A lot can change in 16 years.
In 2009, Coss Marte was sentenced for drugs to seven years in prison. This year, Marte expects an income of as much as 12 million dollars from the legal sale of cannabis.
Marte, 39, is the founder and CEO of Conbud, one of the first fully licensed recreational cannabis businesses in Manhattan, and the first on the city’s Lower East Side. After opening its doors for the first time October 2023Conbud has added a second location in the Bronx last April.
Marte’s business currently brings in roughly $800,000 in sales a month, including nearly $100,000 in profit, according to documents reviewed by CNBC Make It. Marte projects a bottom line of roughly $7 million in 2024, he says.
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After receiving early release from prison in 2013, Marte launched a fitness business called Conbody, based on his exercise regimen behind bars. Then, in 2021, New York legalized the sale of recreational cannabis and expunged all past convictions for marijuana-related offenses.
A year later, the state announced that entrepreneurs with past marijuana convictions would be able to get their first licenses to sell recreational weed. Given his experience running Conbody and the state’s requirements for retail licensees, Marte saw a golden business opportunity, he says.
“I followed this law, and they required two years of net profitable business and a conviction on your record,” Marte says. “How many people have that to qualify for a cannabis license? Not many.”
From prison drills to multiple jobs
Marte grew up on the Lower East Side, surrounded by the drug trade that got him hooked at age 13 after seeing other teenagers making money that way, he says.
“When I was a kid, people would ask me, ‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’ And I would say: ‘I want to be rich,'” says Marte. “The first opportunity was through the drug world. So I started dealing weed.”
In prison, doctors told Marte he was overweight with dangerously high cholesterol. He began exercising vigorously, using bodyweight exercises he could do in his cell. After his release from prison, Marte connected with Defy Ventures, a non-profit program that offers entrepreneurial training and business mentoring to ex-prisoners.
Coss Marte, founder and majority owner of Conbud, one of New York’s first legal recreational cannabis dispensaries.
Source: CNBC Make It
With $10,000 in funding from Defy, Marte launched Conbody in 2014 — which now brings in about $1 million in annual revenue, he says.
Eight years later, Marte paid $2,000 to apply for a retail cannabis license. He put roughly $50,000 of his own savings into Conbud, mostly from Conbody and paid speaking engagements, he says — and raised nearly $1.2 million in additional seed funding from friends and family, who now co-own the business.
Marte owns 51%, as New York requires that the licensee “affected by justice” retain majority ownership.
Conbud’s startup funds paid a $400,000 security deposit on the Lower East Side retail location, construction costs, salaries and inventory, Marte says. The business opened its doors in October 2023 and was bringing in approximately $250,000 in revenue per month – until the authorities shut down hundreds of unlicensed operators who were illegally selling cannabis last year.
Looking to grow in a highly competitive market
The reduction in New York has been helpful for licensed dealers like Marte, who face an uphill battle to establish long-term footholds in the industry.
The state’s Office of Cannabis Management has advertised its commitment to prioritizing “social and economic equality” while growing the legal cannabis market, but critics worried that smaller stores will eventually be squeezed out by larger corporations with national reach.
Curaleaffor example, it is one of the largest owners of dispensaries in the US annual revenue over 1.3 billion dollars. Company began adult sales in Queens, New York in 2023.
This chart breaks down the monthly costs of Marte’s business.
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Even the simple costs of doing business – especially rent and labor costs – are high, leaving Marte with a relatively small profit margin of 13%, he says. If cannabis becomes federally legal, Marte could access federal tax deductions for wages and other business expenses, and expanded banking options with lower fees.
“So, those 13 percent will [eventually] grow to a 25% profit margin,” he says.
Both Conbud and Conbody almost exclusively hire workers who are “justice-affected,” meaning either they or a family member has been in prison for past drug convictions, Marte says. Together, it employs 72 people who meet that criterion.
Marte himself left prison with $40 and a bus ticket, only to “end up on my mom’s couch” while trying to figure out how to make a living with a drug conviction on his record, he says. Without his own second chance, he probably would never have found himself in this position, he notes.
“It’s a big, big community that’s growing with us,” Marte says. “I feel blessed, man.”
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