A new Gold Rush is upon us in the Golden State of California.

But this latest wave concerns us with nuggets of a different sort: marijuana. California voters have legalized it, and now state regulators are adopting distribution rules and a plethora of weed-related laws ahead of a January 1 deadline to begin issuing retail licenses.

Make no mistake, from a purely business standpoint, the legalization of marijuana in California, home to Silicon Valley and the nation’s largest economy, will sooner rather than later equate to a gold mine of opportunity for startups and established businesses. That economic boom includes everything from agriculture, real estate, banking, software, to security, paraphernalia, and you name it.