Arizona cannabis pioneer finally gets rewarded Lilach Mazor Power applied for a medical dispensary license in 2011 and for nearly a decade has supplied her community. As the founder and managing director of Giving Tree she joins Dan Humiston to talk about finally being allowed to sell to adult-use customers. She also shares her plans for expansion and upcoming capital raise. Produced by podCONX
Arizona cannabis pioneer finally gets rewarded
Lilach Mazor Power applied for a medical dispensary license in 2011 and for nearly a decade has supplied her community. As the founder and managing director of Giving Tree she joins Dan Humiston to talk about finally being allowed to sell to adult-use customers. She also shares her plans for expansion and upcoming capital raise.
Dan Humiston: . [00:00:00] Today in raising cannabis capital, we are joined by Layla maser power founder and managing director of giving tree lilac. Welcome to the show.
Lilach Mazor Power: Thank you. Thank you for having me.
Dan Humiston: We have a lot to talk about, especially with Arizona, finally passing adult use in November, which is really great news. Finally. Yeah, before we jump into the, all the opportunities that the new law has created.
Let's talk about giving tree, which is one of the longest standing vertically integrated cannabis companies in this state. And you recently opened a new 2,400 square foot dispensary with a, with was the expansion prompted by the new law, or did you already have that in the works.
Lilach Mazor Power: This has been in the works for a long time. The good thing is it came up at the right time, so I've been trying to work on it for a long time. But it came up right at the opening of adult use in Arizona. So it was perfect.
Dan Humiston: Man. That was great timing. [00:01:00] It's sometimes better to be lucky than good. That's just worked out perfect for you. I saw on your website as a, as I was scrolling through and it asked me if I was a 21 plus recreational customer. So there's the new location already and adult use dispensary.
Lilach Mazor Power: Yes, we moved our dispensary on January 25th, hoping to do a a soft opening and get ready for adult use and the state like Dane adult use on the 24th. So we opened for adult use on 27th. It was not a soft opening.
Dan Humiston: That never happens. We talk to people all over the country and, The law passes and then three years later, they're still trying to get the licensing stuff sorted out. , I got to give Arizona a lot of credit for moving as quickly. Were you given a priority because you we're already an established business.
Lilach Mazor Power: yes. So they posted the application. Three days before they approved us. Never happens. I can [00:02:00] tell you, I got the license in 2011 and it was on hold until 2012 because of our governor. So not even in a usual for Arizona, but yes, the health department, no, all bus and have been my throwing us for years. So it was easy for them to switch the block, just grab our fee and we're good to go.
Yeah,
Dan Humiston: That is crazy. Now under that license, or do you have the opportunity to open more dispensaries?
Lilach Mazor Power: no. , I could open one that only serves patients and one just for adult use, but none of us are doing that. So our space , can serve both, but we did get a second license for a cultivation. An extraction. So I can't open another production facility.
Dan Humiston: Okay. All right. So if you wanted to open up more, dispensary's, you'd have to apply just like everybody else for a license.
Lilach Mazor Power: yes. And they're not really giving many more. So they're giving 12 more licenses that they're calling backfill will be [00:03:00] in counties without any dispensaries. And then later on, they will give 26 licenses for social equity candidates. So that is all the increase in Spencer rates are going to happen in Arizona.
Dan Humiston: Wow. Wow. That is really good that you were one of the few people that have a license. That's puts you in a great position. You mentioned earlier, or I mentioned earlier that you're a seed to sale fully integrated company you have cultivation facility and you ever own brands.
Is that correct?
Lilach Mazor Power: Yeah, so we are vertically integrated. We have a cultivation extraction, manufacturing, retail wholesale, and of course the logistic distribution center, our company has two brands. Kendrick cannabis, which is a capsule brand. Now we sell in about 50% of the markets and 60 stores in Arizona. And then ketotonic, which is THCA brand, and that is more small batch.
And you can only find it at about 10 [00:04:00] stores in Arizona.
Dan Humiston: Okay. And do you carry other people's brands or are you, will you be carrying other people's brands in your locations?
Lilach Mazor Power: We do our store has about 80 different brands.
Dan Humiston: Oh my gosh. Okay. I would say for sure. Now, do you feel like you're going to have to up your production to accommodate the increased demand.
Lilach Mazor Power: Yes, we're already seeing it. As much as we thought we were prepared, which I guess it's a good issue they have about that. The men is. Much higher than we thought and much higher than our supply. So we used to supply to our store and be able to wholesale some of our flour, but now we're purchasing flour and everything goes into our store.
Same thing with our brands. We are. Buying more mass product to be able to manufacture more. We definitely have some automation machines coming in. We're going through a big expansion for our production facility. It's a big, exciting and [00:05:00] expensive year.
Dan Humiston: I was just, yeah, I was just going to say that. I say, everything that you're talking about, ages here to Ching cha Ching, it's very expensive to do what you're talking about. And I suspect you're probably having to add staff and bringing in some key people.
This is very expensive. Are you. In the process of raising capital. Are you going to just be able to self-fund this? How's the plan for moving forward?
Lilach Mazor Power: So we are actually able to self-fund gross.
Dan Humiston: Wow.
Lilach Mazor Power: We hired 19 people in February. It's big. But for our future plans and how we want to take our brands into. More stores and be able to get into other States. This is when we are actually going to have to increase our production even more and hire key people and raise capital for that.
Dan Humiston: Okay, so that's the big picture , you want to get your brand into more locations in Arizona and possibly even expanded out into other States? Is that going to be the big picture [00:06:00] plan?
Lilach Mazor Power: Yes, that is our plan. So as a small business, we realized we're not going to have 10 stores, and we don't believe in the model really retail winning in the retail store. So how do we get to be in all those stores instead of operating those stores? And that was really the brand was our solution.
Dan Humiston: . Now, as far as raising capital, have you already begun the process of raising money or you're just in, at the preliminary stage of that?
Lilach Mazor Power: Preliminary stage. So we have hired CFO to start analyzing everything that we never get to analyze as a small business. He's doing that job. And then once we know exactly what we need to raise to where we want to be and that's to your plan, then we're going to
Dan Humiston: Especially like having been in business, we talked earlier, you started this process and what 2010, 2011. There are very few people with over a decade of experience , in all levels of this business. So , I suspect you're going [00:07:00] to be an investor's dream.
This isn't an idea. This is something that's up and working and you've been living it for all these years. I suspect you're not going to have too much trouble finding people interested in working with you.
Lilach Mazor Power: I don't think we're going to have. Trouble finding people. We have proved our model. And it's growing year after year, so we are doing great. I think the goal would be to find the right money and to find partnership, we see a lot of Rhonda us people get into trouble with just looking for money instead of finding people that see their vision and really believe in where they're going.
So I think that would be what we need to focus on.
Dan Humiston: And you think that process is going to be complete and ready to go within the next what six months or so.
Lilach Mazor Power: That's exactly it. We're helping around September to start right after the summer to start the capital raise and be able to close it by the [00:08:00] end of the year. So we're up and running.
Dan Humiston: All right. We'll, we're going to have the links to giving tree in our show notes, and I'm sure if somebody wants to get an, a head start on this process and get their foot in the door and speak to Layla, I'm sure she would be happy to speak with you. But this is really exciting. It's great for the industry.
Yeah, especially Arizona. We've been waiting forever for this to happen. And now listening to you and how much growth you've seen. It's just goes to show you how important this is to keep moving forward. And couldn't be happier for you. I'm glad , youwe're able to take the time out to talk with us today.
Lilach Mazor Power: Absolutely. Thank you. Yes, it's. It's it's interesting. Cause it's not an easy journey. It's not an easy journey to be an entrepreneur and to be in a startup company and a startup industry. And 10 years ago, nobody wanted to talk to us or. Never even think about capital raise, but it's finally all coming together.
I think the last couple of years have been really good for the industry and really good for our company.
Dan Humiston: You deserve it. [00:09:00] Congratulations. And thanks. Thanks for being on the show today.
Lilach Mazor Power: Thank you for having me.