USC alumnus starts marijuana business

After the legalization of marijuana in California in November, its legal market is estimated to grow to $6.7 billion, according to CNBC. As a result, many entrepreneurs are now getting involved with businesses that promote the harvest of medical marijuana at home. One such business, GreenBox Grown was created by Dylan Osborn, a USC alumnus who graduated with a bachelor’s degree in business administration in 2014.

Osborn suffered a serious sports-related knee injury that made him undergo several surgeries, leaving him with chronic pain. This made sitting through long business lectures difficult. He would end up having severe pain by the end of the lecture, which then made it tough for him to walk.

Osborn turned to medical marijuana to relieve the pain and regain mobility in his knee. However, marijuana proved to be an expensive medication, so Osborn decided to start growing it on his own to save money.

“It was a passion project at first because I just enjoyed being outdoors and working with the plants,” Osborn said. “From there, it grew because my father suffers from chronic migraines as well as back pain. Once I saw how helpful the medicinal side of cannabis was, I introduced that to my father and that ended up helping reduce his migraine.”

Seeing the positive effect of medical marijuana on his father, Osborn realized there were a lot of people with similar injuries that were being treated with very strong medication, which had negative side effects that medical marijuana did not. As a result of Osborn’s positive personal experiences with medical marijuana, he founded GreenBox Grown in August 2016 and launched its website launch in January.

According to Osborn, one of the biggest challenges he faced while setting up his business was understanding the legalities.

“Figuring out a system for growing the plants from start to finish where it was affordable but still an easy-to-manage process was another challenge for somebody who isn’t experienced with growing marijuana,” Osborn said. “Our system can now be set up for your personal growing at home for less than $500. Once you are set up, a complete beginner would only have to spend 10 minutes at most per day maintaining the plants.”

Since growing marijuana in a greenhouse outside the home is a cheaper alternative than growing it indoors, and some of Osborn’s greenhouses are shaped like a box, he decided to name his venture GreenBox Grown. Osborn was guided throughout the setup of his venture by his father and his uncle, Charley Beals, who is a business owner at Beals Insurance Agency.

“Dylan told me about [this] business, and I was all excited,” Beals said. “We have coaching calls about every Friday, and we just work on ideas. Everybody needs a coach, and that’s the role I play.”

Beals said that GreenBox Grown was a great idea because of the potential of the emerging medical marijuana market. According to Beals, as the market  blooms, Osborn’s business will naturally be lifted.

Osborn’s brother, Cody Osborn, is helping him with growing plants, filming instructional videos for the website and business promotion.

“The way I view it is that [he] is really trying to seek an educational approach to this business,” said Cody Osborn, who graduated from USC in 2016 with a degree in biology. “The goal is to take marijuana and make it a home-grown product, so you know where it’s coming from, and it saves people money.”

According to Osborn, watering is the most common issue with growing marijuana, even for professional growers.

“The biggest tip for a first-time grower is to just be very careful with watering the plants,” Dylan Osborn said. “These plants only need to be watered once every three or four days.”

Osborn’s future plans include launching a series for indoor marijuana for those who do not wish to grow marijuana outside.