Now that cannabis is big business, entrepreneurs are eager to bring tech to the weed industry, which means that cannabis is on the blockchain and machine learning has come for marijuana cultivation.
Both technologies were on display at this year’s Marijuana Business Daily Conference, or MJBizCon, in Las Vegas. Six years ago, MJBizCon started with 17 exhibitors and 400 attendees in Denver. Since then, more states have legalized marijuana, which means more demand for cannabis and more opportunities to make money. For example, analysts expect that the cannabis market in Michigan, which recently became the first Midwestern state to approve recreational marijuana, will reach nearly $2 billion annually in a few years. Globally, the cannabis market is expected to expand from $13 billion this year to $32 billion in five years, experts say. That growth is why this year’s MJBizCon has over 1,000 companies exhibiting and 25,000 attendants from 63 countries.

"Manufacturers see IoT as the most critical to achieving their product quality, production scheduling and supply chain orchestration goals. Insurance industry leaders also view IoT as critical to operations as their business models are now concentrating on automating inventory and safety management. Insurance firms also track vehicles in shipping and logistics fleets to gain greater visibility into how route operations can be optimized at the lowest possible risk of accidents."

Another example of companies that focus on growth without having the core competencies in place already it becomes a grow at all cost as you have to earn back the money for your investors. Not the right way to do this kind of business. Or at least it makes it much harder.

The more bosses try to keep track of their workers, the more precious time employees waste trying to evade them.

Nice article about the pros/cons of dedicated vs. shared IP addresses including strategy to use IP addresses effectively for impact with reasonable cost-effectiveness.

Really good story about the actual formation Walmart and how it took 15 years to work Samuel didn’t open his first Walmart store. And those 15 years before the store opens on the real genesis of why Walmart was successful. Paul quotes from here.

Simple and accurate. From Intuit

Media companies

Acquisition, monetization

Takeaway: The Athletic co-founder argues that those participating in a subscription are weak and at the mercy of tech companies that put together the bundles. His comments fuel a long running debate inside media about the value of bundles.

In an interview with The Information, Alex Mather, whose company recently raised $40 million at around a $200 million valuation, said he had been offered subscription bundling deals that could have doubled his three-year-old company’s revenue. While not naming which of the companies made the offer, he said he turned them down because it was more important for The Athletic to keep a direct relationship with its readers.

“Our calculus is we’d rather grow more slowly and earn it,” said Mr. Mather, whose site publishes in-depth coverage of local sports, market by market. “Once you go down the wholesale path, I really worry.”

“When you are in a bundle, you are weak,” he said, adding the company doesn’t want to be the zebra to the tech companies’ lion. He added that the tech companies aren’t evil. “They are just hungry.”

Subscription bundles have long been offered in television. Cable and satellite TV operators offer consumers packages of channels, mostly owned by other companies, for one fee. The channel owners get a wholesale price. While in television the channel owners have done well from these services, subscription bundles sometimes require content owners to accept a discounted wholesale price—with the tradeoff being wider distribution.

Subscription services have begun appearing in digital news. Texture, a digital magazine subscription service acquired by Apple earlier this year, offers more than 200 publications including The New Yorker and Vanity Fair, for $9.99 a month. As The Information has previously reported, Apple plans to launch a digital news subscription service that would include Texture.

Mr. Mather, 38, said the onslaught of new services trying to launch subscription bundles would be the “biggest shift in the news media in the next five years.”

In a wide-ranging interview, he also addressed the company’s recent $40 million fundraising. He said 90% of the money has gone towards hiring reporters. He noted The Athletic only has three engineers, along with seven performance marketing staff. The company’s most recent round—reported by Axios at the end of October—was led by Founders Fund and Bedrock Capital.

He indicated that the money would help The Athletic differentiate its service, helping it compete with local newspapers and other outlets in each market.

Mr. Mather said he is open to the idea of going public or of selling to a larger company. His goal is to build a sustainable business. He also noted that The Athletic is now under pressure to justify its valuation to its investors.

What should my CEO have done?
When my CEO was explaining to me how the company needed to change to grow, he was explaining facts while I was processing deeply held feelings. The changes in the organization and my role represented what I was about to lose. And when people feel they’re going to lose something deeply important, it triggers an emotional response because change feels like a threat. It’s not an excuse for my counterproductive behavior, but explains why I acted out like I did.

Loss of Certainty? Startups and VC’s have historically operated on the “I’ll deal with this later” principle in letting early employees know what happens as the company scales. The common wisdom is that no one would want to work like crazy knowing that they might not be the ones to lead as the company grows. I call this the Moses-problem – you work for years to get the tribe to the promised land – but you’re not allowed to cross over. The company needs to give formal recognition for those individuals who brought the tribe to the promised land.

Lessons Learned

VC’s, Founders and CEOs now recognize that startups grow through different stages: Search, Build and Grow
They recognize that employees need different skills at each stage
And that some of the original employees won’t grow into the next stage
But while these changes make rational sense to the CEO and the board, to early employees these changes feel like a real and tangible personal loss
Loss of Status and Identity
Loss of Community
Loss of Autonomy
Loss of Certainty
Loss of Fairness
CEOs need to put processes in places to acknowledge and deal with the real sense of loss
These will keep early employees motivated – and retained
And build a stronger company
For employees, how you handle change will affect the trajectory of your career and possibly your net worth

2018-10-17 on Launchpad on Ch 132 Business Radio of Siriuxxm
two sided market for connecting meditation experts with people wanting to meditate
cost to subscribe is ~12/month; yearly is about ~8/month
$10/month subscription seems to work with millenials
about 1/3 of library is free
guides paid ~20% of net revenue based on popularity of content
2% to 5% conversion to paid is considered healthy
generating about 5million in revenue a year

EventStorming is a flexible workshop format for collaborative exploration of complex business domains.