How Alex Halperin built WeedWeek, a B2B outlet that covers California's cannabis industry
His revenue is split pretty evenly between sponsorships and subscriptions.
In 2015, when Alex Halperin launched WeedWeek, the legal cannabis industry was still in its infancy. Colorado had only recently opened recreational sales, and the broader assumption across the industry was that legalization would sweep the country quickly.
That didn’t happen.
Instead, Halperin found himself covering what amounted to dozens of fragmented, state-level markets—each with its own regulations, economics, and quirks. The result was a business that struggled to find focus in its early years.
Nearly a decade later, WeedWeek has evolved into a tightly focused, California-centric B2B publication generating revenue from a balanced mix of subscriptions and advertising. Along the way, Halperin burned through his initial capital, rebuilt the company from scratch, and developed a playbook that many niche publishers could learn from.
“I was very naive and I made a lot of mistakes,” he said. “But now eight years later, I have a functioning media company.”
In our interview, Halperin walked me through what got him interested in the topic, why he built a customer publishing platform, and how he recently decided to team up with the LA Times on an investigative series.
Let’s jump into it…
Spotting a Boomtown Industry
Halperin didn’t enter cannabis as an enthusiast—he entered it as a business reporter fascinated by economic booms.
After stints at Dow Jones, Businessweek, and Salon, he spent time freelancing on stories about fracking and regional economic surges. That experience primed him to recognize the cannabis industry as a similar kind of “boomtown” story.
“I was really fascinated with the idea of a boomtown,” he said. “And I thought [cannabis] was just a great business story… one of the fastest growing industries in America.”