When Will Raap was building Gardener's Supply into a successful business three decades ago, he met regularly with a few other young Vermont entrepreneurs. They traded tips and talked about how to balance money and mission.
Alan Newman, who worked for Raap and went on to found Magic Hat Brewing, was among them. So was Hinda Miller, who helped invent the first sports bra.
"We spent 10, 15, even 20 years hanging out together once every month or two trying to figure out how to make business in Vermont," Raap said. "It was really like, 'Let's do business a different way, but how do you do that?'"
Now those same entrepreneurs are hanging out again, but this time they're talking about marijuana.