- Offer bulk discounts to cannabis growers who need to test their product for potency and contaminants.
- Develop new, more sensitive testing methods that can detect a wider range of cannabinoids and terpenes.
- License these new testing methods to other labs around the world.
- Create a mobile app that allows users to order cannabis tests and receive results quickly and easily.
- Work with local governments to establish mandatory testing requirements for all cannabis sold within the jurisdiction.
- Set up partnerships with online retailers who sell cannabis products, in order to offer customers peace of mind when it comes to quality and safety."
Pay to play, obviously. Start a special “rush service” that costs 2x normal fees and gets you another 5% on top of your numbers.
4 Likes
I bought a qpcr because of “rush” service fees. Now the lab makes 2/3 their tests from me. 
3 Likes
Honestly though, I feel that 24 hour sample dropoff with a 24 hour guarantee on everything but micros would get you a lot.
25 million in a year seems like a huge goal for a cannabis testing lab. You figure you have a median run time for most methods right around 30 min. That means you have to run an insane amount of analytics to get to 25 million based on an inflated market price of $50/test for a total order value of roughly $350(potency, terps, microbial, heavy metal, pesticide)
Finding a qualified individual to sign off on 2nd and 3rd shift will be tough, and costly.
Your best bet is going to be concentrate on volumn or higher prices contracts. Try and employ the use of loss leaders to get the volumn you want. Possibly FREE 24 hour turn around, free microbial(like a $7 dual beam qpcr cost validated) free pickup etc. Something to get most customers in your door.
2 Likes
Test the testers. Send identical samples to different labs and publish the results, then sell the endorsement rights.
2 Likes
I’m sorry, but $20 million in rev for a single cannabis lab?
Hell, even the largest non-cannabis commercial labs (Pace, Eurofins, etc) rarely see those numbers at a single location. Maybe Charles River during peak covid…
2 Likes
Seems like a steep target. How do you retain clients in this industry when faced with a number they don’t like, its so easy to lab shop, even in jurisdictions that require 3rd party analytical testing?
Not to mention the high high overhead of running a lab. I’ve said it before and it will say it again, there are FAR easier ways to make money than starting a testing lab. I’ve never been privy to the financials of these operations, but I often wonder what the margins look like for a single potency test by HPLC. I imagine it’s not very high, and inevitably becomes a volume game, which means you need more staff, more redundancy in lab equipment, more service contracts, more consumables purchases. Makes me think of B.O.A.T (bust out another thousand). Lab turn over in all industries is extremely high, so there is constant onboarding and training, because once the good people get the experience they need, they leave to make more money elsewhere.
I have seen so many of these labs fail in the cannabis/hemp space because the owners/founders had no human relations in the industry, under estimated cost of operations, overlooked key compliance requirements, or generally didn’t know the science and hired the wrong people or prioritized the wrong things. Case in point, CannaSafe, the largest ISO 17025 testing lab in California, is closing its doors because they claim being honest in that industry doesn’t pay, and the lab shopping is out of control. Much easier ways to make money in this space IMO
3 Likes
Off topic, not a derailment remark:
Give yourself two years to know all the regulations for what it takes to be an effective cannabis lab property realtor/dispensary location realtor.
I would think overtaking/buying abandoned hospitals would be the first marker after that go downwards all the way to old autobody shops but that would be for labs.
For dispensaries I would look into buying up an old bank or a place that’s already equipped to handle moving money around and serving large amounts of customers. Like a grocery store would be a good one and then from there go down the line of like warehouse style businesses like buying up an old blockbuster or buying up a home depot for a half homestead style lab grow in rural area in fuck knows where. 
Buying old walmarts would make great dispos cause of the warehouse style and you could divide the place into an all in one facility.
…
That’s one of the areas that seems profitable like hvac.
2 Likes
$20 mill was a random figure I typed in…
I thought you guys would have been more interested in the AI I used to get the results!… not the question.
My bad should have it it clearer in the title
2 Likes
I’d definitely like a link to that AI if it’s public…
1 Like
OpenAI GTP-3 - it’s free for a bit then you buy credits. Not sure if it’s still invite-only but I applied and got approved in around a week
2 Likes
3 Likes