Make Great Weed. Know Your Numbers. Pay Your Debts.
By Nicholas Sosiak via Cannabis Confidential
In 2018, Canadian cannabis was supposed to be the surest bet in the market.
Billions of dollars were raised.
Valuations went parabolic.
Everyone promised global domination.
By 2025, a lot of those stories had ended the same way, with shuttered facilities, broken balance sheets, and disappointed consumers.
My path in cannabis took a different route.
What began as a personal relationship with the plant, followed by some painful lessons as an investor, eventually turned into helping build a business in Quebec that crossed C$100M in revenue while many better-funded competitors disappeared.
We did it by obsessing over the plant, the product, and the math, in that order, and by being comfortable growing slower than the hype cycle.
This is how it happened.
From Audit Files to Grow Rooms
On paper, my path to cannabis is straightforward. I am a CPA, CA, and started my career in audit, working at firms like KPMG and Ernst & Young. I spent my days buried in financial statements from industries like real estate, energy, and manufacturing.
I later joined Dundee 360 Real Estate Corporation as VP of Finance, helping manage large-scale resort developments in places like Cuba, China, France, and across Canada. It was complex, capital-intensive work that taught me how to think about risk, cash flow, and long-term asset value.
In my early twenties, cannabis became more than something I used personally. I developed a genuine respect for the plant and watched legalization approach in Canada. Like many others, I poured my life savings into some of the first licensed producers.
Let’s just say emotional investing is a fast way to learn very expensive lessons.
Over time, it became clear that many companies were chasing the wrong things: vanity …
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Author: High Times Contributors / High Times
