Lack of Vertical Integration Will Kill the Basement Grower

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ttystikk

ttystikk

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I to made a similar point a page or two back- whatever words speak to you, get to making sure you have something else besides growing to earn an income. You get something that feels pretty good for all your trouble: a future.
 
Blaze

Blaze

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organicozarks said:
The real money is not in growing weed. Never has been. Growing weed is get rich quick, easy money that was never meant to last. Everyone should have been using their short term money to start making long money. If you got into this thinking it would be a life time thing then you had your head in the sand.

Perfect example. A guy in the Detroit area buys a cheap house. Grows in it until the house is paid for. Then remodels the house, and rents it out. He uses the equity from the first house to get another house. Then repeats this cycle 20 or more times. After the first couple he can pay people to do the remodels. Now he just maintains his properties, and grows for himself. He has now made long money that he can pass down to his grand kids if he wishes. Selling a couple pounds a month that you grew in your basement will not be something that you can do long enough that your grand kids could benefit from. The prices will only go lower, where as thing like real estate will go higher.

This is just but one example. there are many, many people doing long money things with their short money. The problem is that most people think short so when they get that short money they buy a new t.v., modify their car, buy video games, go clothes shopping, you get the idea. If you have some self control you can turn this short money into something long.

Or you can sit on forums, and bitch about how you won't be able to make any money selling a couple of pounds from your basement because of the new laws.:)
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Wise words. If you are growing cannabis for profit you damn well have a back up plan. I am always amazed how many growers manage to blow their profits on stupid shit they don't really need and end up having no real assets despite making plenty of money. A smart commercial grower will use their profits to expand into other industries and make other investments.

It will be many, many years before we see federal legalization I think, so there is time before the bottom falls out of the market completely. It will be a slow attrition rather than a rapid change in my opinion but I could be wrong. Certain areas like CO that have been legalized first will be the ones to see their local markets affected the most. Despite CO prices going down the drain, most of the rest of the country has not been all that effected by it, and probably won't be for a long time. The new laws will bring new opportunities for those willing to seize them however. There will always be money to be made growing weed, it will just get a lot harder for most people to make a profit doing so. Profits will become slimmer and slimmer and more and more people will be forced out of the market as time goes on.

I've seen this sort of scenario play out for a long time here in Northern California. You guys in CO are finally experiencing what growers here have been seeing for the last decade. I can remember seeing shitty outdoor go for over $4,200 per lb when I was in high school. Now during harvest season there are people that get so desperate for cash you can pick up fire for $1000-$12000 per lb. I've seen crappy stuff go for as little as $600-$800 per lb the last few years here. Yet every year more people are growing, most established growers are growing more, and every year almost everyone sells out. The supply still has not met the demand and I don't think it will for a while.

There will be a niche for a small growers, but it will be an increasingly tiny one as time goes on. Also what most people consider a 'large grow' now will likely become a 'small' grow in the future. Take craft beers for example - even a 'small' craft brewery takes several millions of dollars to start up. It is not something you can just do in your basement - even at the smallest scale it is still a multi-million dollar industry. Also I've said it before and I will say it again: there is no future in growing indoor for profit. This will be especially true once a state that has proper climate for greenhouse or outdoor goes legal, like California. Indoor production is the least efficient method of growing and does not produce a superior quality product. A skilled grower with a greenhouse can produce quality on par with any indoor grow for a fraction of the cost. If you are serious about trying to stick it out as a 'basement grower' you better start thinking about hanging up those lights and get yourself a greenhouse....
 
caveman4.20

caveman4.20

5,969
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sanvanalona said:
Yeah for sure they do. Shit between the bugs and diseases that dispensaries give away with their clones its no surprise people are mostly growing a subpar product. The cali dispensaries have no intent on being medical at all, really they serve as a model of recreational pot clubs than anything else, no standards (except in the size of buds they are taking from you.......granted most places are no longer buying herb with pm but it is still out there. From what I have seen most clubs in cali are illlegitamate fronts for back door sales, fucking both the grower and consumer. Sure you can find some fire og or cookies at most any club, which is nice, but expect to pay over 55 and eigth for it. You guys are paying substantially lower rates in CO right?
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Yes but the dispensary's that know there a bit better tax like the stuff I found yesterday was 40 an1/8 and 300 a zip
 
squiggly

squiggly

3,277
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I just want to go on record as saying that big business probably won't strangle out all connoisseur level growers. It was never my intention to say they it would.

What I'm saying is that the industry post legalization probably won't support as many of these types of growers as it does now. To be truthful it probably won't even get close--but I don't want to speculate too much on that.

I'm just saying that the economic space for these types of growers is going to shrink significantly, so SOME people who rely on this for work are going to be disappointed. That doesn't mean that everyone should just give up, but some folks should probably look to keep their options open.

I'm not saying Phillip-Morris is going to come in and make Marlboro MJ cigs and that everyone will just be happy with that. We all know that isn't the truth. I mean I WAS the dude who would pay top dollar for better bud (think $75/8th) until I started growing my own. I stopped selling bud back in the day because the shit that was around my area for about 8 months in a row was straight work and not only could I not get rid of it--I didn't even want to smoke it myself. So I know that quality carries weight, I'm just saying that there will likely be corporate quality of some type out there as well.

It doesn't mean they're going to dominate that space, but I think people should prepare for that.
 
GreenintheThumb

GreenintheThumb

92
33
Live Well already has a 1,000 light grow in Denver. They used to be called Broadway Wellness. There's a few others around that size and plenty in the 400+ lights department. I wouldn't worry too much about the 80,000 sq ft warehouses.

It's the hundreds of acres down south that are going to Glasshouse production that will really fuck with the market. About $100 to grow a pound, $80 to trim a pound.
 
sky high

sky high

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With employers now being able to fire you for off-the-job usage...the entire comparison to alcohol is a serious and badly played joke on everyone.

But Cap nailed it. Folks better keep their basement grows going 'cus this retail model will fly about the same time pigs do.

I miss the serious cash from the old days before it all went "legal", and I'm glad my future existence is in no way tied to this new model.

fun, fun, fun
 
H

haole

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28
Bud Spleefman said:
$500 a lb...... shoot me now......... that's the number the big boys are talking about! This isn't going to help ANY OF US WHO DO THIS FOR LIVING.

You think you see the light at the end of the tunnel, oh wait, FUCK, THAT IS A TRAIN!
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I'm of the impression that there is no set of regulations that could satisfy you.

Anyone that still loves 09-11, it wasn't that great, I was there.
 
fishwhistle

fishwhistle

4,686
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haole said:
I'm of the impression that there is no set of regulations that could satisfy you.

Anyone that still loves 09-11, it wasn't that great, I was there.
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Bud hasnt been seen in this thread since it got jacked 7 pages ago and WTF does 9-11 have to with it?
 
Green Mopho

Green Mopho

1,056
83
The ideal economic models are great, people were pulling those out in the 70s when Carter was presdent. What happened? Reagan. There are tons of variables and annomilies. Culture is a big one, so is politics.

Someone mentioned that people will only buy what they can afford. This is very true. Plenty of blue collar folks will only want something that will make them feel high, regardless of color, taste, or name. This is your Coors and Bud crowd. American is essentially a corporatized fascist-leaning republic, not a democracy. Lots of economic kinks can and will be added to the system. Taxation being only a small one. Lots of anti-competative practices to keep the big guys in charge. Ever seen Beer Wars?

However, unlike beer drinkers, many cannabis consumers distrust goverment and large business. Goes with the culture. Alcohol prohibition lasted only a short turbulent period. Cannabis prohibition lasted 70+ years and lots of people have lost family and friends to the "War on Drugs". Even here in CO, I've casually met at least a dozen patients that are begging me to sell them small amounts after finding out what I do because the dispensaries don't cater to their needs, only their own profits. Big corps don't care about true quality, they care about profits and their customers' perception of quality. They WANT to make it unfeasible for the basement grower to make a dime growing quality so they don't have to. If they can control the whole market and the perception of quality, they will have it! But for the time being, too many of us grew up smoking quality that they will struggle to reproduce profitably.
 
K

kolah

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Visited Maggies Farm, "home of the 99 dollar zips...Tons people in line to buy it.

We bought some just to sample. Horrible. But people love it and it's their biggest seller.
 
outwest

outwest

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Green Mopho said:
The ideal economic models are great, people were pulling those out in the 70s when Carter was presdent. What happened? Reagan. There are tons of variables and annomilies. Culture is a big one, so is politics.

Someone mentioned that people will only buy what they can afford. This is very true. Plenty of blue collar folks will only want something that will make them feel high, regardless of color, taste, or name. This is your Coors and Bud crowd. American is essentially a corporatized fascist-leaning republic, not a democracy. Lots of economic kinks can and will be added to the system. Taxation being only a small one. Lots of anti-competative practices to keep the big guys in charge. Ever seen Beer Wars?

However, unlike beer drinkers, many cannabis consumers distrust goverment and large business. Goes with the culture. Alcohol prohibition lasted only a short turbulent period. Cannabis prohibition lasted 70+ years and lots of people have lost family and friends to the "War on Drugs". Even here in CO, I've casually met at least a dozen patients that are begging me to sell them small amounts after finding out what I do because the dispensaries don't cater to their needs, only their own profits. Big corps don't care about true quality, they care about profits and their customers' perception of quality. They WANT to make it unfeasible for the basement grower to make a dime growing quality so they don't have to. If they can control the whole market and the perception of quality, they will have it! But for the time being, too many of us grew up smoking quality that they will struggle to reproduce profitably.
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A costly connoisseur product will never appeal to the masses, but there will always be a demand for it for those who can appreciate and afford it.

outwest
 
Green Mopho

Green Mopho

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outwest said:
A costly connoisseur product will never appeal to the masses, but there will always be a demand for it for those who can appreciate and afford it.

outwest
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This brings on my next point. A given society's economic stability. Some of us here believe that we are at the end of worldwide American economic dominance. The dollar will crash, and gold and silver are excellent gauges to these events. Who cares about the price of cannabis when we can't afford clean food? Commercial agriculture has let us all down the world over, including commercial organic produce. You want clean, tasty, and mineral-rich food, you pretty much have to grow it yourself or participate in a local community based economy. With this emergence of an underground food supply, I see cannabis going the same way as big industry takes hold of the commercial aspects of it. That is to say, if the entire global economic system doesn't come apart at the seams or we run out of gold (both black or yellow).
 
souf69

souf69

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We can grow our own veggies, grow veggies and erb and barter your way baqq to the good life.....
 
souf69

souf69

747
143
I worried about this shit ten years ago when I started. Yea a price shift happened, but the demand is still there.... Im just gonna grow more. I need a hundred basements for the fire, and about 10 greenhouses for the maggies farm goods.... actually I plan on doing at least 5 times better than maggies.
 
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