‘Hold The Line Or Pivot Hard’: Cannabis Industry Veterans Sound Off On Surviving 2025
In 2025, cannabis isn’t a gold rush. It’s a grind.
Most stocks are down more than 90% from their highs. Capital is tight. Retail shelves are crowded with low-margin products. At this year’s Benzinga Cannabis Capital Conference in Chicago, the optimism of earlier cycles gave way to something more sober: survival talk.
Two industry veterans, Rachel Wright, CPA and founder of Verdant Strategies and 420 CPA, and Seth Yakatan, founder of Katan Associates International, offered candid, unfiltered perspectives on what’s really happening behind the scenes. Wright, one of the earliest CPAs to specialize in cannabis, works closely with operators navigating complex tax rules, compliance and expansion. Yakatan, a fixture in capital markets and early-stage investing, has guided dozens of companies through growth, collapse and realignment.
They’re still standing. And they’re not sugarcoating anything.
From Chaos To Compliance: ‘We Actually Have Banking Now’
When Wright first started working in cannabis more than a decade ago, most businesses didn’t have books — or if they did, they were a mess.
“We would have to essentially create books for people based on information that we had — POS systems, if they had a cash ledger, things like that,” she said. “Fast forward a few years, now we actually do have banking… we also have real legit payroll companies that are supporting the industry.”
The maturation of professional services, from accounting to legal support, is helping operators run cleaner, more efficient businesses. But Wright says success still hinges on who’s in charge.
“Sometimes the founders need to step aside and hire the professionals,” she said. “And let the professionals do what the professionals do.”
Operational discipline isn’t optional anymore. She cited price compression across all markets as one of the biggest threats, especially in newer states like New York, where companies don’t get a long runway before margin pressure kicks in. “You have to learn how to operate a real business. Data is key. Cash is king. Managing that is really, really key.”
Over the last 12 months, Wright …