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James Slatic is a marijuana business pioneer.
One of his past business ventures set the standard for packaging medical marijuana. Another innovated vape cartridges and other products.
The successful businesses he’s built and his highly publicized ongoing legal battles with the district attorney’s office have made Slatic one of the most recognizable faces of the green rush that’s sweeping the state as entrepreneurs jostle one another to find their place in the newly legal industry.
But before all that, Slatic was a serial entrepreneur who made lots of money, and lost lots of money, time and again.
In the latest episode of I Made it in San Diego, a podcast illuminating the stories behind the region’s businesses and entrepreneurs, Voice of San Diego’s Scott Lewis sits down with Slatic to talk about the ups and downs of building his many businesses.
Slatic’s helped build restaurant software, started an internet business that helped unsigned bands get record deals, ran an organic spice company and started a company that made and installed official signs for the California Lottery.
He says he can’t help but spot business opportunities and go after them with everything he’s got.
“In an entrepreneurial business we say, ‘In niches there are riches,’” he tells Lewis. “The entrepreneurial bug doesn’t really go away.”