Why dealmakers call MJBizCon ‘THE conference’

Roz McCarthy spent the last day of MJBizCon 2021 walking the show floor armed with business cards, a T-shirt she’d had made the previous night and a vision for the cannabis business that would become Black Buddha Cannabis.

As luck would have it, she ran into Pam Moore, then senior vice president of content strategy and audience acquisition at MJBiz.

McCarthy told Moore how a traumatic brain injury sustained in a car accident inspired her to create Black Buddha Cannabis – a lifestyle and wellness brand that had yet to officially launch.

“After the show, she did an article about me and Black Buddha and my car accident,” recalled McCarthy, who now serves on MJBizCon’s advisory board.

“You have the conference, but having the articles – editorial pieces in the daily newsletter – helps to substantiate and bring eyeballs to what folks are doing in the industry. Your editorial pieces really matter. It was her taking an interest in our story and putting it out to the masses that really helped give us our lift.”

How did MJBizCon lead to business opportunities for McCarthy?

For cannabis business owners and service providers, MJBizCon is where relationships are built and deals begin. Between travel, hotels and registration, the investment adds up.

But for people like McCarthy, the payoff isn’t measured in days. It’s measured in the clients met, the credibility earned on a speaking stage and the transactions that close months after the flight home.

McCarthy has attended MJBizCon every year since meeting Moore – and has developed two business partnerships through connections made at the conference.

At the 2022 show, she met Tilt Holdings’ then-CEO Gary Santo, a connection that led to a partnership with the Phoenix-based multistate operator. The relationship ended after Santo resigned in 2023.

McCarthy also met Alex Archuleta, director of business development for New Mexico-based rapid-release solutions developer Azuca.

“When we shared our vision and story, the relationship blossomed from that first meeting,” McCarthy said. “Azuca helped us understand how they could help with product formulation.”

For McCarthy, those introductions created opportunities to develop her brand and explore product partnerships beyond the conference floor.

Who else can benefit from MJBizCon?

McCarthy’s connections led to product partnerships, but for some attendees, a single conversation at MJBizCon can lead to the biggest transaction a cannabis business owner will ever make.

Several of the deals investment banker Darren Gleeman has worked on as a founding partner of IBO Advisors started over dinner during MJBizCon.

“MJBizCon is an extremely important conference – it’s not a regional conference,” Gleeman said.

“It is THE conference. Everyone is going, and I look at it as a phenomenal way to network with former clients, potential clients, attorneys, wealth managers.”

Case in point: Gleeman had spoken over Zoom with representatives of Maine-based vertically integrated cannabis chain East Coast Cannabis before meeting Dana Brearly and Ryan Ward over dinner at Nobu during last year’s conference.

After that dinner, Gleeman helped East Coast Cannabis develop an employee stock ownership plan designed to give employees a stake in the company’s success.

The meeting illustrates how conversations at MJBizCon can advance business relationships that began well before the conference and lead to more substantial financial arrangements afterward.

“You’re not sealing a deal at MJBiz because it’s a long-term thing, but that was the beginning of them understanding and doing it,” said Gleeman, who will participate in the MJBizCon panel discussion “Cannabis Banking, Investment & Capital Access: Pathways to Funding.”

Gleeman said MJBizCon helps him reconnect with former clients, meet prospective ones and maintain relationships with attorneys and wealth managers who refer business to him.

Over the years, he said, the conference has attracted more business owners, changing the nature of conversations on the show floor.

Is there value in attending MJBizCon without speaking or exhibiting?

Shauntel Ludwig has experienced MJBizCon from just about every angle.

Ludwig, co-founder of vaporizer brand DaVinci, sold it to Greenland Holdings for $20 million in 2021 and bought it back with her business partner in May 2024.

Over the years, she’s attended the conference and exhibited on the show floor. This year, she’s speaking on the panel “The AI Marketing Playbook for Cannabis Retailers and Brands.”

But the main reason she attends is networking. Buyers for larger dispensary chains are difficult to reach outside of events like MJBizCon, and turnover among accessory purchasers is constant.

MJBizCon brings them all together, giving brands such as DaVinci an opportunity to reconnect with existing buyers and build relationships with new ones.

“It’s shaking of hands – we see a lot of dispensary buyers we work with and hope to meet some new ones,” she said. “It’s such a diverse set of people that you can hit a little bit of everybody.”

Whether those conversations lead to product partnerships, financial transactions or new customer relationships, the business value of MJBizCon can extend well beyond the days spent on the show floor.