By Michael Hester, Class of 2019

Karl Horvat is the Chief Operations Officer of Sticky Fingrs, a company that specializes in making the world’s first fingertip grinder for marijuana and medicinal herbs. Horvat and his team have been working on this since March of 2017 and they officially launched their product three months ago.

“The cannabis industry is booming, to say the least,” said Horvat. He added that by 2020 the industry will be at about $20 billion. And although cannabis itself is legal it proves to be quite difficult to move their product, which is just an accessory or paraphernalia.

With the $20 billion cannabis industry Horvat says that the accessorial side is going to be worth at least $1 billion. “I found the accessorial field has been overlooked drastically, we’ve been using the same products the last 40 years,” said Horvat. The original patent for the grinder that he had found is from 1898 and he says it hasn’t changed much.

He says that he has three more patents in the works for similar products.

Nick Brown, an investor in the company, says the industry is going to grow. “The more people get on board with it, that is what the trend is currently looking like, the more the industry and the company will grow,” said Brown.

Brown also says that with legalization on horizon in New Jersey the company will expand more here, since most of the founders are from here.

A big part of the industry is breaking through the stigma of smokers and how people view them says Horvat.

“You’re gonna tell me some Wall Street guy is not getting off a stressful day of work and smoking up a j when he gets home, cause guess what, he’s fine the next day and can go and do his job,” said Horvat.