Brian Weiss, Founder, LA Cannabis News
Brian Weiss is the Founder of L.A. Cannabis News. Brian has always been an advocate for cannabis and has had a strong connection in the cannabis industry for over 20 years. Brian grew up in an entertainment family and has been focused on marketing & business development within the cannabis, entertainment and digital media sectors. He began his career in entertainment with his first job at KROQ in the late 1990’s and then advanced to working with many of the biggest entertainment and tech companies in the world.
https://www.lacannabisnews.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lacannanews
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lacannabisnews/
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
[00:00:01] You're listening to Thinking Outside the Bud where we speak with entrepreneurs investors thought leaders researchers advocates and policymakers who are finding new and exciting ways for cannabis to positively impact business society and culture. And now here is your host Business Coach Bruce Eckfeldt.
[00:00:30] Are you a CEO looking to scale your company faster and easier. Checkout Thrive Roundtable thrive combines a moderated peer group mastermind expert one on one coaching access to proven growth tools and a 24/7 support community created by Inc. Award winning CEO and certified scaling up business coach Bruce Eckfeldt. Thrive will help you grow your business more quickly and with less drama. For details on the program visit Eckfeldt.com/thrive. That's E C K F E L D T.com/thrive
[00:01:07] Welcome everyone. This is Thinking Outside the Bud. I'm Bruce Eckfeldt. I'm your host. And our guest today is Brian Weiss. He is co-founder and CEO of L.A. Cannabis News and Media. We're going to learn a little bit more about those businesses and what Ryan is doing in the media space inside cannabis. We're going to learn a little bit about his entrepreneurial experience and journey and what his plans are for providing media sources, media publications for cannabis, not only in North America, but it sounds like international stuff as well. So I'm excited for this. Me it is, I think, a fascinating aspect of the cannabis space. I'm excited to have this conversation. Brian, welcome to the program.
[00:01:44] Thank you very much. First, I appreciate you having me on today. This is awesome.
[00:01:48] Yeah.
[00:01:48] So why don't we start with a little bit about you and your background, how you got into cannabis. It sounds like you've had some entrepreneurial experiences. Why don't you tell us a little bit about that and how you got to L.A. Cannabis News?
[00:02:00] Sure. So I've actually been in the cannabis industry for about 25 years now. I started out on the illegal side when I was younger than I got in trouble when I was about 30. And I vowed that I was never going to touch the plant again on a business side of it all. It actually worked out well because when the federal government scares you, they really do scare you. They scared me. And I actually I come from a good background. My much I we didn't talk about earlier, but my grandfather founded a company called the William Morris Agency, which is a talent agency and is now William Morris Endeavor. And he was one of the owners for over 70 years. And my dad was the vice president of television for over thirty five years. I've met again. Yeah. So gave me the experience of having experiences growing up of working with lots of different entertainment and music companies over the years. And then a few years back, I had the opportunity to Israel, where actually I'm now a dual citizen. And while I was an industrial, I discovered the whole startup world. And I had no idea that half of the research and development for basically every piece of technology in the world is done in Israel. And so I really got a grasp for the startup world.
[00:03:09] And unfortunately, my dad getting sick with cancer and I was forced to move back to the U.S. in the beginning of 2013. And but when I came back, the startup world is really blossoming in Los Angeles. You had Silicon Beach, which was like the Silicon Valley. Yeah. You know, the Santa Monica area. And I had a lot of experience from consulting with different companies in Israel because of the family connections I had in the U.S. I was consulting for companies while in Israel helping them get to the U.S.. So when I got back to the U.S., I was like, wow, there's so many startups here. I could use the same family connections and continue helping startups. And at one point, I just felt sort of stupid being a middle man. And I was like, wow, there's just so much excitement happening. I should be able to create something myself. And I created a an app called Tick Hive, which was a complete failure. And it was a great idea. Could actually still be a great idea. It just didn't have the right team behind me. And when it basically fell apart was when cannabis was becoming legal. And a lot of my friends were like, man, you should get back in the cannabis industry. You know, everybody, you know, you're you're really well connected.
[00:04:14] I'm like, yeah, until it becomes federally legal, I'm not touching cannabis. And they're like, you should start an ancillary business. I'm like, I don't even know what the word ancillary means. And so I did some research and I figured out what the word insulate me into the business and I don't have to touch the plant. What is genius idea? Exactly. And so I in my research, I living in Los Angeles, I was like, all right, I want to invest in something in the L.A. area or start a business with something in L.A. or this is one of the biggest markets in the world. This is what better place to do it. So in my research, I found myself searching 50, 60 different sources a day to find out what was happening in L.A. And I'm like, this is crazy. There has to be some sort of one general place, like in L.A. cannabis news that I can find out what's happening in L.A. on a daily basis about cannabis. Now, yes, we have Dope magazine and we have high times and we have a wheelchair and we have senses. And those are all fantastic publications. I have nothing against them, but they're all cover culture and lifestyle. Occasionally they'll cover a news story and they're all covering the same news story. Nothing is localized and cannabis is a hyper local industry.
[00:05:21] It started in the United States side, at least it started in Hum County for the most part. But now it's grown to a local city. It is in communities all over this country. And there's just. Covering it, and so I was like, all right, I'm going to start a local cannabis media publication. And so I launched it beginning last year. The Web site actually that we launched a digital issue in February of 2018. We picked up 15 thousand subscribers from that. We launched a website in April of 2000, 18, actually on 420. And since then, we now have over 30000 people on our site a month. We've got over 70000 e-mail subscribers. We just finished. People that the accelerator in Boulder, Colorado, which was an amazing experience with 10 other companies. And since then, we've been able to present on the archiving stage at the main stage and at the investor forum they had here in Los Angeles, which is great. And I've also spoken now on dozens of panels in the cannabis industry. So we've really been growing now quite a bit. And now it's exciting. So we actually just started doing our seed rounds last week. So hopefully we'll be able to raise some money and expand to other cities and provide look cannabis news to other areas that need it.
[00:06:28] So let's talk a little bit about kind of the beginning. And when you start putting this together and what was your target customer and what were you hoping to kind of provide them in terms of value? And where was the value proposition that you were looking to create?
[00:06:41] So to be honest with you, I was really just trying to solve a problem almost like I was having. I didn't really understand yet who my customer value was actually until I really took this accelerator. I thought it was going to have consumers being interested in reading about cannabis news on a daily basis. And I realized I was completely wrong because what you are what showed you that you were completely wrong was what was the evidence? Well, as we built the website, we started integrating different analytical, you know, databases and platforms and stuff into the site so that we could really understand who our audience was. And also, as you know, the thing in our email system, our social media stuff. So it really started understanding who our audience was. And we saw that our audience were not consumers. Well, actually, everybody is a consumer. I guess the cannabis industry. So I guess everyone I guess we do still go to consumers, but we found that most of our audience happened to be business people. They wanted to know what else was happening in the industry, what's happening around them. We found there was a lot of senior citizens that were very curious and they didn't want to know, you know, from high times what the top 10 brands were. They wanted to know more about what's happening around them and what's legal. What can I do now or can they go and do it? And when they just cannot find that type of stuff. So, yes, we have a lot of art and we also find a lot of our readers now are people who were during the Reagan era that were totally anti cannabis. And now I've the money possibilities like doctors and lawyers that are getting money for retirement. And they're like, wow, I won't invest in cannabis or I to open a dispensary. And it's like, you know, come from families that would never have done that before in their lives.
[00:08:14] But now all of a sudden, it's the greatest thing in the world. It's almost like when I was younger, I had these big, huge car stereo speakers in my car and my dad thought I was the biggest idiot in the world. And then 10 years later, he gets an infinity and has these big, huge speakers and in the head rests.
[00:08:29] You know, these things will come around full circle, too.
[00:08:33] And what I mean, I guess so having experience and familiarity and in the cannabis phase, but now approaching it from the media standpoint, I guess, what did you have to learn about media or I guess what pieces do you felt like you you knew really, really well?
[00:08:48] And what parts of this did you have to kind of go to school on in terms of creating this business?
[00:08:52] Yeah, absolutely. So I knew a lot about the media space because I come from the media family. But and I've worked in so many media companies in the sense of business development to creating partnerships, how to structure a business, those type of things. But I did not know about is the business itself, the finances, the H.R., those type of things, which was the accelerator was able to help me with. And then on the side of the media side of it. So right now, I know nothing for the most part about operating a magazine or a newspaper. But I do know that there's cannabis media out there and there's a lot of opportunities for cannabis media. Sure. So what we've been doing for the most part for further for right now to gain our audience is we've been doing much like the Drudge Report, which is the number one media company in the world who receives billions and billions of views a month, way more than The New York Times. And they aggregate all their content. Occasionally they'll throw in an original story. So what we've been doing is we've been aggregating all of our content. You know, we give full back links to every single source can make sure we represent, you know, the writers from the original sources. We don't steal their entire ad. We put it in the 20, 25 percent and then we back link it to their publications so that that way they get the CEO. I'm more interested in getting the news out to the people, which has been great because that's now allowed us to create a database of over 300 content creators that want you now write for us and cover things on a local level. So as we hopefully begin to raise this round, we'll be able to start hiring on content creators and start creating a lot of our own original content. Because there's a lot of really cool stuff here in L.A. that nobody is covering. No one has ever covered. And that needs to be covered, especially others, as this industry grows.
[00:10:25] Yeah, interesting. And what are some of the topics? I mean, you mentioned the senior citizen. You know, kind of folks that are older generation that are looking for more information about either use or what's going on in the community. I mean, what are the things that you find have been sort of particularly effective at the local level in terms of cannabis related content and kind of as medium.
[00:10:44] So there hasn't really, unfortunately, been too much happening on a local level. And as we've been exploring cannabis in Los Angeles, at least on a local level, you know, cannabis is the only industry, as far as I know. You know, in the past several decades that has actually really contributed to society in the sense of helping the homeless, helping veterans, helping immigrants, helping women. You know, there's tech industry does do that. The entertainment industry definitely doesn't do that. They just help themselves. So, you know, cannabis is really doing that. And, you know, being able to expunge people's records, which has allowed people coming out of prison or people that have been a prison to be able to get jobs, which they couldn't do before. So there's a lot of that happening on a local level. There's a lot of education.
[00:11:27] You know, we're doing a lot of coverage with veterans in L.A. We're doing a lot of coverage with the homeless community. There's a lot of cannabis organizations here in L.A. that we're now learning about. And we've been meeting of people that are doing all sorts of great stuff on a local level. And the cool thing is that's not just happening in Los Angeles. That's happening in every single city across the country where cannabis exists. And that needs to be highlighted. And so, you know, yes, we want to cover the crime. We want to cut the local news on a daily basis. But we also want to cover the people and keep this, you know, as much as possible a community industry, because, you know, obviously you're going to have the big pharmaceutical. They're going to have the big beer companies that are going to come in and they're going to, you know, really, really the industry. But as much as possible, this is a community, hyper localized industry to begin with. And, you know, there's a lot of people out there that have been working in this industry for 30, 40 years, and they're now getting screwed. You know, as different bureaucracies and, you know, we really want to highlight those people and try and keep them in business as long as possible.
[00:12:24] It's great. Well, so tell me a little bit about the accelerator. How did you I guess what inspired or prompted you to look at going to an accelerator? How do you do you pick the one you ended up at? What did you learn?
[00:12:35] So you asked why I after having sort of a failed startup. I realized that I did not have the leadership or the knowledge to really do another startup on my own.
[00:12:44] I needed assistance.
[00:12:45] And so I started researching of what accelerators were out there in the cannabis space. And I came across can be bolder. And to be honest, I just found their Contact US page and I filled it out. I put in what I was doing. And within 24 hours they contacted me and they said, Hey, this is awesome. Let's continue on. Let's go onto the next steps. And so the next steps took about two months. There are about five or six different steps in between filling out a whole bunch of questionnaires, having a phone call, having another couple of phone calls with the managing director, Patrick Gray, who is awesome. And then I met Patrick actually at Jim Belushi party here in Los Angeles.
[00:13:19] So we were able to meet face to face. He was able to select a clap sorter that I had, that I was able to get into this party and really act to be like people know who I was and staff at this event. So he's like, all right, this kid knows what's going on in L.A. He's got some connections. You know, he might be something that could be cool. And then they just really caught on to what I was trying to create, not just as a localized company here in Los Angeles, but as a localized media company for cannabis overall. I mean, our ultimate goal here is to expand to multiple cities around the world. And when cannabis goes legal federally and hopefully the next three to five years, the FCC will start lifting with no restrictions in companies like Viacom and Fox. And Universal will be looking for local audiences and the cannabis industry all over the world. And we'll have those audiences or close to it.
[00:14:06] And what did you quickly summarize for folks who are not as familiar or, you know, don't know the nuance of what's going on in terms of media in Canada right now and what the restrictions are, what kind of legal situation is creating in terms of who's in the market, who's not in the market. Give people an overview of that.
[00:14:23] Well, I believe there's about 30 hundred publications in cannabis fade out. It's just just crazy. And it gives a new one every single week. They're all coming out mainly because of you can't advertise in most mainstream places, although in L.A. I think there's now seven hundred and fifty billboards or something with cannabis related stuff on there. So I'm not quite sure how much of this is really being regulated. Instagram, Facebook, Twitter. You got it. You can post things. I mean, there's people like Dan Balz area who owns Ignite Cannabis. He must be paying somebody at Instagram because while he posts all sorts of risque pictures, good people in the industry are getting their accounts shut down. So I think it's really about who you know and how much you pay them and you can advertise. So it seems we don't advertise anything illegal. We won't advertise any illegal dispensaries. We won't advertise anything for sale. Most of what we've been covering is email marketing and a lot of native advertising, mostly messages, mostly things, things about education, health, research on cannabis. I feel that a lot of the other advertising I lead, I've sort of to dope and in high times who just, you know, plaster their magazine with all sorts of brands and there's not. Content in there? Yeah, I created this not to be that I created this to get proper information out there and, you know, for us we'll make money in the long run by data and subscriptions. Advertising is disappearing very quickly and you got to come up new fun ideas to get the public interested. And just dropping ads all over the page and pop ups is is not the idea. I don't I don't agree with it.
[00:15:52] And as you look at your business model, that's that's kind of, I guess, where are you right now in terms of business model and where do you want to be in the future?
[00:15:59] Yes. Right now, we're just doing e-mail marketing and native advertising as well as like social media posts. And, you know, I'm just sort of basic stuff that we could use our audience for and cut down line as we grow into other cities. We want to get into subscription service where you to see, you know, all the different local news, depending on what kind of news you want to see and where you want to see it about what areas we're going to get into, a lot of video content, some e-commerce stuff. But we can't really do that until our audience grows. In the meantime, we're just trying to continue building an audience and building small revenue just to show that, you know, we are a sound business and that we're not really going anywhere as opposed to some of these other media companies that are great. But there are pivoting. They're no longer they made. They tried making so much money out of advertising that now it's no longer happening and they're pivoting. And, you know, companies like high times are going into the events business. Now, all of us and their events company and then I heard recently that they're going to the flower business and it's like, wow, they're just keep going. And, you know, the original the original owners did a fantastic job. But now every time they sell it, it seems like, you know, someone's not running their shop correctly. And, you know, they bought some great companies and those companies to have completely disappeared. I love Green Rush daily and their numbers have gone into the toilet.
[00:17:09] So it's like I you know, I just didn't want to become another advertising engine. I wanted to become something that we could put proper content out. Yeah.
[00:17:21] And so now that you've completed the accelerator, I think it's one of your kind of takeaways or actions or plan. I mean, you mentioned you're raising some money.
[00:17:28] What is that a strategy?
[00:17:30] Yeah. So the accelerator was awesome. It was a four month program took place in Boulder, Colorado. We were there for four months. And, you know, we learned a lot. It was great because they positioned us into in front of a lot of investors. You know, they're able to make introductions where normally if you try and contact an investor like, hey, man, fill out the form on my website, which basically means in 24 hours I'll get an automated response that says we're not interested, you know, with X with an accelerator, then they're able to send us a lot of productions. We did not get follow up funding from cannot be bolder. However, we were the first people chosen to present it to you. So, you know, we didn't they didn't like us for follow up funding. The people that asked you did so much that they chose us to, you know, present with two other companies from the canopy Boulder, as well as the whole bunch of other companies. And that was an amazing opportunity to get on the stage in front of six hundred of, you know, some of the top investors in the country who are in the world even for cannabis, which is great. Yeah, it was an awesome opportunity for us. It was a little hard because we're a media company. So most of the people that we I'm speaking to at Parkfield were like, how can you help us? You know, what can you do for us? You know, can you do an article on our we're have this new investor. Can you do an article on him? No, no, I'm trying.
[00:18:36] I'm here trying to raise money. I'm not here to, you know, do articles on you guys. And so I felt like it wasn't a really good opportunity for me, was a good opportunity to be on the stage. But it wasn't we didn't get the right avenues of success from it that we were hoping we didn't need quite a few investors that were like, hey, you know, you need to concentrate more on your traction and your revenue and building your team. And I was like, all right, you know what? You're right. So we decided to stop raising it in January right after Oakville. And we concentrate on our attraction and our team and our revenue. And over the past four months, we've been able to build all of that up quite a bit. And now we've decided, all right, now we're in a good space to go out and ask for money. And now we've got a whole bunch of meetings up with investors this week, which was a lot easier this time of setting them up than last time, because now it's like, hey, since we last spoke, we've got X, Y, Z. And it's cool because this accelerator, it really allowed us to continue doing these things. I think before, if I was going to be turned down by our field, I would have just given up. But I think the accelerator really gave us that power to continue going. So, I mean, my takeaway from being and cannot be bolder in the long term was that it was an amazing experience for anybody building a company.
[00:19:42] I think if you can get into an accelerator, depending on what your interest is, no matter what it is, I think you should take it. Yeah, you got to give up a little bit of your percentage, but I'd rather give up a little bit of, you know, something than, you know, trying to get something, if nothing.
[00:19:55] And, you know, if you can build one company, you can build another one, you companies, then you know, one that I'm struggling with my entire life. I'd rather have people that know what they're doing and go to help us and take some percentage away from us to to move forward.
[00:20:09] I think it's a good point.
[00:20:10] What tell me about team a little bit.
[00:20:11] I mean, in terms of telling what what have you been looking for or wherever you found it, what have been the challenges? What how is that whole process working for you?
[00:20:19] So team wise, a lot of our so our content creators that have done articles for us on the original side so far have been freelance like I had. I have this great database. I know who can write what. Charge us for. So that's been great because we just hire them on a perfect logic basis. We have a CTO, an interim CTO actually named Visionary, which is awesome and he's helped us build the site to where it's at now.
[00:20:40] But now that we need to grow, we need to build another site. I'm not sure he's the right person for it. He knows he's not maybe the right person for it either. But he's been awesome so far and that's been great. We have my co-founders, Talia Rubin, and she's got a great business and actually a fashion background. But she's been able to build a few companies now in the fashion industry that we're successful, small, and she's got operational experience. So that's been awesome. And so she's my co-founder. That's great. And then I have a CFO who's actually my brother. He's actually one of the bigger accountants in the cannabis industry in Humboldt County. He's been an accountant in cannabis now for almost 20 years. His name is Aaron Weiss and he's part of David L. Mooney. And then we have a publicist for our PR named Lauren Lundy. And then we also have a director of photography who's been helping us out with our layouts names, Chris Brandt. And then finally, we have our attorneys out of DLJ Piper, which is an amazing law firm. And they've taken to me and invested interest in us. So that was a nice feeling, actually, are our original attorneys. We were w SGI, which has blossomed since Sydney. But my attorney left listens in Sydney and just joined DLJ Piper and they took us on the transfer.
[00:21:47] So I was just that was cool. So it's nice to have, you know, good, good accountants behind us and good lawyers behind us to make sure that everything that we're doing is correct.
[00:21:57] And has there been any test or way in which, you know, you're bringing on the right people? I mean, how do you kind of think about company culture and who you should bring on and what what they kind of contribute either skill wise or culture wise, but it would have you noticed?
[00:22:12] So right now, actually, we're in the process of hiring an editor and also hiring a salesperson. SALES director to run our advertising and stuff. So on the editors side, it's it's been sort of challenging, to be honest with you, because cannabis is a is a growing industry. And there's a lot of stuff that you can and you cannot say. There's a lot of stuff you've got to be careful with kids. And, you know, our site has an age gate on it, but anybody can click the word yes and type in, you know, a fake birthday and go on any website, even alcohol sites. So there's not much protection there. So we want to be very careful on what we post. So we've been it's been a little challenging on finding the right people that know about editing, but also know about the cannabis industry. We found a few people that are good, but some of them are also really expensive. And we're a startup. So that's why we've been doing a lot of just aggregating news for the moment while we do this funding round in the sense of sales wise. I mean, just a lot of salespeople, they've marked up a lot of, you know, B.S. to us. If they can do this, they can do that and then they end up not being able to do this and do that. And so for that purpose, in the sales side of it, we've been doing mostly commission side of it. So that way you can say, let's see, you do stuff, you know. Yeah. And it's also protection as well. And so we've been you know, it's just been it's been sort of I don't know, it's been slow, I guess, because we have a couple of interns that help us out.
[00:23:29] You know, we have just I think we're we're more about content. And since we have such a vast, you know, reach for content, we don't really need a staff. I mean, if you look at a company like Medium for, say, which is a multi-billion dollar company, they have 11 people that work there. Yeah, I'd much rather have a small slim company than having, you know, jobs that aren't needed. I like it a lot. These other media companies, they throw parties on a weekly basis for no reason. I go to parties all the time and I have no reason why I'm even at this party. Why am I at this party? What's going on? Who's this party for? And it's just a lot of wasted jobs that can be, you know, used in other things in the company. I want to hire people and, you know, let people work and stuff. But I want them to be working for the right reasons, not just because they work at a media company and they get a good offense and they get free stuff. And, you know, that's how you waste money and companies go out of business. So, you know, like I said, like with media or even BuzzFeed, you also have a small staff. You know, they're killing it right now. And there's a reason they're killing it because they they know how to properly staff. And I think that by growing slowly and not bringing on so many people at once and having a crazy team allows us to be hopefully one of those type of companies.
[00:24:37] Yeah, well, we'll see.
[00:24:38] It takes us a little bit about the expansion plans and where you hope to be, say, in three, four years here. I mean, what if things go well and you're able to execute on your plan effectively? What does a company look like in a few years?
[00:24:50] Well, I'm about four years from now.
[00:24:51] I hope to be the interim CEO, whoever buys us and helping them out for about a year until I leave and retire.
[00:25:00] Now, I would say the I think that cannabis news is needed all over the country and all over the world. For instance, just in Los Angeles here we have 88 municipalities, over 40 of them have Ghent and cannabis all together. So there is no cannabis dispensaries, there's no growling, there's no business at all. And half of the cities in Los Angeles. And that's not just in L.A. That's in other counties and other cities across the country. I was on a panel a couple of months ago. And at the end of it, I was waiting for questions. And people have. Moved to Seattle. When are you going to move to Denver, when you can come to South Carolina. When you got to come to Spain. And I was like, wow, it's like there is a lot of opportunity. And we see it on a daily basis. Just this morning, China announced that they're gonna be, you know, you buy everything else from us wanting to buy your cannabis from us. And you said announced this morning that they're going into crazy full production and growing cannabis in China. Wow. So, you know, there's a lot of stuff to cover on local levels all over the world. And the Asian markets are huge in itself.
[00:25:57] So we really would like to be all over the world, not just be a U.S. based media company. Our parent company is called CNN Media, which stands for Canning Nation. So our ultimate goal is you'll be able to go to you can a nation got SEO or whatever the app. Hopefully we'll be in the next couple of months to be able to click on any country and you see to the any state in the world and be able to see local cannabis news events, jobs and resources. And that's it. And, you know, in that way, people really know what's going on. And it's just an ever so changing industry. And it's going to continue to be that, you know, there's all these different chemicals there. Again, the chemical compounds, I say, of cannabis, you know, the CBN, CVG and all these different things that they're coming out with now that some are even more powerful than THC, more powerful than CBD. And they're going to continue studying cannabis for the next hundred years. So I just think there's a lot of stuff that's going to need to be covered, just like an L.A. Times or New York Times. But, you know, for this is cannabis.
[00:26:52] No, no. I look at what I mean. You mentioned before a little bit of this, the regulatory, you know, legality and the regulatory issues.
[00:26:58] What what are the things that are on your strategic map as you look out the next couple of years that kind of change the landscape for you or kind of part of your thinking used to anticipate and kind of strategize around when it comes to kind of the media side of this business and changes in either law or regulation industry, what you see.
[00:27:18] Yeah, I mean, to be honest, I really think that it's not nothing's going to happen, really. And everyone's going to have the sort of shaking ground until the cannabis is legal federally. Marijuana is legal federally. Then I think the FCC and all these people that, you know, even AEG, for instance, who makes Coachella a non cannabis event, all of a sudden they're going to be in that industry. And people who completely hate the plants, once the federal government legalizes it, are going to be in this industry. People are into money and you know, there's a lot of cannabis.
[00:27:48] So what is it from your point of view?
[00:27:51] This is now the big players start to get involved and now now you're trying to compete with them or are you just trying to carve out a niche business is good enough so that you become a good acquisition target. What's your.
[00:28:02] Yeah, I'm trying to carve out a niche much like cannabis now. Cannabis now is a fantastic publication. I love them. They do. They cover business, economics and politics and cannabis. They may have branched out a little bit from from that, but I think that's their main focus. And from that there, I believe one of the biggest cannabis publications and even one of the biggest publications in the world. And because it's you know, it's a niche. It's not culture and lifestyle for us. Localized cannabis news, I think is a niche. It's something that, you know, like I said, the beginning with people that from the Reagan era and senior citizens and and people from different generations that are now interested in cannabis that would never touch to be for local cannabis use, I think is a niche.
[00:28:41] And so. Yeah. So I just I see that as is trust is how we're gonna basically be able to grow the unbranded to be great.
[00:28:49] If people want to find out more about you, about other kind of issues, about CNN. What is the best way to get that information.
[00:28:56] Yeah. Awesome. So you can go to L.A. Cannabis News.com, our sites up and running. We've got over 200 events on there for L.A. for the Los Angeles area. So if you're looking for something in the industry to do or it's something fun, definitely check out our events board. We have a job board that is up and that's great as well. And then we're on all the social media. So, you know, Fisker book, Instagram, Twitter, you can type in L.A. Cannabis News and you'll find us. And if you want to reach out to us, you can send an email to info at L.A. Cannabis News.com and we'll be sure to get back to you.
[00:29:27] Awesome. I'll make sure all of those links in the email or in the show notes so people can click through. Brian, this is great. Great. Thank you for taking the time. Very curious to see how things play out. Thank you so much.
[00:29:37] You've been listening to Thinking Outside the Bud with Business Coach Bruce Eckfeldt to find a full list of podcast episodes. Download the tools and worksheets and access other great content. Visit the Web site at thinkingoutsidethebud.com. And don't forget to sign up for the free newsletter at thinkingoutsidethebud.com/newsletter.