Why You Need to Invest In the $6 Billion Cannabis Industry ft. Vladimir Bautista
This week we break down why and how you need to invest in the booming cannabis industry before it’s too late with Vladimir Bautista, CEO and Co-Founer of The Happy Munkey, an internationally known NYC lifestyle company that is synonymous with cannabis culture. Vladimir has gone from “Corner Boy” to “Corner Office” after spending years incarcerated for selling cannabis to now being one of the leading voices in the industry, bridging the gap between regulation, education, and investment.
In this episode:
Why and how to invest in the $6 Billion cannabis industry
How the cannabis industry has transformed and when it will become federally legalized
How to cultivate and manage investment relationships
How to destigmatize cannabis culture
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Learn more about Happy Munkey: https://happymunkey.com
If you liked this episode, you'll love our next one—it's packed with similar insights and inspiration!
Why You Need to Invest in Cannabis Before It's Too Late with Christine De La Rosa
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Full Transcript:
Welcome back to Banking on Cultura I am your host Victoria Jenn Rodriguez and you know on this show we talk all things Latino culture the complexity the vibrancy entrepreneurship and of course all the bonchinche in between now today's guest is going to basically give us a mini Mastermind on how we should be investing our coins and it's probably going to be more untraditional than what you might be thinking but it is an industry that is popping that is booming and something that our community needs to be involved in so let's get into this he is the CEO and co-founder of the Happy Munkey brand an internationally known New York City lifestyle company that is synonymous with cannabis culture he is widely recognized for his deep relationships with the international cannabis Elite scene and his successful experience in music hospitality and event production he provides corporate cannabis access to the authentic NYC cannabis scene the Happy Munkey team has been awarded prestigious recognition such as the Silver Clio award for Innovative Immersion Experiences specifically at the Van Gogh exhibit he is basically if you haven't gathered this already he is basically the man in the cannabis industry connecting politicians executives creatives and athletes to a space that has been once deemed ghetto to now solid gold I welcome Vladimir Bautista welcome to the show thank you for having me Victoria Jenn I'm honored to be here on Banking on Cultura because that's the whole motto of my business I'm banking on culture so it's an honor to be here on your platform the pleasure is all mine darling so you have to start us off with some tea that's how we like to kick things off give us some tea give us something we don't know a lot of people don't know that one of the best classes I had in school and I got the best grades on was conflict resolution I think that's why I'm so good at helping lead teams and helping different walks of life meet and get to know each other because everybody has all these different views and perspectives but 99% of all the problems in life are communication and I think I'm a really good communicator and I help cut through all the BS that's really dope I didn't have conflict resolution as a subject in my school what was this like in school in high school interesting I went to GW High School uptown right because you're a native of New York correct the Dominican native from uptown Uptown Harlem from Sugar Hill 139 from Broadway so you've made a name for yourself in this industry and what's really interesting about your story is you actually used to hustle correct and now this has been legalized to an extent I mean there's still a lot of is it completely legalized or is it it's completely legal on a New York State level it is not legal federally yet but as far as New York State it's completely legal okay so traveling with it if you're not going to another state that's legal you can have issues okay we've got to make that clear 'cause it's a little confusing out here because some places it's legal some it's not so you grew up in New York City Dominican used to hustle and now you are on the business side of bringing this industry to light in a way where our community can benefit because back in the day we used to actually go to jail for consuming for selling for all the things is that like bonkers to you is it mind-boggling to you that you used to get in trouble for this and now you're like the face of it I would have never thought to be honest with you you know it's something that boggles me to this day because they normalized persecuting and over-arresting our communities not just if you were selling it even if you were just consuming it and now I come to find out that I thought because you know I was more local back then more uptown they didn't go out much I thought that was happening in all communities in New York but now I talk to my friends that live in Soho live in Chelsea and they're like oh no they told us to turn it off they never arrested us so it shows that they were just targeting our communities and making up these quotas and over-policing over-arresting us so give us some more historical context of how cannabis has played a role in our community and communities of color in general well like I just mentioned they built their quotas on targeting minority communities and by default basically normalized it people getting arrested at an alarming rate and now we're realizing that people were just medicating the community people were just medicating themselves because you never heard of anybody pass away from using cannabis or anything like that it was just a tool to oppress our communities and now that it's legal it's time that the same people that suffered for it get the opportunity to become upstanding citizens and make all the money off of it because it wouldn't be fair if now that it's legal so many people got killed so many people got deported so many people got arrested to build this six-billion-dollar industry that is in New York so now I don't think it's right that people that are not from our communities are running the majority of the businesses that's why I'm trying to educate not only by speaking on platforms like this but by being an example like you said I used to hustle I've been arrested over 22 times for cannabis and you know that limited me in life from getting into good schools from getting good job employment so now it's like I'm going back to my community with all this information that I've gathered in the last six seven years to be an example and show people that there's another way and how this can help repair the harm that the War on Drugs and War on Cannabis did to our community so that's my goal that's why one of our sayings is we don't do it for the clout we do it for the culture because if we don't really take advantage of this opportunity it's going to be really sad because this might be the biggest transfer of wealth that we'll see in our lifetime because as you know because you obviously study entrepreneurship and all the other businesses they're already established they already have gatekeepers these other industries they already have Fortune 500 companies so for people like us it makes it much harder to get through all those barriers but this is in its infancy and we have the chance to be the gatekeepers and be those Fortune 500 companies because it's such a new industry interesting so for some people they might hear that number six billion and be like really intimidated so first of all who makes that number where does that number come from so that number comes from right now in the legal market in the last two years there's only like 50 stores 50 legal stores they've grossed about $150 million that number comes from intel from the legacy market also known as the illicit market New York's the highest-consuming city in the world and so they mix the consumption numbers with different numbers as far as like what they find and they seize throughout the years and that's where they get the estimate from okay got it so like things they used to seize like they used to run up in people's spots and seize from drug dealers and they're like okay this is what could be the market price for it plus when you add up the consumers the consumers interesting what I thought was really interesting about New York and if you guys don't know about this pay attention especially to those of you who are in New York they provided they decided to give out licenses but they wanted to give them to only formerly incarcerated folks which I thought was really interesting but also super dope I thought obviously you guys should get priority because you lost parts of your life as a result of it being illegal and now it's legal so they were only providing licenses to people who were previously incarcerated but talk to us about that because I've heard you know kind of through the grapevine they're still trying to figure it out and I think that's the inevitable thing that comes with a new industry and something that is so brand new to your point people are figuring it out as they go they're flying the plane as they're building it so talk to us about like your licensing experience how long did it take what was the investment and realistically how can somebody get put on to this well it's a really loaded question but you're definitely right about the nuance of it and the new industry part so remember there are about 33 other states where cannabis is legal something along those lines no state has attempted to do what New York did what they usually do is there's these companies that are called MSOs large corporations that run multi-state operations so usually they let them go first and that is like I said like let a Fortune 500 company go first and then let people like us in three four five years later down the line when all the real estate's gone when the first-mover advantage is gone and et cetera New York said no we want to make sure that the people that were harmed by the War on Drugs get the first opportunity and it was not just having a record in order to qualify for it it's called the CAURD license you had to have two years of at least owning 10 or 20% of a business and a record oh and you had to be a New York resident for over five years or something like that okay interesting I didn't know that so they wanted to make sure that it was people actually from New York and not people from out of town they actually wanted to make sure that because you know as you know you have this show and you know how complex business is they wanted to make sure that not only do they have the record but they also have a decent business acumen to be able to operate something like this so that was the two main factors I applied as soon as it came out I think I was like number three to apply and I didn't receive it until August of last year I was the last one to receive it so it's been a lot of waiting and how long was that time period from the time you applied to the time you actually received it probably like a year and then after I got the license then a lawsuit happened which paused the whole program some war veterans basically sued said that they were discriminated against because people that like I said look like us went first and as you can imagine Black and brown people are not usually first in any shape form or fashion or ex-convicts so you can imagine there was a large part of the population that wasn't happy about that but that got dealt with but for a minute it was paused because of that and now that got through and now we finally are secured our license and I had a tough decision to make it goes back to the name of your show Banking on Cultura for six seven years I've been saying we don't do it for the clout we do it for the culture and me and you know that it's easy to say that as a soundbite but it's another thing to put your money where your mouth is so I had the option of opening up in Times Square Tribeca Soho anywhere and just chasing the money and I was like but would I really be doing it for the culture if I did that so I knew after my research that people see no value in our people in our community so a majority of people didn't even consider it and I was like I have to be the example and I have to bring all this information and be the example for our community so I went all the way the opposite everybody else did and I'm opening up in Inwood in Dyckman because they don't see value in our people but I do because I know that we can do anything anybody else can do and we have a vibrant community if you understand it and that was a tough decision because like I said it's easy for the soundbite but now I had to put my money where my mouth is how much does it cost to go through the licensing process and then actually get the dispensary and run a full shop like what is that investment well it just it just depends right because there's different routes so I took the independent route so it was only like $2,000 for the application but then after you receive the license they say well where's your real estate at and that gets really complicated and really expensive I'll tell you why remember it's not federally legal so whatever property you use can't have a mortgage on it because it's not federally legal because the bank can call a loan on it so you have to find something that's not 250 square feet from a church not 500 square feet from a school not 1,000 square feet from another dispensary and not have a mortgage or have any type of liens or issues so that really narrows your real estate down and landlords know that you are in a business that has limited access to real estate so they hit you with something called a green tax which means like if this place costs $15,000 you're in the cannabis industry we know you need this you don't have many options it's 25 for you Victoria so just giving you an idea and then you start there then you have to get a construction and a design going you have to meet certain requirements you have to have a vault you have to have a certain number of security factors you have to have a certain number of cameras you have to have an ADA bathroom ADA bathroom meaning like somebody that's handicapped can use the restroom okay and why do you need a vault oh because you're going to be dealing with a lot of cash because you know everybody is not always sometimes you can take credit sometimes you can't you know what I mean so most of the time it's cash and debit and so you need to have these things secured by law before you even open so all these costs add up okay so if I'm an investor and I'm like yo I want to get a dispensary I'm going to hook up with somebody who was incarcerated right because I've never been incarcerated how much money should I be thinking about to invest in something like this not invest in the industry but invest in like a dispensary you should be thinking about a minimum of like half a million to a million dollars at a minimum because you have to calculate you know you have to put a deposit down what happens is a lot of times the entity cannot have any history it has to be a brand new entity that doesn't have anything else connected to it so that means that the entity doesn't have any credit so the landlord's also going to tell you all right Victoria I understand all this let me get a 12-month deposit wow so I'm just giving you different ways you can add up because it can all vary in scale and money but that's why I gave you like half a million to a million because all these things add up interesting interesting okay but now I'll give you the flip side okay there's a flip side to everything right so why would you want to do that because the numbers state that I'll give you an example there's some people that are not doing the greatest but there are some people that are doing great there's a dispensary that just reported their last year income it's called Housing Works down here and they grossed $24 million last year wow there is another one in Long Island called Strange Stars they're grossing about three four five six million a month a month a month wow so what I'm trying to say is like there's an upside if you do it right but you got to go through all the red tape and then like and also it's capital intense but you know in business you can't make big money without putting up big money so that's like the variables there so if someone doesn't have that type of capital but they want to get involved they understand the significance of this moment where should they start so first of all either you would have to go and find venture capitalists that you know maybe could fund you or they had a program called DASNY where the state I think they did this for like 150 people where they put up the money but now they're partners with you on the dispensary and they put up the capital and they put up the real estate and you just operate it so there's a lot of different ways you can go about it but it's just you know all of them have different ramifications on your profit if you put up your money you can make more if you don't you'll make less but you don't have to put up the money and that's all the variables oh and there's something very important too that New York did because of course they were worried about predators as we call them in the legal world like you said just using straw Black and brown people just to really run the whole thing that's not possible the way New York did it by law the person that's on the license cannot go under 51% of equity so they can never lose control no matter how much money anybody put up because we know in the business world how that works so what is your goal with this where are you trying to take this so you open up when is it set to open by the way we don't have a date but we hope like around the summer sometime because you know like I said there's a lot of variables construction build-out whatever but the goal is by this summer yes okay and what are you what are your projections telling you what do you what are you hoping for well I'm not really getting caught up in that as much what I'm really hoping for is this right I'm going to give you an example because I feel like it's bigger than me Happy Munkey and profit I feel like when you put the people first the profits will follow the reality is that 40% of all the taxes earned from every legal dispensary goes to communities most harmed by the War on Cannabis and the War on Drugs 40% of that goes directly to the community where the dispensary operates at so what does that mean I just finished telling you earlier that the state grossed $150 million in the last two years you know how much money Inwood made zero because nobody was operating up there so we're talking about real money that can really help the community because you know every million dollars is $40,000 $10 million is $400,000 we're talking about real money that goes to schools parks et cetera what am I looking forward to that I am going to employ people from the community that you can come to my dispensary and you don't have to speak English if you speak Spanish somebody will be able to help you understand how this benefits you in Spanish and just like I said showing people that don't see value in our communities that our community is amazing robust and is capable of doing anything that any other community can and being an example like you said I used to hustle and showing the blueprint like I always tell people right now we've hit a crossroads right Victoria so the crossroads is like I'll give you the example of the prohibition of alcohol so there were two different types of people that benefited off of this and had two different routes and you can go either way so you had Al Capone he did really well during prohibition he made a ton of money but when that ended his reign ended and his generational wealth ended right there when that run stopped then you had somebody like Joe Kennedy JFK's father did the exact same thing but he did transition when alcohol went legal and he put his son in the White House I'm trying to be more of the Dominican Joe Kennedy than Al Capone because that's a short run and be an example to show others that if I did it they can do it too because I'm no different than them I'm a corner boy with a corner office but I used to be on a corner so if I'm going to have a conversation with my Abuela or with my Tia how do I approach them how do I break it down to them in such a way where they're able to internalize it because they got all the preconditioning right that's been passed down generation to generation so how do I have that conversation I think that like I said you got to have it from a you got to start with the medicinal benefits and show people evidence of like about smoking and getting high this is saving lives people they don't even know the options that are out there like they don't know that there's salves they just think that smoking is the only form of consumption and that there's edibles that have CBN to help you go to sleep instead of using Ambien which we know is not good and I think in that way is how we start the conversation like you are on these pharmaceuticals have you looked at the side effects I think making the comparison and I'm not a doctor but like you do your research everybody has it on their phone you go to YouTube and you look at what it's doing and I think that's a good way to start the conversation before we get into anything deeper because you know that is like pretty I don't think they even look at it as medicine so I think that that changes starts combating some of that stigma yeah I think the verbiage we use is so important so I love that you're describing it as medicine one of the ways that I've introduced it to my family is so my dad you know his knees he's 81 so he's feeling all the feels so I got him like a cream to put on his arm on his shoulder and he was like oh wow this feels good and that's when I broke it to him I was like oh yeah well that's got cannabis in it like you know that's how it was made and then it started a conversation because now he was already bought in and he was like oh wow really and then it was an opportunity to talk about other things et cetera so that could be another way to bring it up is like meet them where they are and give them something that'll help them alleviate symptoms that they're experiencing and then like I said you know the other perspective is like you know that the other thing that the last thing they remember about cannabis especially in our communities is like somebody was getting arrested somebody was getting shot this is the also the trauma that is associated with cannabis especially in our communities so now for them to see like no look this is a security you have to show ID that you're 21 and over this cannabis was lab-tested it has no chance of having fentanyl or anything else in it I think that the safety of the legal cannabis thing also is going to help alleviate those traumas and that PTSD from all that bad stuff that happened from the War on Cannabis is also going to help so I have a question that I've been dying to ask you where did the Happy Munkey name come from like where does it come from okay that's a that's an interesting question so the funny thing is that my partner Ramon Reyes he's always been on his spiritual and his spirit animal was a monkey so he already had that and then you know when you notice and you look around now I'll tell you you look at a lot of cannabis brands that come from Black and brown communities it's always like gangster monkey or it's like real aggressive and it's just like we didn't want that energy we looked around at the events and stuff we were doing like we're making people happy and then we added that that's how I came up with Happy Munkey you know what I mean because it's like that's what we're selling happiness not selling gangster you know what I mean 'cause like you said language matters names matter and we wanted to make sure that the name and the brand just brings exudes positivity and happiness instead of you know we already had enough of the doom and gloom the name doesn't have that yeah yeah and you also spell monkey differently you spell M-U-N-K-E-Y what's that about well that is also for intellectual property reasons 'cause you know you got to make sure that you don't get caught up in you know as you blow up bigger companies come and say oh we were the first Happy Monkey with an O you know stuff like that smart smart so tell the people where can they learn more how can they get involved well you can go to our website happymunkey.com there are a lot of things for you to pick from there not only do we have a podcast not only do we have a newsletter we put out every Monday but also we will be hiring a good amount of people so if you ever wanted to be because sometimes as Victoria said you want to get involved sometimes you want to learn from within so we're going to be hiring everything from cleaning to budtenders to managers so please leave your information there if you ever wanted to be part of a new emerging industry a movement that really cares about the people please leave your information there and anything else like Victoria mentioned we want to be part of the solution not the problem so even if you just have any questions in general please contact us check out what we got going on and remember we're coming soon to a theater near you we don't do it for the clout we do it for the culture and remember you're too blessed to be stressed things will get greater later you just got to always choose happy I love it well thank you so much for being on the show and for everything that you're doing for the culture I always love talking to you I always feel revitalized and vibrant and just like yeah like we got somebody on the inside leading the charge so thank you for everything that you're doing and thanks for educating our community today guys thank you for tuning in to another episode of Banking on Cultura I'll see you on the next one.