Reasons to Invest

URB is pronounced “(h)erb.”  Historically, our best-selling product has been URB Natural, an organic, microbial fertilizer replacement product whose tag line is “Grow Higher.”  Our marketing slogan is “Kiss My Grass, It’s Organic…”  If you haven’t guessed by now, we are in the cannabis industry 😊.

URB started out as a “picks and shovels” supplier to the industry with products for growers and consumers. The phrase ‘picks and shovels” comes from the California Gold Rush of 1849; some miners struck it rich, but most did not, however, those who sold items to the miners, such as picks and shovels became very rich, most notably the Levi Strauss company which got its start by selling jeans to miners. URB does not “touch the plant”; unlike growers and dispensaries, we are completely legal at both the federal and state levels.

       

An investment in URB is an investment in the growth of the Cannabis industry. With an annual production value of $150 Billion, cannabis has proven to be extremely profitable and has years of above average growth ahead of it due to more and more states legalizing medicinal, and then recreational, marijuana.  You don't have to guess if there will be a large market, it is already there, just moving from illegal to legal!

URB started with our featured product, URB Natural, an organic, biological fertilizer replacement for growers.  The company expanded into other products for the industry and consumers, becoming a "picks and shovels" supplier to the industry, but never "touching the plant" so we are completely legal at both the federal and state levels.

URB Natural is very easy to use, turning many “brown” thumb growers into “green” thumb growers - solving the pain point of reducing multiple inputs to grow cannabis.

Most growers have a special recipe for their cannabis inputs, much like Grandma’s special tomato sauce. The recipe can include items such as egg shells, orange peels, molasses or Tabasco sauce. Thus, it is very common for a grower to use 8-12 (or more) different inputs. With URB Natural, however, you only need a high quality soil, URB Natural, and water from seed or clone through the harvest.

The goal?  To copy Mother Nature. Our product contains nitrogen fixing bacteria which literally pulls nitrogen out of the air and “fixes” into the soil. Fixing nitrogen allows the plant to uptake the nutrient. If you happen to see a lush, green meadow in the middle of a forest - it is not due to someone secretly fertilizing the meadow, it is due to nitrogen fixing bacteria.

URB Natural is a concentrate that is added to water and applied to soil or hydroponic water systems.

• Increases the quantity and quality of the crop, providing many growers with the best crop they have ever grown
• Does exceptionally well getting seeds to “pop” (germinate) and clones to root, greatly reduces powdery mildew and is almost always less expensive than competing recipes.
• Works well in hydroponic systems though growers will need some additional nutrients.

The company has started (in beta) a multi-vendor ecommerce platform to solve sales channel and financial services issues in the cannabis industry with the hope of becoming the "Amazon of Cannabis."

We  grew by 530% last year, became profitable and have a low price-to-earnings (PE) ratio compared to publicly traded comparison companies.

The Problem -- Cannabis Industry is Huge, But the Services are Lacking

 URB Natural has 50,000+ Instagram followers (URB Natural Instagram Feed). Check it out to see what our customers think of our product.

URB has previously followed a traditional path to marketing – distributors selling to hydroponic stores, and Internet sales, primarily through Amazon. Neither has worked as well as they should and URB is not willing to stake its future on these marketing methods.

URB believes the lifespan of hydroponic (hydro) stores is limited. “Brick and mortar” stores have been downsizing and going out of business for years (even before COVID) – books, electronics, toys, shoes, etc., even department stores. URB sees this trend continuing.

The primary value of hydro stores is their ability to transact sales for cash since financial services for the cannabis industry are severely limited. When financial services, or alternatives, are available to the industry, we believe most hydro stores will close.

Even if hydro stores stay around (or even increase), the cost is high to URB. Stores generally receive a 40% discount, distributors to the stores get another 20% and we still have to pay a manufacturer’s rep to get distributors!

The cannabis industry has another issue with this distribution channel. Scott’s Miracle Gro, through its subsidiary, Hawthorne, is the largest seller of nutrients to the industry and they have now purchased Sunlight Supply, the largest hydro store distributor:

Source: Monopoly Control: Scotts Miracle-Gro Bought Hydroponics Supplier Sunlight Supply — And That’s Troubling. Here’s Why

Sunlight is playing hardball in the industry, coercing hydro store owners into buying/promoting Hawthorne products over independent products.

The grow retailer explained that Hawthorne has been known to pressure grow shop owners to disproportionately promote Hawthorne brands including General Hydroponics, Botanicare and Gavita.

“They threaten to cut off your ability to buy Hawthorne brands unless you push Hawthorne brands,” he says.

Scott’s/Hawthorne is offering discounted prices to the big box stores (which also accept cash). This may be final nail in the coffin for hydro stores since approximately 70% of all lawn and garden supplies are already sold by the big three – Walmart, Home Depot and Lowe’s:

Source: Why Marijuana Growers Should Care about Monsanto Roundup, Scotts Miracle-Gro, Hawthorne Gardening

Hagedorn [Jim Hagedorn, Chairman/CEO, Scott’s Miracle Gro] is also undercutting hydroponic stores by offering discounted wholesale prices on hydroponics supplies to stores like Walmart, Home Depot and Lowe’s. Some grow shop owners say that Hawthorne’s near-monopoly control of the hydroponics industry is putting independent, local stores out of business, and limiting the brand diversity for growing marijuana supplies.

Bottom line, URB is not going to rely on hydro stores as a foundation on which to build a company! (If you are a hydro store owner, contact us as our marketing plan includes a lifeline for hydro store owners.)

When we do get new prospects who want to try our product, four out of five go to Amazon to purchase the product, even though our web site charges less and we put a coupon in the Amazon order fulfillment offering _an additional_ 10% off if the customer purchases at our site.

Amazon has turned out to be a major disappointment. Not so much that sales aren’t going well, Amazon just has way too much control over our future and has repeatedly abused us, e.g., refunding our money to customers which claimed to have never received the delivery even though we have a signed FedEx receipt or taking down our 1-liter product page due to ONE customer who claimed to have received used product. There is no such thing in our product line as used fertilizer and taking down our page based on any report from only one customer is ridiculous considering we have well over 100 written positive reviews.

While Amazon provides a great service to their customers, it should not come at the expense of unfairly treating its vendors, especially since URB pays 15% of the sales price to Amazon and still does its own shipping. The _average_ vendor pays Amazon 27% of revenue.

Source: Prime Power: How Amazon Squeezes the Businesses Behind Its Store

Amazon collects 27 cents of each dollar customers spend buying things its merchants sell, a 42% jump from five years ago, according to Instinet, a financial research firm. That does not include what companies pay to place ads on Amazon, a business that Wall Street considers as valuable as Nike.

It cannot be stressed enough how poorly Amazon treats its vendors. Here are several sources for additional information:

In Their Own Words: Why Sellers Are Fed Up With Amazon

The Dangers Of Selling On Amazon

Amazon Sellers Say The Tech Giant Is Crushing Them With Competitive Pricing

Even discontent posted on Amazon’s Sellers’ Forum:

Very Sad The Way Amazon Treats Their Sellers

Does Anyone Have A Problem With The Poor Way That Amazon Treats Their Sellers?

YouTube has taken down videos of several of our “influencers” (paid commissions to recommend our products) and Instagram, the most marijuana friendly social media site, has repeatedly “shadow banned” us for no apparent reasons. URB Sciences is a “Tier 2” marijuana company; we don’t touch the plant and everything we do is legal at both the state and federal levels, and yet, we have had two banks close our banking account (one after being open for two years without any problems) and several credit card processors have either terminated our processing capability or refused to do business with us, including PayPal and Square. Neither PayPal nor Square even gave us the courtesy of saying why we were closed, just that we violate their Terms of Service (without mentioning which paragraph); Square doesn’t even have an appeals process.

An Instagram shadow ban is a ban that renders our hashtags undiscoverable by new users. Only our followers will be able to see our feed and not the entire Instagram community. When we are not being shadow banned, we get 75-100 new followers per day.  When we are being shadow banned, that is what we get in a month.

Needless to say, this is not the foundation on which a great company should be built so URB Sciences has created the URB Club mitigating the “pain points” which currently exist and improving on the business models of the companies we copied – Amazon, Costco, Amway.

The cannabis industry suffers from a lack of willingness of most financial services companies to provide services. Thus, it is difficult for many marijuana and marijuana related businesses (MRB) to even get a bank account; let alone find enough products made for cannabis growers specifically.

It is also difficult to market products in the cannabis industry as a whole. For example - Amazon won’t allow CBD products to be sold on its platform, and social media companies frequently delete or “shadow ban” marijuana and MRBs.

Since URB is not satisfied with the current situation, we have created an alternative, better business model, for URB as well as the cannabis industry.

The Solution -- Introducing the URB Club
The URB Club has a unique business model which consists of an extensive list of benefits for Club Members (customers); a multi-vendor, discount ecommerce sites for vendors; and a network marketing style business opportunity for those who are interested.  The URB Club will solve multiple “pain points” with the existing versions of available alternatives, especially for cannabis products/companies.

The URB Club is a vendor friendly, multi-vendor commerce platform like Amazon, with the lowest price available to consumers who pay a membership fee similar to Costco, with Amway-type compensation to those who spread the word about the club, and member benefits which exceed those of American Express Platinum cardholders, initially focusing on the cannabis industry.

The Member benefits start with access to our multi-vendor discount ecommerce sites where our vendors agree to charge their lowest price to consumers on the Internet! The average fee charged to vendors by Amazon is nearly 30%; the URB Club is charging vendors 8% allowing vendors to charge consumers 20% less than they do on Amazon and still make more money! For example, our featured product, URB Natural, currently sells for $58.99 on Amazon and in the URB Club it sells for $29.99. The money saving benefits continue with programs to save money on shopping, restaurants, entertainment, travel and medical expenses.

The Member benefits progress to a healthy focus – doctor/nurse hotlines, diet/nutrition, and fitness programs. The focus then shifts to preserving what the Member has obtained with benefits such as identity theft protection, prepaid legal services, roadside assistance and insurance.  A Member can obtain these benefits starting with only a $10 per month membership fee.

Amazon started by selling books; the URB Club will start by focusing on the cannabis industry. We have the ecommerce platform, banking and credit card processing for vendors who want to sell legal cannabis industry products such as CBD, Delta 8, vapes and other cannabis products that other ecommerce platforms, such as Amazon and Walmart, refuse to allow.

Marketing and advertising are difficult for cannabis companies since some advertising is regulated and social media companies restrict cannabis related companies from fully benefitting from the word-of-mouth advertising with social media. The URB Club has decided to use a unique form of network marketing compensating those who want to spread the word instead.

Members will earn rebates on membership fees paid by Members who join after them, enabling Members to profit without recruiting/sponsoring a single person or being required to buy any product(s); just be a Member. This feature may make the URB Club the most FTC compliant network marketing company in the country. There is also a business opportunity for those who seek to earn more should they elect to participate in the business opportunity.

The Market

A Proven Product in a New Market

Marijuana has an annual production value of $150 Billion in

the major commodity markets.

As you can see - Cannabis is right behind gold based on annual production value.  It’s easy to say we are entering a massive market.

Investing in URB is an investment in the industry since we sell to growers and consumers alike. We believe we will even profit from our competitors via the URB Club - so we are truly a “picks and shovels” investment for the entire industry.

An oversimplified description of the URB Club is that we are the “Amazon of Cannabis,” however, this is the beginning; we a

re currently in beta mode. Amazon started by selling just books. The URB Club is starting with the cannabis industry since there is very little competition in this niche and there is pent-up demand from cannabis vendors who are unable to access basic financial services.

The URB Club also provides its vendors with an additional profit-sharing income stream so they can charge even less to the URB Club members and make the same, or even more, amount of money compared to selling on Amazon. So, another oversimplified description of the URB Club would be a “Discount Amazon.” URB makes its money on the membership fee which is a minimum of $10 per month.

A more nuanced explanation is that URB Club has taken the concept of a multi-vendor ecommerce site and changed the business model in numerous ways to create a different type of business, which we call a Membership Benefits Club.

The URB Membership Benefits Club’s (“URB Club's”) core benefit consists of several Internet sites which provide goods and services from multiple vendors. There are three major differences between these sites and Amazon (and Walmart.com and other ecommerce sites):

• CANNABIS INDUSTRY PRODUCTS The URB Club will allow cannabis industry products to be sold such as cannabis seeds, products containing CBD and/or Delta 8, and vaping products. The URB Club also has financial services providers, such as banking, credit card processing, and sales tax collection, reporting and remittance to effectuate these sales, which are difficult to find in the cannabis industry.
•     
  
• LOWEST PRICE GUARANTEE FROM VENDORS The URB Club requires its vendors to agree to provide the lowest price on the Internet to consumers for goods and services sold through the URB Club web sites. The price may be equal to other web sites but can never be higher! Consumers think Amazon offers low prices, but they will know the URB Club offers the lowest prices.
• MEMBERSHIP REBATES The URB Club provides Membership Rebates currently worth up to $1000+ per year (and soon over $2500+) to Members. The sooner you join the more likely you are to earn the maximum. The only “catch” is that the rebates can only be spent in the URB Club web sites; there are no other requirements to earn the Membership Rebates.

In addition to the URB Club web sites, there are also “bricks and mortar” discounts available for non-Internet purchases through an exclusive network of 700,000+ locations, including a network of over 200,000 “show your phone” mobile coupons (app available for both Android and iPhones). The network features local, instore offers for 99% of the country, including all 50 states and the top 500+ markets with an average savings of 34% per transaction!

We empower our Members to save hundreds of dollars on the purchases they make every day, as well as big-ticket purchases like vacations and other luxury items. These “real world” savings are grouped into four major areas:

• EAT Restaurant discounts from fast food to fine dining. The most common discount is a Buy One, Get One (BOGO) for entrees of the same or lower price.
• SHOP Discounts at national chains, such as Kohl’s and Firestone, as well as “mom and pop” merchants such as dry cleaners
• PLAY Discounts on sporting events, concerts, Broadway shows and theme parks.
• TRAVEL Significant discounts on airlines, hotels and vacation packages. This benefit alone has sold elsewhere for as much as $249 per year.

Two other benefits are available now (during beta testing): a monthly drawing and the ability to transfer money from one Member to another.

The monthly drawing is for free stuff, especially from Vendors offering new and unique products who want to get the word out. There are no requirements to be eligible for the drawings other than being a paid-up Member in the URB Club.

Members can transfer money to other Members, quickly and inexpensively, including to foreign countries.

The basic URB Club Membership (Package A) is currently $10 per month and includes the URB Internet sites, monthly drawing for free stuff and money transfer capabilities. For an extra $10 per month ($20 total), you can access the “real world” Eat, Shop, Play and Travel benefits (Package B). You can sign up for either membership level, however, Members starting at the $10/month level will be automatically upgraded to the $20/month level when the Membership Rebates accrue to $20 per month. During our beta testing, Package B benefits will be available to Members for free.

This is just the beginning; there is much, much more to come…

Why Invest

URB is the Word

URB has a fast growing, profitable base of business and an expansion plan to profit from the growth of the cannabis industry. URB started testing the URB Club in 2020 and saw a sales increase of 530%, with revenues totaling $4.16 million and earning a net profit of $304,000 (Reviewed financials).

An investment in URB is an investment in the growth of the industry. Join us today, and let’s grow together.