. hi there, everyone. i'm jj ramberg and welcome to your business. marijuana movement gaining traction, recently advocating it nationwide. for entrepreneurs, the opportunity to cash in on a new and evolving opportunity is hard to resist. normalizing the market related to marijuana similar to alcohol. for anyone interested in getting into the business, the stakes are high. this is no longer a world enhabited by stoners donning tie-dyes and making bonk hits. had this is a serious business that takes a lot of time, a lot of money and smarts to succeed.

>> this business is pretty much an emerging market. it's high-risk, high reward. >> this is a story about change, changing lives, changing attitudes and an ever changing landscape for a brand-new business in america, marijuana. >> it's a very young industry, chock full of entrepreneurs from all over the country that want to build their lives and their careers and their businesses in marijuana. >> we went to colorado, the first state to legalize marijuana for recreational use to see how entrepreneurs are faring in this brave new world. >> it's a brand-new industry emerging out of black market scenario. so regulation helps streamline the system and puts all the pieces in place to maneuver through this safely and also allows the consumer to get a safe, sound product as well. >> but the product is pot. under federal law, selling,

producing, possessing and consuming marijuana is still a crime. that makes for a very complicated business model when you live under the constant threat of a crackdown. >> can benabis industry is challenging. >> ceo of dixie elixirs and he had i believe so has a wide resume, including a stint in the reagan administration a big believer in the free market economy, he's a serial entrepreneur who has been called ronald reagan of reefer. >> i've been in the business four years, feels like dog years. this is not for an individual that isn't willing to commit a light of time, money and intellectual horsepower. >> after spending time in colorado, we found enapprehend yours in this business were nothing like the stereotypical counter-culture hippies we see in late night punch lines. >> tonight we'll be taking a look at pros and cons of opening

a pot store. pro, getting a lot of repeat customers. con, they forgot they were in the store a week ago. i need weed man. you check your right pocket. thank you. >> we visited the first can ark business summit and found a professional group of entrepreneurs. many of whom were women networking and coming together to talk about cannabis. >> we like to think of ourselves as marijuana mavens. >> brook was working in commercial banking and real estate before taking that leap of faith and getting involved in the cannabis business in 2009. >> there are a lot of educated people who left their jobs in corporate america or left other business ventures they had success in because they saw or felt a sense of opportunity. >> meg collins also saw an opportunity in pot. in her case, to help shape public policy. before taking the job as the executive director of the

cannabis business alliance, she had spent most of her career in the oil and gas industry. >> so i like to say i've gone from gas to grass. i felt what a phenomenal opportunity to be on the ground floor of building the legal and regular story framework for a new industry. >> and this is an industry that has a lot of rules. like the requirement to grow and sell your own cannabis instead of sourcing it from somewhere else. i met jan cole, a former telluride spa owner and mother of two who decided she wanted to take her experience in that industry and transfer it to the emerging cannabis business. we heat her at a grow facility outside of bolder. >> i hear this term seed to sale quite a bit. could you explain what that means. >> the state of colorado would like us to track every plant from seed to sale. every plant we put in dirt, every plant we harvest and turn

into recreational bud needs to be tracked. >> there's a lot that goes on behind the scenes with this industry, it sounds like. not just a matter of putting seeds into the ground, growing it and selling it. >> no. >> we then followed her to the brick and mortar side of the business called "the farm." >> this is not what i expected and not like what a lot of cannabis stores look like and i expect that's deliberate. >> we have been referred to as the whole foods of cannabis. we've been compared to a customer that cares about what they put into their bodies. >> you're going after upscale moms? >> yeah. people like us. >> the biggest issue jan and others in the cannabis industry are facing now have to do with all the money coming into their businesses. >> backing is a huge issue for the industry nationwide. because it is illegal at the federal level, banks are not comfortable in jeopardizing their federal insurance. we are treated like every other

business except when it comes to financial matters, and then we're still treated as a criminal function. >> with big issues like banking that still need to be sorted out, states like colorado and washington are taking the lead on setting policy, while other states in the federal government sit back and watch very closely to see how their implementation works. >> i really think all eyes of the world are on our state really focusing on how this is going to happen. >> and as more and more states legalize pot in some way, shape, or form, it's clear that there is a major shift in attitudes happening in the u.s. with a recent poll showing 54% of americans in favor of legalization. if the tide keeps moving in that direction, that means the marijuana market is going to increase exponentially. >> across the country coming here. it is the green rush 2.0. this is pike's peak or bust 21st

century style. >> cc stark has had several businesses related to cannabis in colorado. he also teaches a sort of cannabis 101 to people wanting to learn about the business so they, too, can become ganja entrepreneurs as he puts it. >> zone, tracking, seed to sale. it is complicated but we make it easy. can you come to colorado, learn the rules and change your future. >> but as the legalization of pot comes on line in more places, there are serious concerns about new and potent strains of marijuana and the new breed of edibles that are highly concentrated. >> what happened here on the fourth floor of this denver hotel has both investigators and medical experts asking questions. the group decided to try marijuana cookies. the autopsy report lists the death as an accident. >> in the past five months the state of colorado dealt with two significant tragedies where it would appear marijuana in some form was involved.

i will say dixie was quick to stand in front of the camera and really get out in front of the issue and make sure consumers understand these products have to be consumed in moderation. >> with the industry still in its infancy, it's a future that is totally unchartered, speculative, and at the same time potentially very lucrative, with one study predicting a billion dollar a year by 2015. >> i'm delusionally confident, companies that will compete with alcohol, tobacco. >> there's no end to what it can do. what has it done for us in colorado, raised millions, created tens of thousands of jobs almost literally overnight. >> as you can see, it is not aging hippies or cheech and

chong types who are becoming potent apprehend yours, sob-- entrepreneurs. ceo of privateer holdings, a private equity firm that invests in the cannabis industry and also president of leafly, a company that helps consumers and companies learn about different cannabis and products. founder and ceo of leverage legal group, intellectual property and business law firm. so great to see you guys. >> thanks for having me. >> thanks jj. >> you're in the center of this right now. when i was there, it's fascinating to see this unfold, because the regulations are changing every single day. so it's incredibly hard to be a business owner in this industry. >> it is. the regulations in colorado are changing on a daily, weekly basis will it's one of the things they are doing really

well there. they are constantly refining the regulations to keep tight control over the industry as it transforms from an area of provision to a legal market. >> but as a business owner it's so hard. some of the people we talked to said this was legal yesterday and not legal today. i have to change my label, move this, change my packaging. how do you even keep on top of everything that's happening? >> well, so we have an internal legal team and external legal team. we have people who are dock you have had on lobbying and staying in contact with the regulatory boards to ensure that everything we do complies with the local and federal regulations. >> what do you say to people who want to jump into this industry. >> in some ways it's exciting. i'm an entrepreneur as well as a lawyer. this is ultimate entrepreneurial experience. entrepreneurs love to be nimble and have to react quickly. so it's right for invasinovatio

which is exciting. there's pitfalls to being a business owner. it's like a marriage. have you to be aligned. that's huge. negotiating good business terms, piout provisions, all these types of things is kr critical to the success of any business. as you're saying it's all moving quickly, a lot of people aren't having time to consider issues they should be considering before they go into business together. >> the whole thing is fascinating. fascinating to see what's happening and again how things are changing every single day and attitudes are changing. >> j.j., the way i look at it, there's a phenomenal activity going on here. there's a gold rush turned green. lots of regulation difficult for business but that's where the opportunity is. there aren't that many companies supplying the product. demand is big. great pricing power.

big margins, lots of caps, lots of profits. that's why it's a business everybody is talking about, everybody is rushing out to get into it. >> brenden, it's still very, very young. this is a brand-new industry. have you seen already some breakouts who are going to be successful and a bunch of people shut down already. >> what we're seeing is the establishment of brands. that will be the big difference over the next five to ten years is that for the first time see trusted professional brands in this industry. >> are you starting to see some breakouts already? >> i think as you covered in your segment, dixie is one that is really interesting in that they are talking about cannabis in a mainstream professional way. that's really how americans think about this product. >> that's what we saw -- >> 54% of americans think it should be legal. it's a mainstream product. >> we saw over and over again, people are treating it as a business.

again, there are late night jokes about it. this is a business. people we're seeing very successful are the ones working closely with the regulators and talking to the lawmakers every single day. >> well, j.j., it's important to treat this as a sophisticated business. if you're not a sophisticated business owner but you happen to be fortunate enough to be in the business you have to align yourself with business partners, financeers. you may not work with investors, work with people like brenden. after the show i want to get in touch with brenden and maybe invest with him. >> it isn't clear-cut. we've got a conflict of laws with the federal statutes and what's happening in the states right now. as a business owner, this is not for the faint of heart. you adopt know yet how the federal government will come out on this. the controlled substances act is unequivocal as far as this is a class one drug, which is interesting that it is. that's not changing. we don't see that changing any time soon. >> the banking issues.

brenden, you must hear about this the most. banking issues are incredibly complicated. it's a cash business for a lot of people. >> it is. i've been in dispensaries. i've been in rooms that have a million dollars in cash flying around. it's not a comfortable feeling. we don't violate any local, state, federal laws yet we've been kicked out of three banks in the u.s. so everything in this industry is harder, whether it's banking or payroll or hiring a marketing and branding firm. everything is more difficult. >> boy, might there be a big payoff at the end. >> brenden made a good point, sitting with a million dollars in cash, there's absolutely profit happening. >> security issues, too. it's infinitely interesting to me to see how this industry goes. thanks for taking time to chat about it. like the burgeoning marijuana industry breweries are grappling with regulations that have a major impact on their business.

from new york to south carolina to utah, micro breweries are lobbying lawmakers to ease laws to make it easier to operate. one minnesota brewer is just now getting ready to open a second brewery after fighting hard two years ago to get the law in that state changed. >> there was a pretty small change but it's still a little piece of legislation that made a difference for us. good for minnesotans, why wouldn't we want to do it. >> founder in minnesota already has plans in mind for expanding his business. >> we never thought we would experience this success. it's been fantastic. >> the beer is so popular there's a waiting list for new customers. with so much demand, omar had to focus on increasing his supply. he decided to open a second location. simple, right? well, not in this case. because of this decision, omar had to become the driving forces behind a change in state law.

>> minnesota is one of those states where you could not sell someone a glass of beer at a production brew. >> in other words he could serve in bars, restaurants and liquor stores but that was about it. >> when someone comes in for tour, we give them beer. that's all free. it's not legal for us to charge them for that glass of beer. in some states you can do that, some states you can't. >> the second brewery he would want to beer would have its own restaurant and bar. he wants to sell his own product. that put him on a collision course with the law. >> if we could change the law, breweries sell a glass of beer. then we're not just building a brewery but a destination. >> with a political battle brewing he took it to the capital, hired lobbyists, enlisted expertise of the company one simple plan. >> i realized what exactly he wanted to do and realized it was a 78-year-old prohibition era law and said, well, this is going to take some -- this isn't

going to happen in two weeks. >> despite support omar felt resistance from the start. >> there were a lot of people who didn't want to see that change happen. that's the way politics work. usually when laws are there, someone wants to keep them that way. >> that's why he had to prove his campaign wasn't just about selling pints of beer. >> we made it more about small business, big idea, free market. this guy wants to grow his business. why is anybody standing in his way, let alone the government. >> argued wouldn't be the only brewer to benefit. his method was focus. hundreds of jobs createed with a minor legal change. >> it kind of became a jobs bill. we have a lot of opportunities to do something here. let's do it here as opposed to other states. >> one of the sponsors of the bill, she believed it was an opportunity to give the local economy a boost. >> what he was seeking was a very minor change, in my opinion, to kind of our liquor

statutes in minnesota. >> the law puts small businesses at a disadvantage. >> that's how most businesses start with an idea. we want to make sure we're not putting roadblocks in the way. aren't we here to provide opportunities and jobs. >> when it fell on deaf ears, omar and his team took the fight public. >> the fight had to be taken outside of capital doors. people were going to help us out and support us. >> fans of surly brewing, better known as surly nation were mobilized. they took action. facebook and twitter turned into base catches for information for surly supporters as the surly team spent hours to make their case. >> it was a way to rally troops. it was a way to bring us together and say here is what we're saying, here is the next project. >> the support for surly nation never wavered. lawmakers got a constant stream of e-mails and phone calls.

>> people started to take surly nation and how much of a hot button this was. this was pout small business, beer, evolution of a company. >> legislators took notice. a process just months. with overwhelmtion support in the minnesota house and senate, the surly bill became law in may 2011. if result -- >> brews like ourselves can get a tap room license. what that means is we can sell beer that we make here at this facility, we can sell that beer in a tap room. >> with a win in the surly column, omar says the fight was worth it because the bill has opened the door to growth for everyone. >> we'll see a lot of other breweries open up with this law changing. it's going to make the beer scene here a better place. when we return, we'll have important advice to help you run your small business including how to keep tabs on the competition and how entrepreneurs can stay focused

in a world of smart phones and technological overload. if i can impart one lesson to a new business owner, it would be one thing i've learned is my philosophy is real simple american express open forum is an on-line community, that helps our members connect and share ideas to make smart business decisions. if you mess up, fess up. be your partners best partner. we built it for our members, but it's open for everyone. there's not one way to do something. no details too small. american express open forum. this is what membership is. this is what membership does. i want people to live up to their fullest potential and always be committed to service an excellence, to take a sense

of pride in serving. i'm a server. i might be a well paid server, but i'm here to serve this community and the guest here. >> want to keep an eye on your competition? much of the information you need is publicly available and accessible. here now are five ways to ethically spy on your rivals, courtesy of entrepreneur.com. >> one, look at what key words they're using. you should be able to see them listed in the source code of your competitor's home page. two, examine their load time. you can use googsal page feed insights to see how well your competitor's site performs compared to your own. three, discover their most popular pages by doing a free search on ahres.com. four, you can see who is mentioning them and what they're talking about. five, keep tabs on what website changes they're making. qulour competitor may be

updating their website to maximize. you can use the free service way back machine to get an image of exactly what their site looked like on any given date. >> it's time to answer some of your business questions. ted and jessica are back with us. the first one is about shutting down your business. >> i'm looking for a potential out-of-the-box solution to liquidate our business and transition it so that the employees and the clients continue to be well taken care of. >> how does she find a buyer? that sounds like what she wants to do. >> a great question. you want to sell your business while saying in control. how do you do that? there's actual lay solution. a lot of private equity firms, even warren buffett will purchase 80%. you keep 20%. they want you to manage the business through the transition. it becomes a win-win. she gets the cash out while

managing the transition for both herself, employees and clients. >> can you find that for small businesses? say you run a toy store -- if you're a fast-growing internet company, sure, there will be financial investors looking for this. >> it's a tough question. when i thought about her question, i wasn't sure if she really meant liquidate. there isn't a future if she means liquidate. i think she means acquisition. really it comes down to having a good lawyer help you negotiate the deal. once you've sold your company or liquidated the assets, dwrount have any control anymore. you won't have any say into what happens about anything with the company, including employees. it comes down to negotiating. it's not really out of the box. it's something that can't be ignored, it's critical. especially for a small business that doesn't have access to the big market. >> and finding the right buyer. you may not have control, but you may trust somebody. >> spoken like a true attorney to hire an attorney. >> the next question is about trying to stay focused.

>> we live in this world where our phones and beebing and vibrating, constantly being distracted. what's a good tool to keep us completely focused on what we're working on? >> only answer your e-mails at certain times, turn off your e-mail alerts. do any of them work for you guys? >> you know what i do? i do a time blocking technique where i dedicate certain days of the week to certain activities and certain parts of the day. it's very difficult. it's easy to get interrupted. try focus on being very present in whatever it is i'm doing. i try to give my full attention, even if i'm giving myself 15 minutes or a half hour to work on something, i try to not get into the temptation to not look beyond that. it's like raising kids. be fully present when you're in the room with them. for me that technique seems to work, and by blocking my

calendar, i can be sure that things that need attention will get attention during the week. >> you can't go back in time. smart phones are only getting smarter. i'm a ceo of a company, receiving hundreds of e-mails a day. here i am, taping my show. i don't have my cell phone with me for the next hour. >> that's because we won't let you. >> that's a good point. if i'm working with a vendor, if their phone is going off, i'm not doing business with them. no matter how important the call is, they can wait 30 minutes. i don't want to wait 24 hours to get a response, but 30 or 60 minutes, not a big deal. put your phone down. take breaks. >> i find the real issue is less at work and more personal time, right? >> right. >> then i have to be much more discipline about put this away. >> with the family at dinnertime when my two kids are sitting on the phones and i can't get them to have a conversation. that's when it becomes a fight.

>> no phones at the table. >> that's right. try to enforce it. >> my kids are still little so i still have control. finally a question about getting a lawyer. >> for a business that specializes in intellectual property and writing online for ourselves and clients, how important is it for us to retain legal counsel on an ongoing basis. >> i'll start with ted. >> jessica will be happy to hear this, you never want to cut corners when it comes to legal fees. what you can do and this has worked effectively for me, i will hire an attorney from a law firm to work for me part time. it's where i pay their salary directly. i don't pay the overhead of the law firm. the law firm is happy with that because they like their young attorneys getting good corporate experience working in a corporation. so it becomes a win-win. we cut back on our expenses while still getting top legal advice. >> for people that don't have the budget for that yet, there are so many firms out there yet that provide flat fee services.

my firm is one of the first that did it. we've been doing it for a number of years. it's possible to get really good legal representation in a way that's predictable and isn't too scary or intimidating. i just want to stay in response to the question, it's absolutely critical to have good legal representation as early as you can afford to have it because honestly, if you can't afford to have a lawyer, you're risking way too much by operating. there's too many things you need to be concerned about, particularly intellectual property. >> great. so great to see both of you guys. >> thank you for investigation us. >> thank you, j.j. nice to be here again. >> thank all of you for joining us. if you want to learn more, click on openforum.com/yourbusiness. you'll find all of today's segmentless plus web exclusive content with a lot more information to help your business grow. you can follow us ot twitter.

@msnbcyourbiz. on facebook and instagram as well. the your business main street series marks the 45th an vertsry of the famous woodstock music festival by visiting the main street in woodstock. >> it's the only true place you could name peace, love and cub cakes is woodstock, new york. it's the perfect name. >> find out how the legacy of the '60s left its mark on the business owners of this small town in rural new york state. until then, i'm j.j. ramberg. remember, we make your business our business. if i can impart one lesson to a new business owner, it would be one thing i've learned is my philosophy is real simple american express open forum is an on-line community, that helps our members connect and share ideas to make smart business decisions. if you mess up, fess up. be your partners best partner. we built it for our members, but it's open for everyone.

there's not one way to do something. no details too small. american express open forum. this is what membership is. this is what membership does. help is on the way, but is it enough? good sunday morning. i'm jonathan capehart in for steve kornacki. we have a lot to get to this morning including a shooting outside st. louis that's caught my attention and the attention of many people across the country. we want to begin in iraq where american fighter jets conducted another round of air strikes against militant fighters. the u.s. says those air strikes destroyed armored carriers and a truck firing at members of the aziti sect. now the uk