I have the opportunity to be head of cultivation for a 7500 sq ft indoor facility in Oklahoma. My question is regarding salary, sops, and intellectual property (IP).
I have 5 years of indoor experience, 2 years of outdoor experience, and 2 years of commercial indoor experience.
The owners want to pay me 25% of harvest profits, with 5k a month for living expenses, which they would deduct from the 25% at the end of every harvest. In addition, I would get 25% from every order of their clone business as well.
This is a new facility that they are building out and I would be working solo with the owner and two other people to start. So this means that I also have to train all 3. The owner has no experience other than the retail side of cannabis. There is also no operational SOPs being given on their behalf, which I am very open to creating for them ( but I don’t know pricing).
My questions are
What should I ask for as a Head of Cultivation salary? (Given that I am basically making this operational for them and providing the knowledge and training)
How much do I charge them per operational SOP? (Ex. Cloning,veg, ipm, flower, harvest, etc)
How do I protect myself from being fired after they obtain basic knowledge and understanding of the SOPs and procedures?
Like @BrotanicalMatt said. I would figure out the fine details of the contract. 25% of a profit margin, on a company you have 0 control over could also end up leaving your broke…
Yeah I’m waiting to see the contract that his lawyers are gonna send over. Not really inclined to the 25% thing either, would much prefer a salary given I have no equity in the company.
If you are going to produce at least 2-3 lbs per light of baggable buds that are AAA gas, and you have the organizational skills to run the show like clockwork, and develop a gmp like regimen, all documents included, training etc then I would not settle for less than 120,000$ a yr salary + minimum of 10% equity or a solid profit share so your performance rewards you adequately
What is the margin on that? The way you said it sounds like 25% of revenue which would probably incentivize you to be focussed on the nursery business.
Other questions: is the facility producing already and if so how is it performing. Who are you replacing and how confident are you that you can do better? How well capitalized is the company (you could do worse for a psuedo-equity position with a guaranteed $60k/yr)?
I’m not sure about the current operations and they’re margins but I’ll definitely ask that when I see him in the next couple of days. Yes it is 25% of revenue.
The current owners built a giant warehouse and instead of building out rooms in the inside, they decided to buy storage containers and retrofit them to run current culture (about 40 or so in the warehouse). They are not doing well at all, the plants look very unhealthy, much like the clones. There is 3 guys running those containers, who I do not know.
I am very confident that I can produce high quality clones, mothers, and run successful harvests back to back.
The company that wants to hire me is from my friends family trust, who are well off but not insanely rich. They have spent 1 million on the property, license, and building out 4 rooms in the giant warehouse where the storage containers were. 3 rooms are flower rooms with 50 lights each, gavita 1930e. 1 room is a 2 tier veg. And then the clone room attached to the building.
I had a similar/maybe same offer but shyed away due to it seeming too good to be true. I have 18 years of 6 harvests a year under my belt. id take the monthly pay vs getting paid at the end. It seems lots of people cant move harvests.
Sounds like a pretty lean operation if they built and outfitted for $1M including lights that are not inexpensive and off the shelf DWC equipment. What does the HVAC situation look like? Also, have you grown in DWC before?
25% of revenue is incredible but might make the company unprofitable. That $60k flat with a large upside is solid if you have fait that they won’t run out of money on you IMO.
to me selling sops isnt a thing. you are there to work and train people, you share your info. I cant imagine that most jobs involve a secret, you are hired for the skills do it. You dont have to train others unless thats your job. Imagine the pizza joint with an expert who trained in Italy who wont show others how to make the pizza???
I agree with this, I’m retrofitting an existing building with 2x1100sqft flower rooms and I’m going to be at around 1m for that, I would for sure find out about the hvac since if that’s shit you’ll never be able to compensate for it.
They aren’t gonna grow in the containers inside the warehouse, they still have to add lights watering system dehumidifiers and tables to the rooms. It’s a work in progress as we speak. I wouldn’t run current culture, would do coco, never have done current culture before.
Yeah that 25% does until I start to think of how it can do bad. Too many scenarios can play out