Jonathan Wall spent over $500,000 building out a licensed cannabis grow in Hollister, California, only to have the property rezoned and the license effectively revoked before a single plant was grown.
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After recreational legalization in California, Wall makes a serious attempt to go legitimate. He finds a Hollister barn through a city council referral, installs 150 Gavita grow lights, commercial HVAC systems, builds a second story — spending over $500,000. The city council had cleared the license. Then, just before the lights go on and plants go in, the property is rezoned inappropriate for cannabis cultivation. Wall is certain the landlord bribed local officials; Calaveras County did the same to many operators. He's hemorrhaging $25,000 a month in rent with no recourse. The experience — combined with watching private equity firms and pharmaceutical executives colonize the legal cannabis space — kills his belief that the system will ever let him in. He pivots to scaling the illegal pipeline.
Wall spent over $500,000 building a licensed cannabis grow in Hollister, California — including 150 high-end grow lights and commercial HVAC — only to have the property rezoned and his license voided before a single plant was grown. It was a common scam: local officials took money and then pulled permits.
Bhanu grew SiteGPT to $13,000 monthly recurring revenue entirely through organic channels, spending nothing on paid marketing.
More than 1 million people have visited SiteGPT's website since launch in March 2023, all through organic channels.
Approximately 90% of SiteGPT's Google search traffic comes from the free tools Bhanu built, not the main product pages.
Bhanu sold his first SaaS product, Feather, for $250,000 so he could focus fully on the faster-growing SiteGPT.
SiteGPT has generated approximately $500,000 in total revenue since its launch in March 2023.
The average customer lifetime value for SiteGPT is approximately $1,700 to $1,800, which Bhanu considers unusually high.
SiteGPT receives around 50,000 visitors per month, of which about 200 convert to leads and 60 start free trials.
SiteGPT hit $10,000 MRR within its very first month of launch, driven largely by early traction in the AI chatbot space.
Despite strong download numbers, PropGPT could not push past $1,000–$2,000 MRR due to poor product retention.
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