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Sara Gullickson: The ingredients to get a cannabis license in the industry are the exact same as they were 15 years ago, which is wild. So I use like the dumb analogy of baking a cake. Either baking red velvet, you're making like sprinkles, or you're making chocolate, right? So in my experience, whether the state is a lottery process or a merit-based process, meaning graded and scored, you need a team.
Local residents go very far in any and all environments. You need capital, you need industry knowhow. And you need real estate. And so it's my job to put those projects together.
Intro: Welcome to Kaya Cast, the podcast for cannabis businesses looking to launch, grow, and scale their operations.
Tommy Truong: Sara, thanks for joining me today.
Sara Gullickson: Thanks for having me.
Tommy Truong: So you've you sit in a very unique spot in the industry. You've helped secure over 75 licenses. [00:01:00] You've had two successful exits, only $15 million, and you've often say that many people get caught up with the noise. When starting their cannabis business and they lose sight on business fundamentals.
What are some of the common mistakes that you see people make that cost them a lot of money?
Sara Gullickson: I think the number one mistake people make is that they fall in love with the opportunity. And I think anytime you fall in love with anything, when you're talking about business, you're not backing into the numbers, you're not making strategic decisions, and so. I think the industry has been this sexy thing that people wanna be a part of, and there's parts of it that are sexy.
It's new, it's emerging. You can make a lot of money. But we see people make really, really bad detrimental business decisions when they have these rose colored glasses on because they want it too bad.
Tommy Truong: Ah. You know what I see too? I see a lot of people when they're doing the [00:02:00] build out, there's not a lot of return attached to the money that they're spending and. You can quickly overspend a lot. When you can do, when you, you can generate the same cash flow with this business. If you think about business as a cash flow generating operation, it's easier 'cause it is, right?
That's how businesses evaluated. And if you're gonna spend a million dollars versus spending 500,000 and the 500,000 gives you the same cash flow coming in, the logical choice is 500,000, but.
Sara Gullickson: 100%. Yeah. Or like if a market's going medical first and then you are redesigning for recreational, you want a whole different flow. Right. Patients versus consumers. And so we always are like, Ikea can be your friend when you're doing this. It can look really beautiful and you don't have to spend a ton of money.
I totally agree.
Tommy Truong: Yeah, it's, the concept gets lost I think with retail. 'cause in the software world we have a concept called minimum viable [00:03:00] product, which is really easy in the software industry. 'cause you're not acquiring a lease, there's no material. It's just how much do you want to spend and what do you need to build in order to validate an idea, right?
So that's minimum.
Sara Gullickson: Educated on that right now and it's completely out of my realm, but I love that you mentioned that and now I'm like, wait, I was just on a call for that. Yeah,
Tommy Truong: Oh wow. Tell me more.
Sara Gullickson: so we've just been diving into ai. I was like kicking and screaming on it, and then I have like a side hustle that I have that.
Social media. And so I started using it a lot for that and that's kind of what hooked me. It was like, Hey, chat and chat became my best friend to plan my life, to help look at places to take the kids on vacation and all the different things. And so I think exposure to anything new initially you're like, ah, I don't want anything to do with that.
I don't know [00:04:00] technology. This is going to eat my job. Or, you know, everybody's saying that right now. But I, once I got comfortable right, there was a learning curve, I started to look at the business and say, how do I implement AI in a strategic way in what we're doing? And so that's what I've been educating myself on.
We haven't. Accomplish the goal yet, but I did bring in somebody that is in tech and she's a total badass, and I'm having her kind of look at my blind spots, but she's speaking in all these acronyms. She's speaking your language, and I am so happy that I don't have to know everything about it, that I have somebody to kind of protect my interests as I'm making decisions to spend large amount of monies to be more efficient in what we do.
Tommy Truong: So how have you broken down? And I, this is something that I am, I love this and we are right now transitioning a lot of our workflows
Sara Gullickson: Yeah.
Tommy Truong: An [00:05:00] automated ag agentic workflow and. How are you? So what's your starting point in terms of making sure that you implement the right process or making, or whether or not even ready
Sara Gullickson: Right. And I think we've gone through that learning curve where I was like, Hey, I want it to do this. And what I wanted it to do was just too much. It was too abstract. We're not there. From a general sense, I look at AI and this portion of the tech industry very similar to cannabis. So if you get into it, if you ride the wave, if you're smart, if you're strategic.
There's probably a lot of money to be made, right? Because what we need right now in this industry was the same as we needed in the cannabis industry 15 years ago. People that were thinking outside the box to force change in an industry that have done things this way for a really long time. How do we open our minds?
How do we get creative and how do we come up with really powerful solutions? So I [00:06:00] look at it like very similar. I obviously have done a decent job in the cannabis industry, so I'm like, I wanna be a part of this movement too. So, I mean, we just started small where it's like, you know, every single week we're taking eight hours of tracking legislative changes.
And that's a intern that does it, but it's still money out the door. So we put together some workflows and some prompts and trained our chats to automatically send us that information to earmark the key states that we're most interested in and, and we're not like perfect on it, right? So maybe the task takes two hours, but it's a lot better than eight.
So that's just kind of one thing that we're doing with AI right now. There's like another 20 things I wanna accomplish. A lot of what we do is just so much research. It's so much sifting through information. And so from what I've learned in the last 10 months to a year about, you know, AI or chat that's really what it's [00:07:00] best for.
I love the conversation of it doesn't work because I love to. Have a strategic conversation to try and figure out how it can work and to what level it can work for you.
Tommy Truong: Yeah. What? There's a quote that I heard that's very telling of. What you can apply LLMs for is, it's not that the rocks can talk, it's that the rocks can read, and that's exceptionally powerful because as a business owner, you have a, now you're able to have a really good span of knowledge in your business.
So that's one, right? Managers are able to oversee more people. So instead of a one to eight kind of traditional format, maybe it's a one to 15.
Sara Gullickson: Right.
Tommy Truong: more span of knowledge. And for me, I, in the cannabis industry, there's just so much opportunity
Sara Gullickson: Mm-hmm.
Tommy Truong: to get a [00:08:00] pulse on what's selling, what's not selling, why this budtender is selling more, what this budtender sells.
What is their go-to. Versus not, and you can have this absolute like breadth of knowledge in terms of your sales engine and your sales team that I think is underutilized,
Sara Gullickson: Oh, so much so it's gonna be amazing to see what some of the forward thinkers or creative thinkers or movers and shakers or whatever you wanna label them, are gonna be able to come up with. It's exciting. I mean, the cannabis industry is so much information. For us it's a little different than like sales metrics, right?
Ours is like, what does this legislation say? It's 85 pages. Can I pull out residency requirements? Can I pull out real estate requirements? And obviously you have to have. Compliance. Look at it. You have to have legal look at it, but it gives us a really, really good baseline to take down a hundred pages of legislation, [00:09:00] synthesize that information, fact check it, and have our like, go to market Bible pretty much ready to go.
So it is so exciting.
Tommy Truong: Have you do you follow Block?
Sara Gullickson: No,
Tommy Truong: Okay, follow Block. And they came up with Goose.
Sara Gullickson: Okay.
Tommy Truong: And after this, take a look at Goose. I think Goose is gonna really help you implement workflows. And Goose is essentially a open source framework that. Is like chat on steroids because you link up chat with it, right?
It's not, you link up chat with it and now you're able to have automation, Hey, every morning check out this legislation and tell me what changes
Sara Gullickson: Okay. I am totally gonna look at that. 'cause that's
We had somebody build it, but I'm like, I'm sure we could like put it on steroids like you just said.
Tommy Truong: Yeah, yeah. Take a look at Goose
Sara Gullickson: all right. I
Tommy Truong: and that. That's one thing too that we've incorporated AI is compliance. [00:10:00] Compliance is, it's a lot of no one's. No one actually really sits through 400 pages of the law and can really digest that 400 pages in a way that LLMs can.
Sara Gullickson: I mean, that is like a great point. So I think with like basically the alleviation of two a DE. And ai, you should be able to increase your margins by like 20% because. Probably more, right? Because the amount of compliance and legal that goes out the window when you're actually running a dispensary or cultivation center and training your people on what they can do versus what they'll go to jail for, I mean, that's like an enormous responsibility as the, the COO or the CEO or whoever's kind of running that, um, piece of the pie.
But yeah, that's, that's, um, that's a huge opportunity center in the industry. Huge.
Tommy Truong: Yeah, you've, so you've been a [00:11:00] part of a few cannabis businesses, right?
What is exit strategies? What does it look like? What do I need to build in order to have a successful exit? The more and more people I talk to in this industry, that's where everybody's headed.
Sara Gullickson: Yeah, I mean, I think it depends what you do. Like are you plant touching? Are you technology? Are you a vendor? Somebody told me early on in my career. That I was never gonna be able to sell my company because my company was me. And I think that was one of the best things that anyone could have said to me in my whole life, really.
Well, besides the fact that I was dyslexic. And so I got told my whole life I was really dumb. So, you know, you have these things that come into your brain and as somebody that really wanted to be successful, you know, it was heartbreaking having somebody older, smarter. Tell me this. And so from that day forward, my mentality with any business that I've had is how do I make it not me?
How do I make sure that I have standard operating procedures, that if I get [00:12:00] hit by a bus, somebody else can run it? You know, how do I turn this business into an attractive target? And it's funny 'cause I sold my first consulting firm in, in 2018 and I didn't know what I was gonna do. I was like, do I want back in the industry?
I had had my first kid. And I decided I did want back in the industry, so I waited for my non-compete. I launched something pretty similar, and funny enough, as luck would have it, is that business model didn't work anymore. The industry had changed so much in two years. And so I have changed, like we don't do a lot of client service.
We do more like investor projects and we partner and align ourselves with people that have capital. Um, and we deploy that capital and we get licenses. Some of our groups wanna operate those licenses. Some of our groups wanna joint venture with a much larger MSO style. Entity to bring those opportunities to life.
And for me, I don't want anything to do with operations anymore. I want to be able to be in Phoenix and I wanna be able to be with my kids [00:13:00] at night. And I didn't wanna be getting on a plane, you know, every chance that I had to, to go check on operations somewhere else. So my business changed, not only because the time in the industry changed.
The fees we could get for what we used to do were a lot smaller and I didn't want to like transport myself to Hawaii and, and Colorado and all the different places that I've been working for for a long time. And then when we launched this company, it was 2020, um, it was March, 2020, which is obviously like COVID and Pivotal point in everybody's industry.
And. I went through just a lot of personal stuff between, you know, now and then, and I realized about 10 months ago, I'm like, what is my exit strategy? I'm pushing this for everybody else, and what is my actual exit strategy? So 10 months ago. I started to think about what this business looked like. I started to think about, you know, optimizing standard [00:14:00] operating procedures, ai, and so now my vision is clearer on this specific business, the cannabis business advisors and what I'm building it for.
And so it took, you know, hiring some coaches. It took going on a couple like. Wellness retreats. It took all of these things to unlock what I needed to in my brain, which are limitations to say, like I said, for a long time, this is a vehicle for me to make money. I never looked at it as a target for acquisition.
And now, you know, I'm thinking about things in a different way. And so everything I'm doing is planning for what that looks like. And so I think business owners, myself included, you know, I say, oh, I have successful exits, but I got stuck in the weeds of my business. I got stuck in. Learning a new business model.
'cause what we do today is very different than what we did, you know, 10, 15 years ago. and I didn't get that aha moment or that major realization until my brain [00:15:00] was ready for it. Right. And I think AI really unlocked some of these concepts and some of these ideas and some of that fire for me. And so with a business owner, if they're not sure what they wanna do with their business, what I suggest they do is to work on themselves.
Get clear, understand what you want, understand your drivers. Hire a business coach, hire a therapist. You know, get out of your own way to be able to kind of level up and look down at everything and be like, okay, this is what needs to happen. And I think as business owners, we constantly have to pour back into ourselves to make sure we don't get stuck in the minutia or the weeds, or whatever you wanna call it.
Tommy Truong: I love that. That's so true, and it's really easy for business owners, everybody to get stuck in the operation, stuck in the weeds because there's so many fires.
Sara Gullickson: Well, and then critical thinking goes out the window. It's like, oh, this is what we always used to do. So I'm the one in the organization right now where I'm like. [00:16:00] Are we critical thinking? I know we used to do it like that three years ago, but is it the best way to do it today? And I think everybody needs that champion in the business.
And if you are more of a dollars and cents person, or if you have a hard time seeing outside your lens and you can't look at everything as a team, then you need to get that person. And that doesn't always have to be the CEO or the owners. You know, that could be somebody else kind of coming in and taking a peek at what you have.
Tommy Truong: Yeah, I really like that you have a business coach too. We have one as well, and it's good to have somebody that. Can give you perspectives of what other companies do. And as a business coach, their job is to just give you best practices, what other companies are doing, but also as well as to guide you through the decision making process so that you are thinking about the right questions during the process.
So hat's off to you. That's amazing.
Sara Gullickson: Yeah, it's been fun. Like it, it's got me [00:17:00] more excited to be in cannabis than I have been. In years, right? Because I see the vision clearer. I understand where our we're going, and I feel like we're at a place in the industry again, where it's gonna change a lot. And that's where I thrive, is to, you know, be a visionary, look at things, push the envelope, think outside the box, and tell, you know, the guy that tells me I can't tell my business to show him that I'm gonna do it again.
Tommy Truong: so you're on the other side too. You are helping capital acquire licenses and acquire businesses, and that more and more. Often than a normal person in the industry. What do you guys look for in acquiring another business? What needs to be in place and what improves the valuation of a company that you're acquiring?
Sara Gullickson: So we're more working on the paper side of things, like on the actual license side of things. Today. Um, I think that, I mean, you get a [00:18:00] higher valuation if you actually like open the store, but that also depends on like who your target is in the sense that the multi-state operators want their, their design, they want their branding and things like that.
So. We're aligning ourselves a lot more on, we get the license. Who do we JV with? Who do we partner with? Who has the best assets in the region? I don't think we're at a place where it's like there's one operator that operate. The best. We're looking at the state, we're looking at the rules and the regulations, and then we're partnering with people that are already functioning in a different state that aligns.
For example, Texas and Florida are very similar. They're similar in their legislation, they're similar in their size. And so when we went into Texas, I wanted to align myself with somebody that had really, really great wealth functioning, multi-unit retail, paired with cultivation, paired with processing. So it's a little bit different in how I like [00:19:00] match, make or how I look to you know, acquire or jv.
But I think that the, I think that the due diligence process is similar in the sense if you're operating, like are your pro, are your policies paper? You know, do you understand what your efficiencies are? Do you understand how long your workflow is taking for your patients to get through? I don't advise on that side of the business anymore.
I haven't for probably like the last five years. But I think it's simple. It's like, get your business cleaned up, get your processes and your policies papered. Make sure that you know how you run the business isn't in your manager's head. And start to obviously clean up your structure. Start to clean up any partnership issues and make sure that your accounting is done right.
And just, you know, get in the tip top shape and you'll be, you know, ready to potentially join forces or sell.
Tommy Truong: Now that you've really dug into AgTech workflows and. [00:20:00] Where technology is today, what are some opportunities that you see operators should really pay attention to? What, yeah what workflows in a cannabis business is really prime for AgTech workflows.
Sara Gullickson: I mean, I think just the gathering and the disseminating of the information is like. I think it's for what we do. I'm on like the, I'm on like the legislative process. I'm on like the rule making. And so for that process, like how are you tracking changes in legislation? How are you understanding the information?
How is the information sent out too? You know, your C-suite versus your budtenders. And those are things that, from a compliance standpoint should be a no-brainer, where it's like, Hey, this new memo got put out. Put it into. Chat. I call it Chad. I know I should call it what you guys call it, but I don't.
And make sure you can say, Hey, give this to, you know, break this down for our investors, break this down [00:21:00] for our C-suite. Break this down for our, you know, entry level employees. And right there alone, you have three memos that can go out. You can educate and you can work through any legislative changes at, at, at a speed in which you've never been able to before.
I from like a day-to-day operation standpoint, since I don't like live there anymore. I'm sure there's about a million different ways that you can incorporate it, but I'm more interested in like the information breakdowns being available to me within minutes versus having to wait days and hours and maybe even sometimes weeks.
Tommy Truong: No, that's so big. It's I remember when we were in New York and I was reading through the MTRA, I think that's what it's called. It's been a while, sorry. But their cannabis legislation.
Sara Gullickson: Perfect.
Tommy Truong: And I'm sitting there who's reading this? Who's
Sara Gullickson: that's trying to [00:22:00] get one should be, by the way.
Tommy Truong: I know, but there's probably a handful of people that are consultants that actually really understand it, actually read it and, but as a business owner, you are probably not, probably 99% of business owners in the cannabis industry. I would say it is not line by line reading it only because
Sara Gullickson: no.
Tommy Truong: I know what it takes to open up a business, and I know how busy you are when the doors open. Technology is prime now for you to actually understand, be on top of things. And it's so much easier now than it was five years ago.
Sara Gullickson: So much. New York's probably a bad example because we have like so many illegal dispensaries that are still operating there. So I don't know if anyone cares about compliance in New York, but. In a, in a state like Florida, you will get into big
Tommy Truong: Oh yeah.
Sara Gullickson: If you're not reading regulations, you'll
Tommy Truong: So much more resources. 'cause you have to have, so you have to have a certain amount of resources to, to [00:23:00] operate there.
Sara Gullickson: Oh yeah. That's crazy. It's a heavy lift. Very heavy lift.
Tommy Truong: Yeah. So it's probably not the owner, but it's definitely somebody on payroll
Sara Gullickson: Yes.
Tommy Truong: for sure. So you are really on the back end of helping of marrying. People that want to open or do JVs in a certain state with an a current operator, what have you found? So your you share a unique perspective in where states are, how easy is it to get licensed and where things are going?
If you were to open up a dispensary today, which state would you pick?
Sara Gullickson: Where would I, I wouldn't open up a dispensary today. Like, I feel like I am much better on tracking legislative movement, making sure that, you know, social equity applicants. How I got here was. The industry went social equity. It was like, okay, nobody can have licenses. That's, you know, [00:24:00] the typical person, like we have to give it to the people that were wronged by cannabis criminalization.
And at first I was just like, geez, this is like a lot, right? Because nine times outta 10, not to stereotype, but those people traditionally aren't business people. They traditionally don't have access to capital. And so when all of the states were doing social equity, I was like, where does this put me?
Like nobody's hiring me. To do their application for 25,000 or $75,000, like that's just not happening. So we got to thinking like, how do we. Find applicants that are qualified and how do we ensure that they have a partnership with somebody that can get them access to capital. So that's really where this, like matchmaking was born.
And then it came down to like, okay, we want a bunch of licenses. We have the capital to do it, but wouldn't it be smarter to bring in a group that's already functioning? In a state that's more similar. And so that's kind of how the business concept took shape. It [00:25:00] was, I've reinvented myself like too many times in this industry, and it was just really a divine redirection where it was like, okay, I used to take client work.
How do I make a job for myself, make myself useful with my skillset that I have? And, and leverage that to get people licenses that meet the criterion and also match them with industry talent. and the know-how. As well as capital and, you know, before I used to schlep myself around the country and I'd open stores like I'm not the right person to do that anymore.
I don't open, I don't, you know, own 20 units and understand the day-to-day and how things have changed. I know there are a lot of similarities, but that's not where my like greatest good should be. Like, that's not my greatest good right now. My greatest good is understanding legislative processes.
Understanding how to get business owners opportunities and how to make this door a [00:26:00] reality.
Tommy Truong: Yeah, that makes sense. It's a really good pivot and your self-awareness is like at a 10,
Sara Gullickson: Thanks, I'll take it
Tommy Truong: because that's entrepreneurship, right? It's do I, am I solving a problem and what problem am I solving? Because if I'm only valuable, if I'm solving a problem, that's that people are paying me money for.
Sara Gullickson: Well, we used to charge like 125,000 to help people in like Pennsylvania, after Pennsylvania legalized to open their store. And I had a model that I followed and it was really fun. It was great. But the industry has exploded since then. Like I'm not the person to take you from the concept of what does this business look like?
Winning you a license and then commenting on like your interior design and being at your store opening. There's hundreds of people better suited on the interior design side. On the marketing side, at that point, there was a lack of talent. So you like rose to the. You know, [00:27:00] task. Now we have a ton of talent and people aren't afraid of the industry and normal businesses that work in other industries are also now working in cannabis.
And so, you know, I think being a part of this movement for a really long time, it has changed. So freaking much. I got involved 'cause I was young and dumb and I wanted to make history and I wanted my kids to read about me in a history book. And to think 15 years ago when I was like schlepping myself around to like cannabis farmers markets that I was gonna be sitting in the chair that I am today.
With two children watching a single mom work her ass off to make ends meet. I would've never, ever, ever put myself here. But it has been a fun journey. It's been a wild journey and I, I still love the industry. I do.
Tommy Truong: Yeah, so you know, which states have the most, are opening the most licenses in 2026. Like where's the opportunities?
Sara Gullickson: So [00:28:00] 2026 is wild. In my experience in the last 15 years, there has not been a more powerful year. As far as legislative movement goes for cannabis, so Virginia, a huge state, huge population legalizing. We're working through the rules and the regulations right now, Nebraska, which was. You know, it's a red state.
It's not a state that wanted this. They've tried passing ballot initiative after ballot initiative for medical cannabis for, for patients for years that's taking shape this year. Wisconsin, we're looking at Florida's looking to, to go recreational. There are 13 states that every single week we're looking into states to see what their legislative movement is.
If they're giving away more licenses, if they're turning from medical to recreational, or we're seeing some states go from dry to medical, which for me. Is the most fun because it takes us back like 15 years [00:29:00] where people don't even understand, right? And so you're having to like really educate the municipalities, educate the communities, and really showcase to people that this is not a bad thing.
It's a very good thing, not only for your patients, not only for access, but for the economy as a whole. So. I'm like fired up about this year. 'cause I think there are so many opportunities and there are so many good states as well as large population bases that are expanding.
Tommy Truong: Do a lot of people that come to you to help with licensees? Are they in that particular state or, if, or do you see a lot of people that see an opportunity and ask you, Hey, which state should I go to? Which states are the easiest? Is there an arbitrage here that I should, that can play with?
Sara Gullickson: So there. The ingredients to get a cannabis license in the industry are the exact same as they were 15 years ago, which is wild. So I use like the dumb [00:30:00] analogy of baking a cake. Either baking red velvet, you're making like sprinkles, or you're making chocolate, right? So in my experience, whether the state is a lottery process or a merit-based process, meaning graded and scored, you need a team.
Local residents go very far in any and all environments. You need capital, you need industry knowhow. And you need real estate. And so it's my job to put those projects together. So for example, in Nebraska, it's a dry state. There's not operators there. So what I can do is I can bring in industry experience, I can bring in operations, and I can also bring in capital.
But there's nobody better that knows the lay of the land in Omaha. How. You know how it functions, what they like, what they don't like. And so for me, I like to put projects together with all of those things in mind. And that's how I've always won bids is 'cause I didn't look at it as just an investment deal.
I didn't look at it as just a cannabis deal, and I didn't look at [00:31:00] it as just a local opportunity for a business. So in my experience, and I've won a lot of these things, that is the key to success.
Tommy Truong: Oh, that makes so much sense, especially on a merit base, a merit basis. They're looking for those four ingredients. Probably real estate is the hardest one to get. Namely, because that's it's like chicken or the egg, what comes first, and so
Sara Gullickson: it is so dumb. We have to like sign contingent leases and purchase agreements. We just did a project and actually won a bid like two weeks ago in the Virgin Islands, and so that was like a really interesting project because. Every single state, every single municipalities has idiosyncrasies. And if you're not aligned with the right people, you won't know those idiosyncrasies.
And then you're sitting in a place where you're like, Hey, why does this function like this? And you're killing time, right? Debating why it functions like this. So for me. They had a residency requirement. And so early on we decided who we wanted to align with [00:32:00] in, in the local, like from the local perspective.
And there's no way we would've been able to get as far as we got without that person to understand like. This is how St. Thomas functions, here's the things that you're going to need to do. For example, we own land and it was like late in the project that we realized that it was in an area that, yeah, it was zoned properly.
So from a Google Map standpoint, it was, you know, 10 outta 10. But from a local community perspective, they were never gonna apply special or never allow special use there. So I'm a big fan of, I used to go to every market we participated in. Just to like understand the lay of the land. I can remember in like Pittsburgh, I'm on one of those like cheesy boats, like looking at all the like sporting arenas around me because I felt like I needed to understand.
And we still do that. We just do it in a different way where we leverage our local partners and our people that are experts in their area or [00:33:00] municipality or state or territory in this case. To tell us like, no, that's not gonna fly. Like, and they become the experts of the project. 'cause I can tell them how it worked in Pittsburgh or Hawaii or whatever market I deem similar.
But if they're like, no, no, no. This is the undertone of the community here. I wanna respect that and I wanna build a project that will enhance that. I do not wanna fight that.
Tommy Truong: Yeah, that's I hear stories all the time where you have to make sure that you are aligned with the police, local, all of those things detail line up and there, there's so much work behind the scenes in making it work
Sara Gullickson: I have like a canned real estate, and so people that are in real estate will fight me on this every time, and it's not who has the highest traffic counts? It's not the best intersection. It is where the municipality will have you. That is the best place for your cannabis organization. Hands down because you're not gonna have to spend [00:34:00] hundreds of thousands of dollars fighting and all of that.
Sometimes when we go into a community, we're like, where do you want us? Do you have any old properties? You want us to like rehabilitate? Tell me where to go.
Tommy Truong: Wow, that's so fascinating. It's so true. That makes so much sense.
Sara Gullickson: Yep. I don't wanna fight with them. I wanna like align myself with them to push the project forward.
Tommy Truong: so it's not necessarily find a real estate area first and then fight to death that you can get licensed there, but it's really, the process starts really first with the conversation, understanding the law of the land, and then navigating,
Sara Gullickson: In a new market. Yeah. I mean if you're talking about an old market like Arizona where people are just like literally fighting to get their facility on the best corner 'cause we're wreck and we're 13 years old and all the things, that's a different approach, but I'm talking about. In a new market, massaging the, the, the territories, getting them used to this to realize it's not scary and that your [00:35:00] communities will actually be safer with it because you'll have more resources.
Yes, absolutely. It's massaging and having those conversations. I can't tell you how many boards I've stood up in front of, not as a member of the community but as somebody that said, okay, I understand this is scary. I understand that you have trepidation about this. How do I work with you to ensure that there are no questions that you have, that we can answer them and we can answer them with facts, data, and, and, and experience.
Tommy Truong: Yeah. How looking at 2026 and even 2027. What's your prediction on which markets are gonna open that? Haven't so far?
Sara Gullickson: So Nebraska's legalizing, the Carolinas are legalizing, Virginia is legalizing. Wisconsin is legalizing Idaho is considering, so those are all six markets that are what I would consider low THC or dry states, [00:36:00] meaning they'll go medical first before they go Recreational. Those processes are a huge heavy lift.
There's so much deeper than. Missouri's a market that's we're expecting to go next year, but Missouri already has like a fully functioning cannabis industry. They're just giving away more units. Same thing with Ohio. Fully functioning can cannabis industry, they're just backfilling for supply and demand.
The conversations that you have in the last two markets that I just. Discussed versus the six that I discussed earlier than that. It is much different conversation, much different you know, it's following their lead. It's education. It's, it's a lot of time and energy that has to go into explaining a new concept and, and making sure everybody's comfortable.
Tommy Truong: So in projects like that, what do you, on top of the four things that you've spoken about that you have to have? Is [00:37:00] it finding the local expert and making sure that this person knows what they're doing?
Sara Gullickson: Mm-hmm. Yeah. So for example, I will take a, a group that has local ties to a community, 10 times outta 10 over a group that's like, I'm looking at this as a get rich quick scheme, or this is like a quick money maker. I build deep projects, I build projects with meaning, and I want to make sure that if there are movers and shakers in X, y, z jurisdiction, that that's who I'm aligning myself with.
That's why I've always kept boutique. Like I didn't ever want a big firm. I wanted to work on projects that I wanted to work on. I wanted to be able to say no to the projects I didn't wanna work on. And for me, now we work in pretty much every market that we want to. But like when Florida legalized, I sat Florida out 'cause I didn't feel like the right group came to me with the right amount of capital.
With all of the i's dotted and t's crossed. And for me, it's not exciting to take a bid. I'm gonna lose I'm in it for the long [00:38:00] haul. I want an equity split and I wanna build a project that I feel good about versus like a quick and dirty approach.
Tommy Truong: What do you think about Florida? Do you think it's ever gonna pass?
Sara Gullickson: yeah, of course everything's gonna pass, like, you know what I mean? It's just a matter of how long it will pass. Plus the people that are operating in, in Florida right now have really deep pockets, and so that's gonna take lobbying, it's gonna take a lot of massaging, and it's gonna take a ton more millions.
Spent to get the state in the shape they want it to be in. Whether that happens this year or next year or the year after, I don't think we would be having this conversation in three years. I think it'll be done by then. Um, but every state, and I know the legislators don't wanna hear this, like we just did a bit in Texas and it was like, well, they don't want it to go recreational.
And I was like, I get it, but it's going to, so whether that happens in one year, five years or 10 years. Like we're seeing history create that narrative, [00:39:00] right? Where Arizona at one time was medical, and guess what? Now it's recreational and I can name a lot of other states that have followed the same TRA trajectory.
Tommy Truong: So what do you do in Texas? Because there's nothing on. The horizon that's gonna make it legal. How? What does that project look like?
Sara Gullickson: Oh, we already did the bid. So we, um, in the last two years we worked in Texas twice. The bid that we did over two years ago just sat, like, the government just kept it, and then they, we had to force change to basically be like, Hey, you have these bids sitting and you have. People you're supposed to like give licenses to.
And so I think it was like eight months ago that that all took shape and form. And not only did they push forward the old applications that were just kind of like sitting there, and they just announced 'em, I think it was like a month ago. Now there's a ton of scrutiny around, you know, these people shouldn't have 'em and sore losers and all the things that always happen in every market.
And then we submitted a new [00:40:00] bid. And we should know if we won or lost that bid in like March, so they are bringing more units on. It's just been a really, really slow, slow, slow, slow, tedious process.
Tommy Truong: I see. I was gonna ask you, what's the worst state to, in your opinion, working in across the nation? Hardest state to get licensed, but I guess you've.
Sara Gullickson: For me personally, Arizona, 'cause I've tried like a hundred times and I specialize in merit bids and Arizona's a lottery and so I'm not bitter 'cause like, you know, redirection is like protection and so I'm glad I'm not like operating a vertical here. But for me personally, it has been Arizona
Tommy Truong: that sucks because you live there.
Sara Gullickson: I know. But now I'm like, eh, I'm over it. I think there's so many better markets than Arizona. Arizona's like experiencing a race to the bottom right now. There's so many. Just, it's just, it's a lot Right now. The, the multi-state operators have taken over and it makes it virtually [00:41:00] impossible for a small operator to keep shelf space in the big dispensaries.
And it's just, it's great for the multi-state operators, and I'm not mad at them, but for a single unit operator, it's not a great state to be in.
Tommy Truong: I have to ask this. What state are you most optimistic about?
Sara Gullickson: You know, I'm super excited about USVI. I think it's just 'cause we just won and now I'm actually like building the project out in a real life way versus like for the application. And so this year I'm excited about that.
Tommy Truong: What's USVI?
Sara Gullickson: Uh, Virgin Islands. So we just won a bid there. Yeah. So it's, and we're, the, the partner that we went with is like a fantastic operator.
They have access to a ton of capital and so, and our local partner's amazing. And so I think that's gonna be really fun to get my hands dirty on that side of things again. and then listen, I'm, I'm more excited about like the AI optimization than I am about, like each individual state because I know that [00:42:00] what, what we can do with the IP that I've built over the last long time and how we can make that ip, uh, or intellectual property work for us in different markets in a more efficient way.
Tommy Truong: That is so exciting. I bet you that probably will save you so pro 10%, no,
Sara Gullickson: Oh no, I'm go, I'm, I need like 20. I need 2030.
Tommy Truong: What I mean is like it, what was a hundred percent will take you 10% now.
Sara Gullickson: oh yeah. Yeah. I mean, I'm not that optimistic, but you know, way more than I do about it. So we should definitely chat offline about some of the ideas I have. I just need somebody to like, take these ideas and like build them for me.
Tommy Truong: I think you're onto something. The rocks can read.
Sara Gullickson: I love
Tommy Truong: Sara, I don't wanna keep you long. I know that, you know, we're almost at the time, I have a segment called Rolling Loud if you wanna participate.
Ready? Are you a nighttime person or a daytime person?
Sara Gullickson: I am a nighttime person.
Tommy Truong: [00:43:00] Your flower edible or vape?
Sara Gullickson: Edible.
Tommy Truong: Edible.
Sara Gullickson: Well, I actually love the segment that nobody likes, which is like a teen tiny two milligram beverage
Tommy Truong: Oh, really?
Sara Gullickson: and replacement for a glass of wine. I think it's a much, much, much better thing to do for your health, for your next day, for your clarity and all the things
Tommy Truong: Yeah, it's so much better. So that's actually, I should actually ask that. Flower, edible, vape or beverage?
Sara Gullickson: beverage.
Tommy Truong: Beverage favorite stain stream.
Sara Gullickson: I am a sativa girly, so I don't have a favorite strain, but I like something that's going to be a little bit more uplifting and I don't wanna relax. I wanna like, you know, clean and vibe.
Tommy Truong: That's like me. I only smoke cannabis to think, to work out or to clean those three things.
Sara Gullickson: Yeah. And that's like the craziest myth. So especially, I'm like in my forties. I [00:44:00] have two kids and that is the segment of people that need the most education. And it's funny 'cause people will text me and they'll be like, I'm drinking two bottles of wine a night. Like, what should I do? And I'm like, stop.
Go to the dispensary. Here's the questions to ask. And they'll tell you what to do.
Tommy Truong: You'd be a lot more productive as an individual.
Sara Gullickson: Uhhuh.
Tommy Truong: What was your first experience with cannabis?
Sara Gullickson: I was in litigation and I had a, a medical ailment too, like I had hurt my back and I was like the self-proclaimed cannabis expert that didn't consume cannabis. And back then, like in my line of work, that's what people wanted to hear.
That's what the suits wanted to hear. And, you know, being, drinking a glass of wine to relax. This is before kids and everything like that, obviously. It was like my go-to for like, you know, de-stressing myself and somebody's like, you're in the industry, why don't you try it? And I did. I tried like a little vape pen so I could just take a small amount and be in control of dosage and all the things.
And it was incredible. Not only for like [00:45:00] pain management, but also just to create a healthier relationship with. What helps you relax at the end of the day or get into the zone at the end of the day? I guess instead of, you know, I, when I started cannabis over wine, like I lost I think probably 10 pounds.
Like wine. The wine culture, it's so bad. And I'm not saying you shouldn't enjoy a glass of wine, but in the way that a lot of Americans consume wine, it's just so bad for you. Then you're eating bad food, you're not sleeping great. I have this like aura ring. And if you don't have one, please buy one because it will help you so much with efficiencies to track what works for your body and what doesn't work for your body.
And for me, I know that if I have anything over two small glasses of wine, I will sleep like SHIT. It's terrible.
Tommy Truong: Oh wow, that's
Sara Gullickson: Yep. Yeah. So I think it's a healthier way to take the edge off
Tommy Truong: it's so much more healthy. It's, and also what I've heard is if you're gonna drink [00:46:00] wine, drink organic wine, which you can never find because of the pesticides are just crazy.
Sara Gullickson: if you're in Italy, like have at it, get nutty, get crazy. You can eat all the food, you can drink all the wine, and you're gonna feel like a million bucks the next day. But we don't have that luxury in America. We just don't.
Tommy Truong: what's your worst experience?
Sara Gullickson: I think like before I even was in cannabis there were like brownies at a party and I like hated my life. And I think everybody has that exact same story and it's very unfortunate 'cause the woman that made 'em was like a chef and I think she had the best of intentions, but I went down the rabbit hole of being like, I'm gonna be like this forever.
This is not where I wanna exist. Send help. How do I go to bed? And then you can't. And you know, I think that you probably have the exact same story 'cause I think everybody does.
Tommy Truong: Yeah, it's so true. What's your best memory with cannabis?
Sara Gullickson: God, I have so many. I mean, cannabis [00:47:00] has been such a huge part of my life. You know, I'm not looking at it from like the consumer. I'm looking at it from the journey that I've had in the industry, crying mothers getting access for their kids, really shaping the way that they're, you know, dosing and how they're like really helping.
And I'm living there again. Um, now that we're legalizing some of the dry states. And so that's probably like my most special memory 'cause I really did get in this to like help the people. And we've been able to like change a lot of lives because of that.
Tommy Truong: Oh, that's amazing. That's amazing. Sara, before I let you go, how can our listeners find you?
Sara Gullickson: saragullickson.com. The cannabisbusinessadvisors.com. Google me. Find me. I'd love to chat if you have questions. I'm on all the socials and all the things.
Tommy Truong: Thank you so much for joining me today.
Sara Gullickson: Yep. Thank you so much for having me.
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