ABKO LABS LLC: Amy Brown, founder and CEO of the cannabis testing and safety compliance company and a Birmingham native, crossed over from the financial services sector to the marijuana industry before Michigan legalized recreational use.
At the time there were very few labs and being that it’s focused on the safety and health issues, it was very appealing to me.
The way Michigan works is that the state approves you, but you also have to have a municipality approve you.
I had to at one point voluntarily stop taking in samples and retool my team and retool my operations, which was rough, and it actually happened just as COVID started.
What it did is it allowed me to reach out to some clients that had primarily switched.
We definitely were the most busy when we very first opened because we were the first lab looking to start a lab in Michigan.
I think the biggest thing to understand about starting a business in cannabis is that you literally don’t have a rule book.
I was stubborn about taking investor money because I felt like it was critical for me to be the first lab approved and for that, I felt that any investors would be an anchor holding me back on that.