A lot can change in 16 years.
In 2009, Kos Matt was sentenced to seven years in prison on drug charges. This year, Marte expects to make as much as $12 million from legal marijuana sales.
Marte, 39, is the founder and CEO of Conbud, one of the first businesses in Manhattan to be fully licensed to sell recreational marijuana and the first on the city’s Lower East Side. After opening the door for the first time October 2023Conbud adds second location in the Bronx last April.
Marte’s business currently sells about $800,000 a month, with nearly $100,000 in profit, according to documents reviewed by CNBC Make It. Marte expects the final amount to be about $7 million in 2024, he said.
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After being released from prison early in 2013, Marte founded a fitness company called Conbody based on the workout regimen he used while in prison. Then, in 2021, New York legalized the sale of recreational marijuana and expunged all past marijuana-related criminal convictions.
A year later, the state announced that entrepreneurs with marijuana convictions would be eligible for the first licenses to sell recreational marijuana. Given his experience running Conbody’s and the state’s requirements for retail licensees, Marte saw a golden opportunity, he said.
“I complied with the law, and what they asked for was two years of net profit business and a conviction on your record,” Malte said. “Right now, how many people are eligible for a marijuana license? Not many.”
From prison workouts to multiple businesses
Marte grew up on the Lower East Side surrounded by the illegal drug trade and fell into trouble at age 13 when he saw other teenagers making money this way, he said.
“When I was a kid, people would ask me, ‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’ and I’d say, ‘I want to be rich,'” Malte said. “The first opportunity was through the drug world. So I started dealing marijuana.”
In prison, doctors told Malte that he was overweight and had dangerously high cholesterol levels. He began intense workouts, using bodyweight exercises he could do in his cell. After his release, Marte connected with Defy Ventures, a nonprofit program that provides entrepreneurial training and business mentoring to former inmates.
Coss Marte is the founder and majority owner of Conbud, one of the first legal recreational marijuana dispensaries in New York City.
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Marte, who launched Conbody in 2014 with a $10,000 grant from Defy, said the company currently does about $1 million in annual revenue.
Eight years later, Marte paid $2,000 to apply for a retail marijuana license. He said he put about $50,000 of his savings into Conbud, mostly from Conbody, paid speaking fees and raised nearly $1.2 million in additional seed funding from friends and family who are now the company part owner.
Marte owns 51% of the shares because New York requires “judicially affected” license holders to retain a majority stake.
Marte said Conbud’s start-up capital paid for the $400,000 deposit, construction costs, payroll and inventory for the Lower East Side retail store. The company opened in October 2023 and was bringing in about $250,000 a month – until authorities Shut down hundreds of operators illegally selling cannabis without a license last year.
Focus on growth in a highly competitive market
New York’s crackdown is a beneficial development for authorized retailers like Marte, which face an uphill battle to establish a long-term industry foothold.
The state’s Office of Marijuana Management has touted It is committed to prioritizing “social and economic equity” while developing a legal cannabis market, but Critics worry Small stores will eventually be squeezed out by larger companies with nationwide coverage.
For example, Curaleaf is one of the largest pharmacy owners in the United States; Annual revenue exceeds $1.3 billion. company Selling adult products in Queens, New York starting in 2023.
This chart details the monthly expenses of Marte’s business.
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Even simple operating costs – especially rent and labor costs – are high, he said, leaving Marte’s profit margins at a relatively low 13%. If marijuana were legalized at the federal level, Marte could receive federal tax deductions for wages and other business expenses, and Expand banking options Fees are lower.
“So the 13% profit margin will (eventually) grow to 25%,” he said.
Marte said Conbud and Conbody almost all employ workers who are “justice affected,” meaning they or a family member have been incarcerated for past drug crimes. In total, he hired 72 employees who met this criteria.
Malte said he got out of jail with $40 and a bus ticket and “ended up on my mom’s couch” while trying to figure out how to make a living with a drug conviction on his record. He noted that without a second chance, he might never have been in this position.
“This is a very, very large community that has grown with us,” Malte said. “I feel blessed, man.”
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