Page 20 - BusinessWest July 11, 2022
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 a comfort level with home delivery of cannabis products is essential, because with this model — where Budzee is charging the same price for products as one would pay if they went to a dispensary (there is a $100 minimum) — relies on volume. And creating it will be the primary assignment moving forward.
“It’s all about scaling up,” said Polatol, adding the goal is to eventually serve the entire state and build a large portfolio of new and repeat clients.
For this issue and its focus on the region’s emerging cannabis industry, BusinessWest talked with the partners at Budzee about the venture, what it took to get it off the ground, and how they anticipate that it will continue to gain altitude in the months and years to come.
Creating a Buzz
As they offered BusinessWest a quick tour of their facilities — dominated by signs that read ‘authorized personnel only’ or ‘Do Not Enter — Limited Access Area’ — on just about every door — the partners stopped in the large vault area where the various cannabis products are stored and then gathered for delivery.
There are literally hundreds of different prod- ucts on the shelves — a selection larger than what is to be found at most dispensaries, said Polatol — with names ranging from Rootbeer Float to Blue Sunshine; Purple Pineapple Express to Sun- dae Driver.
Putting such a portfolio of products together has actually been one of the easier aspects of this enterprise, they noted, adding quickly that just about everything else — from the software to the business model; from the licensing to the logistics — is difficult and, in many ways, pioneering.
Turning back the clock roughly two years, Polatol said the three partners came together behind the idea that the region need- ed a service that would ‘bring cannabis to your house like a pizza,” as he put it, and conviction that this team had the exper- tise, determination, and patience (a key ingredient to be sure) to make this happen.
There were some
courier-like businesses
working on a DoorDash
model, said Polatol, but
the concept they had, for
a warehouse, Amazon-
like model, was totally
unique for this region,
and the country, as far as they knew.
The partners already knew each other well. Polatol and Perrier are the owners of the dispen- saries Dreamer Cannabis in Southampton, and Honey in Northampton, and Parzybok served as a licensing consultant on those ventures. United in their vision for this new kind of business, what they put together a checklist of everything that was needed, and then a roadmap for tak- ing the concept from the drawing board to the marketplace.
The first item on the list was a license, which was somewhat problematic, because the state was, and still is, awarding cannabis-delivery licenses exclusively to those who qualify for the
The vault at Budzee holds a wide variety of products for delivery to customers.
state’s social equity program — meaning they were previously harmed by the nation’s war on drugs.
Enter Parzybok, who was arrested in 2015 after federal agents raided his home in Northampton and eventually seized dozens of marijuana plants; he received probation for the offenses.
The license-application process was lengthy and complex, mostly
 because of the new ground being bro-
Budzee
Continued on page 47
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