fishwhistle
- 4,686
- 263
May be wrong on this M but i beleive interstate transport is a big NO NO with the feds still.
Medusa
Trichome Engineer
Supporter
- 4,713
- 263
That's what I was thinking But no residency required so anyone can come in and set up shop. One of my clients kids is a cop he sits on the 205 border waiting to pop Oregon residence coming back from Washington all day. So they are watching
inthegorge
- 329
- 143
Nothing will be able to cross state lines unless they change the law in WA state as it strictly forbids it.
Just thought I would update a little.....W.O.W. Weed has been named in a suit by a crazy ass lady lawyer who also has the closest retail shop near us. They are alleging that I along with 4 other growers as well as 1-12 John Does (whatever that means) have been "unlawful conspiracy in restraint of the legal marijuana trade" and made a complaint to the state Attorney General's office who has at least contacted the other "defendants" listed in the suit. I can quite equivocally say nothing could be further from the truth. This crazy woman is saying that the reason the price of "legal recreational" weed here is so expensive is because these other growers and I have conspired to set prices high. I have never even spoken to any of these other people except one who we helped with clones after they got their license. They have not even produced one bud yet so how they could conspire to set any pricing is beyond me. This retail shop has one kind of weed in their shop and they only sold $3800 of product in September and only $800 in October and they apparently think that growers in some way owe them a living because the price of weed is higher than they want to or expected to have to pay. This lady has sued the LCB already at least 7 times. She sued the college she graduated from for "exaggerating" her employment chances upon graduation. That is just a couple of cases.....she seems to sue many of the people she comes in contact with. I hope nothing comes of it since it is so totally baseless and frivolous but I am not stupid enough to think there is much justice in our justice system so it is sort of scary but again....we have done nothing even close to wrong. I think we are selling our product at a mid range price compared to other growers out there and at pretty low prices to a few retailers that we are trying to keep in constant supply, smaller shops that cannot afford weed for over $9 a gram and even offered this crazy woman's husband to sell it for $7 a gram on payments to have it available locally at under $20 a gram. He said he had to have it for $5 a gram or under to charge less than $20 a gram and I said you have a poor business model if that is the case and that was the end of the conversation.
Anyhow....thought in my efforts to always be as transparent as possible to post this here in case it gets any press. I have not yet been served papers but a local reporter forwarded me the legal complaint that was filed in our local county court. We called a couple of good lawyers, both of which are up to speed with cannabis issues and do not believe her case will even go to court. A number of retailers have called me and said that this woman was asking them questions about us and that she actually slandered and defamed me while she was questioning them about any transactions with me and that I have a good court case against her but of course the last thing I am interested in is suing anyone at all. Hopefully the Attorney General's office will see that there is nothing going on, that I don't even know any of these people and that this lady is just upset about how the free market works with this crazy process but only time will reveal the outcome. I have my fingers crossed:-)
Just pulled in all our final plants outside, probably had about 25 still in the ground or in pots outside. Not one smidgen of mold or mildew even though it poured rain here a couple of days ago. Got a few pretty big Tangerine Dreams and some pretty good sized Landrace Afghani's hanging as well a few other later strains. The Maui Wowies are just still trying to make much of anything and the ones in pots are coming inside to go under lights for another week or so of flowering. The one in the garden will probably go to kief.....smells lovely but tiny nothing buds on the danged thing. Oh well....I tried......going to cull that strain from our inventory because she just takes too long to grow and has no yield to speak of. I do still hope I at least get a bud or two worth smoking from the 13 I have in pots and I will let you know how that goes.
We are trimming, trimming, trimming. I think we may be about 1/8th through our crop so far...? That is such good news for us:-) Everything is being really well received in the shops even though of course it costs so danged much. We have only had 16 strains tested so far. The lowest THC was Chocolope at 13.87% except for the high CBD strain Purple Krush which was 8.78% CBD and 6.56% THC and our highest THC is a tie between Skunk, Berkeley Blues and Girl Scout Cookie so far at 25%THC so we are doing pretty good. Have 5 more out for testing right now including a couple more CBD strains and still have at least 30 more strains to test! We have so many lovely buds here right now it is just mind boggling. So far my favorites have been Eve, Jack Frost, CBD Critical Mass and our Lemon OG. Still waiting for a better cure on our Las Vegas Purple Kush but the Pitbull and the Motivation taste pretty amazing already. So many different strains for someone like me that loves weed so much is like being a kid in a candy store....every day and I have the keys:-)
Just thought I would update a little.....W.O.W. Weed has been named in a suit by a crazy ass lady lawyer who also has the closest retail shop near us. They are alleging that I along with 4 other growers as well as 1-12 John Does (whatever that means) have been "unlawful conspiracy in restraint of the legal marijuana trade" and made a complaint to the state Attorney General's office who has at least contacted the other "defendants" listed in the suit. I can quite equivocally say nothing could be further from the truth. This crazy woman is saying that the reason the price of "legal recreational" weed here is so expensive is because these other growers and I have conspired to set prices high. I have never even spoken to any of these other people except one who we helped with clones after they got their license. They have not even produced one bud yet so how they could conspire to set any pricing is beyond me. This retail shop has one kind of weed in their shop and they only sold $3800 of product in September and only $800 in October and they apparently think that growers in some way owe them a living because the price of weed is higher than they want to or expected to have to pay. This lady has sued the LCB already at least 7 times. She sued the college she graduated from for "exaggerating" her employment chances upon graduation. That is just a couple of cases.....she seems to sue many of the people she comes in contact with. I hope nothing comes of it since it is so totally baseless and frivolous but I am not stupid enough to think there is much justice in our justice system so it is sort of scary but again....we have done nothing even close to wrong. I think we are selling our product at a mid range price compared to other growers out there and at pretty low prices to a few retailers that we are trying to keep in constant supply, smaller shops that cannot afford weed for over $9 a gram and even offered this crazy woman's husband to sell it for $7 a gram on payments to have it available locally at under $20 a gram. He said he had to have it for $5 a gram or under to charge less than $20 a gram and I said you have a poor business model if that is the case and that was the end of the conversation.
Anyhow....thought in my efforts to always be as transparent as possible to post this here in case it gets any press. I have not yet been served papers but a local reporter forwarded me the legal complaint that was filed in our local county court. We called a couple of good lawyers, both of which are up to speed with cannabis issues and do not believe her case will even go to court. A number of retailers have called me and said that this woman was asking them questions about us and that she actually slandered and defamed me while she was questioning them about any transactions with me and that I have a good court case against her but of course the last thing I am interested in is suing anyone at all. Hopefully the Attorney General's office will see that there is nothing going on, that I don't even know any of these people and that this lady is just upset about how the free market works with this crazy process but only time will reveal the outcome. I have my fingers crossed:-)
Just pulled in all our final plants outside, probably had about 25 still in the ground or in pots outside. Not one smidgen of mold or mildew even though it poured rain here a couple of days ago. Got a few pretty big Tangerine Dreams and some pretty good sized Landrace Afghani's hanging as well a few other later strains. The Maui Wowies are just still trying to make much of anything and the ones in pots are coming inside to go under lights for another week or so of flowering. The one in the garden will probably go to kief.....smells lovely but tiny nothing buds on the danged thing. Oh well....I tried......going to cull that strain from our inventory because she just takes too long to grow and has no yield to speak of. I do still hope I at least get a bud or two worth smoking from the 13 I have in pots and I will let you know how that goes.
We are trimming, trimming, trimming. I think we may be about 1/8th through our crop so far...? That is such good news for us:-) Everything is being really well received in the shops even though of course it costs so danged much. We have only had 16 strains tested so far. The lowest THC was Chocolope at 13.87% except for the high CBD strain Purple Krush which was 8.78% CBD and 6.56% THC and our highest THC is a tie between Skunk, Berkeley Blues and Girl Scout Cookie so far at 25%THC so we are doing pretty good. Have 5 more out for testing right now including a couple more CBD strains and still have at least 30 more strains to test! We have so many lovely buds here right now it is just mind boggling. So far my favorites have been Eve, Jack Frost, CBD Critical Mass and our Lemon OG. Still waiting for a better cure on our Las Vegas Purple Kush but the Pitbull and the Motivation taste pretty amazing already. So many different strains for someone like me that loves weed so much is like being a kid in a candy store....every day and I have the keys:-)
Coir
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- 143
As you know, I have been following the thread on the board about this and have stated my thoughts there. They are out of their minds in my opinion if they think they can sue because no one will sell to them at the price they want. I hate court and nothing good ever seems to come from it but I really hope this gets thrown out long before anyone even has to think about a trial. If there is anything I can do to help, just let me know. While my business is slightly different, a lot of what I do applies to what you are doing and I am more than happy to share anything I have learned over the years.
Glad to hear you are swimming in buds too!
Glad to hear you are swimming in buds too!
inthegorge
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- 143
Thanks Coir! I don't know if you read the stupid legal brief I attached to the message on the I502 board. If you did I hope you saw how ridiculous her charges are. Nearly every one of her "facts" in regard to us is wrong or just entirely false. She and her husband have been engaging in a text and email campaign to one of the principles in Buddy Boy Farms and he had to be hospitalized for a couple of weeks because he is just a super sensitive guy and they pretty much rocked his world with all of their threats and accusations. Their actions should be criminal in themselves....all because they underestimated what the price of recreational weed would be and they cannot afford to get into the industry so they are loosing the money that they did invest....???? And then the growers are to blame???? Seriously? I can only hope their lawsuit is seen for what it really is.....absolute BS.....entirely spin.....and of no merit in any way shape or form. I hate lawyers:-(
Coir
- 584
- 143
Yep.... I read every page. Based my comments on a lot of the content. I find it quite funny that they think they are owed compensation because they can't afford to play the game like everyone else. Should have thought of that before they opened their business. You(or any other processor) do not owe them anything and are certainly not required by any law to sell to them for less than the rate other retailers are paying. That in itself should be enough to have the whole thing thrown out of court. I also found it interesting that she listed the fact that some other retailers pre paid for someone's crop so they could get a better price and she didn't have the money to do that so she feels left out. Seems like that was more "price fixing" that she wanted to be a part of than what she is claiming you and the others did by not selling to her at reduced prices. I have not met her or her husband but something tells me we would not get along at all!
Medusa
Trichome Engineer
Supporter
- 4,713
- 263
Wow is right ! Jealousy can be the root of all evil .... Doesn't cost them anything to always take to court... sure it will work out for u @inthegorge u have survived thru more .... great always hearing about your biz....M
Seamaiden
Living dead girl
- 23,596
- 638
Someone needs to get this woman legally declared a vexatious litigant. It's a real legal term and here in California she'd have problems continually bringing suits once so declared.
dirk d
- 1,538
- 263
People are starting to realize that growing and the "green rush" is a lot of hard work. Much easier to sue than accept blame for a terrible business model.
caregiverken
Fear Not!
Supporter
- 11,535
- 438
I just saw this and thought of you @inthegorge
I sincerely hope you're doing well!
is this story accurate?
I sincerely hope you're doing well!
is this story accurate?
inthegorge
- 329
- 143
Hello Ken.....not to worry about us....we are doing really well actually:-) Many other growers however are floundering and in a very big way and it is heartbreaking to witness. Anyone new growers that are new getting into the market place here is struggling and I know personally of over 10 growers that have already closed down because they can't sell their weed for anything:-((( W.O.W. Weed seems to have a bit of a following and I think all the work I did to try to help other people has been paying off in spades for us because we are doing really well in the scheme of things. Our sales for last year were just under $300,000 ....not a million bucks or anything but we are just about totally in the black which is pretty good for a start up company in less than a year in operation I am told. So far this month we are going gang busters! We started offering other growers products as well as ours to try to help some of the other growers that are having trouble marketing their great buds to anyone at all so hopefully we can drum up some of our business for other growers as well. It seems that who you know is pretty key in our market place and all my work in helping others get through the process has paid off for us ten fold so we are very very fortunate:-) Just harvested our second indoor crop that looks really nice but of course the lab will tell us how good it all is in regards to potency. We are still doing the predatory mite thing and I cannot say how wonderful it is not to ever spray a pesticide at all......it is working perfectly! Still working every day....even though I thought I would be able to be taking days off.....but marketing and keeping relevant in this changing market place takes every waking hour for us. Next fall in November though we will definitely need a good strategy for moving forward because when all the outdoor crops come in then it is anyone's guess how anyone will survive when legal weed is being sold for less than a buck a gram on the legal market place. We are looking to Oregon and hope to secure a good location that will serve us to do this there when the market opens up for legal weed there. For now though....we are still doing great and working hard:-) Thanks for thinking about us!
Susy
Susy
caregiverken
Fear Not!
Supporter
- 11,535
- 438
Thanks for the update!
Great to hear your doing well!
Great to hear your doing well!
FlyinJStable
- 2,518
- 263
I second That
and send best wishes to you and yours All great happy and joyousness, in this new year of Change.
Super Peaceful Vibes Washingtonians,
FlyJ
and send best wishes to you and yours All great happy and joyousness, in this new year of Change.
Super Peaceful Vibes Washingtonians,
FlyJ
altitudefarmer
- 3,271
- 263
Susy, way to freaking go. I hope in some small way my disbelief fueled your inner fire. I admire your determination, respect your work ethic, and wish you all the best in the future. Who the hell doesn't love an American success story?!
Thank you for sharing your journey with us.
Thank you for sharing your journey with us.
E
EvilOtto
- 16
- 3
@inthegorge
I am glad that you are doing well. You were a small handful of growers that weren't a bunch of jerks or insanely greedy aka
"Green Fever". Most all growers were infected with Green Fever instead trying to build relationships. I love their response,
"We are only responding to market demand that is why our wholesale prices are so high." Every single one of them.
They had this insane idea that prices would be high for 2 years or so. Karma. Circle of life.
I am guessing that most of these folks are used to the black market and controlling supply. They truly miscaluated what
the free market will do. If growers actually read the Wa state analysis that the state published, the report was right on the money. I am thinking that after medical marijuana is controlled in the legislative session, things will be much better for growers. However, it will be very lean times for the big growers, especially indoor, without strong connects and relationships with retailers. Karma is bitch to those who gouged hard, a lesson maybe for Colorado when and if they start allowing outdoor on the praire side of Colorado. .
My suggestion for anyone trying to do business on the I-5 corridor, please make sure your stuff can bling, so we can sling. Catchy, huh? Also, stop it with the black out or opaque packaging where you can't see the product. The product should
sell itself, not some shiny packaging.
Oregon is going to be interesting. Taxes will be increased, no doubt, but probably a bit less than Wa State.
Oregon is a relatively poor state vs. Wa. Portland area will be the marketplace, but anything outside, I would be wary.
They might have a four tier system or maybe all collapsed into one. Should be interesting.
Good luck.
I am glad that you are doing well. You were a small handful of growers that weren't a bunch of jerks or insanely greedy aka
"Green Fever". Most all growers were infected with Green Fever instead trying to build relationships. I love their response,
"We are only responding to market demand that is why our wholesale prices are so high." Every single one of them.
They had this insane idea that prices would be high for 2 years or so. Karma. Circle of life.
I am guessing that most of these folks are used to the black market and controlling supply. They truly miscaluated what
the free market will do. If growers actually read the Wa state analysis that the state published, the report was right on the money. I am thinking that after medical marijuana is controlled in the legislative session, things will be much better for growers. However, it will be very lean times for the big growers, especially indoor, without strong connects and relationships with retailers. Karma is bitch to those who gouged hard, a lesson maybe for Colorado when and if they start allowing outdoor on the praire side of Colorado. .
My suggestion for anyone trying to do business on the I-5 corridor, please make sure your stuff can bling, so we can sling. Catchy, huh? Also, stop it with the black out or opaque packaging where you can't see the product. The product should
sell itself, not some shiny packaging.
Oregon is going to be interesting. Taxes will be increased, no doubt, but probably a bit less than Wa State.
Oregon is a relatively poor state vs. Wa. Portland area will be the marketplace, but anything outside, I would be wary.
They might have a four tier system or maybe all collapsed into one. Should be interesting.
Good luck.
inthegorge
- 329
- 143
It has been a while since I posted anything about our progress and I am sitting around in a hotel in Seattle and can't sleep so I thought I would give an update. I came up to deliver product and attend a couple of days of CannaCon which is a bit boring but a good place to network. I spent last evening at a VIP party with Tommy Chong which was OK but then I woke up and could not go back to sleep as usual thinking about everything I should be doing instead of hanging around in Seattle:-/
WA recreational system has been "interesting" and that is for sure. W.O.W. Weed is doing pretty well all in all but that does not mean we do not have challenges almost every day. We keep up good sales mainly because we started with a good strategy and adjust to the situations as they unfold. We are averaging between $35000.00-$60,000.00 per month in sales with a couple of months over $100,000.00. Our product is well received and most of the shops we sell to have lots of great feedback about our bud so that is really wonderful although the disconnect between being a grower that never see's the customers that like your product is demoralizing and it would be a much better system if we could sell our own product.....less than 1/2 as expensive too. We sell our bud for $6 a gram to retailers and if we could sell it ourselves we would be in direct competition with the black market and medical in the state. On the east side of the state we do not have many retail customers because weed is cheaper over there and we will not go lower than the $6 per gram pricing right now. On the west side retailers still say it is a little higher than they can get it from some other growers but they like the quality....many customers ask for W.O.W. Weed now because our bud tastes and smokes really nice and that is of course what it is all about in the end. It is all dry trimmed by hand, slow cured and of course lab tested, hand packaged and labeled. Retailers sell it for a minimum of %200 mark up so $18 a gram which I just cannot understand but still that is how it rolls out. Our most popular strains are the old school ones......Acapulco Gold, Panama Red, ATF, Northern Lights, Pineapple Express, White Widow, and some newer strains with great name recognition like Girl Scout Cookies and of course all our high CBD strains. My marketing strategy has been to work predominantly with smaller shops in small communities because we like smaller sales. Easier to package and deliver and I like selling 20 different strains to one shop in smaller quantities so maybe 10 single grams, 5 two grams, 3 eigths, perhaps some kief and we have had another processor make shatter for us so we can have that in the same strain as the bud too. I had to buy an oil rig just so we could try our own shatter and it really does taste wonderful. Our pre-rolls are really our most popular item though and many of our orders are for nothing but pre-rolls. We sell 1/2 gram cone for $3.50 and a full gram cone for $7 and it is all top bud, never shake. We are making blends now of different strains that taste wonderful and smoke great and they are really well received. My favorite is "Susy's Sweet Blend" and it is Jack Frost, Eve and Skywalker and it really has the sweetness of the Jack Frost, the skunkiness of the Eve and the smoothness of the Skywalker and we sell tons of them. Our Jack Frost is my favorite strain because of the sweetness of the taste but we have White Lavender, Jack Herer, Dream Queen, Afgooey and Eve that are all close favorites as well.
Taxes are going to break the system unless we get some relief on that front from the state but that remains to be seen with legislation going down in Olympia as I type. Their is a possibility that we will see a reduced taxation or perhaps the tax will be made into a "sin sales tax" at the purchase point and then growers will not have to pay 25% of each sale to the state monthly which of course would be a big help. Right now we pay the 25% to the state but the feds count that tax as income....as though we get to keep it in our pocket so we also pay 39% tax to the feds on the 25% that goes directly to the state. Changing the 25% tax we pay to some other sort of "fee" that is not taxable by the feds is another option being bantered about by the WA state legislature but no one really knows how anything there will turn out until it is signed and in effect because any piece of legislation there changes so much in the process you cannot really know how it will end up. The legal marijuana industry is taxed higher than any other industry in the country to my knowledge.
We just finished our second indoor crop and I cannot wait for summer. The difference between well grown weed from outdoor to indoor is just phenomenal and the only reason anyone would think indoor is preferable to outdoor is because they have not had the opportunity to grow outdoors or their climate just is not adequate to do so because the difference is night and day quite honestly. We see a THC level of up to 7% points higher with outdoor over indoor and our indoor is really nice this run but it really cannot compete with a quality outdoor product. Our outdoor Crazy Train was 27.9% THC and our indoor that looked great was 20.3% THC. All of our strains had reduced THC indoors....most not as much as the Crazy Train but across the board lower. When the large outdoor harvests from the east side of the state come in next year I would think that many indoor operations will fold here but that remains to be seen and who knows what weather will do....? It could be a rainy fall or early freeze or who knows what but barring any negative weather the east side of the state will demolish the west side in production and quality of product and that I do know for sure.
We would like to find a "master grower" that knows outdoor as well as indoor cultivation that we could rent for a day or two to help us tune up our growing practices. I have no delusions that I am a master anything except firefighter because I do seem to put out fires daily. We could pay about $1000 for a day or two of someones time if there is anyone out there that actually has such experience and would be interested in helping us out. You may think our sales would allow for more money but we are still not seeing any profit to speak of. I thought I would start getting a real salary but not yet. Basically we make enough to pay taxes each month, pay our 2 five day a week trimmers under the table $15 an hour and our night watchman who is so much more than that $15 an hour under the table as well as about $3000-$4000 to my daughter and her boy friend monthly for living costs. Otherwise everything else goes into packaging, deliveries, and all the infrastructure, utilities, and products necessary for growing. No one here is getting rich doing this. We have paid back all our 100% interest loans except part of the money I borrowed from my mom and we are paying monthly on that. All the rest just finally got paid back so that should give us a bit of profit monthly now but still.....I will believe it when I see it:-/
We are also looking for an investor/partner that will buy out our third partner who we have not even seen for nearly 4 weeks now. I think $50,000 would buy him out but we are looking for someone with $100,000 to invest so they could buy out his partnership and invest the other $50,000 into the company in bulk packaging and climate control for inside so we could be better placed moving forward. To get a decent deal on packaging you have to buy sooooo much of it and we never have enough money at one time to do that so we are buying packaging every couple of weeks for more than we should be paying which is not cost effective for us unfortunately. We are hoping to find a new partner that wants to work with us....actually help physically because it is just a damn lot of work. I still work 7 day weeks, 10 hour days with many 12 hour days thrown in and another pair of hands that actually wanted to be here would help a lot I think. Especially if it were a family that is involved and many extra hands like mine does. We are just putting it out there but I do expect to see some interest since there are lots of people still wanting to invest and be a part of this industry. If we were able to actually focus on each aspect of this business with the time necessary I think we could do very well building on what we have accomplished so far. We need to expound on our "brand" to make people know who we are. We want to start Weed and Wine tours in the next couple of months where we bring in groups to see how we grow and then take them to a retail shop that sells our weed as well as a few local great wineries or breweries and I think that would really drive sales. We are talking to a local eclectic little hotel to try to work out lodging and a weed friendly location where people taking tours could actually consume their weed and I think that could be a great side business here in our particular location where there are about 10 wine tours a day moving around our area. We need to beef up our social media and our physical presence in each of the retail shops that we sell product to. I think the more personal we make the connection between our weed and us would be beneficial as far as branding our product.
We are still using predatory mites in our indoor grow and have not sprayed a single chemical on anything indoors which is a great relief. I hate using even innocuous chemicals on my weed so we pretty much love predatory mites:-) I am getting a good enough name in the field here that companies with various feeding techniques are asking us to try their products so we are using about 4 different nutrient lines along with our Jacks but I have to say.....we are not seeing better results so far and Jacks is so much less expensive than anything else we have come across so if it works don't try to fix it is how I feel. Our largest power bill so far has been $1890.00 and that is with 55 thousand watt HPS going in the flower room and about 15 MH in the veg room along with a whole bunch of fluorescent's and fans all over the place and dehumidifier and air con going in the storage area which was a very pleasant surprise since I was anticipating about 3-4 times that. We have some of the cheapest power in the nation as it turns out which is great for us.
Starting the second week of March we plan on physically moving about 800 plants outside daily on pallets for 11 hours of sunlight and moving them inside for 13 hours of darkness and we will see how that goes. We are hopeful and I will report back how it turns out. If all goes to plan we will do that for 3 crops along with the plants that will go directly into the ground in early May.
Whatever happens in Oregon we want to be a part of it. To be able to sell your own weed....to be able to see that people actually like it....that will be worth more than making a profit to us I think but hopefully taxation won't kill us there. The feds still are an unknown. Until we figure out our taxes for April 15th everything is still a bit vague on that issue and I spend nights worrying about that as well. If hard work and determination count for anything then we will be successful. If not then I guess we will at least have all this experience under our belt and after doing this any normal business would probably seem like a piece of cake:-)
So....W.O.W. Weed is making a name for itself.....slowly....not overnight but daily with good products and as good of a marketing strategy as I can come up with. We are now in 14 different cities/communities across the state and will be in another 4 in the coming weeks as those retailers open. We offer bud, kief, pre-rolls and shatter so far and sell baby buds/shake in some stores as well which actually flies off the shelves. I am just trying to stay relevant and keep up the quality and to give the best customer service we possibly can to our retailers which is pretty important when they are all inundated every day by growers trying to get them to sell them their products. On paper I think we look like a very viable company. In reality we just work hard to keep the doors open every day like most businesses but we do see at least the possibility of a future and hopefully it is a rosy one:-)
Thanks for all the positive thoughts and as always if anyone is ever in our neck of the woods and wants to check us out everyone is always welcome! I am sure there were many other things I was going to report on but I can't think of them now and I am going to try to get a bit more sleep before I have to get up and face the hordes of folks at CannaCom today:-)
WA recreational system has been "interesting" and that is for sure. W.O.W. Weed is doing pretty well all in all but that does not mean we do not have challenges almost every day. We keep up good sales mainly because we started with a good strategy and adjust to the situations as they unfold. We are averaging between $35000.00-$60,000.00 per month in sales with a couple of months over $100,000.00. Our product is well received and most of the shops we sell to have lots of great feedback about our bud so that is really wonderful although the disconnect between being a grower that never see's the customers that like your product is demoralizing and it would be a much better system if we could sell our own product.....less than 1/2 as expensive too. We sell our bud for $6 a gram to retailers and if we could sell it ourselves we would be in direct competition with the black market and medical in the state. On the east side of the state we do not have many retail customers because weed is cheaper over there and we will not go lower than the $6 per gram pricing right now. On the west side retailers still say it is a little higher than they can get it from some other growers but they like the quality....many customers ask for W.O.W. Weed now because our bud tastes and smokes really nice and that is of course what it is all about in the end. It is all dry trimmed by hand, slow cured and of course lab tested, hand packaged and labeled. Retailers sell it for a minimum of %200 mark up so $18 a gram which I just cannot understand but still that is how it rolls out. Our most popular strains are the old school ones......Acapulco Gold, Panama Red, ATF, Northern Lights, Pineapple Express, White Widow, and some newer strains with great name recognition like Girl Scout Cookies and of course all our high CBD strains. My marketing strategy has been to work predominantly with smaller shops in small communities because we like smaller sales. Easier to package and deliver and I like selling 20 different strains to one shop in smaller quantities so maybe 10 single grams, 5 two grams, 3 eigths, perhaps some kief and we have had another processor make shatter for us so we can have that in the same strain as the bud too. I had to buy an oil rig just so we could try our own shatter and it really does taste wonderful. Our pre-rolls are really our most popular item though and many of our orders are for nothing but pre-rolls. We sell 1/2 gram cone for $3.50 and a full gram cone for $7 and it is all top bud, never shake. We are making blends now of different strains that taste wonderful and smoke great and they are really well received. My favorite is "Susy's Sweet Blend" and it is Jack Frost, Eve and Skywalker and it really has the sweetness of the Jack Frost, the skunkiness of the Eve and the smoothness of the Skywalker and we sell tons of them. Our Jack Frost is my favorite strain because of the sweetness of the taste but we have White Lavender, Jack Herer, Dream Queen, Afgooey and Eve that are all close favorites as well.
Taxes are going to break the system unless we get some relief on that front from the state but that remains to be seen with legislation going down in Olympia as I type. Their is a possibility that we will see a reduced taxation or perhaps the tax will be made into a "sin sales tax" at the purchase point and then growers will not have to pay 25% of each sale to the state monthly which of course would be a big help. Right now we pay the 25% to the state but the feds count that tax as income....as though we get to keep it in our pocket so we also pay 39% tax to the feds on the 25% that goes directly to the state. Changing the 25% tax we pay to some other sort of "fee" that is not taxable by the feds is another option being bantered about by the WA state legislature but no one really knows how anything there will turn out until it is signed and in effect because any piece of legislation there changes so much in the process you cannot really know how it will end up. The legal marijuana industry is taxed higher than any other industry in the country to my knowledge.
We just finished our second indoor crop and I cannot wait for summer. The difference between well grown weed from outdoor to indoor is just phenomenal and the only reason anyone would think indoor is preferable to outdoor is because they have not had the opportunity to grow outdoors or their climate just is not adequate to do so because the difference is night and day quite honestly. We see a THC level of up to 7% points higher with outdoor over indoor and our indoor is really nice this run but it really cannot compete with a quality outdoor product. Our outdoor Crazy Train was 27.9% THC and our indoor that looked great was 20.3% THC. All of our strains had reduced THC indoors....most not as much as the Crazy Train but across the board lower. When the large outdoor harvests from the east side of the state come in next year I would think that many indoor operations will fold here but that remains to be seen and who knows what weather will do....? It could be a rainy fall or early freeze or who knows what but barring any negative weather the east side of the state will demolish the west side in production and quality of product and that I do know for sure.
We would like to find a "master grower" that knows outdoor as well as indoor cultivation that we could rent for a day or two to help us tune up our growing practices. I have no delusions that I am a master anything except firefighter because I do seem to put out fires daily. We could pay about $1000 for a day or two of someones time if there is anyone out there that actually has such experience and would be interested in helping us out. You may think our sales would allow for more money but we are still not seeing any profit to speak of. I thought I would start getting a real salary but not yet. Basically we make enough to pay taxes each month, pay our 2 five day a week trimmers under the table $15 an hour and our night watchman who is so much more than that $15 an hour under the table as well as about $3000-$4000 to my daughter and her boy friend monthly for living costs. Otherwise everything else goes into packaging, deliveries, and all the infrastructure, utilities, and products necessary for growing. No one here is getting rich doing this. We have paid back all our 100% interest loans except part of the money I borrowed from my mom and we are paying monthly on that. All the rest just finally got paid back so that should give us a bit of profit monthly now but still.....I will believe it when I see it:-/
We are also looking for an investor/partner that will buy out our third partner who we have not even seen for nearly 4 weeks now. I think $50,000 would buy him out but we are looking for someone with $100,000 to invest so they could buy out his partnership and invest the other $50,000 into the company in bulk packaging and climate control for inside so we could be better placed moving forward. To get a decent deal on packaging you have to buy sooooo much of it and we never have enough money at one time to do that so we are buying packaging every couple of weeks for more than we should be paying which is not cost effective for us unfortunately. We are hoping to find a new partner that wants to work with us....actually help physically because it is just a damn lot of work. I still work 7 day weeks, 10 hour days with many 12 hour days thrown in and another pair of hands that actually wanted to be here would help a lot I think. Especially if it were a family that is involved and many extra hands like mine does. We are just putting it out there but I do expect to see some interest since there are lots of people still wanting to invest and be a part of this industry. If we were able to actually focus on each aspect of this business with the time necessary I think we could do very well building on what we have accomplished so far. We need to expound on our "brand" to make people know who we are. We want to start Weed and Wine tours in the next couple of months where we bring in groups to see how we grow and then take them to a retail shop that sells our weed as well as a few local great wineries or breweries and I think that would really drive sales. We are talking to a local eclectic little hotel to try to work out lodging and a weed friendly location where people taking tours could actually consume their weed and I think that could be a great side business here in our particular location where there are about 10 wine tours a day moving around our area. We need to beef up our social media and our physical presence in each of the retail shops that we sell product to. I think the more personal we make the connection between our weed and us would be beneficial as far as branding our product.
We are still using predatory mites in our indoor grow and have not sprayed a single chemical on anything indoors which is a great relief. I hate using even innocuous chemicals on my weed so we pretty much love predatory mites:-) I am getting a good enough name in the field here that companies with various feeding techniques are asking us to try their products so we are using about 4 different nutrient lines along with our Jacks but I have to say.....we are not seeing better results so far and Jacks is so much less expensive than anything else we have come across so if it works don't try to fix it is how I feel. Our largest power bill so far has been $1890.00 and that is with 55 thousand watt HPS going in the flower room and about 15 MH in the veg room along with a whole bunch of fluorescent's and fans all over the place and dehumidifier and air con going in the storage area which was a very pleasant surprise since I was anticipating about 3-4 times that. We have some of the cheapest power in the nation as it turns out which is great for us.
Starting the second week of March we plan on physically moving about 800 plants outside daily on pallets for 11 hours of sunlight and moving them inside for 13 hours of darkness and we will see how that goes. We are hopeful and I will report back how it turns out. If all goes to plan we will do that for 3 crops along with the plants that will go directly into the ground in early May.
Whatever happens in Oregon we want to be a part of it. To be able to sell your own weed....to be able to see that people actually like it....that will be worth more than making a profit to us I think but hopefully taxation won't kill us there. The feds still are an unknown. Until we figure out our taxes for April 15th everything is still a bit vague on that issue and I spend nights worrying about that as well. If hard work and determination count for anything then we will be successful. If not then I guess we will at least have all this experience under our belt and after doing this any normal business would probably seem like a piece of cake:-)
So....W.O.W. Weed is making a name for itself.....slowly....not overnight but daily with good products and as good of a marketing strategy as I can come up with. We are now in 14 different cities/communities across the state and will be in another 4 in the coming weeks as those retailers open. We offer bud, kief, pre-rolls and shatter so far and sell baby buds/shake in some stores as well which actually flies off the shelves. I am just trying to stay relevant and keep up the quality and to give the best customer service we possibly can to our retailers which is pretty important when they are all inundated every day by growers trying to get them to sell them their products. On paper I think we look like a very viable company. In reality we just work hard to keep the doors open every day like most businesses but we do see at least the possibility of a future and hopefully it is a rosy one:-)
Thanks for all the positive thoughts and as always if anyone is ever in our neck of the woods and wants to check us out everyone is always welcome! I am sure there were many other things I was going to report on but I can't think of them now and I am going to try to get a bit more sleep before I have to get up and face the hordes of folks at CannaCom today:-)
stonestacker
- 4,271
- 263
Thanks for the update. sounds like you folks are doing well. keep up the hard work it will pay.
positive vibes.
positive vibes.
Prime C
Defender of Dank
Supporter
- 4,285
- 263
Good to see ya ITG! Thanks for the update. Those taxes wow!
Seamaiden
Living dead girl
- 23,596
- 638
Thank you SO MUCH for taking the time to write up such an extensive and informative update!
This is such an awesome thread. I'm making it sticky.
Oh, how that warms my heart.
This is such an awesome thread. I'm making it sticky.
E
EvilOtto
- 16
- 3
@inthegorge
Please take note that this year's outdoor prices will be much LOWER than last year's outdoor prices.
There will be many times more in product this year than last year. Please keep that in mind when planning
your budget. Hell, there is way too much product now. Doubt it will be gone before the first summer harvest.
Good luck.
Please take note that this year's outdoor prices will be much LOWER than last year's outdoor prices.
There will be many times more in product this year than last year. Please keep that in mind when planning
your budget. Hell, there is way too much product now. Doubt it will be gone before the first summer harvest.
Good luck.
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