Pubdate: Mon, 09 Dec 2013
Source: USA Today (US)
Copyright: 2013 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc
Contact: http://mapinc.org/url/625HdBMl
Website: http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/index.htm
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/466
Author: Laura Baverman
Page: 4B

ENTREPRENEURS' NEXT CREATION MAY BE NEW LAWS

Many Lobby for Changes to Help Their Businesses

On the payroll at the Orange County, Calif., start-up Ghost Group are
two fulltime lobbyists, a policy writer, a public relations firm and
marketing agency.

They have an annual budget of $1 million and a single mission: to do
whatever is possible to get states and the federal government to
legalize marijuana. Leading the team is the company's co-founder,
Justin Hartfield, a man with a passion for the substance and no qualms
about spreading the word about the opportunity that surrounds it.

Hartfield has a lot to gain from the big spend and hours he has spent
presenting his case. Ghost Group is a marijuana technology holding
company, and its business is called WeedMaps. A listing and review
site for doctors, dispensaries and retailers (in Colorado starting
Jan. 1, and Washington state in mid-2014) that sell pot legally, it is
dependent on marijuana's projected growth.

But he's also symbolic of a new breed of start-up CEO that's not just
sitting in Silicon Valley building a cool new technology. He's among
the many entrepreneurs entering government chambers to defend new ways
of doing business or to overturn laws that never considered the types
of business models deployed today.

"The reason a lot of start-ups succeed is because they target niches
and areas ignored by regulators," says Dane Stangler, director of
policy and research at the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation. "It's
only when they threaten the big guys' bottom lines or enter an
industry dominated by private cartels that regulation starts to enter
the picture. And that's happening today."

Examples are plentiful. There's Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk, who is
lobbying in several states for permission to sell vehicles directly to
consumers rather than through dealers.

Brian Chesky of Airbnb has had a visible fight in New York, where the
attorney general has tried to shut down the room- and home-sharing
site, under pressure from hoteliers. He's fighting in other cities for
updated legislation that legalizes shortterm online property rentals.

Travis Kalanick of Uber, the company that transformed the taxi and
private-car industry with its car-hailing mobile app, has been accused
of breaking laws by not being licensed as a taxi or limo company. He
argues in many cities that he's a technology provider; he owns no cars
to license.

Start-up CEOs building companies around unregulated online currency
Bitcoin are making a case for why they shouldn't be subject to federal
oversight. Other start-up CEOs have joined The Internet Association, a
lobbying group formed in 2012 by tech companies to stand for Internet
freedom, innovation and economic growth. Mark Zuckerberg 's political
action committee FWD.us has the biggest names in Silicon Valley
fighting for reformed immigration laws.

Most of those efforts come down to the ability of CEOs to communicate,
and Hartfield is a passionate advocate for legalized marijuana. That
includes talking about his own experience with the substance.

"I know what strains to use at what time. I know where it's been
grown, and everything I smoke has been tested in a laboratory," he
says. "It's not for everyone, but for me, it works really well and has
shown me a whole new world of opportunity and success."

Hartfield expects his lobbying efforts will pay off in eventual sales
once states approve new marijuana laws. He says WeedMaps should earn
$30 million this year, and Ghost Group will invest up to $25 million
more in marijuana-affiliated businesses. He also owns the domain name
Marijuana.com, a site he hopes to make the Amazon.com of weed after
legalization.

He sees another benefit to his association with new laws, which will
help him stay ahead of competitors.

"We're going to be that brand associated with legalization," Hartfield
says. "And that will have inherent value and a cool factor that is
unable to be replicated."

Laura Baverman is a Raleigh, N.C.-based business journalist
covering start-ups and entrepreneurship for regional and national
publications. She previously covered entrepreneurship for the
Cincinnati Enquirer, a Gannet newspaper.
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