George Matlock is the owner of the Your CBD Store in the Buckhead neighborhood of Atlanta. He talked with rolling out about why he conducted research on CBD, why he opened his store during the pandemic and why the younger generation should be looking into CBD.
What was the process like of building your store during a pandemic?
Nerve-racking. I had done a franchise prior in my past, and I come from an entrepreneurial family, so just that ability to really look at an opportunity was already there. We had looked at other franchises, my wife and I, and part of it is wealth generation. So when we’re looking for something, what can we get into that we can build up as many units as we can to generate wealth for our family? That’s that franchising piece that I’m a firm believer in. So this fit really nicely within that. We were already kind of looking at franchises. We were looking at some food service franchises, and we knew we wanted to do an entrepreneur[ial] business. It’s definitely a risk. Ultimately, you have to jump. As entrepreneurs, we have to risk it all.
How can Blacks get into the CBD business?
One thing that excites me about our community is that I think we’ve been over-policed in this area, and left out of the opportunity. It was exciting for me, to see more African American owners, more African American-owned dispensaries, and there’s a big push for African American growers. This industry is an opportunity for us to grow wealth within our community. As we look at the health part of it, we want to do something natural that grows. You can grow this in your home, and then once it becomes legal, it can help you, whether it’s just to knock the edge off or just have less anxiety. That is really where we can take an opportunity to say, here’s something that’s natural, doesn’t hurt my body, it’s not addictive and it’s helping me.
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