With things moving as fast as they are in the hemp industry, the entrepreneur can get lost in it all. New markets come online. Supply-demand ebbs and flows as regulations change — all of it leading to tectonic shifts in market opportunities — and not just a few barriers and traps.
Small, smart firms are best positioned to navigate the current hemp landscape, and there are a lot of them. While all the noise (and most of the investment) has been around the CBD gold rush, the fact is that taken as a whole, the world of hemp companies is made up primarily of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) operating across the entire range of sectors where hemp has application –– beyond CBD into health & beauty products, fashions & accessories, hemp-based construction, food, plastics and other composites. Many of these entrepreneurs are developing exciting things in farming, farm equipment and other technology needed in the industrial hemp value chain.
What hemp SMEs need
But when it comes to running a small business, the majority of these firms need both improved management as well investment to move to their enterprises to the next stage. That’s the focus of the Entrepreneurship & Investing Summit at HempToday Center in Poland, Oct. 25-26, 2019.
“We want to help SMEs focus, anticipate and strategize about how to take advantage of rapid change,” Kehrt Reyher, CEO at HempToday, said of the Summit, which will gather startups and early stage hemp companies to meet with investors and gain insight from business mentors and fellow entrepreneurs.
Accreditations are still available for the Summit, which is limited to 25 participants.
The Summit is one in a series of annual hemp-focused micro-conferences jointly organized by HempToday, the European Industrial Hemp Association, Czech-based Hempoint, trading platform HempTrade and the matchmaking platform Enterprise Hemp.
Topics for the Summit
The two-day Summit aims to help startup and early stage hemp companies of all sizes advance their enterprises through networking, matchmaking, intelligence gathering and transfer of knowhow, Reyher said.
Topics for the summit include: How to turn your idea into a business; bootstrapping & bartering your way to success; preparing for investment; developing a strategic plan; organizing for growth; social responsibility; evaluating investors; marketing & communications; writing the business plan; and financial planning.
Range of sectors represented
Entrepreneurs and startups already confirmed for the Summit represent a wide range of sectors, including the hospitality industry, farming, technology for farming & processing, food, health & beauty, CBD, hemp construction, and textiles & fashion.
All participants have the opportunity to present their ideas and enterprises during the Summit to get direct feedback from the experts and fellow entrepreneurs on hand.
Presenters & Mentors
Participants will hear advice from Jacek Kramarz, Director of Business Development at CBD maker HemPoland. Kramarz oversaw the rapid development and eventual sale of the Poland-based company to The Green Organic Dutchman Holdings Ltd., of Canada in 2018, to date one of the biggest deals of its kind in European hemp. He previously worked in management consulting in Vienna where he coordinated international projects tackling complex changes in company ownership and restructuring. He is also a licensed securities broker.
Other presenters and mentors confirmed so far for the Summit are cannabis veteran and entrepreneur Hana Gabrielova of Czech-based Hempoint, a vertically integrated farming, food production and consulting company; and Muhammed A Qayyum, Co founder & CEO at Fytocina SL, Spain, a natural products specialist and innovator working in herbals and nutraceuticals.
