Editors’ Note: This is an excerpt from our Monthly Playbook. If you would like to read the full monthly playbook and join the thousands of others you can sign up below.
It’s looking gloomy out the in the world of cannabis at the moment. If you work in any industry section, dark clouds aren’t on the horizon; they are directly overhead. Companies are announcing layoffs or going out of business on a weekly basis. Plant-touching companies are in the middle of a lousy-tasting sandwich. On one side, they’re facing high taxes, higher labor costs, and significant regulatory hurdles. On the other, they’refacing nimble-footed gray market competitors often offering high-quality products at massive price discounts to consumers. Police are wary of getting involved with more pressing concerns and negative PR associated with raids on largely peaceful, if illegal, dispensaries.
Oversupply and price compression are significant crises for cultivators across the US. The wider macroeconomic environment going forward doesn’t look much better, with the recession being the consensus opinion.
More bad news can be expected in 2023. However, the legal cannabis industry is here to stay. There are natural and tangible reasons for optimism in 2023 and beyond. Here are just five.
More bad news can be expected in 2023. However, the legal cannabis industry is here to stay. There are natural and tangible reasons for optimism in 2023 and beyond. Here are just five.
1. Decline in arrests and more pardons
A slew of mass pardons should put a smile on everybody’s face. Gov. Ned Lamont’s clearing of almost 43,000 records of past marijuana convictions in Connecticut is the most recent. Expect more of this going forward.
A recent study by the American Medical Association found states that legalized adult-use cannabis saw a 40-76% reduction in cannabis arrests – a major success for criminal justice reform.
2. Re-scheduling
The Biden administration called for an expedited review of cannabis scheduling from the FDA and other agencies in 2022. We could see cannabis removed from Schedule One and placed in Schedule Three or lower or de-scheduled altogether. This would have massive positive implications for the future of the cannabis industry and the prospects for comprehensive cannabis reform at the federal level. Fingers crossed for de-scheduling.
3. More states liberalizing
2023 should see new states across the US move to legalize cannabis for adults. Minnesota’s state legislature has already advanced cannabis legislation, and major pushes for reform are being undertaken in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Hawaii, and elsewhere. Oklahoma voters will get to vote on cannabis legalization in March.
4. New state markets
New markets continue to come online and mature. Montana posted healthy sales in its first year. Missouri’s adult rec market will be online shortly. New York’s glacial opening should speed up in the second half of 2023, and don’t forget about Maryland and Connecticut sales coming online this year.
5. 280E relief
Last but certainly not least is 280E relief. We’ve seen it expand as a popular policy at the state level providing welcome relief to highly taxed cannabis businesses. Its annulment at the federal level would boost net revenue by 30% or more. If cannabis is re-scheduled to Schedule 3 or de-scheduled this year, entirely 280E would disappear.
Bonus Optimism: Getting to watch New Jersey, New York, and Connecticut brag about who has the best cannabis industry on Twitter.
Editors’ Note: This is an excerpt from our Monthly Playbook. If you would like to read the full monthly playbook and join the thousands of others you can sign up below.
Editors’ Note: This is an excerpt from our Monthly Playbook. If you would like to read the full monthly playbook and join the thousands of others you can sign up below.
**Warning: these are hot takes. These are ideas and opinions, hence the word “predictions.”
1. Cannabis Therapeutic Research will headline 2023 with one MASSIVE BREAKTHROUGH.
The Cannabis Research bill will help lead to advanced opportunities, research, and potential use cases. Hooray for science!
2. Sensors and automation will be a MAJOR asset for Internal Operational Efficiencies.
The days of growth at all costs are gone. Welcome to the constant headlines of sensors, automation, and calculated return on investment. Sensors measure cannabinoids in real-time in the cannabis industry. Expect many more use cases quickly.
3. The South will headline the next wave in cannabis.
Maryland (I agree it’s not ‘the South,’ but Google says it is), Virginia, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Alabama, and Texas—yes, Texas—will all make cannabis noise this year. One industry leader expects the South to be the biggest region of them all.
4. Texas will follow Minnesota with a hemp-derived ruling.
Texas surprises everyone and skips expanding the medical market. Texas government passes an executive measure where non-marijuana-derived cannabinoids can be sold as long as they are below the 0.3% threshold. When they remove smoking flowers as a medicine—and marijuana, in general—conservatives are more likely to accept it.
5. A lawsuit against the federal government will be announced.
With Safe Banking dead, MSO will form a super PAC and sue the federal government to remove 280E.
6. Chapter 11 will hit at least ONE Publicly Traded Company.
While previously they haven’t been able to, given the size of these companies, they will adjust to the ruling to allow this. This will give way to the next issue.
7. Safe Banking will NOT happen in 2023, as removing 280E will be the new frontline “conversation.”
8. Unfortunately, at the end of 2023, people will still be incarcerated for cannabis.
9. Cannabis gets RESCHEDULED as Schedule 3.
Schedule 3 has different quota limitations, opening research up further without trying to change any laws.
10. Maxing THC is a thing of the past.
As we learn more, consumers recognize that there are better products for themselves than high THC percentages. Products quickly shift toward other plant characteristics.
11. Rarer cannabinoids and terpenes take the main stage.
These characteristics are driven by the above and lead to more consistent reporting, research, and consumer adoption.
12. THC synthetically created from CBD becomes the main ingredient for all form factors besides flower in the recreational cannabis market.
Minnesota already allows hemp-derived delta-9 to be sold in the traditional markets if it is below the 0.3% threshold. Michigan, Washington, Oregon, Colorado, and several other states allow recreational cannabis companies to incorporate other cannabinoids, such as CBD and CBG, from the hemp industry into finished goods and products sold at recreational dispensaries. Due to hemp’s federal legality, small farmers can cultivate the plant on a significantly larger scale than even the largest licensed cannabis cultivation operation. The agricultural industry is a game that is best won with scale, and hemp will be able to manufacture THC derivatives from CBD at fraction of the cost at which cannabis operators can manufacture it.
Editors’ Note: This is an excerpt from our Monthly Playbook. If you would like to read the full monthly playbook and join the thousands of others you can sign up below.
Editors’ Note: This is the transcript version of the podcast. Please note that due to time and audio constraints, transcription may not be perfect. We encourage you to listen to the podcast, embedded below if you need any clarification. We hope you enjoy!
The Point-of-sale system is at the center of the value chain. Treez offers a unique and intuitive way to personalize the retail experience with a heavy focus on leveraging data for actionable insights specific to the need of the team. Data is valuable when it is clean, accurate, and provides actionable insights that are easy to understand and beneficial.
Understanding best practices, ideal inventory levels, SKU counts, and tracking basket size can be the difference between being in the black or in the red.
This week on The Dime, we host John Yang, CEO of Treez, to discuss
Leveraging Data-Based Insights for Action
Challenges of scaling with partners as the industry scales
Focusing on metrics that matter
About Treez
Dedicated to growing the cannabis industry At Treez, we’re united by our passion for building amazing tech and services for cannabis businesses everywhere, at every stage of growth.Cannabis retailers grow on Treez.Get the technology, insights and support you need to streamline operations, increase revenue, and drive profitability in an ever-changing industry.
[00:00:00]Bryan Fields: What’s up guys? Welcome back to another episode of The Dime. I’m Brian Fields, and with me as always is Kellen Finning. And this week we’ve got a very special guest, John Yang, c e o of trees. John, thanks for taking the time. How you doing today?
[00:00:13]John Yang: Doing great. Thank you for inviting me,
[00:00:14]Bryan Fields: Brian. Excited to dive in.
[00:00:16] Kellen, how are you doing?
[00:00:17]Kellan Finney: I’m doing really well. Really excited to talk to John. Really excited to learn about trees. Um, you know, really excited for the West Coast
[00:00:24]Bryan Fields: over here. Yes. Uh, I guess it’s, I guess it’s fair to ask John your location for the record, please.
[00:00:31]John Yang: Uh, in Northern California, uh, Oakland specifically, sunshine out there, just got through, uh, a storm, but it was just a little bit of rain, a little bit of wind.
[00:00:40] Um,
[00:00:40]Bryan Fields: we survived and I’m hopeful that there’ll be some East Coast conversations today, cuz obviously, uh, New York is always in the news and it’s, it’s important for us to try to spin it always to the East Coast space. So, John, before we dive in, it’d be great to get a little background about you for our listen.
[00:00:55]John Yang: Sure. C e o and founder of Trees, you know, trees is the premier point of sale [00:01:00] software solution for cannabis retailers. Uh, started this a little over six years ago now. Uh, we expanded quite a bit over the last six years. We’re now in 15 different markets, uh, particularly strong in California, Arizona, but we’ve migrated eastward into Michigan, into Jersey, into Massachusetts, and hopefully soon into new.
[00:01:21]Bryan Fields: Perfect. So I’d wanna stay with those early days. With building trees. Obviously in those six years, a lot probably has changed. What was the early origin of the idea? What sparked you to kind of come into the cannabis and build trees?
[00:01:32]John Yang: Yeah. So, um, I’m always a, uh, problem solver, solutioning type of mentality.
[00:01:36] My personal background actually didn’t come from one of, uh, cannabis, right? It’s more of, uh, using some technology to solve for s m B problems, uh, that those were in my teen years, uh, growing up in a very small town called Reno, Nevada. Father owned a computer shop. You know, you used to be able to buy personal computing for, um, $4,000 and then soon you have to figure out, well, what do you do with that [00:02:00] box that just cost me $4,000?
[00:02:02] Uh, quickly I learned that, oh wow, you could do a lot for these small businesses. Right for the lo uh, for the lawyers, for the dentist offices, connectivity, displacing pen and paper processes. Uh, it was actually at the, um, you know, around the mid nineties, uh, where internet emailing, networking all came to be.
[00:02:21] So I just got to see how much technology could solve, uh, pain points and then, Transitioned my career into more of the consulting variety, doing the same, but doing it for Fortune 500 companies. So I had the luxury of understanding technology for SMB technology for more of the dinosaurs in the Fortune 500 space.
[00:02:39] Uh, and, you know, come full circle for the cannabis market where it’s emerging, it’s largely SMB trying to grow into the Fortune 500 s into the future, but without purpose-built software. So lucki. Uh, ran into my co-founder who does come from the cannabis space, a vertical operator doing that for almost two decades.
[00:02:58] Uh, and met him at his [00:03:00] very busy dispensary here in Northern California. Hayward, to be specific, at that time it was, you know, how do you transact more? Tickets within a four, 500 square foot retail space. You were tapped out because you didn’t have technology. You know, pen and paper could only take you so far.
[00:03:17] Um, so just a lure of solving for an entire industry, solving from the ground up had not having a lot of competitors and doing it with a purpose-built software. Here we are on this, on this show.
[00:03:29]Kellan Finney: What was your biggest hesitation jumping into cannabis? I mean, I know it’s a, a non plant touching business, but it, it still is cannabis.
[00:03:36]John Yang: Yeah, no whatsoever. Um, because every everywhere else you’re gonna run into, uh, competitors, uh, moats and, and just a lot of dinosaurs that’s already in place. Yeah. In cannabis you didn’t have that, right? Like, and the point of sale, my first question when I was waiting in the lobby trying to meet my co-founder is, why aren’t you guys using, uh, Clover?
[00:03:54] Why aren’t you guys using Square? What’s going on? Um, but you have to understand traditional point of sales software [00:04:00] that really, it’s a receipt printer, but a payment process. There’s no payments in the cannabis space. There is no incentive for these bigger companies to, um, solution for the uniqueness and the challenges of a cannabis space.
[00:04:12] So I saw that as a, that’s a lot of, uh, opportunity to create and create our own moats before, um, the industry is big enough for and before there’s federal legalization for the other companies
[00:04:22] to truly care. .
[00:04:24]Bryan Fields: I think one of the areas that I don’t think gets kind of exemplified enough is the ability for problem solve.
[00:04:28] And I think kind of coming from that idea exactly like you said is, is critically important, especially in Canada because unfortunately, like you were saying, there are issues all around the, all around the past. So when you’re getting started with trees and then where we are today, you know, where did we deviate and what ideas kind of took us from the origin, the idea to, to where we
[00:04:44]John Yang: are today.
[00:04:45] Sure. The origin of the idea is, you know, we were able to use software to transform the same square footage limitation of that first shop of our, my co-founder shop. Uh, from, from 400 tickets a day to at the peak, 1200 tickets a day. The only difference, [00:05:00] right, is software. Um, so early years was a growth issue.
[00:05:04] how do I get more customers in? I have the, uh, bandwidth, I have the customer account, you know, I have some geographic advantage that wasn’t as much, uh, or many competition. Um, so reducing just clicks, right? Like workflow, workflow, workflow. If I could get a customer in with two clicks versus one click versus.
[00:05:22] 10 clicks and apply that across my inventory management, apply that across online, apply that across all areas of the business. It was a growth issue, it was a volume issue, it was a speed issue. Um, so those were the early years. Uh, the difference these days is well, . Unfortunately many, especially in the West Coast, many operators are not worrying about growth and top line.
[00:05:43] They’re worrying about bottom line as they should. You know, from day one of starting a business, you need to worry about the bottom line. You need to worry actually about loss prevention, more about efficiency, right? Uh, maybe these days the only access to capital is through your own bottom line. , uh, and we maybe just forgot about that [00:06:00] because reaching profitability is really difficult, especially with the tax issues and the regulatory issues.
[00:06:05] But some are able to achieve it. Um, and that’s just good business practices. And luckily, once we’ve solved the growth issues and the workflow issues, in the early days, our mindset was always about data. Our mindset was always about how do we then also use the data to influence that bottom line.
[00:06:21]Bryan Fields: So with the data,
[00:06:21]Kellan Finney: how are, uh, some of the operators utilizing that data to influence their bottom line?
[00:06:25] Could you kinda walk us
[00:06:26]Bryan Fields: through some
[00:06:26]John Yang: of those? Yes. First, first and foremost, it’s about buying the right SKUs right? Like early years, just buy everything you can and just have 500 and thousands SKU Sometimes you still see it, right? Kellan like you go to, into a dispensary, you’re like, wow, that’s a lot of menu.
[00:06:40] That’s a lot of items. What? Walk me through all of it. Might take the whole day to walk you through it, all of it. , um, now you don’t no longer have the cash to buy all that. Right? Right. Uh, even though some of the items might be on, on terms, um, having too much SKU results in a lot of, uh, theft, a lot of loss, a lot of spoil, uh, you know, just spoilage.
[00:06:59] Um, and, [00:07:00] and a result in just confusing decision making for a lot of the, not only your employees, but also to your, uh, consumers. Using data to inform what to buy, when to buy the right assortment, reducing that SKU count. Some of the best operators we’re seeing that actually has a positive bottom, bottom line impact are carrying only about 200 SKUs.
[00:07:19] I mean, that might be the right amount depending on how big of an operation and how big your retail, uh, square footage is. So that’s one area. Uh, another area in a big area is loss prevention. You know, I was just at. Just chasing a prospect of very large prospect, um, that’s over 3 30, 40 stores. Uh, my first question on the discovery call is, you know, what’s top of mind?
[00:07:42] And the top of mind is like, if I could reduce a percent in loss prevention and through theft, through just shrinkage, through all that, like I would be making a profit. , and that’s, that’s, And that’s big, right? And everybody should think about that because this is still a traditional retail and you may not [00:08:00] assume so, but you’re probably losing around 5 to 10% of your top line just through a lot of what’s going on behind the scenes that you’re not aware of.
[00:08:08] So understanding, you know, are you losing dollars because people are, just taking advantage of adjusting reward points. Um, uh, are they taking advantage of not doing the right counts at the back of house? Um, and, and just tying that to the SKU conversation earlier, how long does it take to count, you know, a thousand different SKUs probably too long.
[00:08:25] You’re probably going months before you’re doing a full cycle count, right? But making sure you have the right practices in, in doing your SKU counts, uh, in, in counting in general, and reducing that SKU that all ties it together in helping with the laws prevention
[00:08:39]Bryan Fields: what, what percentage of operators are using data to make, let’s say, informed decision and what percentage of operators have no idea and are not using any sorts of data?
[00:08:47] Just from a generalization
[00:08:48]John Yang: standpoint? I think a hundred percent would claim that they use data, right? Obviously the data’s there, , like in some, in some shape or form, it’s there. And if you, if you pull or survey or ask anybody that’s employed, like are you using data? [00:09:00] And the answer is no. Like their job is at risk, right?
[00:09:02] So fair , generally it’s a hundred percent. Um, How are they using it? How tough is it to use it? Uh, those are the key critical, uh, questions to, to kind of drill into. Um, cuz data can just take into a lot of different pigeon holes, right? I would have to guess that, you know, only 20%, typical 20, uh, 80 rule, but only 20% using it correctly.
[00:09:24] And, and those rely on a, uh, on somewhat of, A good, uh, team to put it together cuz just putting things together takes a lot of time and that’s what trees really aims to, to solve, right? Like we know the pain points, we collect all the granular data across all the workflow pain points that we addressed in our early years.
[00:09:41] Now how do we present it in a, a really just simplified manner? And our goal for our data products is to empower every stakeholder. And that’s really important, right? If I say 20% I’m using, it’s because 80% are being told what to do with it. There. and that’s not gonna fly. Right. You’re not empowering everybody that makes an impact into their [00:10:00] bottom line.
[00:10:00] Yeah. Buder makes an impact to their bottom line. If their goal is a o V and their goal is speed and transition or uh, transaction time, they need to know about it. They need to know what the goalpost is. They know need to know. Every day they start to shift where they are at, how far away are they from the gold goalpost, um, and ultimately how they help the company achieve its bottom line goals.
[00:10:22] Right? And that’s a lot of times that’s. So when you guys
[00:10:25]Kellan Finney: onboard, uh, clientele, um, is there like a whole education period in terms of like, this is how you guys wanna use this data? Or do you kind of like let them kind of sink or, or swim if you will, and then kind of work with them? How’s that process working?
[00:10:38]John Yang: Uh, it’s a, it’s a great question because it’s also our maturation in the early years. Yeah. It’s here have, it presents it, do something with it, hopefully, right. Cause we’re not, ultimately, we’re not a consulting agency and there are some consultants that we work with that will take it a step further. Uh, but these days, going back to empower every stakeholder, our idea is let’s just drop it into every square [00:11:00] footage on the digital screen possible.
[00:11:02] So if you’re a bud tender, you start your shift. Here’s the presentation. You could tweak it as management Ray, as a gm, as a as corporate to what a bud tender should see, what a receptionist should see, what a inventory manager should see. But you log into. This is what you need to do. This is where you’re at, you are at today.
[00:11:19] This is where the company or the store is at today. And how do you through, by the end of your shift impact that? Um, and so we’re trying to simplify, uh, we’re trying to simplify what we’re showing, but also empower every stakeholder, uh, by just presenting it to them from, from the moment they log.
[00:11:36]Bryan Fields: That’s So Go ahead, Brad.
[00:11:38] That’s so powerful, right? Because the idea of data is so like intoxicating you, you can figure out so much, but if you don’t know how to leverage that for actionable insights, it can almost be a distraction. It can take you down the wrong path. So having the ability to open up a dashboard and have, let’s say, key metrics that everyone can be aligned with.
[00:11:54] is such a critical starting ground for so many that they can take the right steps forward so that it’s an easy [00:12:00] success metric, so they understand exactly where they need to go.
[00:12:02]John Yang: You know, and that’s exactly right, Brian. You know, like it’s interesting. People say the market’s struggling, the market’s in decline.
[00:12:08] They’re absolutely right. But when we’re analyzing, uh, our aggregate data, it’s showing that the transactions aren’t actually slip slipping as much as the raw dollar. . So customers are still going back as almost as frequently as they used to. Um, what they’re not doing is buying as high of a, of average order value and buy or buying as much.
[00:12:28] Or maybe that’s the discount. Maybe that’s, there’s some other incentives. But right now all the retail operators are wanting to make sure that the AOV is the metric that a Bud Center cares about. You know, what is the average, what is their average in comparison to the shop, and where could they, you know, elevate that throughout the course of, of their.
[00:12:47] ships
[00:12:48]Bryan Fields: Yeah. And that can lead to really critical, let’s say end, end purchasing decisions at the end, maybe offering like a, a BOGO buy one, get one free offer on top in order to push people over to that average order volume because they know that number in their mind they’re looking [00:13:00] to shoot for. And as they get, kind of get close, they can use kind of incentives and tricks in order to achieve that.
[00:13:04] Without that number, it’s purely a guessing game, right? Kellen can be pushing for $60, I’d be pushing for one 20, but we really need to know exactly where that number. .
[00:13:12]John Yang: Precisely. Precisely. And simplifying. Maybe that’s only metric that matters to them, right? Throwing 10 or 15 metrics, how do I impact all
[00:13:18]Bryan Fields: that?
[00:13:19] Right? And then one person can go to the right, while the other person can go to the left, and ultimately no one’s going in their correct decision for management. You
[00:13:24]Kellan Finney: got it. How long did it take you guys to get to that simplicity from a, uh,
[00:13:28]John Yang: maturity perspective? That’s a great question. I would say within the last two years, um, it’s really where we took that journey.
[00:13:35] Like we, we’ve always simplified the workflow, the clicks. Yeah. Introducing the clicks, you know, making the ease of use. Like you could pull someone on the streets and use the tree system and it would take maybe to five, 10 minutes and just make it intuitive. Just do a good job at that. We didn’t do a good job is making sure that data also flew.
[00:13:50] Um, you know, or, or also like, uh, was as easy to use as the rest of the software. So, uh, over the last two years, we’ve really invested heavily into our data products. [00:14:00] Um, we showed, uh, our new retail analytics that we released, uh, MJ bis November, um, last year. We’re rolling that out as we speak through, uh, all of our customer base.
[00:14:10] And I think it’s gonna make a, a huge. ,
[00:14:13]Bryan Fields: do you think there’s any correlation between training and kind of getting a bud Tener up to speed and understanding that there’s certain, let’s say, one or two metrics early on in their career that you can kind of focus on to help them kind of get acclimated to the industry?
[00:14:25]John Yang: Yeah. I think training largely is, you know, s so p driven that meets certain corporate needs or, uh, store needs, right? We, we as a software provider just needs to make it as dumb, simple as possible, but also make it, uh, just multiple towards the various goals and, and SOPs that a ty, uh, a particular org might have.
[00:14:46] Um, so it’s less training on the tree software. It’s more training on how do you make an impact to, to the. Do those same
[00:14:52]Kellan Finney: kind of, uh, changes need to be applied as you go from state to state based on the different state
[00:14:58]John Yang: regulat. [00:15:00] Yeah, that’s a, it’s a great call out. Yeah, some, sometimes you can’t do that BOGO if you’re just going and exceeding your purchase limits.
[00:15:05] So there are nuances across different states, um, and that’s part of the pain, but also part of the joy of creating this software. Uh, we’re fixing markets. You know, the investors ask, why aren’t you in every market? It’s really hard, right. To get it right. Um, we, it takes surgical, uh, uh, precision. It takes a lot of just late nights to, to make sure that we get every state’s regulations right.
[00:15:28] Every city’s regulations. Right, right. And then the start of every year, we’re recording this in January. Um, we’re always surprised by something new that starts, you know, on the 1st of January for a particular state. Oh,
[00:15:40]Bryan Fields: the, the Joys and the funds of cannabis . That’s
[00:15:43]John Yang: right, that’s right. And, and you don’t get the phone phone calls on the, on the first, cuz you know many out winners are busy.
[00:15:48] You get the phone calls the second week or third week of like, oh wow, there’s not change. Is it in the system yet? Have we reacted yet?
[00:15:56]Bryan Fields: So we talked about average order volume being a key metric. Does that vary [00:16:00] state by state? And is that location by location, how, how specific and how, let’s say wider can these data
[00:16:04]John Yang: analytics get?
[00:16:05] It certainly does, uh, vary state by state. In New York, uh, I think I’d read that the, uh, half a gram vape was going from $95 or something. Like something crazy like that. Right? Only one
[00:16:15]Bryan Fields: store.
[00:16:17]John Yang: That’s right, that’s right. Buy that. Uh, maybe it’s a novelty item. Um, and then you drive what, three hours or whatever hours it takes to get to mass and you know, the prices have crashed in half.
[00:16:28] Um, so it’s gonna vary state by state. I think. Uh, obviously like gas prices vary state by state, right? Just consumer wallets vary state by state. So yes, it’s absolutely going to be different. ,
[00:16:39]Bryan Fields: are there purchasing trends too that you can kind of identify between it saying that if someone buys, let’s call it a AANA gummy, that they sometimes buy a car also, is there any sort of correlation between different products that your team can identify, or is that more of just kind of an individual by person basis?
[00:16:53]John Yang: We can identify it, but I think it’s more about empowering the procurement officers, um, to make those decisions. Uh, certainly [00:17:00] there’s trends of certain brands resonating with consumers. I think brands, especially on the West Coast, is really starting to resonate, like going to buy Wana Wild, et cetera. Like those are known, um, improved in brands that resonate with consumers.
[00:17:12] And you see it in the repeatability of, of when they come back, they. might Explore and take about 20 or 25% of the wall share to start to explore other, uh, uh, maybe complimentary types of brands. But they’re still sticking, A lot of times they’re sticking to what they trust.
[00:17:28]Bryan Fields: Do you see certain types of companies being more interested in the data analytics, like the bigger companies, or is it small ones or It’s kind of a mixed bag of
[00:17:34]John Yang: all.
[00:17:35] big companies, um, definitely are, uh, curious and, and have invested a lot of time and money into, into their data. Many of those have their own data teams to consume it because they also have to tie, you know, like for us, we wanna make sure out of the box we have everything the retail team and the retail management team has.
[00:17:52] Um, but the larger companies are vertical, right? So they may take what we have in our retail platform and compile. [00:18:00] The vertical side or other data sources. Um, so they do a lot with it on the smaller, wouldn’t say smaller side, that’s relative, right? These, some of these SMBs are doing very high volume. It’s about more about the culture within there.
[00:18:11] Um, if you’re still getting way in, in, in certain markets you can, with the growth side, with just dollars coming in, you may care less about that bottom line still depending on the markets you’re in. Um, but I think increasingly even the smaller teams are asking us about, you know, what could we do more, uh, with your.
[00:18:28]Kellan Finney: With the bigger companies, do you guys integrate your data into like their E R P systems
[00:18:32]Bryan Fields: as well?
[00:18:33]John Yang: Yeah, so we, we also released the integration hub. So e r P is a big one, like whether it’s going to odu, s a p, et cetera. Yeah. You have to connect to, you have to connect on several fronts. You have to connect to the financial side, uh, for reporting purposes, but also, you know, down, uh, up to the supply chain.
[00:18:48] Like what do you have in the warehouse, right? And. What’s the cost profile? What’s the tax, what’s the, uh, the product concept? Let’s, let’s make sure we streamline down to all the retail shops, because typically if you have [00:19:00] a, a good e r p, you’re probably operate in more than a single store. You’re probably operating in multiple stores and possibly multiple markets.
[00:19:06] You wanna make sure you have that visibility across all your uh, entities. ,
[00:19:10]Bryan Fields: has that proven to be like additionally or harder than an originally thought when kind of building that out? Because obviously you’re pushing forward and then you need to connect in various applications and then there’s probably layered with different challenges from state by state.
[00:19:21] That can’t be an easy solution as you’re kind of scaling that up.
[00:19:24]John Yang: Industry in if itself isn’t easy, . Um, but we always have point of sale as the center of value chain, right? The good thing about the point of sale is there’s no sale that unlocks until it’s reported within the point of sale, whether it’s online, whether it’s in store, whether it’s wherever, um, and all of that activity that happens in the supply side, that tends to be within the er, p or MRPs.
[00:19:44] That’s great. that’s creating a lot of product, that’s putting a lot of resource and, and dollars into it. It still has to unlock in terms of sales, right? So we’ve always thought that being that center of the value chain being that no, that connects all, uh, kind of counterparties and entities within the space.
[00:19:59] You know, we [00:20:00] hold a lot of power, but we also hold a lot of responsibility to make sure the data flows up and down.
[00:20:05]Bryan Fields: And especially being accuracy, right? Because if your team is making decisions based on that data, it has to be accurate and valuable. If not, it’ll lead to other people making, let’s say, incorrect decisions, which is one of the biggest challenges with data, is that if you aren’t leveraging it correctly, you’re, you’re necessarily could be using it to harm yourself.
[00:20:20] It has
[00:20:20]John Yang: to be clean. So where, where’s our focus this year? Um, our focus this year is just cleaning that data up, right? How do we make sure the workflows impact cleanliness of the data, uh, d duping, um, as much as possible. Uh, because a lot of times, you know, where do most people spend their time with data?
[00:20:36] It’s cleaning it up before they’re able to, uh, use it or report it. ,
[00:20:41]Bryan Fields: what’s one of the biggest hindrances of not being in all the states? Like what, what’s the biggest obstacle? Is it different state by state challenges to get into all of them? Or is there something indi uh, different.
[00:20:50]John Yang: That’s right. I mean, a hindrance for us as a company, it’s, you know, can we tackle and have all those MSO type of conversations?
[00:20:57] I think now that we’re in 15 states, there’s enough coverage, um, [00:21:00] to ha to be, uh, to resonate with those MSOs, uh, because we’re proving it in select states and soon enough for the next two years we’ll be in all the states that matter to them as as well. Uh, but I think the advantage of. being in all the states is you’re not waking up to fires across every state.
[00:21:16] Right. And doing it right, having focus, having precision. Um, that’s, that’s our claim to fame. Like getting California right out of the gates took a lot, it took many years. Uh, but, uh, some of the largest volume operators, some of the best brands, some of the most sophisticated type of nuances, we figured it out.
[00:21:32] So when we take that and explore, uh, a New York or New Jersey or wherever have solid the foundations to hopefully, um, reduce the amount of effort it takes to open up yet another market.
[00:21:44]Kellan Finney: Do you guys get, uh, pushback from some of the MSOs that wants you to kind of take the ride with them? They’re like, Hey, we’re going to Maryland.
[00:21:51] We use your software and. , Arizona, can you please get into Maryland? Is that some pushback that you guys struggle
[00:21:58]John Yang: with? For sure. We used to for sure. [00:22:00] Um, and that’s why we raised the capital round that we did. Um, so we raised 51 million series C last year, last. Congratulations. Thank you. Thank you. Very fortuitous timing.
[00:22:10] Um, oh right. . Very, very, um, and we take it to heart and, and, you know, where, where do we spend that money? We’re spending into r and. Uh, first and foremost, um, cuz we know we need to get it to, across all these markets and all these markets are going to have to pay. I’m gonna, we’re going to have to address them and in every market we have to have the right support structure.
[00:22:29] You know, we’re still one of the few that offers 24 7 support cuz that’s important, right? Like getting something out there. Day one, you’re gonna, you’re going to have fires, you’re going to have issues. And you, you need to depend on someone you can call at any hours of the night. And certain markets are operating in 24 hour fashion, right?
[00:22:45] In Nevada, for example. So, um, that takes resourcing, that takes commitment. Um, but you know, luckily we raise around and we’re putting that, uh, that resourcing across every. ,
[00:22:56]Bryan Fields: that’s an under-recognized problem. I didn’t even think about that, Karen. Cuz you’re right. If John has a, [00:23:00] a very big MSO partner who’s scaling extremely quickly and they’re dependent on your software, their expectations are that you’re gonna scale with them as fast as they need.
[00:23:07] Because if they are in Maryland, they’re gonna be like, Hey John, like we wanna use tree software. And you’re like, well guess like we’re going to Maryland .
[00:23:14]John Yang: That’s right.
[00:23:16]Bryan Fields: So on the website I read, we build fast and listen closely because our success is tied tiers. Why is that critical and what does that mean?
[00:23:24]John Yang: Uh, we just, again, hold a lot of responsibilities, right? Like I, I, I joke a bit about getting phone calls second week or third week of January about things that change, but we have to pay attention and keep up to speed while ahead of that, because via tell point of sale or any software company that there’s things that need to change and it has to change tomorrow.
[00:23:41] Inevitably the answers no because if we wanna do it right, um, it’s, it’s gonna take more than 24 hours of turnaround. Um, but we also understand even from our, you know, found foundational days early in the early years, uh, we had to listen to the customers. Our, our, with the, the one main advantage of trees is we just have a singular focus on, [00:24:00] uh, our customer.
[00:24:00] And that’s the. We don’t listen to the suppliers. We don’t listen to anybody else. We’re now multi-track. We’re just the great point of sale that serves our retailers. And if, if we do that well, then we also need to listen intently to our customers and their needs across markets, across operator types, and be as fast as we can to, to their needs, um, within the software.
[00:24:22]Bryan Fields: It would, it’s very smart. It’s easily to get distracted and by listening to some of these other vendors and take you on the path that might not be as valuable for your customers and putting the resources exactly where you need. So you were talking about being ahead of curves. How do, how do you do that?
[00:24:33] How in an industry that changes as fast as ours, how do you stay up to date on those initiatives and how do you prioritize the resources in order to put out the most pressing fire when one occurs quickly?
[00:24:43]John Yang: Also through their customers, Brian, right, to have the right customer types, the anchor type of customers, the ones that want to give you the feedback cuz they know you listen and you’re fast to, to the responses, to their needs, they’re gonna feed you more because they’re at the grant level.
[00:24:56] We’re not. , right? The only way we can get, uh, a close enough post [00:25:00] to the industry, to the changes is through our customers. Um, you know, we definitely spend time with consultants. We definitely spend time with the states. We definitely spend time with the traceability systems like Metric and BioTrack.
[00:25:10] That’s great. But a lot of the intel there typically is a little too late. Um, and many of our customers are actually lobbying and fighting the good fight to influence some of those decisions that may come six or 12 months later. And so staying engaged there is the only way we have. So it’s
[00:25:27]Kellan Finney: a, a collaborative kind of relationship that you have with your clients.
[00:25:29] You, you, they’re feeding you guys information on regulatory things and kind of what’s happening, boots on the ground. And then you guys, are you guys feeding them information as far as the data that you’re collecting in terms of trends and, and those kind of things, and kind of telling ’em, Hey, you wanna look at this, this part of the data and this.
[00:25:44] Can you kind of talk us through some of that? Uh,
[00:25:48]John Yang: Yeah, absolutely. Um, we don’t have to have a, a very robust conversation. Again, we’re not consultants, but we have a lot of visibility to different workflows, different operations, different trends, and wanna have and empower our customer [00:26:00] successful work to have those type of dialogues with our customers.
[00:26:02] And sometimes it’s within our product org, the product managers read, the product marketers that’s having those conversations with our customers. It’s a good balance of a conversation. If you have needs, we have visibility. , we might have some thoughts as well. Ultimately, if we want to influence the software, let’s give you good partners together and get more customers on board to talk to each other.
[00:26:21] I think that’s another trend that you’re seeing here that at least that we’re seeing here, is when market conditions are tough. Um, resellers are dropping their egos, they’re actually wanting to collaborate more on, on a various, uh, uh, you know, variety of topics. Um, software is maybe one of them, but generally influenced by, uh, some regulatory needs or.
[00:26:41]Bryan Fields: Did the Cassius ATM crackdown hurt change, alter your business at all?
[00:26:46]John Yang: Uh, no, because you know, on the payment side, what we’re doing is. We’re pretty particular about the processors and partners. We work with it. While we have a very open ecosystem of integrations, I think that’s more so [00:27:00] for P Systems, loyalty, et cetera.
[00:27:01] But when it comes to payments, and especially in our space, many have come, more have, have just died out, right? And cash is at TM is a category, uh, that’s finicky, that’s Ben Finicky. Um, and you know, what would we, what do we do there? We wanna make sure that we have good backup solutions that could cut over quickly, whether it’s a different ca cashless, atm.
[00:27:19] But more so maybe just a different processor type altogether, like pandemic, ach, h et cetera. We just want to make sure and understand that these fires will happen every single morning. I might wake up to another outage of sorts, uh, on the payment side. And, and hopefully as easy as a flip of a switch, the resellers are still transacting on a alternative solution.
[00:27:39] So with the team, you guys
[00:27:40]Kellan Finney: have that you ton of different opportunities that you could kind of, uh, embark on. How hard has it been to just kind of stay laser focus?
[00:27:48]John Yang: Yeah. Uh, it’s, it’s within the lens of our retailers that we’re able to focus. Right, right. Like early years. You have to understand the tam, the total addressable market is small for any, [00:28:00] uh, software vendor in this space.
[00:28:03] So it’s very easy to chase. Like I got data stream revenue there. I got payments, I got point of sale, maybe supply chain. Then I got loyalty. It’s like lot of shiny objects, , let’s do it all. And yes, absolutely right. We, we had to learn that lesson too now that we tackled all of that. But you can chase it all.
[00:28:17] But if you chase everything at a surface level to a 10% degree of need, what does that actually serve? And who does that actually? , right? And typically then you get into a building, a house of cars that collapse pretty quickly when times are tougher. Um, so we’ve learned those lessons early, early on, and we said we’re, you know, we’re, what, what’s the exact lesson we learned?
[00:28:37] Being a C to sale is not easy. We attempted it. It’s doesn’t generate the value, certain doesn’t generate the value and gives us the pace that we need to deliver for our retailers. And we course correct it. We. being a point of sale is the absolute need. Let’s just laser focus on our retailers and think that’s pain dividends over the last few years.
[00:28:54] Was that
[00:28:55]Bryan Fields: a hard, uh, adjustment to make at that time,
[00:28:58]John Yang: uh, for any entrepreneur [00:29:00] that thinks they could do at all? Absolutely. . Absolutely .
[00:29:04]Bryan Fields: What’s one feature request? You get a lot, but you’ll never build.
[00:29:09]John Yang: That’s a good one. Uh, sending text messages. I love that. . Um, . We do get my favorite though, . We do get that a lot.
[00:29:18] You know what it is though, like when I look at my phone, I, and I, you know, I just shop, uh, and just kind of just be a. Consumer, um, and just figure out like what, what we could do better on the software side. You know, I sign up for all, I see a QR code, I scan, I see something, I could sign up. I sign up, so I wake up to a lot of spam and all these text, text messages, does it really drive that much, that much repeatability because it looks.
[00:29:41] It reads just as spam. And right now the struggle is if I sign up for something, it may take hours, sometimes even days delayed for actually get that message right, because just routing and all the carrier issues with our space, just something that, you know, we’re not experts in. We’ll never be experts in, and hopefully we have some good loyalty partners, c r m partners or just text messaging [00:30:00] partners that can fill those gaps.
[00:30:02] I, I
[00:30:02]Bryan Fields: never want to get text message with promos ever like that would just, all the time, the most, all the time. Do you get those now? Yeah, I mean,
[00:30:08]Kellan Finney: it’s crazy if I go to a new dispensary, they like ask you for your cell phone number and like build you like a little frequent shopper profile. And like I walk out of the store and 10 minutes later I get a text message like, oh, here’s the deal, 10% off.
[00:30:22] And I was like, I’m literally just visiting here. I’m never going back to that store. It’s frustrating. I, I really am not a big fan of the
[00:30:27]Bryan Fields: text message thing. That’s why I laughed. John, what’s one factor? Statistic building in the cannabis industry that most. ,
[00:30:37]John Yang: what’s one factor statistic about building software in in our space that most would not know.
[00:30:42]Bryan Fields: Yeah. Well, that would surprise or shock somewhere or most that wouldn’t know.
[00:30:46]John Yang: Huh. That’s a good one. Um, that’s a good one. Is it more related to the consumer or to the businesses? Either works? Yeah. [00:31:00] Well, I mean, Tax rates is, is super high if you add a tax rates closer to 80%. I don’t know how shocking that is to to, to the trio here on the call, but I think that would be shocking if someone, no one ventured into cannabis space.
[00:31:14] Yeah. That jumps at me as a, as a stat. Yeah. I mean,
[00:31:16]Bryan Fields: those are the important ones to hear because sometimes PE people listen to this podcast not inside the cannabis industry, and they’re, they’re kind of shocked to hear, let’s say that there’s, there’s caps on how much you can spend at dispensary, that there’s all these various state by state challenges.
[00:31:27] And hearing that information, I think sometimes is, is very powerful. Even though we take it as common knowledge, I think other people are like shocked to hear that.
[00:31:35]John Yang: and just the way, like if we say it’s, uh, you know, simplified to say it’s 50% rough tax, the breakout of it, the compounding of it. Then to go through all the audits to make sure the, you know, the states are getting their money, money, it’s a lot to unpack within just a, a very large tax rate.
[00:31:51] What’s the future
[00:31:52]Bryan Fields: roadmap for trees?
[00:31:54]John Yang: Uh, as I, as I said earlier, um, how do we further reduce, uh, the [00:32:00] labor, um, needs on, on the, our side on just, uh, the employee side, you know, give back to some of our roots on the workflow, right? Like, if we can impact the industry today, it’s, it’s reducing labor, reducing hours, reducing manual inputs, uh, having even cleaner data now that we.
[00:32:17] Really figured out, honed in now, had to simplify, had to empower every stakeholder. There’s still that element of cleanliness of the data, and that can only be impacted by automating some of the workflows, um, before it becomes a report, before it becomes a dashboard.
[00:32:31]Kellan Finney: Does the automation, do you think that that is gonna include like more R F I D chips and that kind of stuff in products in order to like decrease to automate the inventory and those kind of aspects
[00:32:39]John Yang: associated with it?
[00:32:40] It actually could, right? We’re talking to some prospects that’s still investing in the R I D. Um, the biggest issue with metric is they have A R F I D. No one uses it. Those tags. Yeah, the tags are just a barcode. It’s the nuance. Um, but even, uh, the opportunity to work with metric together to, to figure out how do we really reduce the, the needs to relabel is [00:33:00] something, is some, some, sometimes it’s going to eliminate like millions of dollars of pain within a given
[00:33:04]Bryan Fields: market.
[00:33:06] When you got started in the cannabis journey, what did you get? Right? And most importantly, what did you get? ,
[00:33:12]John Yang: we definitely got right on, on the workflow. Definitely just affecting the co consumer journey from start to finish. And then us also affecting, uh, the retailer, um, journey from start to finish, uh, across the different, uh, employee types.
[00:33:26] I mean, we definitely got that right. Um, what we got wrong is absolutely trying to build too mu too much trying to build up to see the sale and all that, and chasing what we thought is a shiny object, what we thought is needed to open up a vertical state like Arizona and elsewhere. Um, being the best of breed is still the right path, regardless of the TAM issues that exist in our space.
[00:33:47]Bryan Fields: Before we do predictions, we ask all of our guests, if you could sum up your experience in a main takeaway or lesson learned to pass onto the next generation, what would it be? ,
[00:33:56]John Yang: the next generation of us.[00:34:00]
[00:34:02] Um, yeah. So, so like, like just an advice for the next generation. Don’t go through the same pain points. Yeah. Life advice. Life advice. Gotcha. Um,
[00:34:17] having a, like, having an open mind and, and, and just, Discussing things with even your competitors, Earl very early on, and just figuring out how to be best of breed. Like I think that would’ve solved a lot of our pain points. It would’ve would’ve reduced a lot of unnecessary competitors and or, um, just companies in general cuz we’re wasting very valuable, uh, resources.
[00:34:41] Right, like access to capital is so difficult these days. It wasn’t that difficult three or four years ago, and that’s why you saw so many versions of us at some point. I think in a cannabis space there was like 30 or 40.0 vendors across all the markets, and we’re all chasing at that point, five or 6,000 doors.
[00:34:56] That’s just not enough to go around. Right. Um, just being [00:35:00] open-minded, having those discussions, even, uh, with your competitors directly, um, that just having that open mind, um, is definitely an advice I would give future versions of myself or.
[00:35:12]Bryan Fields: prediction time. John, sometimes negative events influence a company to take measures to improve in the future.
[00:35:18] What events could arise in the future that will draft drastically shift cannabis companies to adopt database insights aggressively
[00:35:26]John Yang: to adopt database insights? Aggressively what? What events would shifts? Um huh. Uh, I think like any drastic changes and, and I don’t think of it as database adoption, but I think drastic changes will still come in more of a regulatory sense.
[00:35:43] Like are you prepped for interstate commerce? Are you prepped for some, some more like payment solutions? Are you, are you prepared for a variety of different tax changes that’s upcoming? And they will all come and they will all surprise us, right? Um, so those are things that, uh, will influence some [00:36:00] form of adoption, uh, negative, positively or negatively.
[00:36:02] Um, so I, I think it’s less on the database side, but I think it’s just all around, uh, awareness.
[00:36:10]Kellan Finney: Uh, I would agree. I think, uh, I’m gonna favor kind of federal legalization though. I think that if that domino falls, I think you’re gonna see just. A group of more sophisticated individuals starting retail locations and people that are already operating in retail locations need to kind of either step up to the plate and increase their skillsets to compete with individuals that were, say, operating in other traditional retail spaces, that it’s kind of par for the course to utilize this kind of data, and they have that experie.
[00:36:43] Already implementing it. And so I think that that is gonna be a catalyst that’s either gonna drive people into it to, to be successful or that you’re just gonna see ’em kind of die off. Um, what do you
[00:36:54]Bryan Fields: think, Brian? I mean, I remember some of the stores, the first store you took me and two Kellen into Washington at, I [00:37:00] was thinking of that.
[00:37:00] So many product skews, , thousands. Clearly. Thinking of that, I, John, I walked into my first dispensary with Kellen in Washington five or six years ago. And in Seattle. Yeah, . There was thousands of products, like it was the most products I’ve ever seen in my entire life. And I was just like, almost. Shelf shocked, right?
[00:37:16] Like I couldn’t get past the flower side and Kell’s like, you don’t even want this. He’s like, you want the No, you lit. You were
[00:37:21]Kellan Finney: like, what brand? And I was like, I don’t know, 95% of
[00:37:23]Bryan Fields: these and I operate in Washington . It was madness. So in my mind, I think what it’ll take is a store like that who would lose like a batch or have some inventory issues that has a massive financial loss.
[00:37:34] To recognize that maybe if we get ourselves under control, we can make better financial decisions. We are not gonna get, you know, products that expire. We’re not gonna get, uh, you know, worse areas here. Plus we can double down exactly on the products that are selling faster because those are the ones you wanna invest your capital in.
[00:37:48] Because it turns out now it’s not growth at all costs. It’s figuring out what’s go working well and pushing towards that. US pay.
[00:37:55]John Yang: Think I might know the exact one you visited in Washington . They, they, they prided themselves on the [00:38:00] warmer model. He was wild.
[00:38:02]Bryan Fields: He was wild. I, I was almost frozen. Uh, . So John, for our listeners, they wanna get in touch, they wanna learn more about trees.
[00:38:09] Where can they find you?
[00:38:10]John Yang: Yeah, go to our side. Trees do I, otr, e e z.io. Um, new site, new face lift, but just more content. Uh, we have a big dedication this year to just having goods. Good content from our blogs, from, you know, within LinkedIn, which is within the social airwaves. Uh, but with content that has substance, right?
[00:38:28] That’s driven by data, that’s driven with some trend analysis and hopefully just be in good steward for, for this industry
[00:38:34]Bryan Fields: overall. Awesome. We’ll link it up on the show notes. Thank you for taking the time. This was fun.
Editors’ Note: This is the transcript version of the podcast. Please note that due to time and audio constraints, transcription may not be perfect. We encourage you to listen to the podcast, embedded below if you need any clarification. We hope you enjoy!
Khiron is taking a different approach than US Cannabis companies.
They are building data systems to provide evidence-based research to reduce stigma, adopt normalization, and convert opioid users to medical cannabis. Their systems and achievement have quickly led to many breakthroughs, as recently announced, “Khiron signs deal with Bogota’s largest public health insurance for medical cannabis coverage.” Now that Columbia is on board, Khiron has its eyes on disrupting other international medical markets by taking the data-based evidence to Brazil, Peru, Mexico, and many others
This week on The Dime, we host Alvaro Torres, CEO of Khiron, to discuss
Providing data-based evidence to influence regulators
International challenges & opportunities
Building foundational systems for personalized medicine
How US Cannabis companies are looking to replicate Khiron’s international success
and so much more
About Khiron
A GLOBAL MEDICAL CANNABIS COMPANY IMPROVING THE QUALITY OF PEOPLES’ LIVES.We believe in the benefits of medical cannabis to improve people’s quality of life through the development of high-quality pharmaceutical products, continuous medical education for health professionals, and permanent monitoring of the patient in their treatment, through the Patient Follow-up Program.#CannabisInsier #KHRN #GlobalCannabis
[00:00:00]Bryan Fields: What’s up guys? Welcome back to an episode of The Dime. I’m Brian Fields and with me as always, as Kellen Finney. And this week got a very special guest, Avaro Torres, c e o of Chiron Avaro, thanks for taking the time. How you doing
[00:00:12]Alvaro Torress: today? Hi Brian, how are you? Hi Ke, nice to, nice to see you again. Thank you so much for inviting
[00:00:18]Bryan Fields: me.
[00:00:18] We’re excited to dive in. Kellen, how are you doing? I’m doing really
[00:00:24]Kellan Finney: I’m doing well. Uh, really excited to talk to Alro. I mean, just couldn’t be more excited to learn about international cannabis and I think it’s the next wave of the industry. How are you Brian? I’m
[00:00:34]Bryan Fields: excited also, I think so much on this podcast we talk about what’s going on in the United States, and I think we need to kind of take a, a higher level perspective out and have like a real macro global game because at, at its core cannabis e is a global game.
[00:00:45] And Avaro, we usually have an east coast, west coast battle. So I guess it’s finally time to have an outside choice. Uh, this have to be what a, a global participant. What do you think? Ke Yeah, global. Where, where, where are you
[00:00:57]Alvaro Torress: residing globally? I am here in [00:01:00] Bogota, in Colombia, so West, east, and now the south is coming strong
[00:01:05] I
[00:01:05]Bryan Fields: like that. I like it. So for Avaro, for our listeners, that unfamiliar by you, can you give it a little background
[00:01:10]Alvaro Torress: about yourself? Yes, Brian. Uh, well, so, uh, I’m an engineer by trade. I went to school in the United States in upstate New York. R rpi. I, you know, the school, I got my master’s there, got an MBA in Georgetown.
[00:01:23] Um, and then my life has been around infrastructure and pipelines and buildings and power lines. Um, that’s been all, you know, since I was very little. Cause my parents used to own one of the country’s biggest engineering companies. Um, five, six years ago I moved out from engineering. I found that cannabis could be something life-changing and dramatically, uh, disruptive to, to the health industry.
[00:01:49] Um, I didn’t know anything about cannabis. I, I’m not a regular user of marijuana on my own. Um, I guess never really tried it that much. Um, but [00:02:00] I started a company because I felt that, uh, there was something, a need to be able to help patients. And even though if I didn’t know anything about cannabis, I got to learn pretty quickly.
[00:02:09] And then you start trying to figure out how to improve the quality of people’s lives. Um, and I do have that engineering mentality of step 1, 2, 3. How do you solve that? Those type of problems. I guess that helped me a little bit in trying to set this up, but, um, you know, I, I think right now being able to build what we build, uh, is a testament to all of that.
[00:02:29] You know, years and years of good training, good parents, good friends, and, uh, good investors.
[00:02:35]Bryan Fields: So we like to talk about the hesitation some have when diving into cannabis. So from your perspective and your parents kind of weighing in, was there any hesitations for you to kind of take an engineering background and kind of come into cannabis?
[00:02:46]Alvaro Torress: Uh, yes. Yes. I think first time, uh, we sort of. Had the guts to say it out loud, Hey, you know, maybe I will move from building billion dollar airports to, uh, starting a [00:03:00] cannabis company. First thing everybody ask you is like, I, I didn’t know you were a pothead, , . You, you look too educated to be a pothead. How did we send, do you go to Georgetown coming back and smoking pot?
[00:03:13] Um, and of course I don’t really use it at all. Like if I’ve used it three times in my life, that would be way too much. Um, but so that was the first, uh, sort of the first reaction most people had, um, friends, family, uh, in no, in no way sort of saying, don’t do it at all. Just it’s shocking that you want to go into that when your, you know, all your life has been in, you know, real like solid project, physical projects, billion dollars, and um, but then you start explaining why I’m getting into this.
[00:03:44] And it’s not because I like marijuana, it’s because I found that we live in a region where healthcare is too expensive. , and it makes no sense that we pay international companies to produce products that are very expensive for our patients. And we, we could produce it here [00:04:00] and we could sell it here, and we could improve the quality of life here, or we could create an economy here.
[00:04:06] And then, you know, after five minutes after, okay, whatever, go on, go and do it. . That’s, that’s sort of the, the first, uh, reaction. And, and, you know, you start these businesses, I, you know, we start talking to people that know you trying to raise capital here. And I guess six years, five years ago, uh, it was such a taboo subject, uh, that, you know, nobody really understood what it, what it meant.
[00:04:28] But there’s a lot of funny stories and all of those things, uh, people who really didn’t, um, understand it. And in Spanish, my name Alvero, uh, we have a war for marijuana called Barre. . And so people used to call me Al Barreto , but then in the day, uh, I think sometimes sticks when late night, couple of drinks, people still call me that.
[00:04:50] But yeah, it was, it was quite a shock, but, um, very
[00:04:54]Bryan Fields: supportive. So what is the current status of Columbia from, uh, a medical [00:05:00] standpoint, adult use? How does that work for, for those who run familiar? And then what’s Chiron’s role in, in kind of assisting the, the change of the
[00:05:06]Alvaro Torress: industry? Well, um, I think Columbia’s one of the most advanced countries when it comes to regulation of medical cannabis.
[00:05:12] Um, it is true that it’s only focused on oils and extracts as a medical market, but it’s also true that the government, uh, has unequivocally decided to cover medical cannabis for patient. , which is really, you think other countries that have this, you think about Germany, um, but not the United States for sure.
[00:05:32] Certainly about Canada. And that’s really the, the best way to really encourage an industry to flourish because the real competitor to medical cannabis is opioids. And opioids are free. You can get high on, on, you know, morphine because your doctor prescribes it. It’s paid by the insurance system and there’s no way to get out of that.
[00:05:53] And for, you know, patients who don’t have the ability to pay for this type of products, they rather probably get a free morphine [00:06:00] than pay for Cannabis out of pocket. So I think that decision from the government has been very, very strong. Colomb is not a small country. It’s 50 million people, 6 million people with chronic pain.
[00:06:11] So there’s a real need for it to make changes on this regulation so that, you know, the country realize that this is a way not just to create economy, but also to reduce the cost of healthcare. Um, and I think. regarding the role of Chiron, and, and this is going to sound a bit smug and I don’t want it to come across of that, but I think the last five years, Kyron has been at the center of all that change.
[00:06:36] Um, and I, I don’t mean to be smug about it, but it has been sort of the purpose of our lives, of my life to be able to change regulation and improve the quality of people’s lives. That means that everything we’ve built so far is to be able to generate data, uh, to be able to show the, the, the doctors, the patients, insurance companies, banks.
[00:06:57] We’ve been at the forefront of all these fights [00:07:00] with the banking industry to get bank accounts, okay? We want that to get the first license, cultivate, to have our own pharmacy because nobody else wanted to distribute it and then show the government the data to say, listen, this is safe medication. It can be produced here in the country.
[00:07:17] You can create a lot of jobs, but most importantly for you, There’s a lot of pharmaeconomic benefits. It can do a lot of good and it can be cheaper for you. And you know, we’ve been at the,
[00:07:38] oh, I think I got disconnected somehow. Just briefly
[00:07:42]Bryan Fields: Okay, we’re good. Hold on, take, take a pause first, so
[00:07:45]Alvaro Torress: it’s okay. Maybe I was being too small. You guys
[00:07:47]Bryan Fields: said No, no, it’s perfect. No, I, I I wanna ask my follow up question, but I want you to finish your statement. So just
[00:07:51]Alvaro Torress: like, pause. No, I just, just to finalize that Yeah.
[00:07:54] We’ve been at the forefront of that. I think everybody in the country not only understands it, but [00:08:00] recognizes the role that Cairo has had in all these changes in the regulation.
[00:08:03]Kellan Finney: Yeah. And I wanna stick with, uh, the impact you’re having on so many people’s lives. So I think I read on your guys’ website that there’s probably 620 million patients in South America.
[00:08:15] So like, according to your data, That number is gonna grow, right? Just as more, uh, uses for the plant are adopted for medical purposes. So how do you prepare your organization
[00:08:28]Bryan Fields: for that kind to meet those kind of demands?
[00:08:31]Alvaro Torress: Well, I think, uh, the way you have to think about Chiron is we are very focused on building the demand.
[00:08:37] We are not that interested or we are not interested at all in building the supply side of it. Okay. Um, our strategy particularly starting on is being to grow a small amount of cannabis. Right. But starting this year onwards, um, I’m very sure that most of that supply that we will need is gonna come from all the sources of people who can [00:09:00] actually produce that.
[00:09:01] So cannabis, uh, there’s a size to it, of course, but there’s plenty of companies that can provide that type of product. I think the challenge is not on the supply side. It’s on how do you put those bottles, those products in the hands of a patient. Once, twice, three times, 12 times a year. Right. And so the company was vertically integrated, but just for the purpose that we had to do it cuz somebody had to do it first.
[00:09:26] Yeah. My obsession and the obsession of the company is on building the demand. So, you know, when you think about how to tackle all of that, um, let’s take out the department. We think that we need to cultivate all of that cuz that’s not the way it’s gonna work. Every country eventually will have its own supply chain.
[00:09:45] Uh, what really growers and extraction companies need is a market. And that market needs to be built. So the challenge of building that demand on that side, Then comes with, um, being able to publish information to show the [00:10:00] doctors that it works. It doesn’t happen overnight at all, of course. But now that Columbia has uh, agreed to, uh, insurance coverage, you can take that evidence to Brazil, to colo, to Peru, to Mexico.
[00:10:12] Slowly and slowly, you’re gonna be able to get all these people to understand that this, that this matters. And today is not a, a big taboo as I was when I started the company. So you heard, you see a lot more patients wanting to, to think about it. And you work with a very efficient supply chain. And that’s the way we’re actually doing it in Europe.
[00:10:30] Cause it wasn’t really important to us to service all of that on our own. I think we need to be, uh, agents of change socially as well. Um, that means that we need to be able to see how we can produce change in others. Uh, how do we have economics in other countries? How do people can benefit from the work that we do and not necessarily have to grow it ourselves.
[00:10:53]Bryan Fields: I think that’s so important, right? Because when we talk about it how early we still are in the, in the infancy of the industry, agency of change is [00:11:00] critical because your team isn’t kind of following the road in front. It is chopping down the trees and making the path forward where there is no road before.
[00:11:07] And I think people sometimes forget that we are still so early that your team is having to make that road to pent up that demand and the supply’s gonna have to go. So the industry is scaling with your.
[00:11:17]Alvaro Torress: Yes, yes, Brian. I think absolutely the, I think the beauty and the tough part of the company is that there is no road to follow.
[00:11:25] Nobody told us that the only, that the best way to sell calories was go and build your own clinics and all of these things that we’ve done. Sometimes you miss, of course, but that’s also part of the learning curve for how do you get it better. And part of that learning was also to understand that, you know, we, if we focus on the demand side, this idea of supply chain and we growing ourselves starts to make little, little sales for our business.
[00:11:49] But, um, I think this also exciting when you are able to spend months, months trying to get a government to change their views. I mean, we also got just the NHS in [00:12:00] UK to cover our first patient in the. And so that takes months and that takes a lot of trial and error. And then you say people come back to you and say, well, that was only one patient.
[00:12:12] They’re like, yeah, well, you know, just one guy,
[00:12:17] Um, but if you understand that those are the necessary steps to change what’s happening, um, five years from now, we’ll see an industry that’s very well developed. Uh, I’m very medical and where there’s gonna be plenty of room for everybody to compete, but it does take that first patient to go that route, that first government official.
[00:12:36] Um, maybe the second is easier. And by the time you’re, your first 10,000 patient is a piece of cake. Of course to get there. , be a bit more challenging. We have to,
[00:12:49]Kellan Finney: it’s all downhill from there, right? Once you get to 10,000, it’s all downhill.
[00:12:53]Bryan Fields: Everyone forgets. Someone has to be first, right? Like everyone forgets that like in the beginning of industry, someone has to be [00:13:00] first.
[00:13:00] So I want to talk about the, the first medical cannabis contract with one of Columbia’s largest insurance companies. How, how long does something like that take in order to achieve the finish line? And like what type of resources go into something like making something like that
[00:13:14]Alvaro Torress: actually happen? Well, um, I would say it, it’s taken us nine months to get this done.
[00:13:21] Um, and, but the entire idea is that, We, we have, our clients are insurance companies, Columbia, right? So they send us patients, we treat them for pain, for neurological situations, for sleep disorders and mental health. And we know how to use cannabis. So we are, you know, funneling some of these patients to use cannabis.
[00:13:41] That’s the way we’ve been doing it. But also at the same time, we are always thinking, I mean, eventually somebody will catch up to that. How do we go after clients and show them that it’s no longer about just sending us patients. We have to be very clear that medical candidates works and how do we get those [00:14:00] type of clients?
[00:14:01] And we were lucky because the city of Bogota, I don’t know if you’ve been to Bogota, but it’s 9 million people. This is a major metropoli, uh, metropolis. Um, about March, they started trying to, The city to be a hub for medical cannabis. If you look at the, at the pr, we will have a quote for one of the top councilmen there who, you know, was promoting the fact that Bogota should be a hub for research, a hub for development of medical cannabis.
[00:14:28] So taking that, we went to Capital Salute, which is, you know, the top, the largest insurance company in Bogota that’s also publicly owned. And, uh, we start talking about how can we help them to treat their patients. Now some, sometimes these things happen because, uh, nice accidents and, you know, you have to be prepared for that.
[00:14:48] But the first thing they really, they asked us is, you know, the problem that we have is that, uh, specialized clinics like yourselves are only in the nicer parts of town. And our patients, [00:15:00] uh, 1.2 million population are in the outskirt of the city where the access to high quality medical services is not too good.
[00:15:09] And then when they said that, we reply, well, do you know that Chiron just built. Two new clinics in January and February in those parts of town. And that when you talk about opportunity meets, you know, uh, luck is, is because when we did that by then it was a year ago, it’s because I always felt that we have a tremendous, um, tremendously good service and that servicing healthcare, we really want to change people’s lives, has to be equal anywhere in the city.
[00:15:37] So it just so happened that when they go and see that, I say, so you have clinics near to where my patients. Absolutely. Here’s the capacity. We build two of them and then we start looking at, okay, so we can do this with medical cannabis, but also for them, while we’ve never had a private clinic of that level of service near to where patients leave.[00:16:00]
[00:16:00] And so that took that conversation. They had to do a tender by company. Um, but of course there’s nobody else that can sort of try to get that job done. We went through a tender process. At the same time, you know, we are, we had patients from them that were coming to the clinic, paying out of pocket because they were not our clients.
[00:16:22] So the first thing we started saying is, but third thing is, listen, there’s already patients that are very poor, that are coming to our clinic, paying whatever, $50 a bottle who have now, are now forced to be interrupting their, their, their, uh, product because they can no longer afford it. . And so all these things started combining together.
[00:16:44] Uh, you know, we had quality visits, we had many meetings, uh, with them on, on their, on the proposal. How do we get this done? Cuz nobody’s ever done something like that. It’s, this contract is specifically for chemical cannabis treatments. Um, and so of course you have to also [00:17:00] understand that this a public entity.
[00:17:01] It takes time. Uh, they cannot just give you a contract. That’s not the way it works. Um, we sign you on December 27th. Uh, we start in December 28th, . Um, so I’m very excited about it cause it’s a very large insurance company because I think it validates all the pains and all these jungle that you are doing.
[00:17:22] It validates a lot of that because we built the clinics, nobody told us to do. Because we did, uh, all this, we invested a lot in quality service for the patients, uh, waiting times, things like that. And then somebody comes in and says, well, that’s really what I need. And now I’m hoping that taking this sample, we can go out there and to all insurance companies in Colombia and show them we can manage the patient for you.
[00:17:45] Which I think it’s interesting because what we are doing now is saying to the insurance company, give me your patients. We will take care of this patients. You can, we will do all the quality controls that you need, but let us manage that patient’s [00:18:00] pain. It could be with cannabis, it can be with something else.
[00:18:03] So this model of integrative care, finally, let’s say I found, uh, we found a client that says, that’s exactly what I need because what I need is to make sure that our patients are feeling better. And so I think, and it’s been very well advertised in the country, in the city particularly because it breaks the taboo.
[00:18:23] It’s the first time a insurance company says publicly, Hey, um, go to these guys and they’ll treat you. And they, if, if medical cannabis is applicable, there’s no fear for you to take it. So, uh, I think I keep dreaming about that, what that could be outside also, uh, when you combine it with the n H S news in uk, it just sort of tells you, I mean, we are wrong a lot of times, but maybe the, the good things that we do, um, have a very important impact.
[00:18:52] And I think they’re gonna have an impact not only in Chiron, but on the entire country and on the entire continent. Because the moment somebody has the guts to do [00:19:00] something like this, then other people follow. And if those people follow, then we’re gonna have a. Yeah, I wanna
[00:19:06]Kellan Finney: stay with, uh, the, the conversation on the insurance.
[00:19:08] So when you were working with, with them, was there certain stipulations they had about, uh, products that you guys could prescribe to potential patients? Or were they kind of just like very hands off? Like, that’s your guys’ world of expertise. You handle it from there and we’ll just kind of trust your
[00:19:25]Alvaro Torress: guidance.
[00:19:27] So Kelly, I told you before about the, the evidence that we have built. Yeah. So we, we started in Colombia with five, uh, products. Oil, oil, oil based. That’s sublingual. High TC to high C b D five different products. And we’ve been doing this for two years. Right? Uh, so when you have more than 25,000 patients, you have a lot of data Yeah.
[00:19:49] Regarding what works and what doesn’t work. We, we’ve been, we’ve made four publications, international, uh, publications regarding use of cannabis, uh, with populations up to [00:20:00] 2,500 patients. Things that not, not a lot of people can do or have been able to do. So when we’re talking to them first, it’s like you have to understand that the government itself was already saying, okay, these, let’s say these five products or these five combinations work.
[00:20:14] But then you start showing them the data. They interview their patients, they see, okay, so they’re not really, um, it’s not just prescribe whatever cannabis you want, that there’s evidence and there’s signs behind it to measure your publications. And we know, we can see from your data that it’s a safe product.
[00:20:31] So that also started the conversation about it because it’s not just like, Somebody cultivate cannabis, smoke it, and they feel better. So that ability to bring down that, uh, adult use to, uh, something more scientific, um, that has been published. It, it also allows the city, you think, go back to the, to the notion that the city wants to be a hub for it.
[00:20:55] So it’s perfect for them because it means, okay. So with this we can probably work with [00:21:00] Cairo and other companies so we can start developing more, more, more data, more science, and really be a hub. So it does, it does take data and, and evidence and those are the things that happen below the surface. Uh, but if we didn’t have that, I don’t think we would, we would be talking today about that.
[00:21:17]Kellan Finney: So the, the nine month uh, contract negotiation with the insurance company was really years in the making to get all the data to
[00:21:24]Bryan Fields: make Oh yeah. Such a smooth
[00:21:27]Alvaro Torress: conversation. Yeah. Sometimes I think, um, some people forget how difficult it is to get these things. Cause when you talk about health is about responsibility, uh, we’ve invested a lot of capital, a lot, a lot of time and effort to build, you know, our systems, uh, data.
[00:21:42] How do we collect it every day? The doctors, the training, it doesn’t work all the time. I mean, when we started in Columbia, we sold eight units the first month. Right. And you have to be patient because you have to see how those eight units work because some of the patients, their families don’t want them to get into [00:22:00] cannabis.
[00:22:00] It’s a lot of breaking barriers that you’re doing. Um, but thankfully we did because I don’t think right now, if we hadn’t, I don’t think there would be a market in Colombia, even if it was insured because. Doctors are, patients in Latin America don’t know what it does, and doctors don’t know how to prescribe it.
[00:22:19] So you have to show them all the time, the evidence, we even have evidence, Helen, of patients that we have taken out of cannabis. And when you start to show that you realize that these guys are being responsible, some patients don’t respond well to it, and then you have to start doing programs on taking them out of it.
[00:22:38] Not give them opioids, but thinking about something else. And that, for example, when we start showing that that meant, okay, there’s a big responsibility here. These guys are not just selling cannabis. Um, and so, you know, it too, it did take two and a half years, but, um, I wanna think about the next two. . I love that
[00:22:58]Bryan Fields: I, I think like sometimes we [00:23:00] forget how hard it is to change people’s minds. And of course, like we can talk about the United States and how, um, difficult that has been because people have their own self-interests that are leading to decisions that sometimes don’t represent what the data actually says.
[00:23:11] But I wanna stay with what you said in Columbia about the data side. And I know you said you don’t do the, the cultivation of it. So are you importing the, the cannabis and what’s the status with flour? How does that work? No,
[00:23:21]Alvaro Torress: we had, uh, we have our own cultivation facility. That’s how we started the company.
[00:23:26] It’s a small facility of 80, almost 80,000 square feet of grow. I mean, compared to what Colombians have, there’s 2000 million hectares of cannabis being grown for medical purposes. I think the last three, four months, the decision that we’ve been making also is, well, that’s not the focus of our business.
[00:23:45] So we’ve been winding down a lot of that operation, which also reduces a lot of our cash burn, uh, and talking to third parties here in Colombia. Because I think most people will recognize the in this country, in Latin America [00:24:00] is, uh, potentially very big or one of your largest clients. Um, but you know, we’ve been now winding all of that because I, I think that now that we know what we want to sell, uh, how we put in the, in the hands patients, the production aspect of it, uh, is never necessarily something that interests us.
[00:24:19] I mean, three years ago, Brian, if you, we had talked, I, I would’ve told you that, you know, when we started the company with my partners, we always thought about companies like Danon, you know, the dairy company and how they don’t need any cows, right? But so how do we evolve into that, which is why we never build a very big facility.
[00:24:39] I think it’s about quality control, et cetera. But our European operations showed us that we can do it without touching the plant, and we can grow as long as you know what’s in the product. What do you want in the product, and how do you get doctors to prescribe it? So let’s,
[00:24:55]Bryan Fields: let’s, let’s go to the European assets, cuz I think that’s really fascinating and I, I can’t wait to do it.
[00:24:58] Compare and contrast with the [00:25:00] United States. So what assets does Sky Run have in Europe?
[00:25:03]Alvaro Torress: Well, I think first and foremost people, I know it sounds like a cliche, um, but if you think of a company like Karon, nine months, getting these type of contracts done, and it really does, does take a lot of knowledge about the market.
[00:25:18] Uh, so our team is fully European, which is very important. You have to understand the different types of cultures. Um, and I’ll start with that because I don’t think I, I will be here talking to you without, you know, Franci and Fred and all the rest of the team that we have there. Uh, and I think secondly, now that you understand what the market is, you understand the rules, uh, because these are very regulated markets, you need to understand how it.
[00:25:40] Uh, not without cutting any corners, which is not something that we like to do at all. Uh, and now lately we acquired a distribution company in Germany called the Pharma Drug. And the reason we acquire this because just like in America, data matters, the closer you are to the patients, the more data points you can [00:26:00] collect and all that allows us to come up with a better product.
[00:26:03] Um, and pharma drug has all the data from all the pharmacies that, that we go to, and that allows us to understand what the market is headed, what the price points are, uh, what are the patients looking for. And then with that information you can try to go back and figure out what type of supply you need.
[00:26:21] Um, and then in UK we opened a Senia clinic as well, almost a year ago, a little bit more, because in the UK we see the same challenge. Patients want cannabis, medical, cannabis. There’s not enough doctors prescribing it. So we, what we did is took the model from Colombia. We put in the uk. Uh, it’s all virtual, but that’s become a very important channel for us.
[00:26:44] Uh, but it also allows the patient to have a follow up. The same things we do in Colombia with a different market, and then figure out how the supply chain works through pharma drug, which dispenses the product. So right now we have a very solid European group. Um, it’s very [00:27:00] non-planned touching. We actually don’t cultivate ourselves.
[00:27:03] It’s more about. Access to the patients. So in the UK we could have a clinic. So let’s get a clinic in Germany, we cannot have clinics, but we can have distribution. Let’s go after that and then compile all of that information so we can create a sustainable business. So, uh, we’ve been in Europe for almost more than, no, we started three years ago.
[00:27:22] I don’t think anybody would’ve given me a scent. Uh, what does a Colombian based company have to do in Europe? Uh, now everybody’s, what does a European company have to do in Colombia? . So, , you sort of, uh, I’m gonna have to change my accent to, um, more Spanish or German or , um, to see if we can get that. But, uh, it’s, it’s really interesting the amount of.
[00:27:43] Data that we can collect. Our science officer is in Spain. It’s actually a Spanish citizen. So we can combine the, the Latin American culture with European culture and try to figure out how do we start polishing more information and that allows us to build up very good credibility with the [00:28:00] patients.
[00:28:00] They don’t really mind if you’re selling cannabis in Colombia, Penn, Brazil. But when you’re talking about a company that’s able to generate all this information and science and evidence, that matters a lot. How well do
[00:28:12]Kellan Finney: you think the, the data transfers like country to country and like culture to culture?
[00:28:18] Is it seamless or do you notice like certain differences?
[00:28:22]Alvaro Torress: Well, uh, it started, the beginning of it wasn’t that easy, right? Because. We’re talking, let’s say in the Europe, we’re talking more about flour and Latin America is more oils. Now. We are already selling flour in the, in, in the European market. Uh, which is why we decided to have, let’s call it the consolidation of all these sciences in Spain, uh, with our chief, um, scientific officer.
[00:28:48] Because every country has its own needs of what they need to publish. But we also need to understand that those needs are more important if we can figure out what the [00:29:00] needs of the entire, let’s call worldwide view are. Um, in Columbia, nobody probably cares about flower base used in uk. Right? But if you’re having the conversation regard regarding a adult using Colombia one day, that starts to matter.
[00:29:16] So it seems very seamless now. I mean, we have a centralized data system. Anybody can access it and, and the decision of what type of products. What type of research we’ll start doing comes from Spain, like from our team in Spain, to try to understand what we need. If you look at, for example, in Colombia, the most important part today is pharmacoeconomic studies.
[00:29:40] Let’s show that it’s cheaper, et cetera. And that’s better. That’s a different type of study than what we need in uk, which is more doctors to prescribe. So we need to ha start having more evidence regarding the current use of cannabis and how patients are doing better. Uh, so it’s a very simplest transition now and thankfully Gimo speaks many languages, so [00:30:00] it helps a lot
[00:30:01] Um, and at the beginning it’s just a matter of everybody wants to, everybody always wants to do research, but it has to be something. Applies to the company in terms of how do we create more markets or how do we get governments behind it? There will be a time, Brian, where we’ll be researching new products and u SKUs, but today the game is about with what we have or what’s available, how do we, how do we break those barriers?
[00:30:27] So
[00:30:27]Bryan Fields: just to reiterate, to make sure I understand correctly, when your team goes into a new country, you have to identify the problem that the regulators need and then work backwards with the data in order to prevail a convincing argument specific for that country to help access for a wider group. Did I understand that correctly?
[00:30:43] Yes, Brian.
[00:30:44]Alvaro Torress: I think regulation is the number one priority in cannabis. It’s, I mean,
[00:30:47]Bryan Fields: it’s, it’s quite challenging to understand that you need to identify what the problem is first in order to put the resources behind it to solve the problem that you need to figure out what the problem is.
[00:30:58]Alvaro Torress: But you know, Brad, that’s how we, we [00:31:00] started in, in Europe, you know, three years ago when, when I met Francie and the team and, and she brought the team, uh, everybody was talking about Colombia exporting chip flour to, to Europe.
[00:31:09] And the first conversation we’re having is there’s no way that Colombia can actually do this in the next three years with a quality product that patients want. Right? So what you’re saying is not just about EO gmp, it’s about quality, but patient sees a mold in a product, they’re gonna destroy your Reddit, but it’s also about the shelf life and also how fast the trends in cannabis consumption change.
[00:31:39] When you’re talking about a flower market, it’s not like oils. No one day is go glue. Next day is Hiku, right? So I’m probably using those names wrong, so Please,
[00:31:48]Bryan Fields: you’re right. I like that. That works with me.
[00:31:51]Alvaro Torress: But that’s how we started. Let’s figure out the regulation. , it cannot be Columbia. Where can we source it?
[00:31:56] What type of product can we source? And it does take time. But then you [00:32:00] realize, you know, when you go to market patients, that’s what they want. Um, and I think most of cannabis companies have always been solving for what they can sell, uh, what they can produce. And sometimes e even ourselves, we, we believe our own BS about what do we have that’s so great, but the market is thinking about something else.
[00:32:24] So those companies who are able to solve for that demand, uh, like in the states, you know, it’s plenty of examples, right? But they understand the consumer very well and then they work backwards. It’s just, of course, regulatory wise, it may be a little bit simpler, , but it is this successful companies always have to think about what the patients need, not what they want.
[00:32:45] Cuz otherwise nobody would want, uh, an iPhone have what they came out with it, but what they need. And if you figure that out, then you can have a very successful business. So can you
[00:32:54]Bryan Fields: currently export cannabis from Columbia to
[00:32:57]Alvaro Torress: Europe? There are [00:33:00] companies I understand that have been able to ship flour to Europe right now and to Israel.
[00:33:05] That’s not really, our focus is not to export. And so I I, we, we don’t do it. We export finished product to Brazil and Peru, uh, but not to, uh, not to Europe just because the quality standards are very different and I think there’s plenty better companies that can do that for us. Uh, but there has been, there have been column companies exporting already.
[00:33:27] I don’t know if they have exported finished product or more like raw materials. Um, maybe one day they’ll get there. Um, . I just, that was not really our intention from the get-go.
[00:33:37]Bryan Fields: Sure. And the reason I ask is because as your company continues to expand economies of scale and relying on vendors across your organization are really critical to have sustainable quality control products.
[00:33:47] So that’s why I was wondering is if down the line, if there’s an opportunity to have that scalable feature where you grow in one country and you can kind of export across all your assets
[00:33:55]Alvaro Torress: across the world. Yes. I, I think we, we can and, and uh, what Kai has been able [00:34:00] to do, particularly with this insurance thing in Colombia, like, um, I said it before, but we are recognized as decline to have, and I don’t mean to sound again, um, not to humble, but.
[00:34:13] I, I have, we have invested a lot of time to getting that done. It’s, it’s, it’s
[00:34:16]Bryan Fields: confidence. We, like, we like to call it being confident, , but as you should though, right? You’ve achieved a substantial goal and you’ve changed the minds and, and influenced a big step forward. And you’re the only ones that can claim to have done that.
[00:34:29] So, hey, you should be proud of what you’ve accomplished. So
[00:34:32]Alvaro Torress: I think we, we are, uh, certainly recognized for that. A lot of companies understand the European footprint. Uh, we will be agnostic regarding that as well. Uh, the, the, the, the things that we think about that are also the change in regulatory environment.
[00:34:48] Yeah. Um, I don’t, I don’t know, but I think in five years, uh, cannabis, uh, shipping across the world will probably be a little bit harder I think [00:35:00] every country will want to have its own product and they will probably try to make it more difficult to get product cheaper from outside. And I say, it because I think about Mexico, Brazil, right?
[00:35:12] Uh, now you’re, you’re, you’re hearing about a lot of UK companies who are cultivating the UK and Brexit. And, and so I, I think about things like lead times, for instance. That’s, those are the type of things that we think about. How do we improve lead times? How do we get the product faster from one place to the next?
[00:35:30] What are the customs type of things that we need to make sure that, uh, we don’t have a product problem with? Um, and maybe one data Colombian market will be able to service that. Um, but it, it, there’s a lot of challenges right now to get that good product in the hands of a patient. But of course, everybody here knows that if we keep growing our European business and we can find the right supply chain, no, why don’t we source it in Colombia from a EUGMP facility?
[00:35:57] For sure. . Um, I just [00:36:00] don’t know yet what, how the timeframe for all of these things will be. Um, and God knows, you know it, Mexico one day does come online. there will be a be powerful player to compete with. Well, I’m
[00:36:13]Bryan Fields: gonna have to save my follow up question cuz that is our prediction question for later. So we’ll have to hold that, that question.
[00:36:18] I’m gonna ask you for a, a specific timeline for that. So let’s talk about the perspective on the United States. Obviously the United States has made a ton of noise and likes to put themselves at the center of almost all the conversations. So do you use the US as a reference and how do you evaluate opportunities here in the states and what’s happening?
[00:36:35]Alvaro Torress: Well, I use it as a reference in the sense that, um, you see every state opening avenue for medical like Florida, that you realize like there’s a very big market every. If you can just break those barriers. You also have to realize that Florida has been legal for how many, like it’s not yesterday now. It’s been legal for many, many years.
[00:36:56] Just today. The last three years have been, uh, growing up [00:37:00] more. So I, I also look at it, Sam, but we do some of these things. These are the markets that are gonna be like Floyd that five years ago. That’s, that’s where we are today. Um, so I, I really look at that in terms of the product mix, the, um, the, the, the easiness quote unquote, to get these products, how the taboos have been reduced.
[00:37:21] And I think all of that cascades down and eh, eastwards so that le more and more people are less wary of cannabis because they see the United States as such a big story. On the other hand, of course, you are also realizing that we live in markets, Europe and Latin America that are taking medical cannabis as a true f d A type of.
[00:37:44] Product, which means that the quality standards are way higher than the United States because of course, if one day the F FDA decides to really regulate the CBD industry, God knows how many millions of inventory will have to be dropped off the shelves, right? Because [00:38:00] none of these products are f FDA approved.
[00:38:02] Well, except no, the, the ones that we know of, F px, et cetera. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, so that’s always, sometimes of a challenge because, you know, we talk about gummy bears. Yeah. Gummy bears are amazing. Yeah. But in our countries is a food and there’s regulations for it. But, um, it, it does make the compensation easier with authorities when it comes to, Hey, uh, maybe you should also be able to regulate this.
[00:38:25] Look at what’s happening in California. So, I, I take it that a a lot as an example, but I also think about this. You asked me about the, how cannabis will be shipped worldwide. And I think about the fight that you cannot take cannabis from Florida to California. , uh, even within one country. So I think the challenges of all of these you’re seeing in the states, why would the go of Massa, Massachusetts in the winter allow for cheap Oregon TC to come in and destroy jobs?
[00:38:52] Um, and those type of things. I, I think about when we look at this international supply chain strategy, it, it
[00:38:59]Bryan Fields: turns [00:39:00] out if you are a medical cannabis user and you have a back pain here in New York, when you leave New York, your back pain leaves and you don’t have to worry about that problem anymore because it’s only subject to New York.
[00:39:09] So, uh, turns out that’s a, a singular state problem. So is there conversations about, uh, let’s say synergies with American companies about changing of information and alliance partnerships as the game continues to evolve from a global standpoint?
[00:39:22]Alvaro Torress: Well, you know, in the last four weeks I’ve actually had a lot of conversations and emails just, you know, to begin because, uh, people who are in the business, in the me medical cannabis business understand that what we did with the insurance coverage, Columbia is huge.
[00:39:37] Right? Yeah. And how did you get that done? Um, of course it takes years, but how did you get that done and how can we take that model to the states? I’m not talking about transporting cannabis, talking about the model of data. Yeah. And what type of products and who are the right people to talk to? There’s a lot of advocates for this state wise and why, sorry.
[00:39:58] So it’s been, [00:40:00] um, the last four weeks have been quite busy on that front because, you know, there’s a secret sauce, know this, no, nobody knows what it is, but there’s, these guys got something done. Uh, maybe there’s something that we can take to the United States. We can, you know, for, for the medical market, we can actually get that type of insurance coverage.
[00:40:21] And what insurance coverage also means, means that your competition with the black market stops being so one-sided. Because if you can get patients to get it, the quote unquote for free. , then the price points, eh, worse than everybody’s having in California and Canada may no longer apply. Eh, so this is why I have, I’ve been advocating for, for coverage in Colombia for the last three years because if there’s a contract that can produce cannabis cheap, is this one?
[00:40:53] No , like all day, dear , eh, no winters, no, just, it [00:41:00] rains or it rains less . So that’s, I think what’s been interesting the last four weeks. I do see a lot of synergies in taking that model, uh, because, you know, not us taking the product with, certainly Californians don’t need that. You guys have more excuse than anybody.
[00:41:17] But it could be in the sense of this ip, this knowledge that we’ve developed, maybe we can take it somewhere else on a, on a capital efficient way and get other companies to realize, hey, maybe we can get the to and whoever hits that holy grail. , it’s gonna be very successful. Yeah. In, in
[00:41:37]Bryan Fields: essence, you guys
[00:41:38]Kellan Finney: are just kind of a, a data
[00:41:40]Bryan Fields: company, eh?
[00:41:41]Alvaro Torress: Yeah. Yeah. Well, I’ve always looked at camo of a healthcare company that manages data. Um, oh, I like that, that
[00:41:47]Bryan Fields: sound, that’s got a better sound to it. .
[00:41:51]Alvaro Torress: But cannabis was a very interesting way to start. But if you think about in the future, um, and we don’t believe in traditional medication cause [00:42:00] we’ve seen the damage it does.
[00:42:01] Uh, one day when the country legalizes psychedelics, we can certainly do the same thing. Yeah. Our company is not about growing cannabis or psychedelics or whatever it is. It’s about using that information to change those, the, the, the dogmas of the way that we’ve been for the last a hundred years, been blind to products that make us feel like zombies and are really bad.
[00:42:24] And that create a, a very bad social fabric. I mean, Colombia. Certainly has suffered a lot from that. So, um, I, I hope one day, and I think this transition that we’re making outta cultivation, uh, will continue to impact people that we, we like to manage that. If I can spend most of my day analyzing data with the European team, I would love that.
[00:42:45] Cuz you start finding nuggets of little things that have been working and how can we make that work better? And we’re gonna be forced to do that a lot more, Kevin, because with this new client, when they’re telling us, why don’t you take care of our patient? That means we have [00:43:00] to know more about that patient, that that patient himself or herself Yeah.
[00:43:04] Or themselves. Because we need to sort of anticipate what that patient’s treatment will be. Uh, it’s a very exciting challenge. Uh, so yeah, da data healthcare, one day we won’t be, we will be talking about candidates as just one product. out of many.
[00:43:20]Kellan Finney: Yeah. Cause the data really is just the first piece in personalized medicine as a as a whole.
[00:43:25] So realistically, you have the opportunity to participate in the healthcare industry as a whole.
[00:43:31]Alvaro Torress: Yeah. Yeah. And that’s why I’m so excited about this client, and that’s why it took us nine months. That’s why they did a tender. Nobody really could understand what we’re trying to do, because these guys at Chiron, at Senia is the name of our clinic.
[00:43:43] They’re not trying to sell US cannabis. They’re trying to get us to give them the patients cannabis
[00:43:59] because [00:44:00] they can
[00:44:07] puncture all these other services so that our quality levels are better. And of course, they’re gonna be rewarded for it, but it’s gonna be their problem too. . So when you can be, you can become an insurance company for the insurance company. I think that’s really what for me will be the holy grail. Um, and this n h s patient, we get covered.
[00:44:29] The first one is also, that’s the route I want to make in three years, hopefully less. Uh, but it’s really about taking care of that. If you really have that point in contact with the patient and you quote unquote own that relationship, um, you know you’re gonna be very successful. You can be very sustainable and then you can be more agnostic about what will work later.
[00:44:54] All I know is that I wanna prescribe opiates, if I can’t avoid it. So, but anything else And [00:45:00] science will evolve, I think. Yeah, and canopies will evolve a lot in that know-how as. .
[00:45:05]Bryan Fields: I think it’s a very different strategy than what we do, we usually see here in America. And I’m glad to hear that some of the operators are reaching out for experience.
[00:45:12] Is that a, a cold phone call? Is that an email? Is that a laro, Hey, we got some issues going on, can you help us? And is that executive to executive or is that someone different on the team?
[00:45:20]Alvaro Torress: I would say it’s like, uh, sandwich. Um, I don’t really do many of those. I gotta argue all my team. They understand all the,
[00:45:36] my role is not, um, is not it. Um, they’re certainly more capable people to, than me than to do that. But, um, the way we’ve been able to do this, I mean, this relationship really started at a conference right when we had our, one of our lead doctors. And then you start trying to have those conversations from the bottom up.
[00:45:58] To convince them that we have the right [00:46:00] infrastructure, that they can ask 10,000 questions about our systems. And that’s when you start talking to the rest of the executives, et cetera. Um, so it’s always both sides. I, I can tell you I’m the least guy who actually has to do any of that. Um, because, you know, I don’t really, uh, really speak the language.
[00:46:16] I’m sure my team, uh, is more qualified to do that. But I think the, the language of data gets everybody excited. Uh, because when you’re able to show it, and, and I love when a client comes back and asks 10,000 questions that we don’t know the answer. Because to get to those questions, we have to answer 1 million questions that nobody else could answer.
[00:46:38] So, exactly. And I, and I said to to, you know, I say, we say to the team, the moment, the moment we’re able to answer all the questions correctly, that means we’re asking the wrong questions. Because you always have to be able to think about why are we missing? And, um, you know, we, we work a lot on that. , but it takes time and, and, and it also takes the patience.
[00:46:59] The [00:47:00] patients are really at the center. They’re the ones making the decision. They’re the ones putting the pressure sometimes, and it takes one, 10, a thousand. And when somebody, the decision makers then say, okay, okay, we gotta go with these guys and look at what they can offer. What is one
[00:47:15]Bryan Fields: factor statistic about the global cannabis landscape that most Americans wouldn’t know?
[00:47:21] What is the, what, what is one factor statistic about operating in the global cannabis landscape that most Americans wouldn’t know?
[00:47:29]Alvaro Torress: Oof. That’s a very good question. Um, , eh, let’s see, let’s see. I would say that, um, from our experience, Hmm, that’s a very good question.
[00:47:49] I would guess that, eh, most people would think that. Colombians are pot smokers [00:48:00] because we’ve, we produce so much of it for, uh, one of the things I always get funny question is that when I say, well, we don’t really smoke that much cannabis, like impossible. You guys have sold so much of it. Mexicans don’t either.
[00:48:14] And they say, well, you know, we’ve been selling all this cannabis to you guys for 50 years, , you know, so we really never had a, a local market. Um, I find that people are more very impressed with the fact that the region itself is not very well known for cannabis use. I love that.
[00:48:31]Bryan Fields: Yeah. When you got started in your, in your journey in the cannabis space, what did you get?
[00:48:35] Right, and most importantly, what did you get wrong?
[00:48:39]Alvaro Torress: I think I’ve gotten a lot more wrong. Things are right, but I think the right ones have had tremendous impact. I think the one thing that I got right first is the people that I work with, um, cuz it takes a special type of person. To go every day and try to find a new battle, you know, and, and break that, break that ground.
[00:48:58] Um, the clinic [00:49:00] idea, I think that strategy has been, uh, even to this day, very unique and has made us, you know, where we are today, um, going into Europe for sure. Um, I mean, Europe is now becoming such an important part of our business, uh, but also Iel helps us diversify the risk a lot, and I’m very proud of the work that we’ve been doing there with, you know, few resources.
[00:49:26] So those three I would say, you know, have been okay. Those, those ideas on the bad one, I could put a whole list of, of things that, that we haven’t done well. I would say the number one ever is, uh, at the beginning, particular, you are always more optimistic than realistic about the market and how fast things can be.
[00:49:47] Of course if you had been more realistic, probably you wouldn’t have done it. But I think sometimes, and I am guilty of that as well, you put a lot of optimism in a lot of these ideas. Um, and I [00:50:00] tell you, for example, we launched a very beautiful, uh, thermo cosmetic line about three years ago. That was our first product.
[00:50:08] Um, I’m very proud of that, even though we had shut it down in the pandemic. But then you start realizing how difficult it’s to get the market that you want, you know, the total addressable market faster in your door, how much you have to spend to introduce a new product and, and how little reward you get for it in the short term.
[00:50:29] But that’s also because you’re thinking optimistically, maybe these markets will happen faster. So I think that’s always been a trade since we started, and I think I’m not alone in, in that conversation, uh, but certainly with a little bit more, I wouldn’t say reality, but. And nudge optimism. You could have probably avoided some, you know, some pitfalls, some mistakes that, that you all do.
[00:50:52] I think the important thing now is that we don’t make as much mistakes as we did before. But I, I would say that that’s very personal. [00:51:00] Um, that optimism, that you’re always thinking things that can be faster, that’s gonna be the right market. And even today, I think about, for example, that that line that, oh my god, yeah, if we had launched 2026 would be huge , but not in 2019.
[00:51:17] And it sucks because a lot of effort, a lot of love, a lot of people worked and we built something really unique. The pandemic really hurt us, but maybe that’s also what we needed to realize. Okay, maybe CBD cosmetics is not what people want in the future. Um, now you just don’t realize that it’s not right.
[00:51:34] So I would say that, that, that, that encompasses a whole list of errors and mistakes, but it’s always been that way. But hopefully now less than ever.
[00:51:45]Bryan Fields: That was really well said. All right. Before we do predictions, we ask all of our guests, if you could sum up your experience in a main takeaway or lesson learned to pass onto the next generation, what would it be?
[00:51:56]Alvaro Torress: Oof, . Um, [00:52:00] I guess you’re always gonna be surrounded by more naysayers than naysayers, and I think that’s part of being an entrepreneur. And you always have to be able to discern which of those are real advice and which of those come from a dark place, uh, because you can get very confused by a lot of advice that just is really there to help you.
[00:52:22] But you also have to be able to listen and listen even to those dark forces and try to understand yourself with the company that you have to build, what makes sense and what doesn’t. But you’re always gonna be everyday suggestions and advice. Most of that advice is not necessarily good
[00:52:51] sometimes, but you also have to be able to look at any of that and, you know, build more confidence in yourself and understand you don’t know it All some of these things may be true, [00:53:00] some of the things may not be true. Uh, but just have the confidence to follow your gut. As long as we understand they’re able to get all of these advice and realize that there’s some truth in all of it.
[00:53:12] But you have to force your own path. Cause, uh, as bad you did all these, I did all these qui things. Uh, I also bet on this getting the clinics right and, and getting this insurance. Um, so you, you’re not always wrong all the time. You always write, listen to the advice, be able to take out all the noise, uh, but also get from that noise what matters, and don’t eat up on the negative energy.
[00:53:37] Because that’s just going to consume you all, all every day.
[00:53:41]Bryan Fields: Really Well said. Alright, prediction time.
[00:53:45]Alvaro Torress: Oh, , Alvaro. My hair will grow back again. ,
[00:53:50]Bryan Fields: we already started this one, but this is if, if, when or how does cannabis become a global game?
[00:53:59]Alvaro Torress: Oof. [00:54:00] So I don’t think there’s any doubt about Dave. It will be a global game.
[00:54:06] Um, when I would say not in the next five years, not in the next five years. And how it will be. I think we’re gonna have a very clear medical business and you’re gonna have a very clear adult use business. And the reason we’ve been fighting about all this insurance is because that’s the best way to separate both worlds.
[00:54:34] Um, but I don’t think it’s gonna happen that soon because, eh, we’re, I mean, there’s many drugs even that have been around for 50 years that not approved in, in every country to this day. Um, but the problem with the, the, the issue with cannabis is that we mix a lot of things in that conversation. When a country starts to legalize cannabis, Brian, they always think about cultivation first.
[00:54:59] So that’s why I [00:55:00] talk about these barriers of entry. Um, they never really think about the end demand. Then they realize the end demand is important. But those are two different worlds. Those are two different worlds. Uh, cultivating and, and giving to a patient a very different thing. So I don’t think it’s gonna be that level the next five years, I think it’s gonna be very regional.
[00:55:21] So you’ll have that time. North America, United States, you will see some supply move for sure, but that’s not really where the game is gonna be at. I think it’s gonna be about, you know, more development, more ip, more patience. And I think more and more the more and more grows, maybe some of the countries are gonna be more skeptical about opening it up the doors to everybody else.
[00:55:45] I mean, the United States is 15 countries in one. Right. when it comes to cannabis. Yep. So imagine getting that first and then we can think about globalization. There’s no globalization that happens without the United States for sure. It, it has never [00:56:00] happened. It will in any industry. It will never happen without the United States.
[00:56:03] So we gotta pay attention to that. God, we
[00:56:06]Bryan Fields: are really self-serving. Huh? Kevin ?
[00:56:09]Alvaro Torress: No, no, it’s not that. It’s, I think that the United States, of course, is a massive market. They changes the regulations, the states open up the regulations everywhere. Yes. The moment the cannabis is no longer, if you ever say back passes, ever, the re repercussions for the rest of the world are huge in terms of banking access.
[00:56:31] Uh, you know, the, the way that we can finance us, these projects, uh, how I can go to the bank and make sure they don’t close my own personal bank account, right? So it’s not just about the, uh, the product side. It’s about everything that makes the United States so powerful in the global scene. There’s no United Nations, uh, the schedule of cannabis without United States look at, even Germany is talking about legalization, but they still have to [00:57:00] go to the European Union.
[00:57:01] The United Nation still categorizes cannabis as a scheduled one drug. But, so I think the United States has to lead that example. And then from a supply chain side, of course, the massive market. Uh, but then. United States can export a lot of that, know-how in product development they have. United States have more know-how than anybody in the world regarding product, uh, use for sure.
[00:57:24] But that cannot be exported right now. So I think that’s, you know, I, I don’t mean to say in a bad way. I, uh, I, I was born in United States by the way. So, um, I just think that in any part of the world, globalization is always being led by United States and this one has to be led as well. And meanwhile, I will, you know, we will keep owning these two markets and when that opens up, then, you know, we’ll, we’ll say hi from a, from the same high level distance.
[00:57:53] Yes.
[00:57:53]Bryan Fields: I wanted to make sure to take the shot at the United States cuz they are frustrating me. So, ke uh, do you wanna take a, do
[00:57:59]Kellan Finney: you wanna take a swing? [00:58:00] I mean, Alro I think kind of touched on all the main points and I don’t think it’s gonna be anytime quick. I think that maybe in the next 10 years you’ll see.
[00:58:08] A global market that’s similar to what’s going on in the US right now. Right. You’ll see certain countries, right, like Portugal or or other, more progressive countries, will have a full adult used market. It’ll be very robust, like a, a California, if you will. And then you’re gonna have certain countries that are like, uh, a West Virginia where there is absolutely no cannabis.
[00:58:29] Right. You can’t get it. It’s, it’s hard. Right. Like the Texas medical program as well. Right. Very challenging. Um, and I think that needs to play out globally and that’s probably gonna take 10 years. Um, and then in 20 years, I think in 20 years it’ll be a lot more destigmatized. I think that, I don’t think, I don’t even think 20 years is enough time to say that it’ll be comparable to, to how alcohol is treated globally, maybe 50 years.
[00:58:57] I would say like we need a couple more [00:59:00] generations to go through to actually treat cannabis on the same platform as, as alcohol. But uh, yeah, I think at the end of the day, the only catalyst is globally is gonna have to be from the US rescheduling it. What do you think?
[00:59:14]Alvaro Torress: Go ahead, ALO. I agree with everything you’re saying.
[00:59:17] I was saying to, um, I always call up with this example when they ask me, Ima, I love movies, American movies in particular. I’m a movie file. And if you, you, have you seen the movie Smokey and The Bandit, right? Mm-hmm. . Okay, so the entire, that’s 1977. The entire premise of that movie is to bring alcohol from one state to the next, right?
[00:59:38] And this is after 60 something years of alcohol being legalized and the entire premise you’re being chased across state lines cuz you’re bootleg, you’re trying to bring, uh, illegal alcohol. And so you think about that like, An industry that strong. And if you think about globalization of the alcohol industry, it’s called beer.
[00:59:58] It really only started 15 [01:00:00] years ago, right? But Budweiser is now part of Aian company, but before that, there was no big conglomerates. Every beer was in its own region. So even that, when we try to accelerate, I think the problem with cannabis, you say, Kelly, is that we, we want to accelerate a business process that takes decades in the making.
[01:00:22] And we want to accelerate into two because, oh, the, the alcohol companies are now getting it together. Yeah. But they were like, they were not like that in 1995. No, no. So you had Stellar, you had Budweiser, you had Sam Miller, and you had Bra Brazil. It took a couple of guys from Brazil to really do it 15 years ago, and we wanted it all to happen in cannabis tomorrow.
[01:00:47] Um, I think that is probably, when I talk about optimism and reality, you have to really think about those examples cuz it, it doesn’t happen that.
[01:00:57]Bryan Fields: No. And as we’ve seen in New York, [01:01:00] things take a lot of time and hopefully in 20 years the market has finally opened up. Right. How you like that ke? Yeah, I like that.
[01:01:07] I think the most important thing to remember is that like, exactly like you said, that it’s not gonna take two decades. It’s going to take a ton, a ton of decades in order to get down the walls of prohibition and to get the inter, inter global supply chain set up. United States right now has fragmented markets from state by state, and we need to get our act together first before we can look to the other aspects of the globe and make good decisions.
[01:01:29] Because right now we gotta, uh, got us problem and we really need to get that together. But I think one of the areas that it most excites me of are, is that the data aspect of your team is bringing together, because that is what’s focused here in the United States is missing, I think is more, uh, focused on data to change decisions because we need to start having data-based decisions to help people make better decisions.
[01:01:48] And I think what your team’s doing will really make a big ca case way and hopefully that change some of the lawmakers here in America.
[01:01:54]Alvaro Torress: Thank you Brian. Yes. That’s the plan. That’s the plan.
[01:01:57]Bryan Fields: So Avaro our listeners, they want to get in touch, they [01:02:00] wanna learn more about Chiron and they wanna read some of the data.
[01:02:02] Where can they find ya?
[01:02:03]Alvaro Torress: So, oh, I mean, myself personally, I’m always available LinkedIn, uh, the company investors.ca, chiron.ca. Um, and yeah, no, I think I use my LinkedIn account very often, uh, to transmit a lot of these things that we do. It’s mostly always a shout to my teams. That’s the most important part of our company.
[01:02:24] Um, but certainly a lot of these conversations that the United States have been going through LinkedIn, um, I’m very active there. Um, just try to understand and try to tell everybody how great a work we do takes time to. Uh, but if you look at the latest, you see all the posts that we made on, on how big a deal this is for the Colombian News media.
[01:02:45] Um, I don’t think, you know, since CNN did Sam, subject Gupta, sorry, his name Gupta. Many years ago they barely put out something on can. But here it’s every day there’s news about it and that’s very exciting. Yeah,
[01:02:59]Bryan Fields: that’s really [01:03:00] exciting. We’ll link it all in the show notes. Thanks for taking the
[01:03:02]Alvaro Torress: time. Thank you, Brian.
[01:03:03] Appreciate it. Kevin. Thank you so much. Appreciate it.
