With a mission to inform, empower, celebrate and advocate for British Columbia's current and aspiring business leaders, BCBusiness go behind the headlines and bring readers face to face with the key issues and people driving business in B.C.
Issue link: http://digital.canadawide.com/i/290301
bCbUSinESS.CA April 2014 BCBusiness 21 branding issues. We're waiting, just like everybody else. Describe your level of involvement in the end product. We're choosing the strains that we want to propagate and then we send those out to our producers. The strains, once they've been produced, get sent to our distribution centre in Toronto, and we'll be opening up a second centre in B.C. shortly. They're going to fall under diff erent catego- ries, depending on how much THC there is or how much CBD [Cannabidiol] there is. Ross's "Platinum" is the strongest—the highest percentage of THC—and on the other end of the scale is Ross's "Bronze" category, which is virtually no THC and all CBD. Silver and Gold are a mix. Who's bankrolling this business? We're raising money privately from friends, family and some high-net- worth individuals. We haven't had to raise a tremendous amount over the last 12 months at all—we've outsourced a lot of our business to people who are making major investments themselves and just need a portal to move their product. And that's what we're going to be: the portal. Is there going to be some sort of storefront in Whistler? No. Initially when we were in the concept stage, we talked about that. But the new law, which prohibits that, had not been published, so now we're strictly e-commerce. What is the immediate potential for the company? We're set up to handle a high volume from the get-go. Let's say that all of our producers get their licence on the same day: we're going to be handling 1,000- plus kilos a year per producer. With a dozen producers, that's 1,000 kilos of product a month that we'll be selling. Prior to Ross's Gold, you dabbled in real estate, building and fl ipping houses in Whistler as well as promoting various real estate projects. Where did that business instinct come from? I became a sponsored snowboarder in the mid-'80s, and I think at that point I kind of latched on to the idea of sponsorship and what the spon- sors were interested in. What it boiled down to was branding and marketing. After the Olympics, I became my own brand—though initially I didn't want to pursue my brand because it was so controversial: I had lost all of my sponsors, I wasn't allowed to travel to the United States. The incident opened new doors while at the same time closing doors for me. It took all this time, until the atmosphere was correct, to launch this business. What did you learn from your Olympic experience and almost losing that gold medal? I had to really accept who I was as a person and know that, despite popu- lar opinion and what people like my dad thought, I live a healthy lifestyle. Cannabis isn't hurting me and it's helped me so much over the years. Even though I got my medal back in the end, I resented the medal—I didn't feel proud of it for years and years and years. Just recently, things have started to turn around, with me com- ing out of the "pot closet." I don't have to be the perfect Olympian anymore and the perfect role model for all the kids of the world. Instead, it's time for me to put on my big-boy pants and realize that it would be irresponsible for me not to pursue this opportunity. It sounds like what happened in Nagano sealed your fate for what your career would be. I like to describe it as a hand that was dealt to me in 1998 that I'm fi nally playing right now. • 1965 The Snurfer, the fi rst marketed snowboard, is created by Michigan engineer Sherman Poppen 1998 Snowboarding becomes an Olympic sport, with Ross Rebagliati awarded the sport's fi rst gold medal is created by Michigan 1998 Snowboarding becomes an Olympic sport, with Ross Rebagliati awarded the sport's fi rst gold medal OYEN WIGGS GREEN & MUTALA LLP p16-23-Frontlines_april.indd 21 2014-03-07 1:20 PM