Cannabis Business Made Easy E003: E03 Finding Your Cannabis Industry Niche With Social Entrepreneurship

Welcome to episode three of the Cannabis Business Made Easy Podcast. I’m your host Brandie Bee ~ Founder of the cannabis leadership accelerator Sativa Science Club and creator of  #ElevatedAdvocate on IG. 

I’m here to help you increase your credibility, grow your influence, and make your impact in the cannabis industry.  

In today’s episode, we’re talking about the concept of social entrepreneurship and how it can completely revolutionize the way you think about success in your cannabis company. 

And if you’re sitting there thinking “social what now?” Don’t worry. I’m going to tap into my inner business geek and break it down from A-Z. 

I’m going to assume you already know what an entrepreneur is. Broadly speaking, that’s any small business owner with a penny and a dream. But, in business school, I was taught that there are several different types of entrepreneurship and business owners usually fall into one of these four categories: 

First, we have small business entrepreneurship. And this is the overwhelming majority. It’s people like you or me, with anywhere between zero and a few hundred employees. In cannabis, these are craft farms and maw and paw dispensaries. Then we have scalable startup entrepreneurship. This is what leaps to mind when I think of silicone valley. These people think big and go deep. A “scalable startup” takes an idea and searches for a repeatable business model that will turn it into a highly profitable company. In the cannabis world, this may be someone like Headset, Weed Maps, and Confident Cannabis. It’s pretty standard in the tech industry because it’s easy to start small and scale quickly.Next, we have large company entrepreneurship. There are very few of these in cannabis due to the legalities, but they will emerge. Believe me. These are likely to be big ag organizations or pharmaceutical companies positioned the second the light turns green.Finally, we have social entrepreneurship these organizations start by identifying a social cause and build a business model around it that can fulfill that need.  

Now that I’m on the other end of business school and I have my degree, I want to call bullshit on that theory. You can be a social purpose company while being any of the other three. So today, I want to focus on how a socially conscious business model can help you identify your purpose, gain more clarity on your product, and identify your niche.