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During his twenties, Ryan Smith had already started and sold two companies before he broke into cannabis in 2015 with the launch of his B2B technology platform Leaflink. One year later, he made Forbes' 30 Under 30 list highlighting software technology entrepreneurs, buttressing his wunderkind reputation. Seven years on, Leaflink operates in some 30 markets and has some 12,000 business customers. In this episode of "Seed to CEO," you'll hear what Smith did to get this far, including: Spotting opportunity in the cannabis industry landscape Conducting market research Picking winning markets in which to operate Keeping a fresh perspective Who is Ryan Smith? Ryan G. Smith is the CEO and co-founder of LeafLink, a B2P platform catering to the wholesale cannabis supply chain for brands, distributors, and retailers in 30 markets. In 2011 Smith founded his first business, a green office supply company named EcoCampus. And in 2013 he founded Trupoly, ant investor management relationship software business. Smith and his partner Zach Silverman founded LeafLink in 2015. Smith was listed on Forbes' 30 Under 30 list in 2016 and LeafLink was named on Fast Company's 2018 list of Top 10 Most Innovative Companies in Enterprise. In 2021, LeafLink was named one of Inc's Fastest Growing Privately Held Companies in America.
During his twenties, Ryan Smith had already started and sold two companies before he broke into cannabis in 2015 with the launch of his B2B technology platform Leaflink. One year later, he made Forbes' 30 Under 30 list highlighting software technology entrepreneurs, buttressing his wunderkind reputation. Seven years on, Leaflink operates in some 30 markets and has some 12,000 business customers. In this episode of "Seed to CEO," you'll hear what Smith did to get this far, including: Spotting opportunity in the cannabis industry landscape Conducting market research Picking winning markets in which to operate Keeping a fresh perspective Who is Ryan Smith? Ryan G. Smith is the CEO and co-founder of LeafLink, a B2P platform catering to the wholesale cannabis supply chain for brands, distributors, and retailers in 30 markets. In 2011 Smith founded his first business, a green office supply company named EcoCampus. And in 2013 he founded Trupoly, ant investor management relationship software business. Smith and his partner Zach Silverman founded LeafLink in 2015. Smith was listed on Forbes' 30 Under 30 list in 2016 and LeafLink was named on Fast Company's 2018 list of Top 10 Most Innovative Companies in Enterprise. In 2021, LeafLink was named one of Inc's Fastest Growing Privately Held Companies in America.
Ryan G. Smith is the Co-Founder and CEO of LeafLink and Harish Mukhami is the Chief Product Officer at LeafLink. LeafLink is the cannabis industry's B2B platform and has revolutionized how thousands of brands, distributors, and retailers manage their operations. Ryan brings experience in creating and managing B2B firms and online marketplace investment in highly-regulated spaces as LeafLink's Chief Executive Officer. In 2016, Smith was the first technology CEO in the cannabis industry to be listed on Forbes' 30 Under 30 list. Harish is responsible for product management, design, data, operations, and more. Before joining LeafLink, Harish served as the Head of Product at Apple and Microsoft, focusing on metrics and discoverability, including overseeing the growth of Apple's Siri software.
The cannabis retail ecosystem is nearly unrecognizable compared to its earliest iterations, and much of the sector's growth can be attributed to LeafLink, the industry's largest B2B wholesale platform. In this episode, Ryan G. Smith, co-founder and CEO of LeafLink, discusses his early days as an entrepreneur, why cannabis was a thrilling prospect for his next venture and how the company has successfully scaled and matured alongside the industry. Touching on the importance of building the strongest team possible and how social equity standards can be achieved in the industry, Ryan shares key insights as a pioneer in cannabis tech.
Ryan G. Smith Company Name LeafLink Company url/domain https://leaflink.com/ Company Linkedin Profile URL https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryan-g-smith/ What does your company do in 5 words or less? The wholesale cannabis marketplace.
The full legalization of cannabis is approaching FAST and with it a multi-billion dollar industry looms. Ryan G. Smith is a serial entrepreneur who’s current venture - LeafLink - is a B2B e-commerce platform servicing the cannabis industry. Ryan, who at 30 years old has built/exited multiple successful startups and is a member of Forbes 30 Under 30, breaks down the current state of the cannabis industry. We discuss how without federal support each state is essentially operating in its own bubble, when the federal government will legalize marijuana, and which sectors within the industry (retail, growers, brands, etc.) will have the most success. Follow us on Twitter @LeafLinkUS @mpd Guest Links: https://twitter.com/leaflinkus (Twitter), http://leaflink.com (LeafLink) Podcast Links: http://mpd.me (Website), https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCua7T3uyg6IQeSbYyNKT_Iw (YouTube), https://twitter.com/mpd (Twitter), https://www.facebook.com/innovationwithmpd (Facebook), https://www.linkedin.com/company/innovationwithmpd (LinkedIn)
On this episode: Ryan G. Smith is the co-founder and CEO of LeafLink, a wholesale cannabis marketplace and technology platform. Ryan talks about growing a technology business in a highly regulated space and his focus on creating diversified business solutions that tackle hair on fire problems for cannabis brands and retailers. We discuss his navigation of raising capital, including his plans for the $40 million his company just raised from Founders Fund, and examine the biggest challenges LeafLink has faced during its product-market fit and growth stages. Finally, Ryan tells us about his experiences maintaining company culture during rapid hiring as well as his expectations for the cannabis industry moving forward.
Prior to co-founding LeafLink, Ryan successfully started and exited two companies, one of which he sold to a NYSE public firm. Ryan brings his experience creating and managing B2B firms and online marketplace investment in highly-regulated spaces to cannabis as LeafLink’s Chief Executive Officer. In 2016, Ryan was the first CEO of a cannabis company to be listed on Forbes’ 30 Under 30 list. In February 2018, LeafLink was the first company in the cannabis space to make Fast Company’s 2018 Top 10 Most Innovative Companies in Enterprise. Ryan currently serves on the board of the Jeffrey Modell Foundation and is also an active lender through Kiva, an online community that helps fund primarily women-owned businesses in developing countries.
What does reselling used golf balls, organizing weekend trips for college students, and fundraising for alumni relations have in common? They are just some of the things Entrepreneur Karson Humiston did before founding the go-to recruiting platform in Cannabis; Vangst. Joining us from Denver in March of 2020, Karson shares her founder's journey of hustle and perseverance turning a stack of business cards made in her college dorm room into the name in Cannabis recruiting. Show Notes: What You Need To Know About Vangst's New, Free Cannabis Recruitment Platform: https://www.benzinga.com/markets/cannabis/20/04/15877645/what-you-need-to-know-about-vangsts-new-free-cannabis-recruitment-platform Vangst Newsletter: https://blog.vangst.com/category/vangst-news/ St. Lawrence University, Calling All Saints: https://www.stlawu.edu/people/calling-all-saints The Tick Tock Inn: https://www.facebook.com/TickTockInn/ Galvanize: https://www.linkedin.com/school/galvanize-it/ Canna Brand: https://cannabrand.co/ Ryan G. Smith, CEO, Leaflink: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryan-g-smith/ Lerer Hippeau: https://www.lererhippeau.com/ Casa Verde Capital: https://www.casaverdecapital.com/ Jeremy Burke, Business Insider: https://twitter.com/jfberke Benzinga: https://www.benzinga.com/ MJBizDaily: https://mjbizdaily.com/ Vangst 2019 Salary Guide: https://info.vangst.com/vangst-2019-salary-guide Guest: Karson Humiston, CEO & Founder, Vangst https://www.linkedin.com/in/karson-humiston-64572b97/ https://twitter.com/khumiston https://vangst.com/ https://www.instagram.com/vangsttalent/ https://www.facebook.com/Vangsttalent/ https://twitter.com/vangsttalent https://www.linkedin.com/company/vangst/ Host: Brian Weber, Host, Lit Up: A Founder's Journey linkedin.com/in/briancweber/ www.litupfounders.com www.facebook.com/LitUpFounders/ www.instagram.com/LitUpFounders/ www.twitter.com/LitUpFounders www.linkedin.com/company/litupmedia/ Listen to the episode here or on SoundCloud, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, TuneIn, or RSS to your favorite podcast app.
Episode 60 of the Hacker Noon Podcast: An interview with Ryan G. Smith of LeafLink LeafLink has become a major player in the cannabis space, recently raising $35M in their series B fund raise. Discover how LeafLink provides solutions in the cannabis space by streamlining the ordering, transparency, and sales rep processes with a robust online community and order management tools. Listen to the interview on iTunes, or Google Podcast, or watch on YouTube. In this episode, Patrick Murray interviews Ryan G. Smith on how LeafLink grew to $1B in orders on their platform, making up 16% of all B2B orders in the U.S. More at http://firstbillion.leaflink.com/. Ryan also goes over how LeafLink became the first cannabis company named on Forbes' 30 Under 30 list and Fast Company's Top 10 Most Innovative Companies in Enterprise and more! “The use case, real quick, is if you are purchasing manager at a dispensary, typically you would text, email, phone call 30-50 brands every week or so to stock your shelves, now you can go on LeafLink, create a multi-brand cart, hit submit, and then those invoices get sent out to all those brands, and then they have some SaaS tools which help them then manage the life cycle of the order internally all the way through to delivery.” “I’m confident about going through these processes but a lot of it is being comfortable, being uncomfortable knowing you don’t know. Those phrases that are too often used, but it’s true. If you think you’ve got it all figured out, nobody wants to deal with people like that. Everyone is just like an old baby, pretty much like an old child” - Ryan G. Smith Production and music by Derek Bernard - https://haberdasherband.com/production https://hackernoon.com/ https://community.hackernoon.com/ https://contribute.hackernoon.com/ https://sponsor.hackernoon.com/ https://podcast.hackernoon.com/ https://twitter.com/hackernoon/ https://facebook.com/hackernoon/ P.S. If you dig the new Hacker Noon Podcast, consider giving us a 5 star review on iTunes. Also check out this month’s top stories, all the latest stories, and today’s homepage.
LeafLink, a marketplace platform for cannabis brands, distributors, and retailers was ranked as one of Outsell's 50 companies to watch for 2018. Other notable mentions include FastCompany's Top 10 Most Innovative Companies in Enterprise, alongside Slack and Amazon. Naturally, I wanted Ryan G. Smith, the Co-founder and CEO, to join me for an interview to learn what makes LeafLink so special. Ryan is no new player when it comes to entrepreneurship, with three ventures under his belt and a Forbes 30 under 30 award on the record, he has a knack for building and scaling companies. If you've looked at the media recently, the business of cannabis is exploding with new states legalizing the plant every couple months. The result is a flood of companies and existing technology being re-purposed, specialized, and improved upon to support this growing industry. I find LeafLink so interesting due to its positioning in the space. Marijuana is still banned by federal law, yet the LeafLink team has built a business that sits right at the center of exchange where they don't touch any of the product, and have grown into the backbone for this industry. Ryan gives us a lens on what he is seeing in the industry, the key trends to keep an eye on, and the opportunities that continue to arise. He also has fantastic insight on testing your market, navigating the funding landscape, and advice for current and future leaders. I greatly enjoyed my time with Ryan and I hope you enjoy this episode of Outsell for Startups as much as I did.
RYAN G. SMITHCo-Founder & CEO ZACH SILVERMANCo-Founder LeafLink w/ RYAN ESTESPrior to cofounding LeafLink, Ryan founded two companies as a student at Colgate University. He later exited both successfully, selling one of them to a publicly traded real estate investment company. Ryan brings his experience creating and managing B2B firms and online marketplace investing in a highly regulated space to LeafLink as Chief Executive Officer. In 2016, Ryan was the first CEO in the cannabis industry to be listed on Forbes’ 30 Under 30.Zach’s diverse technical background includes experience as a consultant, product manager, and entrepreneur with positions at companies such as Ebay Enterprise and Limewire. As LeafLink’s Chief Technology Officer, he brings expertise in building tools for growing businesses, including platforms for sales force reporting, CRM, marketing, and data management. The company he previously cofounded, ReachLogic Media, was acquired by a Seattle-based adtech firm.
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