Episode 079: Matthew Morgan - Co Founder of Ignite & Dominating the Cannabis Industry

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On Apple TV plus all right, what's going on, everyone? Casey Adams here. Welcome to the build you'd Empire podcast today. We have Matt Morgan with us here today and I just want to say thanks so much for coming on the show, man.

Appreciate it, brother. Appreciate you having me for sure, man.

So I've been following you for a while, man, and I know that just the content you put out and what you've been building has just been immaculate. But I want to kind of listen and tell the people today, just kind of catch them up to speed a little more about who you are, just to kind of fill them in with. With some gaps that they may not know who you are.

Okay, fair enough.

So pretty much when it comes to everything you're doing now, business wise, you're living in la, that's super dope. But I want to know more about just where did this all start? Where are you from, to be exact.

Yeah, I can give you my backstory totally from a good start. Right. So I'm a 33 year old serial entrepreneur, you know, involved in several different verticals. Born and raised in Montana. I'm a farm kid out of Montana, so makes it a little bit different. Grew up there. Started my first business when I was 16. It was an auto detail company and was in and out of figuring out who I was, where I was. Just trying to find myself more or less to appease my family. I went to college after high school for about 10 days.

Hey, better than zero, right?

That's the way I looked at it. But, you know, I figured that my time was better spent out learning business in the real world versus in a classroom.

Were you going for business?

I was, yeah. I was going to do business with an emphasis in finance.

Okay. Yeah, dope. So you. It's something that stuck out to me. So 16, started first business.

Right.

When it comes to like entrepreneur, doing your own shit. Do you have parents that were entrepreneurs or like, was that just something that, you know?

My father was on and off, on and off again, entrepreneur. But he always, you know, fell back to the timber industry because he was, you know, from the age of 8, 18, he was in the logging industry, which is, you know, was the primary industry in Montana. Yeah, one of them.

Montana. How was it living out there?

It's crazy, man. There's more cows than people. So I think Montana just hit a million people in population, but there's definitely more cattle than people. Yeah, my grandparents had about 5,000 acres out there.

Okay.

So we. And we also had about 600 head of cattle.

Okay.

What else is pretty dope is I'm a sixth generation Montana, so my family homesteaded in Montana in 1860.

That's dope. Yeah, that's super dope.

So I'm the first one to leave, really.

Do you have siblings or your only child?

I'm the only child between my two parents and they both remarried and had more kids. So. Yeah, I have a little brother and three little sisters.

I'm curious when it comes to. Obviously you said you moved to LA in January, so before that, I just want to give people some updates. When was the transition to be like, all right, you started your business when you're 16, you went to college for 10 days and we'll talk more about that. But when was the transition of like, all right, I'm gonna get the hell out of here, go and move and like, do me in a sense.

So. So after college, I left. My family was very upset. You know, I was one of the first people that would have graduated college in my family. And so to appease them again, I went and I became an electrician apprentice. Okay. For the electrical union, which was a nightmare for me. Definitely wasn't built to be a construction guy.

Yeah, yeah.

So I did that for a year, had enough of that, then ended up luckily getting my real estate license. So I was 20 when I got my real estate license. Looked like I was five. Wore suits that fell off me. But, you know, I just did whatever it took. Knocked on people's doors. I mean, I would cold call, I'd do whatever to try and get a sale. It actually ended up taking me about six months to get my first sale. So I was know I had like $4 in my name. I was behind on all of my payments on, you know, everything. My rent after my first sale. And I then started crushing it, you know. Yeah, I got my, got my Feet under me. Got my confidence.

Okay. Was that, like, the first, like, business venture that you pursued other than, like, when you were 16 or.

The first that I remember.

Yeah.

I'm sure there might be some other small, you know, ventures that I participate in, but nothing. Nothing that I took seriously as a career.

Yeah.

So that was like, the first time that I was like, all right, you know, I'm going to do this.

Yeah.

So I kind of grabbed a bull by the horns and. And took it. You know, I. By the time I was 22, I was a partner in real estate company. So I was definitely the youngest kid in the. In the space.

Yeah. So where were you doing real estate.

When it comes to commercial residential sales transactions. But it taught me a lot about business in general, just because I was dealing with, you know, large sums of money.

You're 22, you said?

Yeah, 22. Yeah. Well, I start at 20, but it just shows you a lot about contracts, you know, how to. How to work with people, how to negotiate. So it was really. It was really my trail by fire on how to become a serious entrepreneur. So I started doing very well in real estate, you know, had the house, the cars, all that stuff at 22. And then 08 rolled around, and I overextended myself like any young, arrogant man would. The subprime crash hit, and I kind of took a face. Face plant, for sure. I was 23 when that happened. So I started scrambling because I had a. You know, I had a life to support.

Yeah.

So I started digging around, researching online every night, and, you know, eventually I settled on marijuana as like, the next big thing.

Yeah. Yeah. And that was like. Oh, wait, I know. Like, when it comes to, like, it getting legalized more now in 2018, kind of like, it's getting more.

I feel like it's way different.

Yeah. It's like. It's like that it's culturally accepted as sort of starting to fall into that demographic of alcohol. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And especially being someone that is younger, and I have two older. Two older brothers, and I feel like when my brother's now 24, when he was in high school, it was looked at completely different.

For sure. Yeah. I mean, I've been out of high school for 15 years, but, you know, I mean, even in high school, like, it was frowned upon to smoke cannabis and. But, you know, drinking alcohol was okay. It's just like the public perception is crazy.

Yeah.

So, you know, there was some. There was some. There was some guesswork involved, I would say. You know, I got a little Bit lucky. Like, there was some education, some guesswork and research that was involved in why I picked cannabis. I had no idea it was going to end up being, you know, the hottest industry in the world.

Yeah, yeah. Because I feel like that's a. When it comes to the industry, like in 2018, as it's more like companies going public and all this sort of stuff. What was the phase of it when you kind of jumped into that industry?

So when I got involved, it was basically the Wild West. Right. I mean, there was really not a whole lot of regulations. Everything was very vague.

Yeah.

Everyone operated in, quote, unquote, the gray area.

Right.

Which is between the white air and the black area. And you just didn't know it was gonna happen. You never knew if, like, the police were gonna show up at your door or if you're gonna go to jail, because you didn't. You didn't know if you were, you know. Yeah. And like, just to give you an idea back, when I got involved, the public, you know, the public viewpoint as far as legalization was probably under 40%, and now it's around 70%.

Okay.

So that's how much our society as Americans has just shifted over the last 10 years.

That's crazy. So when it comes to, was it just straight real estate to cannabis, or was there any transition point? And really, what was that transition point that really made you pivot? Was it real estate you just weren't passionate about anymore, or do you still.

No, no.

Into the process?

I'm still passionate about real estate. I always love real estate. You know, developing things like that. I'll always have a fascination for real estate and a passion for it, but I knew very quickly that I had to pivot or else I was going to sink. You know, I was taking a lot of water.

Totally.

So I had to pivot quickly and, you know, make a. Make a judgment call, and that's what I did. So I went all in on cannabis.

Yeah.

Failed miserably out of the first. I mean, I just thought that I could buy some seeds, put them in some dirt, grow some high times, but. Yeah, and there's so many levels of sophistication to it, you know. So I started with, you know, a light I found in a warehouse, put in my garage. When you got my patient card.

Yeah.

Got my six plants, you know, just completely. Just fell on my face time after time.

Yeah.

I'm usually a pretty quick learner, though, and I scale quickly. So within, like, about 10 months or so, I had one largest cultivations in the state of Montana. Yeah. About 15,000ft.

Damn. Yeah, that's sick.

So we were ripping and my cannabis was like the biggest booming industry, Montana and seen in a long time.

What year was that when you were. You said 15,000 square foot.

That was like late. Late. 09 maybe. Okay, middle of late. Oh, nine.

You started in the industry, like what was the process from like just starting six plants to then 15,000 square foot.

So the process was basically, I started marketing and gathering more patients so I could be their caregiver. And I collected, you know, I had, I don't know, probably I think I had around 500 patients that I was servicing. So with those 500 patients, you're allowed to grow six plants per patient. 500 times six is 3,000 plants. So yeah, that's what I was growing.

So what goes. Because I feel like there may be people that are interested in the whole industry. Like what goes into the legality of that whole process when it comes to getting the license? Like what's the process to actually.

Well, back then it was much more simplistic because they didn't have all the regulation involved. Right. It was just, it was like an unspoken. All right, here's how it works. Right now it's much more sophisticated as the business matures. You know, cannabis says as a whole has come a long way in the last 10 years. So back then it was very simple. All you had to do was go get a patient, say, hey, I'd love to be your caregiver here. You know, here's the cannabis I grow. Yeah. They would look at it, say, all right, you know, you can be my caregiver. They would submit into the state that they want to. That you to specifically be their caregiver. And that was it. Yeah, I mean now it's regulators and testing, you know, state qualifications and it's. There's just so many layers of complexity at this point. I would say it's one of the more intricate business models to execute on.

Yeah, totally. So I want to touch on. So like when I go to your Instagram page, it says like you're a part of all these different brands when it comes to the things you're involved with. Like co founder of this, co founder of that. Just to give the people some like insights. How many brands or companies are you a part of when it to comes comes to just what you're involved with on a day to day?

Probably six, give or take.

And what are they called? I want to fill the people in a little bit.

I'm helping A company, a public company up in Canada called Omni. So that's a CBD play.

Yeah.

I'm also working with a company called Jungle Performance Brands. So that's a soil and nutrient company, Green Access, which is a public Canadian company that primarily deals in cannabis. I have my slaps Underwear company. We kind of launched this never sell dope company, which is an apparel company as well. It's kind of going to be like a media play almost because we started a new vlog channel on YouTube.

Okay.

Never. So Cody and I did. He's my best friend.

Yeah. No, I interviewed Cody.

Oh, you did?

We never met in person yet, but we did like a Skype thing.

Okay.

I know he's out of town. I hit him up.

Yeah, yeah. He's. The next time he's in Hawaii. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But, yeah, so we kind of just launched that a few weeks ago, actually.

So that's just like. You two are kind of.

Yes. Just basically I just wanted to, you know, let. Let people see what the everyday life of a, you know, entrepreneur that's heavily involved in the cannabis space is like.

And what's that called again? Just for the people.

Never sell, though.

And so that's like the YouTube channel. It's called.

Yeah. Never Sell though.

I'll make sure to put that.

I appreciate that.

I want to talk about social media because I know obviously that that's how we connected. That's how this put together. So you coming from someone that social media nowadays. I'm 18. It's like I kind of grew up in it. I always love asking people when it comes to, like, what was the pivot point for you of like, doing real estate, doing all this business, but then now pivoting and having this whole social media personal brand and transitioning to. It's. It's doing the whole thing.

It's crazy. I mean, I didn't even. Just to give you an idea, I didn't even advertise my real estate stuff on. On social media. I think I got on Facebook for the first time in, oh, seven.

Yeah.

So, you know, and like, I think my girlfriend signed me up for that in MySpace or something like that. Right. And I didn't spend a bunch of time on there. I was just like, whatever. And then Facebook was, you know, just kind of idling along. I didn't really. I wasn't that active. And then Cody was actually told me I need. Told me I need to download Instagram.

And I was like, what year was this?

Thirteen. 2013. So I've been on it for five years.

Okay.

So he's like, you got to download this. I was like, all right, whatever. So I did. I downloaded it. Didn't take that seriously for a couple of years. And then finally, after I had it for about a year and a half maybe, I was like, you know what? I'm going to just show everyone what I'm doing. And that's when I kind of open up the curtains. And this is what I do. I smoke weed. I run big weed companies. I build them, and I'm proud of it.

Yeah.

You know what I mean? And that's. That's when I started to get a lot of attention. Attention on social media.

Okay. Yeah, totally.

So that's when, like that. That was a def. That was a pivotal moment.

What year was that when you just, like, fuck it, I'm just gonna open the doors.

Late 14, early 15.

So it's like four years since you, like, I would say, start building your personal brand as, like, showcasing what you're doing in a sense.

Yeah. And it was more. So I was building my company brands.

Yeah.

And that was, you know, the. The reef dispensaries, the trike companies. I was pumping up Khalifa, Kush. Yeah, yeah, Wiz. And I kind of did a collab on that dope. And so I was pumping up the. Primarily the cannabis brands. But then I just. I started to do more public engagement speaking. I started to do, you know, different things on my own that didn't involve the brand specifically. And that's when I decided to start building me as a brand.

That's dope. So you say public speaking. Do you just. Is that like different expos. Conferences talking about.

Yeah, primarily normally cannabis stuff.

Yeah, yeah.

They usually want me to come in and, you know, be keynote or whatever it may be. And I love educating people in the cannabis space because I feel like the biggest misconception comes from people lack of education.

Yeah. We'll have to do a build your cannabis cannabis empire event for sure.

I mean, people would eat that up. I get. Yeah. I don't know how many people I get hitting me up a day asking me questions on cannabis.

Yeah, totally. You should do a vlog on that. Just like question one, question two, Q&A.

I did a post on Instagram. It's like asking me anything or whatever. Yeah, yeah. I got flooded with questions. My thumbs hurt for like a week trying to respond to everyone.

Totally, man. So you're like, what, like 270,000? You built a quite big audience.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's getting some Decent traction.

Yeah, for sure. So with your, I would say your play on social, is it mainly Instagram, obviously now you got the YouTube vlog going on.

Yes.

And your time.

Yeah. So I feel like Instagram is, in my opinion, the most valuable social platform 2018.

At least for now.

For sure. You know, there was obviously everything evolved. Right. Like it used to be Facebook and Instagram and we don't know what's going to be next.

Yeah, totally.

But I feel like, you know, Snapchat's kind of dying, in my opinion.

I don't really use it that much.

I don't either at all. I used to use it quite a bit.

Me too.

But like, the Instagram stories kind of crushed it.

Yeah, no, as soon as that pivot happened, I'm like, damn. Yeah, they're going down. Right.

And it's just like the amount of traction you get on Instagram, it's like, why would you be messing around?

More discoverable in a sense. Yeah, yeah.

And so I'm using Instagram right now. It's like my centerpiece, you know, of the. Of all the spokes, if you will.

Yeah.

So now the vlog, you know, I'm getting a lot of. I'm getting a lot of people wanting me to do my own podcast.

Yeah.

So why don't you, bro? And I'm just trying to find a few hours in the day.

It's time consuming.

Like by nine at night, I'm just like a zombie for sure. So I. I feel like Instagram has changed the world, you know, like it's. I feel like it's the first step into like virtual reality because people are getting based off of, like, on social dynamics wise. They're getting based off how many people follow you, you know, how engaged your audience is. I mean, I roll into like a production company, like how many Instagram followers. I looked at my skirt too.

That was hilarious. Yeah. So. So when it comes to you as an individual, when it comes to like running your companies, has it given you like a different perspective when it comes to a branding and marketing standpoint? Like when you start a new venture, do you look on social as like the main. When it comes to running campaigns or what's your current head on, like using social to do marketing for your company?

I mean, I think social media, hands down, is the most powerful marketing tool on the planet. Like, I don't even think there's a close second.

Yeah.

You know, like, totally. I mean, just because I've seen what it's done to my life.

Yeah.

Like it's just having this little app on your phone can literally change your life exponentially.

There's friggin. We would. We met with the dude Tanner Fox the other day. He's like 8 million on YouTube. 18 just bought this like 2 million dollar house.

Yeah, I heard he's killing it.

Yeah, yeah. He had this like whole dirt bike jack. We were just tearing it up back there and he's like, damn. Like he dropped out of school in 8th grade. He's like killing crazy from damn YouTube.

I wish I had the balls. Drop out. Be a lot farther right over.

So I'm curious, so you said moved out to LA in January 2018. What's that been like when it comes to just pivoting from Scottsdale?

You said so went from Montana. I guess we should back back a little so that people understand the story. But Montana in 2010, the industry was booming. And Montana doesn't like change. They don't. They want to stay the same, you know, dirt roads, horses, the whole nine yards. So Montana, there was dispensaries on every street corner. Literally like the town I was from is about 60,000 people. There was over 60 dispensaries in that one time. Yeah, 60.

60 in this small.

In a small town. Yeah. So it's crazy. It's crazy.

Is that like competition wise? Was that like a, like what the hell is happening?

No, because when you had your patients, they had to go to you. So there was no competition. Yeah. So that part was dope. But Montana had emergency legislation session to change the laws on cannabis. So they changed the laws saying you can only have three patients. So you can only grow 18 plants and you had 500 3000.

Oh my.

3000 plants.

You had to get three.

You said only three people have three. So literally like you couldn't have anything of size whatsoever.

Yeah.

So that at that point I was like, all right. And this is like, you know, multi million dollar operations. I was like, all right, we got to shut the thing down.

Yeah.

It's not like you can just rip the walls out of a cultivation and bring them with you, you know, I mean like it's, it's sunk cost.

Yeah.

So I shut her down because I was gonna break the law. And I looked around the country to where I felt which state was gonna have the most favorable cannabis laws. Or they had a real program, they're going to roll it out and you could scale. And Arizona at the time looked the Most promising in 2010. They had a program is basically creating oligopoly. You Know, they're giving out 131 licenses for the whole state population. Six and a half million. And they have a lot of tourism.

Yeah.

So, like, all right, I just packed up my shit and headed down to Arizona. Yeah. Well, it helped because when I was in real estate, I dated a girl, a bottle girl that. That worked in old town Scottsdale. So I spent some time there. So I was like, all right. Like, I can, you know, I can work with this. Yeah, Scottsdale's dope. So I moved down there, and I. The program hadn't rolled out yet, so I started a chain of hydroponic stores where they sell all the nutrients to grow lights, stuff like that. It was called you grow.

Okay.

So that's how I really networked into the culture of Arizona's cannabis space. Yeah. So I did that, and I figured, you know, if they're giving us 131 privileged licenses, why would they give to some kid from Montana that they'd never heard of? So I went and I found a state senator who's very decorated and his son wanted to get in the space. I was like, all right, be my partner so we can put your dad's name on the app, and we'll be much more likely to get a couple licenses. Right. So I ended up doing that. Spent a ton of money on building these apps, or about this tall. I think they're like six or seven hundred pages. Because we thought it was gonna be a qualitative process. They're gonna score you on your. On your application and who you were. The state got scared at the last minute for getting sued about favoritism or something of that nature. So they made it a straight lottery. So, like, there was balls in a hopper and you could watch it on tv. Yeah.

To pick the license.

Yeah. So if your number popped up, you got the license. Like, it was just. It was nuts. And so we ended up with the license in Sedona.

Okay.

Yeah. Through the lottery process. Right. And so with one of these licenses, you were allowed one dispensary, unlimited cultivation, unlimited weight, unlimited plants, so you could scale unlimitedly if you wanted to, without breaking law. And they put together a nice program so you understood the box that you could play in without breaking any rules, which I love that, because without compliance and regulators and you can't scale to the size you'd ever want to be. Right. So we end up with Sedona license. I went out. I was 26 at the time. I went out and raised $7 million from private, private guys. And I Started. Started company called Bloom.

That was like the whole operation that you moved to Arizona.

That's. That was the goal the whole time. Yeah, it came to fruition.

That's sick.

Yeah. So that was really like my. I would, I would call that like my. My breakout moment.

Okay.

That thing caught traction very quickly. I started acquiring other licenses. Yeah. I bought the downtown Phoenix license for 450,000. Okay. Everyone thought I was like a psychopath.

So what does that. What does that entail, you buying that license?

It was tricky because you don't actually buy the license. You buy the management company under the license, because they're not for profits. Right. So you had to buy the for profit entity that was managing the. Not for profit. Anyway, everyone thought I was batshit crazy. I mean, fast forward to today and that. That license and dispensers worth, I don't know, 25 million.

That's so sick. When. So when did you. What year was that? When you made all that happen?

2012 is when I started making major moves.

Damn.

Yeah. So we ended up with. We had four retails, we end up with four dispensaries, 60,000ft of cultivation, and then a laboratory. So we had scientific stuff. Yeah. And we ramped it quick. So we went from zero, me and my partner, to 110 employees and a million dollar a month run rate in 10 months.

Damn.

Yeah.

Crazy.

And that's when I.

Operating, right. That's still.

Bloom's still going. Yeah. So. So then I. Then I started to get attention from like private equity guys, from family offices, from the big money guys. Like, who's this kid? And you know, how is he, you.

Know, because you're 26 at the time.

12. I was 27 when I started to get attention from the big money guys. So then I, you know, I started meeting with some of these bigger money guys and a couple of them like, hey, we'd like to buy Bloom. And then, you know, inject with a shitload of capital and let you scale this thing. Can you, can you duplicate this on a bigger scale? Of course.

Yeah.

You know, I'm gonna turn that down. So they this. I ended up like really becoming close to this family office out of Florida, and they offered to come in and buy a Bloom. All the, all the existing investors out, and all the investors had very unrealistic expectations. And so it was. They couldn't come to terms on a buyout. So after that, I basically went to the family office and we struck a deal together to start a new company.

While that was still kind of Running. You just started a separate company.

Right. But part of the deal was that I, you know, I basically gave all my paper from Bloom over to my old partner. I was like, I'm gonna go start Newco. You run with this thing. So that's what we did.

That's dope.

Yeah. So 2013. Yeah, that was the end of 13. And then I started Newco, which ended up being trade companies and reap display dispensaries in March of 14.

Okay. So what differentiates these different things? Because when it comes to the separate companies are the both same model that's you did with Bloom.

Yeah. So Bloom was like the first like large operation and then Trike ended up being a much larger operation. Right. It was much more refined, had much better corporate structure. I learned from all of my mistakes with Bloom. I didn't, you know, I didn't make those same mistakes with, with Trike. So. And I was very, very well capitalized. I was, I was the most well capitalized Cannabis company in 2014 in the country, by far.

That's it. And that's when you're in Arizona. And that was that, that's where that was all going down.

Yeah. So I fired it up in Arizona, acquired a license, opened my dispensary and then we went and applied for eight licenses in Nevada and we won all eight. We actually got the top eight scores.

Was that the lottery thing too or was it.

No, it was qualitative. Yeah. So we scored, scored the eight high scores and got the licenses.

And then you just went ham and.

Went ham in Nevada. Yeah, you know, went about165,000 square foot building two blocks off the strip.

Yeah, yeah.

And I was like the first one to. Because like you had Denver, that was pretty mature at the time. And there's, there's big warehouses there, but they were very incognito, very discreet. Like no one painted any cannabis related anything on it. I went, I painted the whole building reef dispensaries and this building 740ft long. You know, it's like two football fields and then some.

Lord.

Yeah.

So that was with the people that you met you have in Florida. Yeah, that was the partners on that one.

Yeah.

That's sick.

So that ended up becoming the world's busiest dispensary.

Wow.

At the time when I, when I was running it.

That is sick.

Yeah.

That's crazy. So with that time frame of like making everything I shut down in your hometown, you moved to Arizona. What was that process of going from that to then being the biggest in the whole. Was it the whole US or what? Exactly.

Yeah. I mean, REEF was up there. Top three biggest canvas companies in the country, easily. Yeah, it was crazy. I mean, you know, I was getting interviewed by every news outlet. I was getting articles written about me.

Yeah.

You know, I had all the rappers. Want to be my friend.

I was gonna say, when it comes to. You said, like, Khalifa, Kush, Wiz Khalifa.

Yeah.

When did those sort of collaborations start happening?

So how it all started was I had my. My corporate headquarters, that large building I just told you, off the Strip. I ended up moving my corporate staff over to Vegas. And MJ bizcon was going on over there, which is the largest cannabis conference in the country. And this company called ease, which is the largest delivery company in California now, came to me at REEF to ask about helping, you know, raise some money.

Yeah.

And they happen to bring a guy by the name of Brenner with him, and I.

It's so funny. I don't know how this happens, though. He followed me on Instagram. Right.

Okay.

And that was because I'm. I met Cody and we were friends and stuff, and that's how I found out who you were. Right. But I don't know how he followed me. Like, I don't think. I don't know if Cody told him about me, because I've been listening to Burner forever.

Yeah. They don't. They don't talk that much, so it's crazy. Yeah.

I was like, what the hell? Like, it was the day that, like, he. I think it was. It was Burner, Cody. They're at Dan's place, and then Burner just followed me. I was like. I don't know if Cody told him or I was like, what the hell?

Yeah, that's cool. Yeah.

Yeah.

Burners. Burner. Super cool. He's one of my good friends. We. We talk on the reg.

Yeah. That's sick.

Yeah. So they were like, hey, you know, Ease is here. And this. They brought this guy named Burner. And I'm like, who's Burner?

You know, he was.

At the time. I didn't. No.

That's hilarious.

No. And so he rolled in. But then when I saw him, I knew who he was. Like, I'm really. I'm good with faces. Or both names. Oh, yeah, yeah. I'm. You know, we both meet a ton of people, so.

Yeah, totally.

Yeah. So he rolled in. You know, we hit it off right away. He was like, bro, I've never seen anything like this. Like, this is. This is like like, you know, the NASA space station. Just because we, you know, went state of the art on the facility. It was like, it was like the showpiece.

Okay.

So Burner's like, I want to work with you. What I got to do. So him and I started talking on the regular. We started coming up with a collab that we were going to do together and that was. Ended up being exotics.

Okay.

And then he was like, hey, would you be interested in rolling out Khalifa Kush for Wiz? And I was like, yeah. So we ended up working with Taylor Gang and Wiz and, you know, did a. Did a large rollout with Khalifa Kush.

So it was just like, that was growing. That strand was growing at your facility.

Yeah.

That's tough.

Yeah. So it's. It's still there to this day.

That's so cool.

I'm not there anymore, but it's still there.

Yeah. You're not. We're at the.

I'm not with REEF anymore.

Oh, okay.

Yeah, yeah.

That's super cool. So that was sort of like the transition of like all the collaborations, music guys and everything.

Yeah. And like, so Burner. Burner's known in the music space as like, like the guy with the best marijuana.

Yeah.

And we all know that most musicians use cannabis, right. So they would call Burner for their. For their lead. And everyone knew that Burner was part of Burner. Yeah, he was part of Reef because I put a. I put like a 60 foot picture of him on the back of the building. Yeah. You can see from all the hotel rooms on this trip.

That's hilarious.

Yeah, he loved it. It was sick. And so everyone knew that Reef was associated with Burner. So they'd kit up Burner and be like, yo, can I stop by Reef and grab. Grab a sack. And so he would hit me up and be like, yo, you know, Ty Dollar Signs in town or like, you know, two chains or whoever it was during that week. And everyone goes to Vegas.

Yeah.

So you saw a ton of celebs going through Reef, which in turn, all the rest of society wanted to go through Reef too. You know, if you see a lot of influential people going somewhere, you want to go there too. Yeah, that's sick. So that's what really gave me a ton of traction.

Okay.

Yeah.

So how did that. When it comes to, like, you now all these people are coming to you. How was that transition? Like, was that like you knew when it comes to just the collaborations you were doing, how did that affect you as a person? Was that like, hell, yeah, this stuff's picking up because obviously you had this huge facility. But I would say from a branding perspective of, like, more publicity or getting the people involved, how did that sort of take the company to a whole.

Nother level, in a sense, just from exposure. I mean, you know, like, one day I had Wiz as a guest bud tender. You know, like, he came in, bud tender for the day.

Like, so funny.

Or, like, you know, know, someone would be in the dispensary and, like, I would be like, yeah, I want you to, like, go ahead to Instagram in here. Snapchat. Another Spencer. Like, no phones. And I was like, no, get your phone. I take pictures. Yeah. And I had, like, a wall with, like, reap dispensers on it. You go take a picture by Reef, like, and everyone want to take a picture by that sign because they were cool if they had a picture of them there. So, like, you know, I had, like, snoop there sometimes, like, just different things just to keep it very relevant, keep it fresh.

Yeah.

And it really disrupted the space because no one ever done it before.

That made it that open and, like.

Yeah.

Acceptable, you know?

Yeah. Like, the first big publication, I think, like, Complex magazine came in, like, can we write an article about this? I was like, sure. They named it, like, you know, Khalifa Kush's Massive Factory or something like that. And, like, the i15 runs. It's like a major highway through Vegas. It runs right by the facility. And in one of Wiz's songs, he's, like, rapping about how you can smell his weed from the highway.

That's hilarious. So prior to that, like, were you listening to all these guys and, like.

Oh, yeah. I mean, like, I've been a big fan of Wiz since I was, like, an early age of high school.

Yeah.

Yeah, man. Like, I don't know. I don't really get, like, starstruck, you know, like, everyone's just a person. But what boggled my mind is, like, when I was rolling around with these guys, like, how many people were coming up to them and want to take pictures and talk to them, just like, oh, my God, what a zoo.

Yeah. Yeah, that's what.

That's the part that was, like, mind blowing.

I bet.

You know, cuz in Montana, like, you don't see any of that stuff. Yeah.

And you come from, like, this small, small town. More cows and people.

Yeah.

A whole different lane.

Yeah. And, like, everyone knows everyone. Everyone waves at everyone, you know? You know at least 10 people's name when you own the grocery store.

Like, Totally.

So to, like, go from that to, like, running through the strip with celebrities in Vegas and seeing how much attention they were getting, and, like, it just. It was. It was hard for me to wrap my head around.

Yeah.

Like, because I was just like, it's just another person. Like, what's the big deal? You know what I mean? But to other people, it was like, no, this is my idol. Like, you know, I watch them on TV every day or whatever it is. Yeah.

So what's their family all think about this sort of stuff? Like, your family, when it comes to you job, it. You said 10 days in college. What was that sort of transition for? Like, because there's a lot of young people that listen in there.

Right.

Like, I would say battling, like, all right, should I go to college? Should I not? And obviously, it's like, you going to college for 10 days, you kind of, like, beat the odds of what society thinks.

Yeah, I think, you know, I think we were trained to think a certain way, and we're trained to think that if you don't go to college, you can't be successful. And I'm not saying that everyone that doesn't go to college is gonna be successful, because that's not the case. But if you work your ass off and you're persistent and you do the right things, like, yeah, you can be successful. You could drop out in fifth grade, you know. Yeah, it doesn't matter. It's irrelevant. And, you know, I think part of it's, you know, your genetic makeup. To a certain extent, I think you're either built to be or not to be. But then again, like, there's other factors that come into play. Like, you know, hard work, grinding for 14 hours a day, seven days a week. You know what I mean? No vacations. Like, how committed are you to being successful? Because if you're committed enough to being successful, odds are you could probably be successful.

That's dope.

You know what I mean? Like, are you willing to give up the girls and the partying and all that nonsense to be successful? Put your head down and just go, yeah, grind.

That's dope.

So I think it's all about your commitment level. Yeah, I wasn't that committed to school.

Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I was gonna say, what was, like, high school like for you?

Like, I went to class just enough so that I could pass.

Okay.

I got good grades, but I was absent as much as I could be. So I think I graduated, like, a 3.2 or something. GP in high school. Yeah. I almost didn't graduate. Cuz I had so many absences, dude.

Me too. I missed like 40 days this year, brother.

Yeah.

What the hell are you doing, bro?

Right? I mean, so. But my. The way. The viewpoint I was coming from was if. But I have like a above average grade point average. So what's the. What's the problem? You know what I mean? And so I ended up having to appear in front of this panel, and they were deciding if I need to become a fifth year senior. But I got past that. I talked them into letting me go to the next level, which, you know, is college.

Okay.

And I dipped out of there pretty quick.

So with that, like, was it like your parents said, you have to go to college or you're like, I'm just gonna try this? Or what was that whole process?

No. Like, you know, I probably could have got into a lot of colleges, but I chose to stay close to home, close to my friends. And so I decided to go to the University of Montana, which is in Missoula.

Okay.

My grandparents had a college fund set aside for me. Okay. And so as you can imagine, when I dropped out, they were. Yeah, they were not. Let's just say they didn't give me the college fund. Yeah. So my family's extremely disappointed at the time. Yeah. My father was always very supportive though, you know, because he kind of had the entrepreneurial bug. So, like in high school, he bought me the book Rich Dad, Poor dad, which made me start thinking about things differently, you know, and when I was like 12 or 13, I read Anthony Robbins, Awaken the Giant Within.

I read it.

Yeah. And that's when I was like, wait a minute. Like there's this. Maybe everyone has it all wrong. You know what I mean? Because the last thing I want to do was just be another, you know, number on the board.

Yep.

And go to college, get a job, make 65k a year, work, you know, board off my ass for the next 40 years until I get my gold watch, retirement, you know, go live out a few more years and then die. Like, I was like, nah, you live one time. Like, I'm gonna go all out. So it's like, whether I win or lose, I'm gonna live life to the fullest. I'm. I've, you know, I've been willing to risk it all, like, since. Since day one.

That's dope. So regarding. You said your dad gave you the book Rich step word. Has that always been a thing when it comes to, like, reading self education?

Because Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, you know, there's an old saying, something effective. You're a product of the people you surround yourself with in the books you read. Now it's more so the knowledge you're acquiring because a lot of people are reading off of different things besides books.

Right. It's funny because like when I was in school, they show you all this BS books that like, I hated reading until like 10th grade when it's like I got handed Rich dad word at or all these different types of books. So it's like, when was that? Was it always that for you when it comes to like self educating yourself? Or was there like a pivot point of like you read rich dad, poor dad and that opened your mind to different types of thinking in a sense?

No, I was, I, I hated reading like school books. Like, you know, when I had to read To Kill a Mockingbird, I was just like, what are we, what are we talking about here? But then I started reading like self help books and self educating books and business books. I was like, I was very, you know, drawn in.

Yeah.

And. But on my time, right? Like you have to read four, four chapters, you know, by tomorrow. Like, I hate when other people tell me what to do. You know what I mean? So I was like, I'm not gonna read it.

Yeah.

But if it's on my, my time, like, and I'm interested in what I'm, you know, the knowledge that I'm gaining, then I'm all in.

That's dope.

So I've read hundreds of books.

Yeah.

Think and Grow Riches, you know, a ridiculously good book. How to win friends and influence people. Another. Another bang. You know what I mean? Written so long ago, but still relevant.

Timeless.

Like the principles will never go away.

Yeah. Yeah, that's so dope.

So like, you know, I have a lot of respect for some of the people in those books. Like, I don't know, I. I feel like there's core principles, you know what I mean? If you stick to those and you're, you know, just have like a very structured plan. You stick to the plan. Yeah. Anything's really possible.

That's so dope, man. I got like two more questions, man. So in regards to like this journey so far, how. What was like the time frame, like how many years? 10, 15, 20 years of since you started your first business.

So if you want to look at the one I started in, in High School, 16. So that was 17 years ago.

Literally since I was born.

Yeah, I'm pretty much old.

So when it comes to that, I feel like a lot of young listeners that are listening. Like just in regards to, just the whole journey so far. If you were like to tell that 18 year old, 17 year old today in 2018 with this whole social media space and like there's an abundance of opportunities that's like I'm. The whole thing I'm doing with this podcast is just hearing stories to tell people. Like, dude, like do you, you can just do you, you know, right. So like in regards to that, if you had to just look at yourself at 18 and like here you are now killing the game, what would something you would like tell yourself just to like give some. Not inspiration or anything, but just like a core truth that has you like instilled in yourself?

Well, If I was 18 right now, first of all, what I would do is I would become an expert in as many technology spaces as possible. That's obviously the future, right?

Yeah.

I think virtual reality is going to be huge.

Okay.

I would really zone in on social dynamics and how people interact and also human psychology.

Okay.

I feel like with those three things, like you can do almost anything.

Okay.

So that's what I would concentrate on if I was 18 in 2018. For sure.

For sure. So for everyone when it comes to connecting with you and everything you got going on, obviously I want to put your all your social media as your vlog channel on YouTube.

Appreciate it.

And everyone listening makes you go check them out. I know when I first came across your page I was like, dude, their content is so sick. And then we got the guy in here that is editing.

That's right, the man behind the curtain.

Oh yeah. When I saw that I was like, damn. So everyone listening, make sure you go check him out on Instagram. His content's dope. He post the craziest pictures. Cool ass people. So make sure you go give him a follow. And then what's the best place when it comes to just people like interacting with you if they want to say what's up? If they came from the podcast, like what's the best way?

Man, I get so many DMs, it's.

Hard to keep up, bro.

I feel you thousands, you know.

Yeah.

Probably the best way to reach me is just go to my website and then you can just type messages in there and it goes directly to my personal email. Yeah. So the websites. Matthew Lee morgan.com. so that's, that's probably like the most efficient way to get a hold of perfect man.

Dude, I appreciate you coming for me on brother. I appreciate everyone listening. Like I just said, make sure you go check them out on Instagram, YouTube, website, everything. Whole nine yards. And that being said, make sure you go subscribe to the build your empire podcast and itunes, and I will talk to you guys soon. Thanks for coming on, man.

Thank you.

Legacy of Monsters, An Apple original series. The world is on fire. I decided to do something about it on November 17th. This place, it's not ours. Believe me, the most massive event of the the year arrives. If you come with me, you'll know everything. I promise.

Oh, my God. Go, go, go.

Monarch. Legacy of Monsters. Streaming November 17th only on Apple TV.

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