I have started a couple threads now about this particular question, but last night I felt like I had a breakthrough...almost. So here is what I know:
All of this hiding and aliases will be over soon enough. I am more dismayed on how difficult it is to take a dollar for a donation or to sell a shirt if you have marijuana in your name. I suppose it's the trade-off for good search results.
I also learned a lot about Leafly and Weedmaps as I scoured results to late into the night. I wish the directory was like Weedmaps except better, and I hope one day to have the info on strains like Leafly. It won't be happening with a sweet app like I get asked for every single day. Apps are really expensive to build in case anyone reading this doesn't know. You don't download a free copy of Wordpress, get some cheap hosting, and the draw an app in Photoshop. It takes impressive scales to be bringing revenue into the millions.
I am going to do some heavy reading over the next few days, but I wanted to share my efforts up to this point. Also, I hope TMF really gets bigger. Some of the other sites I discovered seem to be only about the money or really shitty experience wise. I would be happy to be at least in the middle. It's hard when you only chalk up 50 new memberships a day though. The big boys get millions of views per month with 50% being mobile. We get about 2K/month right now. That's 5 times better than in November at least.
Edit: I should add that these questions are important because there are many people jumping into the scene and I have found very little on the topic. Maybe there is a reason for that, but I am not giving up. I want to exchange information on the industry at large. In the last 4 days I have come up empty handed. So I figure it's 1 or 2 things. I am not willing do work in the grey area of this business, or I truly can't comprehend the process in being accepted.
I have learned so much since I began this project and couldn't have done it without some really amazing members. The goal is to share information and we are doing that. In the meantime, I will be researching and sharing what I find. If you find it before I do please let us know.
- Stripe: No
- Paypal: Fuck No
- BitPay: Absolutely Not!
- Cash: Good, Just Don't Mail It
- Bitcoin: Yes As Long As It Hasn't Been Made Through a Marijuana ______.
- Checks: Not if it's made out to Ted's Marijuana Forum
- Out of ideas.
So I am left with the question "How does Weedmaps make $18M/year if no one will give them processing power?". Ya that one bit me in the ass as I just publicly got turned down by Stripe. I am not a quitter though. While the Mrs slept I was staring into a 5" display searching for a variation of search strings to figure out how the other sites like TMF bring in money. It's not even about profiting with the site. My curiosity finally has the best of me and I can't find answers that are any better than Redditors making the best educated guesses in /r/Weedbiz.All of this hiding and aliases will be over soon enough. I am more dismayed on how difficult it is to take a dollar for a donation or to sell a shirt if you have marijuana in your name. I suppose it's the trade-off for good search results.
I also learned a lot about Leafly and Weedmaps as I scoured results to late into the night. I wish the directory was like Weedmaps except better, and I hope one day to have the info on strains like Leafly. It won't be happening with a sweet app like I get asked for every single day. Apps are really expensive to build in case anyone reading this doesn't know. You don't download a free copy of Wordpress, get some cheap hosting, and the draw an app in Photoshop. It takes impressive scales to be bringing revenue into the millions.
I am going to do some heavy reading over the next few days, but I wanted to share my efforts up to this point. Also, I hope TMF really gets bigger. Some of the other sites I discovered seem to be only about the money or really shitty experience wise. I would be happy to be at least in the middle. It's hard when you only chalk up 50 new memberships a day though. The big boys get millions of views per month with 50% being mobile. We get about 2K/month right now. That's 5 times better than in November at least.
Edit: I should add that these questions are important because there are many people jumping into the scene and I have found very little on the topic. Maybe there is a reason for that, but I am not giving up. I want to exchange information on the industry at large. In the last 4 days I have come up empty handed. So I figure it's 1 or 2 things. I am not willing do work in the grey area of this business, or I truly can't comprehend the process in being accepted.
I have learned so much since I began this project and couldn't have done it without some really amazing members. The goal is to share information and we are doing that. In the meantime, I will be researching and sharing what I find. If you find it before I do please let us know.
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