05:19] SPEAKER_00: You can share.
[05:20] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, cannabis is a new industry.
[05:22] SPEAKER_01: New formation.
[05:23] SPEAKER_01: And in that.
[05:24] SPEAKER_01: So there isn't the set roadway pathway to follow.
[05:28] SPEAKER_01: Again, literally.
[05:29] SPEAKER_01: So and everybody believed in 2018 and 2019.
[05:33] SPEAKER_01: And maybe perhaps 2020.
[05:34] SPEAKER_01: This was going to be a gold rush.
[05:36] SPEAKER_01: And everybody was going to get rich.
[05:37] SPEAKER_01: So, but that pathway is un, it's uncharted.
[05:42] SPEAKER_01: And so really you need it to adapt to it.
[05:45] SPEAKER_01: And it has not been a easy road for many people.
[05:50] SPEAKER_01: Many people who got in early that they thought.
[05:53] SPEAKER_01: We're all going to get rich because when you opened up the first store in Vancouver.
[05:57] SPEAKER_01: You actually had a lot of sales.
[05:59] SPEAKER_01: But after store number 47 and 48 and 60 opened up.
[06:03] SPEAKER_01: Your sales went from that level down to that level.
[06:06] SPEAKER_01: So, so it hasn't been an easy ride.
[06:09] SPEAKER_01: And it is a lot more entrepreneurial than the pharmacy side, which has been around for a hundred years.
[06:15] SPEAKER_00: Right.
[06:16] SPEAKER_00: What are you most proud of in terms of the work you do in this industry?
[06:21] SPEAKER_00: Have you done anything that kind of goes, hey, we're proud of this as a company.
[06:25] SPEAKER_00: We've done this differently or we've stood out in a certain way.
[06:29] SPEAKER_00: Anything that you can say that you're proud of?
[06:32] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, two things, I guess.
[06:34] SPEAKER_01: One is culture and cannabis has its own culture.
[06:39] SPEAKER_01: And cannabis for me is about creativity and about community.
[06:44] SPEAKER_01: And so us as an organization, we were, we're, we're very in touch with our employees in storeland.
[06:53] SPEAKER_01: We visit them regularly.
[06:55] SPEAKER_01: I've got one just down the street from my house here.
[06:57] SPEAKER_01: People know me by name.
[06:58] SPEAKER_01: So we're very connected and that culture of inclusivity of a community.
[07:03] SPEAKER_01: It's real.
[07:04] SPEAKER_01: So we subscribe to that.
[07:06] SPEAKER_01: And then with regards to sort of a business side, we are operating profitably.
[07:11] SPEAKER_01: And we've achieved that in the face of everybody was chasing it.
[07:16] SPEAKER_01: It got overbuilt.
[07:17] SPEAKER_01: And the economics don't make as much sense as previously.
[07:21] SPEAKER_01: But we stayed on point.
[07:22] SPEAKER_01: And we are operating profitably.
[07:24] SPEAKER_01: So we've done a great job in growing our company, 16 stores and possibly on sound financial base.
[07:33] SPEAKER_01: I'm happy about both those things.
[07:35] SPEAKER_00: Talking to younger entrepreneurs, what advice would you give to someone starting out as an entrepreneur?
[07:41] SPEAKER_00: They came up to you and asked you at a party or social event said, hey, I want to be an entrepreneur like you.
[07:46] SPEAKER_00: If you could give them something, a key piece of advice or tell them some words of wisdom, what would that be?
[07:51] SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
[07:53] SPEAKER_01: You know, I compare entrepreneurship a little bit to the explorers of the old days.
[08:00] SPEAKER_01: Those guys who are coming to Champlains and John Cavitz to Canada stuff like that, the things that they have to do to go through you just don't expect to.
[08:09] SPEAKER_01: And so ultimately it's going to take you two times as long.
[08:11] SPEAKER_01: It's going to cost you twice as much.
[08:14] SPEAKER_01: And stay on point on your vision.
[08:17] SPEAKER_01: Because we will sway off sort of thing.
[08:20] SPEAKER_01: What was your vision?
[08:20] SPEAKER_01: Take it back to that.
[08:22] SPEAKER_01: And then it's about the tenacity of picking yourself up off the ground again.
[08:26] SPEAKER_01: I hope that you're making progress along this pathway.
[08:29] SPEAKER_01: And then you pick yourself up off the ground again and again and again and again and you stay on point.
[08:37] SPEAKER_00: Right.
[08:38] SPEAKER_00: What is the long term vision of your company?
[08:40] SPEAKER_00: Do you see the company expanding into other areas or beyond BC or even Canada?
[08:45] SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
[08:46] SPEAKER_01: So we're actually in the process of we're looking at acquisitions now.
[08:54] SPEAKER_01: So it's the same thing.
[08:55] SPEAKER_01: This industry, everybody was chasing after the first flag out there.
[09:00] SPEAKER_01: And now we're in a different place.
[09:02] SPEAKER_01: The forecast is actually 25 to 35% of retail cannabis stores in Canada will likely close over this coming 12 to 18 months.
[09:10] SPEAKER_01: So it's a changed market now.
[09:12] SPEAKER_01: So for us as a company in some of those closures, some businesses companies may have four stores.
[09:19] SPEAKER_01: Two of them might be profitable to the market.
[09:22] SPEAKER_01: So we're looking at those types of acquisitions now.
[09:25] SPEAKER_01: So we were forecasting.
[09:28] SPEAKER_01: We may have as many stores as 30 to 40 by the end of this year.
[09:34] SPEAKER_01: Good.
[09:34] SPEAKER_01: And the market starts through acquisition.
[09:37] SPEAKER_00: Okay.
[09:37] SPEAKER_00: Let's talk about British Columbia.
[09:39] SPEAKER_00: What are the biggest benefits for you being an entrepreneur in BC?
[09:42] SPEAKER_00: Can you share some of the good points about our operating here?
[09:45] SPEAKER_00: But also give us some of the challenges that you've had along the way.
[09:48] SPEAKER_00: You know, BC is a beautiful place, great place to work and live.
[09:51] SPEAKER_00: You know, there are some challenges just starting a business here.
[09:54] SPEAKER_00: So can you give me both sides?
[09:56] SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
[09:56] SPEAKER_01: So firstly, I think living here, you know your neighborhoods.
[10:01] SPEAKER_01: You know your markets.
[10:03] SPEAKER_01: And you so you understand that.
[10:05] SPEAKER_01: So again, I would always suggest that ideally you play in the space that you know better than going afar.
[10:11] SPEAKER_01: Because that's going to have a full and other complexity.
[10:14] SPEAKER_01: So for us to operate in BC, we're familiar with this marketplace.
[10:18] SPEAKER_01: So that's a one two is the BC government has restricted the number of stores you could open as one company as one franchise within BC to the numbers eight.
[10:32] SPEAKER_01: Where the other provinces are 35 or 75.
[10:36] SPEAKER_01: So they've maintained this restriction.
[10:38] SPEAKER_01: So we only have seven stores in BC right now.
[10:41] SPEAKER_01: And our others are in Saskatchewan and in Ontario.
[10:44] SPEAKER_01: Okay, that's how we get to 16.
[10:46] SPEAKER_01: So back to our seven.
[10:47] SPEAKER_01: So we've grown this in an orderly basis.
[10:50] SPEAKER_01: And the BC government putting that little bit of barrier in place.
[10:53] SPEAKER_01: I wasn't really on side initially, but it really has allowed the BC operators to grow their business without the Ontarians,
[11:04] SPEAKER_01: the big public trade companies come in here and taking all the market stuff like that.
[11:09] SPEAKER_01: So so it's been kind of good on that side.
[11:11] SPEAKER_01: They've restricted that free market, which again, I'm a capitalist, but as a new industry, it needs a little handholding.
[11:19] SPEAKER_01: So I think that's good.
[11:20] SPEAKER_01: The challenges now is it's always always is a sort of regulatory.
[11:24] SPEAKER_01: And so as an example, the regulatory side is.
[11:29] SPEAKER_01: The government holds us to we need to keep our windows covered.
[11:33] SPEAKER_01: So you know, as a consumer, you're walking by you can't see our wares.
[11:37] SPEAKER_01: You can't see like my club monica clothing, display stuff like that.
[11:42] SPEAKER_01: So what is it behind the frosted windows?
[11:44] SPEAKER_01: And we literally need to frost them.
[11:46] SPEAKER_01: So that's that that inhibits us.
[11:48] SPEAKER_01: That's a challenge for us.
[11:50] SPEAKER_01: This eight cap now in this stage of our industry's development and as a company.
[11:56] SPEAKER_01: So we're starting to feel that ceiling.
[11:58] SPEAKER_01: And I hope that we'll see some changes on that side.
[12:03] SPEAKER_00: Okay, can as you know is all about immigration.
[12:06] SPEAKER_00: A lot of people coming here from all over the world starting businesses.
[12:09] SPEAKER_00: So this next question I want you to speak to them.
[12:11] SPEAKER_00: If you were to start all over again, you just moved to British Columbia, not knowing what you know now.
[12:16] SPEAKER_00: How would you go about getting a foothold in the marketplace?
[12:19] SPEAKER_00: What would you do?
[12:20] SPEAKER_00: Some of the tactics and things that you would do differently or would you do that work for you?
[12:26] SPEAKER_00: Starting a business.
[12:29] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, okay.
[12:29] SPEAKER_01: So so for me.
[12:33] SPEAKER_01: My normal pathway would be is don't get a job.
[12:38] SPEAKER_01: You know, understand adapt to this country and these changes things like that.
[12:43] SPEAKER_01: And then generally I believe if people are doing well in there.
[12:47] SPEAKER_01: As an employee.
[12:49] SPEAKER_01: If you're doing well if you're in sort of a top performer type of basis.
[12:53] SPEAKER_01: Then likely that will translate into entrepreneurial action.
[12:57] SPEAKER_01: So but sometimes there might be a might be a cultural fear or something might not come into play.
[13:01] SPEAKER_01: But generally you do well there.
[13:02] SPEAKER_01: You can do well outside.
[13:05] SPEAKER_01: And then with regards to starting a business.
[13:08] SPEAKER_01: Find something that resonates with you.
[13:11] SPEAKER_01: And what what's that resignation?
[13:12] SPEAKER_01: And I'll tell you about the pharmacy side and a little bit of the cannabis side.
[13:16] SPEAKER_01: And so because I think the guy I can't go and.
[13:19] SPEAKER_01: Run medical clinics.
[13:21] SPEAKER_01: It's not my gig.
[13:22] SPEAKER_01: I can't be running a podcast.
[13:24] SPEAKER_01: It's not my thing.
[13:25] SPEAKER_01: I cannot be running an internet business.
[13:27] SPEAKER_01: It's not my thing.
[13:28] SPEAKER_01: So again, when I looked at the pharmacy business.
[13:32] SPEAKER_01: I looked at this from a business perspective for me.
[13:35] SPEAKER_01: Small footprint.
[13:37] SPEAKER_01: Small employee base.
[13:39] SPEAKER_01: Their license.
[13:40] SPEAKER_01: Their train.
[13:41] SPEAKER_01: Their experience.
[13:42] SPEAKER_01: That was easy for me to kind of get in to work with these people.
[13:46] SPEAKER_01: And so I was able to start delivering services and prescriptions.
[13:50] SPEAKER_01: And so the cannabis side.
[13:51] SPEAKER_01: I'm a kid who's from the 70s.
[13:53] SPEAKER_01: And so I kind of grew up with cannabis a little bit.
[13:56] SPEAKER_01: And so as a as a product.
[13:59] SPEAKER_01: It resonates with me.
[14:00] SPEAKER_01: I like cannabis and I like the culture of it.
[14:03] SPEAKER_01: And I like the accessories.
[14:06] SPEAKER_01: I like all of it.
[14:07] SPEAKER_01: So follow your heart.
[14:09] SPEAKER_01: Follow follow your passion.
[14:11] SPEAKER_01: Try to stick me in a restaurant.
[14:12] SPEAKER_01: It's not my thing.
[14:13] Speaker UNKNOWN:
[14:13] Speaker UNKNOWN:
[14:13] Speaker UNKNOWN:
[14:13] Speaker UNKNOWN: I'll just kind of begin.
[14:13] SPEAKER_00: Where you're teaching.
[14:14] SPEAKER_00: Where you teach to have in place to start your days?
[14:16] SPEAKER_00: Is there anything that you do?
[14:17] SPEAKER_00: Most of motivates you to get your days started.
[14:19] SPEAKER_00: Entrepreneurs tend to be very routine oriented.
[14:22] SPEAKER_00: Very morning people.
[14:23] SPEAKER_00: Is there anything that you follow discipline.
[14:25] SPEAKER_00: Are you just get up and go?
[14:27] SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
[14:27] SPEAKER_01: We don't sleep.
[14:29] SPEAKER_01: So at sleeping.
[14:31] SPEAKER_01: So we do sleep.
[14:32] SPEAKER_01: But it's very interrupted.
[14:33] SPEAKER_01: Just work on a going all the time.
[14:35] SPEAKER_01: Stuff like that between three or four of us.
[14:37] SPEAKER_01: So I can wake up at three in the morning and there's already the chatter going with my business partners
[14:41] SPEAKER_01: So we're on it by six or seven. I'll have my coffee. So I do have my routine. I have my coffee. I have my tea
[14:47] SPEAKER_01: I have my yogurt and I have my coffee and in the meantime I'm answering texts and then by 830 I'm at my desk and it's usually
[14:56] SPEAKER_01: There's usually three or four meetings that I go and then there's a lot of paperwork and there's a lot of
[15:00] SPEAKER_01: emails and ongoing texting and calling stuff like that. So I do a little bit of quiet time
[15:07] SPEAKER_01: In between and then I'm at the desk and I'm here till normally until five or six and then I take a break and then
[15:14] SPEAKER_01: You know, I'm on that phone all the time. It's a little bit too much
[15:18] SPEAKER_01: It really has sucked me into bit too much. I need a better balance. I am a better boss now than I was 18 months ago
[15:26] SPEAKER_00: Entrepreneurs are added readers
[15:28] SPEAKER_00: Do you have any business books that you've read or anything along your entrepreneurial journey that resonated with you as far as books that you
[15:35] SPEAKER_01: Can relay over to any entrepreneurs? Yeah, you know, I uh, so I was an avid reader
[15:43] SPEAKER_01: fiction
[15:44] SPEAKER_01: I had a book on my bedside for all of my life in 2018
[15:49] SPEAKER_01: November right after legalization which postponed my start in this business. I had a stroke
[15:56] SPEAKER_01: Uh, since that stroke, I haven't been able to sit down with a book
[16:00] SPEAKER_01: so
[16:00] SPEAKER_01: Uh, and that was always fiction and I still can't sit down ready and spend that time with a book sort of thing
[16:06] SPEAKER_01: on the nonfiction business books
[16:10] SPEAKER_01: My wife is an avid reader
[16:13] SPEAKER_01: An avid reader of business books and she distills down
[16:17] SPEAKER_01: Coles and notes that we have at the dinner table we're talking about whatever that subject is she relays it and that she's my Coles note lady
[16:25] SPEAKER_00: Uh, kind of the Howard Stern effect where they uh, they speak to him tell him exactly what's going on and he
[16:30] SPEAKER_00: And just sit on so good. Okay, we talked a bit about works like balance. British club is a very beautiful place
[16:37] SPEAKER_00: How do you relax and what are your favorite activities to do in BC?
[16:41] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so we're just in uh, Whistler as a family this past uh
[16:45] SPEAKER_01: How sweet where their Monday Tuesday wins is very very lovely
[16:49] SPEAKER_01: So I love to ski uh Whistler. I love
[16:52] SPEAKER_01: That really gets me off the grid also there when I go there
[16:55] SPEAKER_01: So I love uh, I love the skiing piece um, I love biking
[16:59] SPEAKER_01: It's sort of city biking where we live in Ketzalano very beautiful neighborhood
[17:03] SPEAKER_01: In Vancouver near the sea wall
[17:05] SPEAKER_01: So I do a lot of sort of riding my bike around there not not not a trail rider
[17:10] SPEAKER_01: So I love I love those two pieces and then I uh, I love uh company and I love my friends and family
[17:17] SPEAKER_01: And it's so spend time with them and so with my buddies
[17:20] SPEAKER_01: Uh, usually once a week was sort of socializing around a couple of years stuff like that
[17:24] SPEAKER_00: If you weren't doing what you're doing now, what would you like to do for a profession?
[17:31] SPEAKER_00: If you weren't doing if you weren't doing what you do now, we can't have this industry
[17:34] SPEAKER_00: What would you do be doing for a profession? If there's something else that you could see yourself doing
[17:40] SPEAKER_00: Uh, that is not related to your industry. It's completely different. What would it be?
[17:45] SPEAKER_00: If you had to pick something someone said
[17:47] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, traveler whatever that means
[17:51] SPEAKER_01: Ideally and I heard it from one of my mentors in the past uh,
[17:55] SPEAKER_01: Mark Gologger who used to be a CEO of
[17:59] SPEAKER_01: The large cannabis retail chain
[18:01] SPEAKER_01: No pen to paper. So I'd sort of like to get away from pen to paper
[18:05] SPEAKER_01: I don't like doing business plans all the stuff myself
[18:08] SPEAKER_01: So but if I could be involved in something it'd be on the tech side
[18:12] SPEAKER_01: So like this uh chat GPT
[18:16] SPEAKER_01: The stuff that Elon Musk is uh doing and he's uh, he's uh, he's quite a hero for me stuff like that
[18:23] SPEAKER_01: So to follow something along that pathway where I could contribute
[18:28] SPEAKER_01: My energy my creativity
[18:30] SPEAKER_01: Uh, without a lot of pen to paper. That's what I would love to do
[18:34] SPEAKER_00: So you're a think outside the box kind of guy
[18:36] SPEAKER_01: Yeah
[18:38] SPEAKER_00: That's how you look at everything. I mean
[18:41] SPEAKER_00: promise all or
[18:42] SPEAKER_00: Different approach
[18:44] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, so very much and uh sometimes I'm bursting out of my skin kind of concept stuff like that
[18:52] SPEAKER_01: and uh my partners and
[18:55] SPEAKER_01: Employees sometimes it had some challenges. Okay, trying to kind of keep this contained
[19:01] SPEAKER_01: Uh, but very much outside the box. Let's go let's push
[19:05] SPEAKER_01: Uh, and then it's a marriage of that's a good thing like me and my partners
[19:09] SPEAKER_01: They've tempered me and then I'll pass in the ball and then they run with it and we accomplished that touchdown
[19:15] SPEAKER_01: Stuff like that and then so same as our team our senior management team on that cannabis site
[19:21] SPEAKER_00: Have any in your career? Have any other entrepreneurs or mentors anyone giving you advice that really resonated with you that you could pass on to the entrepreneur's throughout Canada
[19:30] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know uh
[19:32] SPEAKER_01: So on the mentor science
[19:34] SPEAKER_01: So I haven't had any really mentors
[19:36] SPEAKER_01: We had mark goleger as an advisor when we started on this cannabis
[19:43] SPEAKER_01: And I really enjoyed his insights because he had traveled this road for a year or two before us
[19:49] SPEAKER_01: And so he had built up a chain with 35 stores back then
[19:51] SPEAKER_01: So that was that fantastic
[19:53] SPEAKER_01: So if anybody I may have had as a mentor that may have been may have been it otherwise again back to it
[19:59] SPEAKER_01: I'd grown up in a single parent place
[20:01] SPEAKER_01: Authority I never I never had a relationship where with mom
[20:06] SPEAKER_01: Getting that direct guidance and then so same as a career. I kind of did it on my own
[20:10] SPEAKER_01: So I never kind of latched on to mentor
[20:13] SPEAKER_01: Uh, that was not my programming that wasn't in my DNA from a young age
[20:17] SPEAKER_01: So I didn't follow that sort of normal path and that said I do welcome some people to
[20:23] SPEAKER_01: uh
[20:24] SPEAKER_01: Line me up
[20:26] SPEAKER_01: Let's spend a little time and I will give you my perspective an hour and my
[20:31] SPEAKER_01: And happy to share sort of things. So if I could have a mentor mentee relationship
[20:37] SPEAKER_01: Uh, I welcome that it hasn't it hasn't really happened either
[20:40] SPEAKER_01: Except we're within our company
[20:43] SPEAKER_00: You're your back great getting to know you here your background seems to be accounting
[20:48] SPEAKER_00: But you've seen to be more of a visionary is that is there anything that kind of
[20:53] SPEAKER_00: Crosses each other or you know, because you obviously have the logical mindset of an accountants
[20:58] SPEAKER_00: But the visionary side which is the risk taker do you ever have any conflict with those two mindsets as you go through your day
[21:06] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so
[21:08] SPEAKER_01: Accounting for me because again, I started in the mail department and I had visions of uh
[21:14] SPEAKER_01: Growth progressive and then already I started in the mail department of that bank and I wanted to be a vice president
[21:20] SPEAKER_01: And so I anchored that vision and how am I going to get there? And so ultimately for me education was part of it
[21:25] SPEAKER_01: So again an accounting
[21:27] SPEAKER_01: You know again, we don't spend a lot of time in accounting
[21:30] SPEAKER_01: But really understanding it the numbers and I'm a numbers guy
[21:34] SPEAKER_01: So it actually kind of flowed pretty good and so that again allowed me a foundation
[21:39] SPEAKER_01: And so when I'm entrepreneuring I can crunch the numbers and I can have that dialogue
[21:44] SPEAKER_01: And test it and we double test it we I get it. It's a nice language to understand
[21:51] SPEAKER_01: In the translation from from a vision to okay, what about what's gonna hit in the ground where the measurements
[21:57] SPEAKER_01: Where does the metrics are we on track? What are we doing here? Where we pull out?
[22:01] SPEAKER_01: Where do we add the juice stuff like that? So so it's good to understand the language
[22:07] SPEAKER_01: That this pathway. It's kind of just showing us mapping
[22:10] SPEAKER_00: Right, and so you obviously have accountants in your company or are you doing it all yourself because the reason I ask this is that most
[22:18] SPEAKER_00: Don't conures that I've talked to aren't really numbers people. They're more like I don't work on my widget
[22:24] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, so again my co-founder is Jesse and so he had taken on the responsibility
[22:31] SPEAKER_01: Of the accounting side so I was great since then we've actually recently hired up a controller within
[22:38] SPEAKER_01: We had an external controller bank
[22:41] SPEAKER_01: Part of me bookkeeping department we used to work with but we've now bringing that in house because of our growth and things like that
[22:47] SPEAKER_01: But yes, I never needed to do all that and you know, and you're right and I actually don't like to do that
[22:55] SPEAKER_00: Right, and you plan on staying in Vancouver continue to run the business in in Vancouver or do you see yourself spending more time throughout the country
[23:05] SPEAKER_01: So we're actually out in Ontario in April
[23:10] SPEAKER_01: Um, we're looking at these acquisitions. So we'll be visiting Ottawa and things like that
[23:14] SPEAKER_01: So my home is Vancouver for me. I love Vancouver. I love its climate. I love the mountains. I love the ocean
[23:20] SPEAKER_01: So I foresee always having a home here
[23:23] SPEAKER_01: If there's anything I would also like a home south
[23:26] SPEAKER_01: where the
[23:28] SPEAKER_01: climates a little bit more
[23:30] SPEAKER_01: friendly
[23:31] SPEAKER_01: So uh, but that's it in this country. This is this is where home is with regards to traveling across this country
[23:37] SPEAKER_01: I have no issues and welcome it
[23:39] SPEAKER_01: So again when we were traveling early in 2019
[23:43] SPEAKER_01: 2020 2021 trying to find sites we we'd fly to Saskatoon and we would drive a thousand kilometers over the next two or three days
[23:51] SPEAKER_01: Trying to find sites and things like that. And so again, and uh, so you know as a country
[23:57] SPEAKER_01: Saskatchewan
[23:59] SPEAKER_01: Fantastic people. I'm so happy I got the experience that
[24:03] SPEAKER_01: Uh, but Vancouver's bound
[24:05] SPEAKER_00: Okay, as the world kind of opens to cannabis and so forth. I you all you see you're up the United States opening up
[24:10] SPEAKER_00: Do you feel any need to dabble into those markets at all to look at expanding in those markets at all or is just too difficult
[24:17] SPEAKER_00: Forget it. We're good here in Canada. Is that something you might want to look at?
[24:21] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, now so we actually went to MJ biz. It's a large conference. Maybe 50,000 people. It was in the Vegas in November
[24:29] SPEAKER_01: So we did that as sort of that beachhead type of okay. Good. Let's go take a look what's going on to the US
[24:34] SPEAKER_01: Um the US there's 20 states approximately 21 that have legalized it the feds have not 30 more to go the opportunity
[24:44] SPEAKER_01: For us if we're positioned well, which we believe we are
[24:48] SPEAKER_01: uh
[24:49] SPEAKER_01: It's great opportunity. It's 10x
[24:52] SPEAKER_01: So we think we will be into the US in 2024. We think we'll have 30
[24:57] SPEAKER_01: 35 stores by the end of this year and in 2024 enough of uh that much more
[25:04] SPEAKER_01: From a financial side that much more from a
[25:07] SPEAKER_01: From a platform side that much more from experience side that much more infrastructure built with our head office
[25:13] SPEAKER_01: That we can start now really getting into the US. So so we're uh
[25:17] SPEAKER_01: I'm very bullish. I'm getting into the US
[25:20] SPEAKER_01: But not prematurely and then the one thing we're gonna need to watch out for
[25:24] SPEAKER_01: Our mate is the culture is very different
[25:27] SPEAKER_01: American is very different than Canada
[25:30] SPEAKER_01: And so sometimes I might have these great aspirations, but I might get eaten up too
[25:35] SPEAKER_01: So so we have great to aspirations to get into the US with some
[25:40] SPEAKER_01: question
[25:41] SPEAKER_00: And the competition I imagine is a little bit more fierce as well, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah
[25:47] SPEAKER_00: Okay, we're gonna wrap things up here. How can our listeners get whole of you and is there anything you like to add before you leave us today?
[25:55] SPEAKER_01: Um, well they can email me and my email is search at
[26:00] SPEAKER_01: Inspired cannabis.ca and that's scrge
[26:04] SPEAKER_01: At inspired cannabis.ca
[26:06] SPEAKER_01: With regards to um
[26:08] SPEAKER_01: Leave you with again make for me through my life. It's always been about a vision
[26:13] SPEAKER_01: And it's about anchoring myself to that vision
[26:16] SPEAKER_01: And again when I wasn't that male department again, I came out of the east fan side a little rougher on the edges
[26:21] SPEAKER_01: And it was not a straight line and there were bankers that I'd run across through that career progression
[26:28] SPEAKER_01: Saying that you're not gonna cut it. You're not gonna make it and so sometimes my behavior wasn't consistent with that
[26:34] SPEAKER_01: Wasn't a straight line, but my vision was anchored and I brought myself back on course
[26:39] SPEAKER_01: So so that's something I'd say
[26:41] SPEAKER_01: Ideally you have your vision you anchor it you can go off course bring yourself back to course
[26:47] SPEAKER_01: Is that still your vision then stay on point? So that's a stay on point and the other is it's really that tenacity side
[26:56] SPEAKER_01: um
[26:57] SPEAKER_01: It's a need you know again there it has not been an easy road
[27:01] SPEAKER_01: Last May we got profitable so for two and a half years we were not profitable and there's a lot of pressure on you
[27:07] SPEAKER_01: And so the tenacity piece
[27:09] SPEAKER_01: um
[27:10] SPEAKER_01: You know you need to stay on point you need to continue making the right decisions the right execution and the results will follow so
[27:20] SPEAKER_01: Stay on point
[27:21] SPEAKER_00: Excellent okay, sir. Thanks for coming on the show. I've learned a lot about you and I'm sure our listeners have as well
[27:27] SPEAKER_00: And we'll see you next time
[27:29] SPEAKER_01: No, but thanks very much for the time. Okay, I appreciate the opportunity
