With the rapid growth of the medical marijuana industry in several states, as well as the recreational cannabis industry in Washington and Colorado, a vast number of businesses have sprouted to support, assist, and consult the companies that are actually involved with growing, processing, and selling the plant itself. Viridian Staffing, a recruiting agency based out of Seattle, WA, is one such company.
Ganjapreneur, a cannabis industry business media outlet which launched over the summer, recently conversed with David Murét, co-founder of Viridian, to ask him some questions about the company and how it has helped connect marijuana businesses with job-seekers. When asked what his favorite aspect of working in the cannabis industry was, Murét replied, “We would have to say the people. The industry has been such a magnet for dynamic free-thinking innovators who aren’t nearly as stiff and creatively stifled as you find in so many other, more established industries. We also love working in an industry which, on the whole, places such a high value on triple bottom line business practices, which are both socially responsible and environmentally sustainable, particularly here in the Pacific Northwest.”
Murét also discussed some of the obstacles that he and his co-founder, Kara Bradford, have faced while building Viridian into the business that it is today. Breaking through the “pre-legalization” mentality of keeping business practices private and recruiting only family members and friends has been one of the primary difficulties, he says. Many of these business owners have become so set in their ways that they frequently have “a hard time wrapping their minds around the benefits of leveraging the knowledge and skills of external professionals.”
However, Murét is cautiously optimistic about the future of the industry. “While we agree with the majority of our colleagues that we are currently at the tipping point of the end of prohibition and that there is little that is likely to put the toothpaste back in the tube, we also have to appreciate just how much of this hinges on having a cooperative administration in the White House.”
The full interview is available on Ganjapreneur’s website, along with several other interviews with cannabis industry pioneers. Last month, Ganjapreneur announced its pilot episode of a video series, featuring John Evich from Top Shelf Cannabis, a retailer in Bellingham, WA which was the first store to serve the state’s recreational market earlier this year. Ganjapreneur also launched a marijuana business news-reader app on the Google Play marketplace earlier this week, and announced plans to follow up with an app for the Apple App Store in the near future.