Cannabiz Media took the Cannacurio podcast on the road this month to MJBizCon in Las Vegas! Watch the video below and listen to host Ed Keating talk to experts from Green Fertigation, Treez, Green Tank Technologies, and Treez about MJBizCon, what's coming for the cannabis industry, and how they use the Cannabiz Media License Database to support their sales and marketing initiatives.

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MJBizCon Podcast Episode 31Transcript

Ed Keating:

Good afternoon, and welcome to Cannabiz Media's podcast. I'm joined by Ben Hanna from Green Fertigation. Ben, welcome.

Ben Hanna:

Thank you.

Ed Keating:

Could you tell us a little bit about the company and what you guys do?

Ben Hanna:

Absolutely. So we're located in Brighton, Colorado, and we design an installed rolling table in archival racking systems, and we also have designed and install automated fertigation systems.

Ed Keating:

Cool.

Ben Hanna:

For cultivation facilities across the United States.

Ed Keating:

Awesome. Now, how many years have you been coming to MJ Biz?

Ben Hanna:

This is my first time.

Ed Keating:

Oh, really?

Ben Hanna:

Yeah.

Ed Keating:

Really. Oh, okay, great. And what are goals as you're here? What are you trying to achieve?

Ben Hanna:

Well, I want to make some smiles, I want to smile, and I hope to connect with like-minded people who share a similar vision and goals as I do professionally, and hopefully personally, because I prefer to do business with people that I like and get along with and relate to. And I've found so far the show to be incredibly gratuitous in providing those things.

Ed Keating:

Good. Yeah. Well, we first came to the show right after we founded the company in 2015 and then in '16 we got a booth, and then '17, '18, '19. And so this I think is our sixth year maybe.

Ben Hanna:

Sweet. Your booth is set up, man.

Ed Keating:

Yeah, no.

Ben Hanna:

You guys are looking good.

Ed Keating:

We're having a good time. I mean, that's for sure. So in terms of clients, who is your ideal client? What size grow are they? How are they configured? Help us understand that.

Ben Hanna:

So really commercial cultivators. We try to avoid people growing cannabis in their mom's basement if possible, but really, we're trying to service people who are looking for the best, most effective way to commercially scale cultivation, increase yields, produce better results, and possibly reduce the need to hand water and pay for labor source. That's kind of a more menial, boring jobs.

Ed Keating:

Yeah. So with that list of benefits, it sounded like you touched on a lot of sort of ROI things. I mean, is that really how you're able to make the sale? Do people suddenly understand like, "Wow, if I go with these guys, it's going to help me. It'll pay for itself quickly." Help us understand the economics.

Ben Hanna:

Absolutely. Yeah. I mean a typical table system, I think, people are able to conceptualize the benefits and be able to make the projections, and sorry about that, getting a little violent here.

Ed Keating:

That's all right.

Ben Hanna:

But they're able to understand how that could benefit them.

Ed Keating:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Ben Hanna:

I think actually with the fertigation technology, it's come such a long way in the past decade.

Ed Keating:

Yeah.

Ben Hanna:

That not all of the cultivators are really up to speed on all of the potential benefits from some of the new cutting edge stuff. And at the same time, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. We're not really asking people to change their methods.

Ed Keating:

Right. Of course.

Ben Hanna:

Or stop doing what's proven to work for them, but if they're open to the conversation, there's some new things on the market that have emerged in the last couple years that really produce the kind of results that we're proud to say, we have a hand in producing.

Ed Keating:

Excellent. So in terms of states, I always ask this in sort of all of our interviews because it matters to us. We're always interested in when a new state comes online, what does that mean for our clients? How do you react if suddenly there's a limited license state, like, let's pick Georgia, a whopping six licenses and that's it.

Ben Hanna:

That's a problem.

Ed Keating:

Well, it is. But maybe, let's think about some states that maybe are a little bit larger that have come online. What does that mean for you and your team in terms of what you have to prepare to try and get some of that business?

Ben Hanna:

You mean in terms of utilizing your platform?

Ed Keating:

Or using our platform or just, what does it mean when a new state comes on, and how will Green Fertigation capitalize on that?

Ben Hanna:

Absolutely. I think education is the first step, but I mean, that's something that's a tenant of our business model, and it's something that we hope even if you don't buy something from us, if you call us, we hope that you leave the conversation knowing a little bit more than you started before the call.

Ed Keating:

Yep.

Ben Hanna:

And so with a new state, I think that we just want to read as much as we can about the legislation.

Ed Keating:

Of course.

Ben Hanna:

The players, some of the bigger players, may be involved in the scene because it seems like they have a tendency to sort of help guide the hand in the way the chips are settled.

Ed Keating:

You think?

Ben Hanna:

Yeah. And so it's really like do a temperature check.

Ed Keating:

Right.

Ben Hanna:

And then just begin to understand what the surrounding needs are and how we can best position ourselves to accommodate the people who have those needs.

Ed Keating:

Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. I mean, we've done some research on our own because in tracking the licenses, different states have different rules. I'm in Connecticut, and I think it's mandated it must be an indoor grow period, like lock door, everything. And that's not true in other places, so it's always interesting to see sort of how these states real do different the way they do it. 

But you touched on this, how do you use our platform? I mean, how do we help you hopefully achieve that?

Ben Hanna:

Well, I really like the platform because it's sort of done a lot of the heavy lifting for me, but it tests the salesman's metal because you can't be rearranging the chairs in the Titanic now, you have to go strike.

Ed Keating:

Yeah.

Ben Hanna:

You have to actually go take action and do the outreach. I will tell you that I've had a bit more success, just honestly, cold calling people.

Ed Keating:

Sure.

Ben Hanna:

From the directory than I have with the email, but I think that the email has provided some impressions. So when I do actually reach out directly through phone or something, people are like, "Oh yeah, I got your email." Or, "I'm familiar with you enough to understand your offer."

Ed Keating:

Yeah. Yeah.

Ben Hanna:

And then when I call them, I've been really impressed with this industry in the sense that people, they're pretty willing to talk and to share.

Ed Keating:

I totally agree. Totally agree.

Ben Hanna:

Yeah.

Ed Keating:

Yeah. And what we have found with the Database is that in addition to emails, we sort of did a census of our own platform and pointed out that, in addition to the emails, we have just as many social media links to LinkedIn, Facebook, Weed Maps, Leafly, all those other touch points. 

And some people, especially if they're trying to get in touch with cultivators, we've learned that they said, "Find their Instagram, if you can." And we try and put that in there when we get it, because you like some of what they're showing, because every grower wants to show off what they're growing.

Ben Hanna:

Sure.

Ed Keating:

And so that was a piece of advice that a client gave us.

Ben Hanna:

That's great.

Ed Keating:

Let's look ahead now. So, this is the first time we've had the show here in two years, and the fun thing we like to try and do is ask people, what kind of trends do you see are going to impact us in the next year as we come back here a year from now? What do you guys see?

Ben Hanna:

Well, I mean, it definitely looks like the extraction world is really taking off and also the lighting. I mean, it looks like everybody and their grandma's got a lighting company. What that means for the market? Hopefully, that means cannabis is going to be more widely accessible.

Ed Keating:

Yeah.

Ben Hanna:

On a national level. And hopefully, that means that all the people in this business will, or I'm sorry, in this room will in one way or another benefit in a positive way. And hopefully, that will have a greater impact on just the cultural perception of cannabis and what its place is and role is in society. And I think that this event is very instrumental in legitimizing cannabis in the way that I believe it should be legitimized.

Ed Keating:

Excellent closing point, Ben. I was in the session this morning. They talked exactly about that, where we're looking at close to a 50 billion, soon to be a hundred billion dollar market. And I think all of us here will hopefully benefit from that. So Ben, thanks so much for joining us this afternoon.

Ben Hanna:

Thank you so much. I really appreciate your time.

Ed Keating:

I'm here with, let me see, Will. I've almost messed that up, so I wanted to ask again, Will with Treez. Fantastic. I appreciate you hopping on here with me, man.

Will Kattenburg:

Yeah, thanks for having us.

Ed Keating:

Yeah, no problem. So what's it like being back at MJBizCon, post pandemic?

Will Kattenburg:

It's good. Obviously, we weren't able to make it here last year.

Ed Keating:

Yeah.

Will Kattenburg:

But it's been great. It's good to see everyone back again at the conference, and it's just good culture here.

Ed Keating:

It is.

Will Kattenburg:

Everyone's trying to help each other, and it's just a great community, man.

Ed Keating:

You're right. You're right. It's a really unique environment from that where everybody really is here just to kind of help each other out and really take the industry forward.

Will Kattenburg:

Yeah.

Ed Keating:

Yep. So tell us about Treez. What are you guys doing?

Will Kattenburg:

Yeah, man. So we're obviously point of sale.

Ed Keating:

Right.

Will Kattenburg:

We do a lot of different things from compliance, inventory management, analytics, and really helping kind of just automate the whole supply chain.

Ed Keating:

Nice.

Will Kattenburg:

And the reorder process. So yeah, today we're operating kind of more West Coast focus today.

Ed Keating:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Will Kattenburg:

We like to go really deep in the states that we operate in.

Ed Keating:

Yeah.

Will Kattenburg:

So we're talking about 40% of all California operators, retail operators. Turn that guy on.

Ed Keating:

Yeah. It's all good.

Will Kattenburg:

Yeah. We're powering about 40% of the retail operators in California. Arizona, we're in about 30% of the market, and obviously Michigan, you got a good market share out there as well. And we're expanding into new states.

Ed Keating:

Oh, fantastic.

Will Kattenburg:

We just launched in Colorado.

Ed Keating:

Oh wow.

Will Kattenburg:

Yeah. Oklahoma, Missouri. And then early next year, we're going to start expanding the East Coast.

Ed Keating:

Fantastic. What states are you looking at on the East Coast? Or are you just going to kind of go through the list?

Will Kattenburg:

Yeah. We're looking at Massachusetts, New York.

Ed Keating:

Yeah.

Will Kattenburg:

Obviously New Jersey just opened up, and Florida is another one that we got our eye on too.

Ed Keating:

Hey, that's fantastic. You guys are growing a lot. Where are you guys actually based out of?

Will Kattenburg:

Yeah. We're based out of San Francisco.

Ed Keating:

Nice. Okay.

Will Kattenburg:

Yeah. Yeah. But after the pandemic, we got a lot of kind of work from home teammates.

Ed Keating:

Yeah.

Will Kattenburg:

We're expanding the team. We're growing fast, so we got teammates all over the country. We got people in New York, Colorado. I'm based out of Arizona.

Ed Keating:

Oh nice.

Will Kattenburg:

And obviously, California. So yeah.

Ed Keating:

Great. So how do you guys utilize the Cannabiz Media Database?

Will Kattenburg:

Today? I think it's just great. Obviously getting an understanding of kind of who's using what, obviously contacts within the platform. Yeah. It's been a good, big help for us.

Ed Keating:

Hey, that's fantastic. I really appreciate you stopping by man and taking a second to chat with us here.

Will Kattenburg:

Yeah.

Ed Keating:

Yeah. We're going to be posting this on social media next week and YouTube and everything like this, and we'll be sure and tag you all and really appreciate you stopping by.

Will Kattenburg:

Yeah. Thanks for having me, man.

Ed Keating:

Yeah, you're good.

Ed Keating:

Today. We're joined by Green Tank Technologies, so welcome to the podcast.

Allister Warren:

Thank you very much for having me.

Ed Keating:

So tell us a little bit about the company and what you do there.

Allister Warren:

Sure thing. Green Tank Technologies is a white label, a vape manufacturer. We custom design cartridges, batteries, all in one disposables for brands, growers, processors throughout North America and really around the world. We supply the delivery device, and then we work hand in hand with the folks to ensure that delivery device and formulation are matching well. The fun part is making them look pretty on the outside.

Ed Keating:

Yeah. Excellent, excellent. So you've not been at MJBiz for two years, what has it been like since 2019 for you?

Allister Warren:

I'd be lying if I said it wasn't slightly overwhelming. I don't think that I've had to be on for four days straight talking to a couple hundred people every day, and you can probably hear it in the raspiness in my voice a little bit.

Ed Keating:

Me as well. I feel your pain.

Allister Warren:

But it's been fruitful. I mean, it's always a great show. Having last year off was tough. Not being able to see a lot of folks that I've worked with in the past, but yeah. For instance, I met two long standing partners that I've been working with for almost two, well one of them well over two years, one of them just about two years now, and we've never met face to face.

Ed Keating:

Yep.

Allister Warren:

So I got the opportunity to do that this year, so I'm feeling good about that.

Ed Keating:

Excellent. Excellent. So, Allister, what trends have affected your business? I know going back a couple years, we had Juul in the news a lot, and a lot of regulations popping up, or states saying, "Yes, you can do this. No you can't." I mean, has any of that affected you or still impacting your business now?

Allister Warren:

Well, I think you'd be lying if you said it hasn't affected us or really anyone in a really oversaturated vape market. I'd say compliance is something that will never go way.

Ed Keating:

Right.

Allister Warren:

And folks ensuring that the hardware that they do get is safe and compliant is essential. I don't know that it's the soup de jour maybe right at this moment. I'd say assurance of supply is certainly something that a lot of folks are concerned with as they should be.

Ed Keating:

Yep.

Allister Warren:

Given the current global economic goings on, if you will. So really just establishing trustworthy relationships and communicating effectively on things like compliance, things like logistics and lead times as we go into Chinese New Year and so forth. Those are kind of the two hot topics, and to call them hot topics might be, I don't know, not the best verbiage because they're always hot.

Ed Keating:

Yeah, no, indeed, indeed. Now one of the things that we track, and we've been asking all of our podcast guests, are new markets coming on board. I mean, Cannabiz Media, we track licenses, so we're always kind of excited when a program expands, or you get a new one. 

So I'm in Connecticut, they have rec licenses that are going to come on board. We've got New York, New Jersey, New Mexico, all the news becoming new. So what does that mean for you and your sales team as a market either comes on for the first time or expands? What kind of planning do you have to do, and how do you go about that?

Allister Warren:

Well, a lot of those early stages of a new state coming on fully rec legal, a lot of the focus for us is understanding some of the pending licenses, so that's a piece of Cannabiz Media that we've really enjoyed is understanding who's going to be a player well before maybe some other folks will know that information.

Ed Keating:

Right.

Allister Warren:

So in that capacity, obviously understanding that is crucial. Understanding, we talked about regulations and compliance, getting an understanding on all of that is critical as well, too. But as it pertains to Green Tank and our use of cannabis, I'd say that the pending licenses area really a lot for helping us understand who the players are going to be and some of the existing states or new states.

Ed Keating:

Yeah, and as the guy who runs data team, one thing that we found is as these new ones come on, we're really striving now to tie them to their other licenses in other states. Like New Jersey just issued 14 licenses last week, and as we went and dug through, we could see that some of these were out of state companies coming in. You couldn't tell just by looking at the name, but if you dug deeper, you could see like, "Oh, they're in a couple other states."

Allister Warren:

Yeah.

Ed Keating:

And it's just not obvious unless you dig down and figure out, and for you, that may mean you already have a contact at that company, and it can certainly speed up that sales cycle.

Allister Warren:

It's been tremendously helpful. We've been expanding as a sales team throughout the U.S. bringing on business development reps on the team as well, too. And the way that I kind of explain it when we get folks up and running on cannabis is that it does a really good job of untangling the web.

Ed Keating:

Yeah.

Allister Warren:

There's so many sub-level connections and LLC companies that you don't realize are connected until you hop on the website and find out.

Ed Keating:

Yeah. Yeah. And then that is a constant game of Whack-a-Mole for us as we try and untangle that like, "Wait a minute, or why do they have four initials here? That must mean something." Then you look around, and the light goes on, and you're like, "Oh, we know who those people are. We've seen that before." 

So in terms of any other trends, looking forward, what do you see going on out in the cannabis world? Like when we come back a year from now, if we were to sit down, what do you think might happen over the next 12 months?

Allister Warren:

Geez.

Ed Keating:

And that's not a softball question.

Allister Warren:

That's a big one, yeah. I think we can expect more of the same that we've seen for the last three years. This industry is constantly evolving.

Ed Keating:

Yeah.

Allister Warren:

New products are coming out every single day, new technology specifically in the big space. I mean, you come to this trade show and walk around and you see massive stainless steel processing machinery in one booth, then the booth beside it is a gentleman sitting on bags of dirt selling soil from Humboldt County.

Ed Keating:

Yeah, yeah, yeah right.

Allister Warren:

You know what I mean? I think what we can expect is that there will be continued rapid change. A lot of groups are going to be able to, or going to need to, be able to adapt and present products and devices that are next gen to, I guess, stay up to speed with the rapidly changing needs of consumers.

Ed Keating:

Yeah. I know. I think Allister hit the nail on the head. Definitely a lot of technology changes as the industry matures. What we're seeing is a lot of investment on the energy side too, where people are trying to figure out ways to leave a smaller environmental footprint, and we think that's going to have a giant impact. 

So this is Ed Keating signing off from the Cannabis Media podcast with Allister Warren from Green Tank Technologies. Thanks, Allister.

Allister Warren:

Thank you.

Ed Keating:

Happy to have Ed and Steve from Blaze joining us today. So what's it like being back at MJBizCon after the year that was 2020?

Ed Schwarz:

Oh man. So happy to be back. You can tell there's a bunch of pent up anxiety in everybody to just get back out there and then see everybody. My favorite thing about being at MJBizCon is one, you get to see all the new things happening in the industry, all the things coming down the pipeline, but you also get to see friends. 

This is such a close, tight-knit industry. I see people that I met back in 2009 in Colorado working, and I see them still showing up at this show today, 12 years later, and it's just good to see friends and family and see what's going on with the industry and see how well we're moving forward together.

Steve Lynn:

Yeah. I mean, it's, it's awesome to see the turn out. You know, I think everybody was a little tentative at first on how it would be during COVID, but everything's been super safe and tons of people showed up. We're happy to see lots of traffic by the booth.

Ed Keating:

That's great. So tell us about Blaze. What have you guys been up to?

Ed Schwarz:

So Blaze, man, we are just growing and growing and growing, and we're becoming very well. Yeah, exactly. We're becoming very well known, and people are seeing us and hearing more about us which is great to hear. 

Blaze has spent a lot of time doing some great development and really looking to help support a lot of those multi-state and multi-location operators and make things easier for operators at the end of the day. 

What we recognize at Blaze is we've been in the industry, our product team is driven by people who have all worked in the industry in the past. Myself, been there for 12 years. Everybody, five plus years of experience in the cannabis industry working on our product team. We recognize the challenges that operators are facing. We're here to make solutions, and that's what Blaze has been focused on deeply for the past year.

Ed Keating:

That's fantastic.

Ed Schwarz:

Yeah.

Steve Lynn:

Yeah. We secured our series A or series yeah, series A earlier this year. Raised 8 billion dollars, so a lot of that's been going to making new hires, spending a lot of dev product and making sure everything's really rolling out well for us. So it's going great.

Ed Keating:

How have you all been utilizing the Cannabiz Media Database?

Ed Schwarz:

Cannabiz Media helps us a lot. One, it helps us understand what new markets that we're moving into are looking like, what those are shaping up like, who those players are, and who some of the people that may not be out there making a name for themselves, but still exist. We want to help those people, and so Cannabiz Media enables us to be able to find those players, who they are, and get them the help that they need and give them the solutions that they need to operate their cannabis business better. 

Cannabiz Media also helps us in the states that we already operate in. There's constantly new players joining the industry regularly, and so Cannabiz Media gives us the opportunity and the ability to see who the new entries are and go and make sure that we're in their faces, talking to them, and helping them do what they need to do.

Steve Lynn:

Yeah, timing is everything for our software. Some people looking for software before they get their license or direct after, so being able to use Cannabiz Media to see where they are, if they're applied, or they're pending, their active status license, when to reach out, when to talk to them, when to set up that demo.

Ed Keating:

That's fantastic.

Ed Schwarz:

I think my favorite thing about Cannabiz Media is it's just proof positive of how much and how fast this industry is growing, and how many of us there are. And there's true proof that cannabis is here to change the socioeconomic status of the world.

Ed Keating:

Fantastic seeing you all. Where can people find out more about Blaze?

Ed Schwarz:

You can always check us out. Blaze.me is our website. We are hands down, in my opinion, and I might be biased, the best point of sale and best ERP system out there for cannabis. So definitely check us out, blaze.me. You can also find us on Instagram, Blaze.HQ, we're on LinkedIn, Facebook. Steve's the man. He takes care of all that, he makes sure that you can get in contact with us in any way.