3 ms·

I think you underestimate the opportunity. Just because the businesses won't be completely new (and who knows what people will come up with) doesn't mean there

I think you underestimate the opportunity. Just because the businesses won't be completely new (and who knows what people will come up with) doesn't mean there isn't an economic opportunity. McDonalds and Walmart aren't inventing entirely new products (though their systems are pretty impressive) but they still make billions of dollars.

exelius 11y ago
Would you try to open a business to compete with Walmart or McDonalds? There's definitely profit potential in marijuana, but there's not a lot of opportunity for startups. Every piece of the marijuana market is adjacent to some other hundred billion dollar market, and the major players there will just slide over and crush the challengers with their operational / financial scale.
- rgbrgb 11y ago
  My bet is that Walmart will never sell marijuana. McDonalds, like other large companies could in 10 years when it's federally legal. What seems more likely to happen (and this is also what the SV investors and companies like Meadow[0] are betting on) is that a few of the niche players already in the business expand rapidly to fill the supply/demand vacuum as it becomes more and more legal at the state level. With it being federally illegal, it's nontrivial to build--can't plug in an easy payment processor like Stripe for instance. [0]: https://getmeadow.com/ https://getmeadow.com/
- johansch 11y ago
  Who is the current Walmart/McDonalds in marijuana, then?
- Implicated 11y ago
  "Every piece of the marijuana market is adjacent to some other hundred billion dollar market" Every? How about the glass blowers? Where's the hundred billion dollar market they're adjacent to? The comparison to microbreweries and wineries is a good one here, IMO. They've done alright. And so have the businesses and services that support them.
  - Rotten194 11y ago
    Glass blowing is a hundred-billion dollar market.
- nosuchthing 11y ago
  Craft beer is a better example, and it's booming right now.

exelius 11y ago

Would you try to open a business to compete with Walmart or McDonalds? There's definitely profit potential in marijuana, but there's not a lot of opportunity for startups. Every piece of the marijuana market is adjacent to some other hundred billion dollar market, and the major players there will just slide over and crush the challengers with their operational / financial scale.

rgbrgb 11y ago
My bet is that Walmart will never sell marijuana. McDonalds, like other large companies could in 10 years when it's federally legal. What seems more likely to happen (and this is also what the SV investors and companies like Meadow[0] are betting on) is that a few of the niche players already in the business expand rapidly to fill the supply/demand vacuum as it becomes more and more legal at the state level. With it being federally illegal, it's nontrivial to build--can't plug in an easy payment processor like Stripe for instance. [0]: https://getmeadow.com/ https://getmeadow.com/
johansch 11y ago
Who is the current Walmart/McDonalds in marijuana, then?
Implicated 11y ago
"Every piece of the marijuana market is adjacent to some other hundred billion dollar market" Every? How about the glass blowers? Where's the hundred billion dollar market they're adjacent to? The comparison to microbreweries and wineries is a good one here, IMO. They've done alright. And so have the businesses and services that support them.
- Rotten194 11y ago
  Glass blowing is a hundred-billion dollar market.
nosuchthing 11y ago
Craft beer is a better example, and it's booming right now.