Will major sports leagues ever embrace cannabis? Former NBA star Al Harrington believes so— and he’s actively making the case (and the plants).
Pro athletes have surely snuck in their fair share of cannabis, but their leagues’ official rules have all been the same: The NBA, the NFL, MLB, and other major sports leagues forbid usage. That’s something Al Harrington is trying to change. He spent 16 years in the NBA, from 1998 to 2014, and now occupies two worlds. He’s a player in the upstart BIG3 basketball league and the very engaged cofounder and CEO of Viola, a cannabis brand that includes flower, vapes, and extracts. The plant healed his grandmother and transformed his career. Now he’s hoping he can spread the message to his former league—and far beyond.
Is it true you weren’t a cannabis consumer until quite recently?
I’m from Orange, N.J., so the war on drugs was something I saw every day. I was always taught that cannabis was the gateway drug. If I smoked weed, then I was going to smoke crack. My grandmother kicked my aunts and uncles out of the house for smelling like weed.
And yet your grandmother indirectly led you into the industry.
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة April - May 2019 من Entrepreneur.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.
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هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة April - May 2019 من Entrepreneur.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.
بالفعل مشترك? تسجيل الدخول
How Small Shops Take Big Risks - It's not easy for mom-and-pops to try something new, because they rarely have a safety net to fail.But there are ways to innovate cautiously-as one small business on our list, All My Heart tattoo studio, has found.
The Charlotte, North Carolina, studio is airy and suffused with natural light. In the reception area, there are modular chairs, midcentury couches, and a vase of fresh flowers on a Japanese-influenced cabinet. But the real surprise goes beyond aesthetics. All My Heart's owner, Graham Beech, isn't just playing with a new look; he's trying out a whole new business model. Historically, tattoo shops have wanted to control the clientele, and use the tattoo artist as kind of a cog in the wheel, Beech says. What's different about our business is that the client is the artist, and they have their own individual clients.
5 Ways to Multitask Your Fall - From a corporate office to working from the living room, Emmy Award winner Mario Armstrong has five new products designed to make putting in the hours more enjoyable.
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You Can Hire Like Netflix - The streaming platform built an incredible team with a strategy called
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Small businesses have a hiring problem. According to the July monthly jobs report from the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB), 19% of small businesses rank the inability to find quality labor as the single most important issue facing their company, while 38% reported job openings they could not fill. Overall, 49% reported few or no qualified applicants for the positions they were trying to fill.
Three Pivots to $100 Million - How do you find a working business model? Do it like Rowan-a brand that reinvented itself many times before finally piercing the ear-piercing market
If you have a tween girl, you've probably heard of Rowan. It's the cool brand for piercings, where licensed nurses insert hypoallergenic studs into thousands of ears every day. With more than 500 employees, it's on track to have 65 stores and an annual run rate of $100 million in revenue this year.But in 2017, Rowan was just a fledgling startup with a great idea and a bad business model. It survived because founder Louisa Schneider was willing to pivot, and pivot, and pivot again, until its mission, profit, and market all clicked into place.
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For their business to work, Dianne and Gabrielle Melillo need more than customers. They need a community that has total confidence in them.
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HOW TO ASK FAMILY FOR MONEY
Your friends-and-family fundraising round doesn't have to be scary and awkward. Here's advice from one of the world's leading investors.
