MJBizMag November-December 2020 - 70

THRIVE
SURVIVE
SIREN SONG
Y
ou might question the wisdom of
Matt and Meghan Walstatter's decision
to leave Portland's crowded
dispensary scene to start a cultivation site
in Oregon's saturated market.
The husband and wife team opened
Pure Green in January 2014, when there
was only one other dispensary on their
street. They built it into one of Portland's
most popular marijuana stores. But by
2018, they were competing against at
least 10 other nearby stores.
" It got to be a grind, " Matt Walstatter
said.
Meanwhile, the Walstatters teamed
up with veteran cultivator Bob Conley,
whom they'd known for 20-plus years, on
Siren Cannabis, a Portland-based grow.
The 8,000-square-foot facility had about
2,000 feet of canopy, and the first pounds
of flower were ready for the wholesale
market in December 2018.
" We probably couldn't have come
out on the market at a worse time, "
Matt Walstatter said, referring to what
was then an oversaturated market for
flower. " It was so bad. I didn't sell a single
pound. In January 2019, our price for
indoor (grown flower) was $600 to $900
Being mindful of workflow and
energy rebates creates operating
efficiencies By Omar Sacirbey
COMPANY: Siren Cannabis | LOCATION: Portland, Oregon | SECTOR: Cultivation
per pound. And I had to figure out how
to stay in business, " Walstatter said.
He also took a gamble. " My view was
that this was going to be the peak of
market saturation and that the market
would ultimately work its way back up,
which turned out to be right, " Walstatter
said. " Now we're getting $1,800-$2,000
per pound. "
Produce a Great
Product While Keeping
Costs Down
The fledgling company had two secret
weapons that helped it stay in business:
* The sale of Pure Green to
Vancouver, British Columbia-based
C21 Investments, which closed in
January 2019 for an undisclosed
sum and gave the couple money to
launch Siren.
* Growing great product as efficiently
as possible.
" I think we grow something that can
sit on any shelf in any store in the state.
I'm not trying to claim that mine is the
best or anything like that. But I think
we're in the upper tier, " Walstatter said.
" My partner, Bob Conley, who runs all
cultivation operations, does more with
less than anyone else I know. So our
production costs are a lot lower than at
other grows our size. "
Siren operates 70,000 flowering lots
in 2,000 square feet of canopy with
Conley, one full-time grow employee,
one part-time employee, five or six
full-time trimmers who help elsewhere
in the grow plus one administrative
person and one sales manager.
Bob Conley tends Siren's garden.
Courtesy Photo
Design Your Facility
to Improve Workflow
70 Marijuana Business Magazine | November-December 2020
The lean team operates in a facility
designed to maximize efficiency
through workflow. For example, the
vegetation room is across the hall from
the flower rooms, and the trim room is
across from the drying room. Designing
the building that way reduced the
number of steps employees must take to
get from one room to another.
" One of the things that you think
about is making the building fit the way
the workflow is going to go. It may not
seem like a big deal to have to take three
more steps, " Walstatter said. " But when
you multiply those three steps times
three people doing the same thing 300
times a day, every week, over years, all
of a sudden those three steps turn into
thousands of steps. "
The company also custom-built an
automated irrigation and fertigation
system that eliminated the need for
an employee to water plants and clean
water tanks.
Take Advantage of
Energy Rebates to
Save Money
To cut utility costs, Siren took advantage
of rebates that Oregon awards businesses
for using energy-efficiency technology.
Siren's grow rooms are mixed spectrum,
using double-end bulbs and 350-watt
LED lights in flower rooms and LEDs in
the vegetation rooms.
The company received rebates on
all the LEDs it bought, plus the HVAC
system, allowing Siren to recoup about
40% of its LED and HVAC expenses.
Walstatter noted that the five-figure
rebate check arrived when Siren just
opened and was getting less than $1,000
per pound for its product.
AND
MJBizMag November-December 2020

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