The biggest development in the marijuana space this year has been a vaping-related health crisis, in which hundreds of Americans have fallen ill and more than three dozen have died from pulmonary illnesses linked to vaping. Victims in Illinois and Wisconsin -- the first states to alert the nation to vaping-related illnesses -- admitted to using marijuana products from the black market, not legally licensed marijuana businesses. For example, a Washington state man filed a lawsuit against six marijuana vape firms for their alleged roles in his lung illness. With that in mind, Marijuana Business Magazine spoke with experts in the field about how cannabis business owners can best prepare for potential litigation related to the vaping crisis:

Rather, Friedman argues, the capacity to “feel anxious, overwhelmed at times and exhausted” can in fact be “evidence you are alive and engaged in your work” and should not be treated as burnout. What could possibly feel akin to burnout without actually being burnout?Yet entrepreneurs who feel uninterested and unmotivated may want to do a bit of soul-searching before jumping to a burnout diagnosis. The next time you slump in your easy chair after a long day, ask yourself whether you’re feeling burnout or boredom.

As a result, U.S. policy, pop culture and politics have spawned two subsets of cannabis users: those who openly flaunt their love for the plant, and those who find much the same value, but indulge more discretely. Back then, if you were a cannabis user, you purchased flower and smoked it or cooked it into really gross brownies. RELATED: Researchers Find People Who Use Cannabis Are More Motivated To ExerciseThis potpourri of product, coupled with increasingly efficient and discrete online purchasing platforms, has permitted brands to inspire more consumption by existing customers who value their privacy, and to capture new users who had previously been hesitant to defy the enduring stigma.

I’ve helped hundreds of financial advisors improve their marketing techniques with the exact strategies I have personally used to grow my advisory business from $0 to $60 million in assets under management in just three years. You can create custom audiences of the people who view your content, then serve them valuable offers—like free consultations or lead magnets—that get them into your sales funnel. For advisors willing to learn or partner with an expert, this is a massive opportunity to reach large, qualified audiences of prospects in a deeply personal and cost-effective way. If your content is valuable enough, these highly qualified prospects will engage with it, which creates substantial organic reach.

Starting in January 2020, all employees who make less than $35,568 per year will be eligible for mandatory overtime pay of 1.5 times their regular pay rate when they work more than 40 hours per week. They may have been exempt from any overtime up until now, but soon all of the extra time they spend on the job site making sure timelines are met and budgets are kept will qualify them for significantly more income. Even those companies that think their workers are all exempt from overtime pay are at risk, because this is not an easily understood area of the law. That starts with verifying which workers will and will not qualify as overtime exempt after January, ensuring non-exempt employee hours are being properly tracked and making sure all job listing are detailed and accurately reflect the work that will truly be required.

Listen to this wide-ranging interview between Katz and Entrepreneur Network partner David Meltzer. Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own. Don Katz, the founder and CEO of Audible, talks about his journey from professional writer to founding Audible, covering topics such as why voice is such a powerful storytelling tool, how he handled early criticisms and the future of the "listening revolution."This episode of The Playbook also includes:

The biologist and adventurer has carved out a very unique niche for himself in the world of conservation: He scours the most remote and dangerous parts of the world in search of animals long thought to be extinct, in an effort to (almost) literally bring them back from the dead. Luckily for people who love animals and the relative safety of their couches, Galante's bloody and bruising adventures are all captured on his show Extinct or Alive, which airs Wednesdays on Animal Planet."And after just four days of really, really challenging fieldwork, we managed to uncover a single female tortoise, an animal that had been lost for 114 years."If you want to help with conservation efforts, you can do meaningful, impactful, essential work by volunteering at a local wildlife shelter, by going to a rescue facility, or by simply not buying plastic bags.

And Statista estimates that by 2021, ecommerce will account for 13.7 percent of all U.S. commerce sales, up from 5.8 percent in 2013. But even in the short span that ecommerce has become the dominant medium, mobile commerce, or m-commerce, is expected to account for 54 percent of total e-commerce sales by 2021. For e-commerce alone, between 2017 and 2018, Cyber Monday saw an increase of 19.6 percent in sales, and Black Friday sales rose 23.6 percent in the same period. Additionally, Salesforce shows that, in 2018, 49 percent of e-commerce purchases were done on mobile and 67 percent of digital traffic was also on mobile.

In this video, Entrepreneur Network partner Eric Siu speaks with marketing friend Gaetano Dinardi about his experience using LinkedIn to increase his marketing presence. Click the video to hear more. Entrepreneur Network is a premium video network providing entertainment, education and inspiration from successful entrepreneurs and thought leaders. Click the video to hear more.

Whether you’re a seasoned entrepreneur working in or with multiple businesses, or an amateur thinking about starting a business of your own, it pays to keep an eye on the most prominent startups active at any given time. Roobee is a blockchain-based investment platform that combines artificial intelligence (AI) and raw data to help everyday consumers make smarter investment decisions. Anaconda is a data-science platform, and almost any startup focused on data science could have the potential to make this list. One startup hoping to make augmented reality more accessible is BooksARalive, a company attempting to change how we think about reading and storytelling.

The latest Facebook Community Standards Enforcement Report demonstrates how big of a task policing the social network has become. As Reuters reports, between April and September 2018 Facebook removed 1.55 billion fake accounts. The report focuses on ten policy areas including Adult Nudity and Sexual Activity, Bullying and Harassment, Child Nudity and Sexual Exploitation of Children, Fake Accounts, Hate Speech, Regulated Goods: Drugs and Firearms, Spam, Terrorist Propaganda, Violent and Graphic Content, and Suicide and Self-Injury. During the third quarter, 11.6 million pieces of content depicting child nudity and sexual exploitation were removed from Facebook and 754,000 from Instagram.

But what about your personal brand?Seth Godin wrote on his blog that he defines a brand as “the set of expectations, memories, stories and relationships that, taken together, account for a consumer’s decision to choose one product or service over another.” The best personal brands create these experiences and stories through the content they share on their platforms. Accordingly, investors are more likely to invest in your company if you’ve garnered exposure for your personal brand and have built a tangible trust with your audience. It’s simply a smart investment; if you can prove through your personal brand that you can sell a product or service to your audience, the company is more likely to succeed.

Musk said he believes his neural AI technology company Neuralink will "solve a lot of brain-related diseases," naming autism and schizophrenia as examples. Elon Musk believes his neural technology company Neuralink will be able to "solve" schizophrenia and autism. It was not clear what Musk meant by "solving" autism, which is not a disease but a developmental disability. This year the company has been more vocal: it published a white paper in July about its design for a brain chip, and Elon Musk excitedly announced that the company had begun animal testing on monkeys.

Personalize your iPhone without breaking the bank. You love your iPhone. Of course, if you’re using your phone that much, you should be taking care of it, too. These products can help you do more while taking care of your iPhone.

Save more than $100 off when you buy today. When you're on the clock during the week, you don't have time to stop and untangle your headphones. You won't have to stop for anybody with the Kharbon IP67 Wireless Earbuds. Don't be held back by your headphones, take the day head-on with the Kharbon IP67 Wireless Earbuds.

WP Page Builder is a tool that takes the complications out of building an efficient, professional WordPress website. WP Page Builder gives you a variety of pre-designed templates, allowing you to choose any layout you want, customize it with your content, and construct your website via the drag-and-drop editor in just minutes. WP Page Builder lets you seamlessly adjust elements like text, images, icons, and buttons to make your website even more attractive and help steer traffic. WP Page Builder is so intuitive, it earned more than 800 upvotes on Product Hunt.

The Question: Does your business entity quality for the 20 percent pass-through deduction that many CPAs skipped last year?The Question: Based on your cash flow, does it make more sense to deduct your inventory in the year that you bought it (now allowed with the new tax law for small retailers with under $25 million in sales) or wait until you sell it (old law)?The Question: How can my business legally avoid interest deduction limitations?Because commutes are not deductible, the walk to your home office becomes your commute, making other business travels deductible.

So make that adversity work for you. Every entrepreneur knows what it’s like to face problems and adversity. Many entrepreneurs thrive in adversity and get satisfaction from solving challenges, compared to the relative boredom of business-as-usual. The entrepreneur lifestyle isn’t for those who can’t deal with risk and adversity.

After 30 years of trading bonds on Wall Street, Jay Moskowitz got tired of it. Within a few years, he hit the market with his new CBD sparkling drink line, Bimble. Back when he was a trader, Moskowitz prided himself on his ability to understand markets, identify new opportunities, and know where to focus from a business perspective. Moskowitz thought back to his Wall Street days and envisioned his colleagues: They were holding a drink.

These products have earned rave reviews from the Amazon community. Since the advent of Prime, Amazon has taken online shopping to a whole new level, with free two-day shipping on an enormous array of products, making it almost scarily convenient. Amazon surfaces reviews, making it simple for buyers to share information and promote the products they really love. Check out some of these Amazon products that have received rave reviews from buyers.

It goes without saying that you want to get as many new customers into your dispensary as possible. You need the right marketing strategy to break through the clutter, grab your ideal customers' attention, and drive new business for your dispensary. Discounts and promotions are a great way to get new customers in the door, but if you want to drive repeat business, you need something that will keep them coming back. Continue to send targeted marketing messaging — including promotions and discounts — to drive those customers back into your dispensary.

First of all, you shouldn't think of getting a Chick-fil-A franchise as "investing."Chick-fil-A units are the most-frequented fast food restaurant in 38 out of 50 states, according to a 2017 study by Business Insider and Foursquare. In fact, Chick-fil-A makes more per restaurant than McDonald's, Subway and Starbucks combined, even while being closed every Sunday. Here are five facts you should know before "buying" one of the chicken franchises.

“Then life happens, and we put ourselves on the back burner to focus on our family, job, or business.” Life often becomes all about the grind, especially for entrepreneurs who don’t have a boss telling them when to start and stop working, he explains. Then it’s family time,” says Bakhtiar. To ensure he maximizes his time, Bakhtiar plans his day the night before, even scheduling his breaks, which also means he isn’t available for impromptu meetings. Like many entrepreneurs, Bakhtiar maximizes every minute of his day.

MedMen, which has been called the Apple store of weed, has an expensive ad campaign calling cannabis use “the new normal.” This is a clever phrase, and I want to believe it’s true, but I wonder if some of us are living in a bubble. RELATED: Why The Cannabis Industry Deserves Access To Modern Banking And FinancingSome people welcome cannabis with open minds and wallets, while others still consider it “the devil’s lettuce.”National fitness industry giants such as Equinox and SoulCycle are carrying CBD lines, but when Ricky Williams and others tried to open a weed gym, called Power Plant Fitness (great name, btw), in San Francisco, regulations made it impossible.

Content optimization and keyword research are central to ensuring that your SaaS site comes up when customers search for a product that you offer. This builds the authority for your SaaS website, getting your content to rank organically while driving referral traffic at the same time. While content is certainly crucial to getting qualified leads into your sales funnel, getting them to eventually convert requires insights into analytics and expertise in user experience. SaaS is an industry where everything -- the product, its marketing, sales interactions and customer support -- is tightly bound.

(Personally, I’ve seen animators make between $25 to $106 an hour on sites like Upwork.)As such, if this is your area of the law, you could reportedly make between $112 and $121 per hour. Some reportedly make up to $15 an hour. And you can make between $10 and $15 per hour.

Left unaddressed, stressful employee relationships can sour the company culture for everyone. No entrepreneur is best friends with everyone on staff, but you don’t have to deal with dysfunctional work relationships, either. What if you have to work with the stressful employee directly for an extended period of time?If no number of breaks or chats about shared interests seems to make a difference, you and your employees still have a financial incentive to get along.

An entrepreneur since the age of 21, Gino is obsessed with helping entrepreneurs live their ideal lives and maximize their freedom and impact on the world. Through that experience, Gino realized that he had a knack for helping entrepreneurs so he created EOS. Entrepreneurial Leap shares  “the six essential traits” of an entrepreneur (visionary, passionate, problem solver, driven, risk taker and responsible) because, according to Gino, you either are or you are not – born with it – “entrepreneurship is nature, not nurture.” It may be a controversial statement but Gino says “there are people out there that believe you can teach someone these traits, but an entrepreneur is not something you do it is something you are.”Take the first step by listening to ”Gino Wickman is Obsessed With Helping Entrepreneurs Take Their Leap”.

Google announced that it is planning to offer checking accounts in 2020. Google has revealed plans to offer checking accounts in 2020 through a project nicknamed Cache. Google is promising that it won't sell account holders' financial data. Combine that with ongoing antitrust investigations and Google may have to go out of its way to prove that its checking accounts will help more than they hurt.

Getting into an accelerator is an incredible opportunity for your startup. Research from the Brookings Institution indicates that there were 172 U.S.-based accelerator programs in 2016, and the International Business Innovation Association has reported that there may be as many as 7,000 accelerators and incubators worldwide. In addition to the seed funding and high-profile pitching opportunities, accelerator resources typically include co-working space, educational workshops, mentorship programs and networking events with accelerator alumni. All accelerators aim to help startups get off the ground, but they often have a more specific motivation for selecting the startups they do.

Richard Branson and James Dyson are two entrepreneurs who got knocked down many times, only to get back up. In this video, Entrepreneur Network partner Jeff Rose and Joseph Hogue say it is never as easy as it seems. Entrepreneur Network is a premium video network providing entertainment, education and inspiration from successful entrepreneurs and thought leaders. Watch video from our network partners on demand on Roku, Apple TV and the Entrepreneur App available on iOS and Android devices.

As an entrepreneur himself, Britton shared his tips for focus, niching out and embracing new technology to build a successful business.“I focused on making our mobile experience better well before major sites did, and I didn’t do that for revenue,” Britton says. Britton’s decision to focus on Famous Birthdays almost exclusively is the reason for his success today, and he encourages entrepreneurs to hone in on an area and be able to discuss it openly.“Be able to consistently articulate your vision and focus on it,” Britton says.

The blurams Dome Pro 1080p Security Camera can help you find peace of mind for $43 with coupon code: BFSAVE15. Better yet, Dome Pro has a slew of AI-enhanced features, like facial and sound recognition that allows it to differentiate between the friends and family you enter into the database and strangers. Dome Pro lets you mask specific areas of a room or set different bookmarks to only monitor and get notified for the areas you want to keep tabs on. The blurams Dome Pro 1080p Security Camera retails for $59.99 but you can get it for 29 percent off at just $43 today with "BFSAVE15" at checkout.

In this video, Entrepreneur Network partner Business Rockstars gets an office tour of automobile and smart device company Byton. The office is pet-friendly, hires many young company members and boasts a team of chefs who provide healthy meals that keep the entire office energized and excited about their work. Entrepreneur Network is a premium video network providing entertainment, education and inspiration from successful entrepreneurs and thought leaders. Watch video from our network partners on demand on Roku, Apple TV and the Entrepreneur App available on iOS and Android devices

Thirty-three percent of all traffic on a Google search results page will go to the first listing. That means it's absolutely essential to get your website on the first page of results for relevant search terms. This software suite gives you all of the SEO analysis and tools you need to make your website soar up the search engine result page (SERP) listings. Once you've made changes, Seobility continues helping you by spying on your competitors' SEO strategy, giving tips for link building, and tracking your keyword rankings on different search engines at both country and city levels.

And your new beginning may just be the start of something exciting and life-changing. Starting up a business with multiple people involved has its challenges, but when you find the right team, you can grow your business into a huge success. While every business venture requires planning, your new beginning depends on you taking action and getting started. Starting over or starting something new is intimidating, but these 11 leaders navigated new beginnings and have countless accomplishments to their names.

What you may have learned about success when you were growing up was probably wrong if it was taught by someone who had never actually achieved any real success of their own. The fact is, you often have to fail your way into learning to be successful. You can choose to win by grabbing hold of success from this day forward and never letting go. Success Is Easy Affirmation (say it, believe it, and own it): “Success comes easy to me because I have a new reality around success to believe in from this day forward.”

Giving new meaning to "higher worship," Sister Kate and her order of nuns produce premium CBD products that are popular around the world. On a small farm in sleepy Merced, Calif., Sister Kate and a small order of nuns calling themselves the Sisters of the Valley are quietly cultivating, extracting, and distributing their CBD products to the tune of $1 million a year. But Kate and her sisters aren’t ordinary nuns -- at least, not in the traditional Catholic sense. The number one thing we hear from the Catholic nuns is that the work we do as activists couldn’t be done inside the patriarchy -- kind of “Go, girl!” Right now, one thing I never thought I’d be doing is writing the Archbishop of Canterbury, but that’s what went on my to-do list today because [the Church of England] is going to be investing in [medical] cannabis businesses, and I think he can be helping us take women in England who are unemployed and get them involved in cannabis.

Entrepreneur Elevator Pitch invites ambitious entrepreneurs to step into the Entrepreneur Elevator, then gives them just 60 seconds to pique the interest of a group of judges. The fifth season of Entrepreneur Elevator Pitch offers a dynamic change in the show's format. Before, our four judges needed unanimous agreement to make an offer to the pitching entrepreneurs ⁠— including three out of four "yes" votes just to open the elevator doors. Most Entrepreneur Elevator Pitch episodes feature a limited cast of star investors, but this episode starts with some new judges and a familiar entrepreneur.

If you can't avoid your long commute, why not make the most out of it by being productive?If you can’t avoid your long commute, why not make the most out of it by being productive?An eBook reader is the perfect replacement during your commute because of the slim form-factor that enables you to hold it with just one hand and can hold up to 1,000 books digitally.A hot drink flask is a perfect commute companion to help you stay caffeinated each morning.

How do you build the right culture and mindset to help you achieve your ultimate goals?Charting the course of a business toward certain success might seem simple to someone sitting on the docks, but the view’s a lot different from the captain’s quarters. The only thing you can count on is rough seas between here and where you’re trying to go, so you’d better assemble a crew suited for the task ahead and a culture to ensure they’re as invested in getting to the other side as you are. On this episode, Entrepreneur Network partner Jordan Harbinger talks to someone who’s assembled many crews and formed many company cultures: Ben Horowitz, co-founder and CEO of venture capital powerhouse Andreessen Horowitz and author of New York Times bestseller The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers and his latest, What You Do Is Who You Are: How to Create Your Business Culture.

Whether it’s a cannabis-focused arts and music festival, a “garden party” or a tour that guides visitors from cultivation all the way to the sales floor, experts say that creating memories that stick with customers is among the most effective ways to build brand loyalty. In an industry constrained by regulations that limit cannabis advertising, experiential marketing, also known as engagement marketing, is taking hold. Experiential marketing engages customers through a hands-on experience that creates a memory of the brand. Slang Worldwide, a consumer-packaged-goods company that owns, licenses and markets cannabis brands, recently staged a two-night party – Far Out Factory – in a large warehouse in Denver.

(And then, that company will create even more problems to solve!)If you create a company with the intention of attracting fame, you’ll create a top-down organization that serves only your own needs. But if you create a company to solve a problem, you’ll attract people who are similarly minded, and you’ll all push each other to improve. At Entrepreneur, we believe in building companies that last.

Feeling overwhelmed is the number one symptom people grapple with when stressed. When you’re constantly overwhelmed and stressed, your body begins to break down. When you’re only working on the most important things, you’ll feel less overwhelmed. Feel your stress levels decline as you get out of your slump and put things in perspective.

Where does content consumption go from here?In this edition of The Rough Cut, Storyhunter co-founder and Entrepreneur Network partner Alex Ragir takes a trip to Refinery29’s offices in West Los Angeles to sit down with Stone Roberts, VP of Global Video Strategy. Roberts recently moved the Refinery29 video team from New York to LA, and he and Ragir discuss the future of content consumption, as well as Stone’s three "R’s" for success, the future of TV programming and experiential marketing. For full episodes of The Rough Cut with Alex Ragir, check out Storyhunter's Video Strategist Blog.

In another dramatic example of how the black market for marijuana continues to thrive in the United States, the U.S. Coast Guard recently announced the seizure of 11,000 pounds of marijuana from international waters in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific Ocean. However, even where marijuana is legal, high prices can drive some to the black market. Also, even in states where marijuana is legal, individual cities and counties may ban cannabis, again leaving the black market as the only option. Anecdotally, the sheriff of Mendocino County in California told the New York Times after seizing $5 million in illegal cannabis oil that “there’s a lot of money to be made in the black market” and that legalization “certainly didn’t put cops out of work.”

While there's no doubt that the volatile nature of cryptocurrencies could cause fear, it's one feature that makes investing in the space a risk worth taking. So if you’re thinking of investing or trading any of cryptocurrencies, it’s advisable that you not only understand your risk limit, but get a deep insight about the crypto market and the coin you want to invest in. Despite the fact that exchanges and individuals are taking extra measures to secure their funds, hackers still find ways to steal, making people reluctant to use these cryptocurrencies. Possible Solution: Deep research is the key to ensuring you know the right cryptocurrency to invest in.

Thirteen percent of streaming users reported that they spend less time with their family to carve out more time for their favorite shows, and 12 percent report hanging out less with their friends. This point of view is why I’m mostly optimistic that soon we’ll see companies create technologies and experiences that will help people connect in more authentic ways and help them enrich their lives. This could be as simple as embedding technology that lets people chat with other viewers in real time within a streaming app — something more seamless and engaging than a subreddit or a Facebook group. The companies that listen to consumers today and deliver on people’s need for genuine connection are set to lead the next phase of innovation — and build the next businesses that will transform their industries.

But in this video, Entrepreneur Network partner Jack Canfield shares some stories of inviduals that overcame rejection in an impressive manner. Entrepreneur Network is a premium video network providing entertainment, education and inspiration from successful entrepreneurs and thought leaders. We provide expertise and opportunities to accelerate brand growth and effectively monetize video and audio content distributed across all digital platforms for the business genre. Watch video from our network partners on demand on Roku, Apple TV and the Entrepreneur App available on iOS and Android device.

Disney Streaming Services monitors Disney+ 24 hours a day and attempted to prepare for the US launch by running a test in The Netherlands, The Verge notes. Although that test went well, it clearly didn't prepare Disney for the volume of Americans logging in early on launch day. The other problem Disney has is the demand it is currently dealing with is only going to get worse as the day goes on. So far, the Disney+ and Disney Streaming Services Twitter accounts haven't mentioned the connection errors, but you can guarantee Disney has every available engineer working to resolve them in time for the evening spike in demand.