By John Hollon

I was flattered when my friend and former colleague Rob Meagher reached out and asked me if I could help provide some editorial advice to his new venture Cannabis Business Executive.

I’m always willing to help a friend, so I was ready and willing to lend Rob some of the editorial expertise I’ve built up in 35 years as a newspaper, magazine and business journal editor, Internet and print publisher, online entrepreneur, and part-time college professor.

Little did I know what I was getting into.

A Rip Van Winkle awakening

Almost immediately after telling Rob I would help, I noticed a funny thing: media stories everywhere about all sorts of things related to the legalization of cannabis and the Cannabis Industry.

To me, it was like I was Rip Van Winkle waking up from a long dream to find the world dramatically changed around me. I thought to myself, “How did I miss all of this cannabis coverage before?”

And, that’s the moment I knew that my friend Rob and Cannabis Business Executive was on to something.

The Cannabis Industry has reached a tipping point, as author Malcolm Gladwell described it in his book The Tipping Point, “that magic moment when an idea, trend, or social behavior crosses a threshold, tips, and spreads like wildfire.”

Yes, business activity and media coverage of the Cannabis Industry IS spreading like wildfire, and no one knows that better than the readers of Cannabis Business Executive.

Yes, the cannabis industry has hit the accelerator

The very day after Rob Meagher asked me for my help with CBE, my morning Los Angeles Times plopped on my driveway with a business story titled Venture capital firm gives marijuana industry a shot of credibility in it. The story noted that,

Founders Fund, a leading San Francisco venture capital firm partly run by PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel, (is) making a multimillion-dollar investment in a cannabis-focused private equity firm called Privateer Holdings. The announcement gives the legal pot sector a shot of credibility as it continues to grapple with conflicting state and federal laws, limited access to banks and no shortage of fly-by-night investors who have sullied the industry with pump-and-dump schemes.”

Wow. If that wasn’t a confirmation that the Cannabis Industry just hit the accelerator, I don’t know what is.

That’s not the only story in the media I saw, of course, but one of many that seem to be everywhere, in a variety of different media, all the time.

But, readers of Cannabis Business Executive already KNOW all of that. You have been working in this industry and know how it is taking off like a rocket, and you also know that it’s not only terribly thrilling but a little scary as well.

It feels a like the dotcom boom all over again

It’s the same feeling I had when I went to work for an upstart, and briefly famous, Internet company in San Francisco back during the dotcom boom in 1999. We ultimately didn’t make it, but a lot of others did, and it was an incredible ride. I look back on it as the experience of a lifetime.

That’s why I’m thrilled to be able to offer a little bit of my editorial expertise to CBE. The Cannabis Industry needs (and deserves) great business-to-business coverage of everything that is going on in the marijuana trade, and I can feel in my bones that Cannabis Business Executive is the one to really do it.

It’s hard to get this lucky twice, but I think it is going to also be the experience of a lifetime — again. I am happy to be along for the ride.