"From Immigrant to Cannabis Mogul: A Story of Resilience and Impact" Annu Khot, the founder of Sociale, a cannabis dispensary in Chicago, shares her inspirational journey, highlighting how she raised capital in the challenging cannabis industry and opened a dispensary with a focus on promoting diversity and social equity. She joins Dan Humiston to emphasize her immigrant experience and commitment to giving back to the community. Despite facing numerous challenges and conducting extensive outreach to secure investments, her passion and belief in impact investing ultimately led to success. She also discusses her dispensary's recent opening and expansion plans, emphasizing the importance of inclusion and education in the cannabis industry. Produced by PodConx
"From Immigrant to Cannabis Mogul: A Story of Resilience and Impact"
Annu Khot, the founder of Sociale, a cannabis dispensary in Chicago, shares her inspirational journey, highlighting how she raised capital in the challenging cannabis industry and opened a dispensary with a focus on promoting diversity and social equity. She joins Dan Humiston to emphasize her immigrant experience and commitment to giving back to the community. Despite facing numerous challenges and conducting extensive outreach to secure investments, her passion and belief in impact investing ultimately led to success. She also discusses her dispensary's recent opening and expansion plans, emphasizing the importance of inclusion and education in the cannabis industry.
MJBulls - https://podconx.com/podcasts/raising-cannabis-capital
Dan Humiston - https://podconx.com/guests/dan-humiston
Annu Khot - mailto:contact@socialedispensary.com
Sociale Dispensary - https://socialedispensary.com/
Recorded on Squadcast - https://squadcast.fm/
[00:00:00] Okay, absolutely. Cool. Thank you, Dan. Thank you,
Today on the MJ Bowles Raising Cannabis Capital Podcast, we are joined by a new, is it, coat. We are joined by a new coat, the founder of Sociale. Welcome to the show.
Bowles for having me. And I'm equally excited and thrilled to be a part of this podcast.
Well, that's, that's really nice to say. I'm excited so much to talk to you because your story is really inspirational. You've, you've, um, Really defy the odds by a raising money in this market and B opening a Canada's dispensary in Chicago and That would be in most cases would be would be a story in itself What I find most inspirational about your about what you've done is How are you using?
your platform to promote diversity and equity and social equity. And I thought that might be a good place to start because a lot [00:01:00] of people have dispensaries. Your approach is a little bit different and I thought that would be, I think our listeners would really be interested in how your approach to this is.
Absolutely. And thank you for bringing that topic because I'm very passionate about, you know, how I started my business and where I am today. Um, my story is I always take the first mover's advantage wherever I go. I'm an immigrant and I came to this country, um, in 2008. And I have, since then, I have, uh, been able to found two companies and, uh, one venture which was founded by my husband.
I helped him build that. So, um, um, anything new doesn't intimidate me or, uh, doesn't like, you know, scare me. So, um, I take it with a lot of grit and, uh, determination. Um, the idea behind Social started back in 2014 when Illinois, um, decided to open up, uh, their, [00:02:00] uh, doors to medical cannabis. And, uh, we did that round of applications back then, though we did not win any, but we have, but our, our application was ranked pretty high.
Um, so my journey actually started from there and, um, in 2019 when, uh, Illinois decided to become adult use, we did the next round of application and a really great thing happened during that point of time, uh, and it started the entire social equity concept started with the state where they floated out application based on, you know, your social equity status.
And we, as a company, we intentionally chose to be social equity by employment and I told my husband, you know, this is our chance to give it back to America. This is a chance to give it back to the community who, who helped us We were both immigrants with college degree in this country with no resource and no connections.
And, you know, and today now we have a door and we have the ability to keep the door open for people [00:03:00] to enter through it. And why not do that? So instead of going through social equity by ownership or, you know, having a veteran owned business or anything we decided intentionally to go with social equity by employment.
We also had employees back then during our application period, which was an expensive process for us, but we had to still maintain our social equity status by having those employees in our payroll. And that's how our journey started. And that's how our commitment to a social equity and diversity, it keeps continuing with our business.
And today we a lot of flagship stores and Park Ridge, Illinois, and we have more than 51 percent of our employees come from DIA areas and communities that has been impacted by war on drugs.
Yeah, I found that really interesting that you've really assisted the communities that were disproportionately affected by the war on drugs. I think that says a lot about. You know, a, your commitment to this, but [00:04:00] also it ties into your, you know, being an immigrant and understanding, appreciating what, what, what a lot of these people went through long before you arrived.
Absolutely. And, and, and I understand the journey where it can be lonely and you know, you are here and you're wondering how people got there and how do you like level the playing field for people? And I want, and I, so my definition of leadership is building people around me as leaders. And that's how I understand what leadership is.
And that's what I'm trying to do with all my staff, making them independent leaders in their own ways.
That's awesome. That is so good. Now, getting a, getting a license. I mean, we've done a lot of shows about getting licenses and that's, and that's a challenge. They're always a challenge, but I want to talk a little bit about how you funded this because it's very impressive, especially for, like I said, you didn't grow up here.
You didn't have that network of people that, [00:05:00] that will. A lot of people lean on to that, do that, that friends, friends and family round. So talk to us about your journey, your raising capital journey.
The first thing I would tell people who have really raised capital is if you have walked that path, let me tell you, knocking doors will humble you. And I've had that experience. There have been numerous doors I have knocked and let me tell you, the entire experience humbled me and put me in a place where I had to rethink the entire strategy.
Raising capital in cannabis business, especially being a minority and a woman is extremely difficult. And, um, I reached a point where I had to rethink my strategy. What is it that I'm doing is not right. And then I realized that Here, I am going to a bunch of people who have money, but they don't necessarily share my worldview.
So I have to change that strategy to go to people who share my worldview and then start [00:06:00] asking money from them. So I sort of like, you know, had to put on my sales cap and then I started, uh, as I said, I was an immigrant and I don't have that kind of network here. So I started approaching people that I know within my circle that, Hey, you know, this is a great investment opportunity.
You might know nothing about the green rush that's happening in cannabis industry. Do you want to sit down and let's, you want to go through my financial plan? Do you want to hear about the prospect? Do you want to hear about, you know, how I bring in change in this entire industry and they were open to discussion and one thing led to another.
And after maybe like knocking a hundred doors, I was able to finally figure out one person who believed in. My vision and mission and here I am with you know, their investment.
Oh, I love it. I think that that's, that's a strategy that more people need to take because everybody loves a story. And especially if they're predisposed to love the story in advance versus [00:07:00] a financial person, it's just looking at numbers. You're, you were out there selling the story and then if they had money, that was great, but you were selling the story.
I wonder if that those meetings, those hundred meetings, did they sometimes what looked like a failure turned out to be a success because they introduced you to somebody else?
Nobody introduced me to anyone. Let me be honest with you.
Well,
I had to do my cold calling. I had to do my research. I had to pay to be able to go to expensive conferences where I had, you know, where my business was not making money. So those initial investment came out of my pocket. And, um. Um, the community is helpful in terms of giving you ideas and strategies how to run business, but the community is still not open about sharing investors on their list.
I guess that's good. [00:08:00] That's good to know. That's good
Yes, nobody did that with me, but I think what I, what was my advantage was the fact that, uh, I really believed in my story. And I was very passionate in delivering my message. And they saw a component where, you know, was making an impact. So I want to bring in people who really believe in impact investment right now, rather than, you know, seeing how much ROI I'm going to get.
And also telling that you will still make money when you do impact investing. You know, there is a myth behind that. The thing is that, you know, like Capitalism is everything, and you know, you have to see ROIs, but that's not the whole entire truth. Impact investing also will make you some amount of money.
That needs to be said more frequently. That for sure. And now for our listeners, we weren't talking about a couple hundred thousand dollars that she raised. She raised... It's well over a million dollars and, and, [00:09:00] and so this is not something that, uh, should be taken lightly, this strategy. Now let's talk about, before we wrap up, you have, give us, give us an idea of where you are today and where you'd like to be like in five years.
Thank you. Um, so we opened our dispensary, uh, our soft opening was end of August, and our, uh, we had our grand opening after Labor Day weekend. So we are way past, let's just say, 45 days into operations right now. Uh, we had two audits from the state, so, and it was all clear. So I'm super happy. It's like, you know, your principal comes in and they take a test and you know, they say that, you know, you got an A grade.
So I'm super happy about it that, you know, we are, we are on top of our game. We, we have our SOPs in place. We have great employees. We have a sales training in place. So we, we have a lot of, uh, post, uh, you know, opening, uh. We took care of all the post-op opening challenges right now. Um, in, in the meanwhile, my next, uh, goal is [00:10:00] to, uh, we are, uh, we are actually, uh, under l o i with, uh, a license holder.
And we are in process of acquiring our second, uh, uh, dispensary license. Uh, so if that deals go through, so we will have our second license in place. We'll have, uh, we have figured out our real estate. We have our, uh, money, we have our fund ready, so, um, I don't see why we can't open our second dispensary next year.
Oh my gosh, that's so exciting. So fast, so fast. Well, you said you had the, your, your money lined up. Will there be opportunities for for other people to participate in your growth other investors?
Oh yeah, absolutely. So now that I have my post operational financials ready, I can show them actual numbers compared to projections. That's how I had raised my first 3 million. Um, and they would see numbers in real terms. Uh, we, my, my plan is to open, uh, 10 dispensaries and build the retail footprint in Illinois.
So, uh, I'm still raising money for my third and fourth [00:11:00] dispensary and I welcome any opportunity that comes my way.
Oh, that's awesome That's awesome. Well, I'm sure a lot of people will be interested before I let you go significance of your name of the name of your business.
Social. So if you break it down phonetically, uh, so, uh, C L. It's S O hyphen S H E hyphen A L L. So so means social. Uh, we are fighting for the plant. We are making sure that, you know, The plant, the plant is socially acceptable in our community and there is no stigma attached to cannabis going forward and it's done by education.
Um, she is because the plant is female and this business is female owned, female proud and female operated. Most of my employees are women. Uh, 85 percent of my staff are women. And all is because I'm an immigrant and I felt how lonely an immigrant journey can be in this world. I believe in inclusion. So bring everyone in in my [00:12:00] dispensary, bring everyone in in my business and community, and there will be no disparity here.
Oh, I love it.
came in.
I love it. I love it. Well, we're going to have all of your information in the show notes. So if more people want to join your community and be part of the all, uh, just click the links, or if you're maybe interested in talking to about investing, I mean, geez, like licenses in Illinois are going to be, are very valuable.
So I would, I would, I would not. Hesitate on this one. Thank you so much for being on the show today. And again, congratulations. What a great accomplishment, especially given the fact where you started. This is very impressive. It inspires
you so much. Thank you. I really enjoyed my time chatting with you. Thank you.
That was a good interview, man.
Thank you so much.
It was, well, it's just like,