Enjoy quality cannabis locally.
Socrates Rosenfeld is the Co-Founder and CEO of Jane Technologies, Inc.
Jane believes in the cannabis industry's ability to bring well-being, health, and love into this world, and it is their mission to bring confidence to the cannabis shopping experience. Jane's team are committed to connecting the cannabis consumer to quality local products from neighborhood dispensaries.
Learn more about how Jane Technologies brings quality products to the cannabis consumer by listening to this episode of The Thoughtful Entrepreneur above and don’t forget to subscribe on Apple Podcasts – Stitcher – Spotify –Google Play –Castbox – TuneIn – RSS.
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0:00
Welcome to The Thoughtful Entrepreneur Show. I'm Josh Elledge, founder and CEO of UpMyInfluence.com. We turn entrepreneurs into media celebrities, grow their authority, and help them build partnerships with top influencers. We believe that every person has a unique message that can positively impact the world. stick around to the end of the show, where I'll reveal how you can be our next guest on one of the fastest growing daily inspiration podcasts on the planet in 15 to 20 minutes. Let's go. On with us right now is Socrates Rosenfeld. Socrates, you are the Co-Founder and CEO of IheartJane.com. Thank you so much for joining us. Thanks for having me, Josh. really a pleasure. Okay, well, Socrates. So for those who do not know explain what IheartJane is
0:54
so really IheartJane for the consumer makes shopping for K Cannabis as simple and as straightforward is pretty much shopping online for anything else in this world. You can log on share your location and then conduct a search as broad or as specific as you want. If it's a specific exact product that you're looking for, we can locate that for you at a nearby dispensary, or if it's something broad like sleep or gluten free we can also locate and tag those products. And what it allows you to do is compare by price read reviews from actual consumers and then place an order hopefully with as much confidence as you would buying a plane ticket or any any other item online like Amazon.
1:37
So one the first thing that I noticed when when I go to the website is this isn't some cheesy, you know what you might think of a dispensary website. This is a great e commerce experience. It's It's It's pretty much like I'm at Amazon is what I'm experiencing. And one thing that I think you'll see very clearly is When you search for, like, say nearby locations, I'm blown away by the number of reviews that that you have on here. So clearly you're doing some pretty decent volume, but I'm a little uncertain as to exactly how this model works. So are you when you partner with the dispensary? Are you somehow keeping tabs with what their inventory is?
2:24
It's a great question. Um, the problem that has plagued this industry for quite some time, when we were studying it was the fact that you know, you have a single retail store and on average here in the US, a retail store will carry about 500 skews on their store shelf. On top of that 15% of those skews will change over day today. So there's a significantly higher volume and turnover of inventory at these countries. And so, as a consumer, you know, before we launched, you would Go on to a dispensary website or perhaps other marketplaces, find the product that you want only to realize that after placing the order driving to the dispensary, waiting in line and getting there that that product actually is no longer there. And so we have some very sophisticated software, we have some wonderfully bright engineers out of MIT, who are Systems Integration specialists. And actually, we have invented a way for us to automate ecommerce for these dispensaries by plugging directly into their inventory management system. And so wow is for the dispensary and the retailer. Every single product that's that's sitting on their store shelf or in their delivery depot is now being automatically and in real time being represented on their e commerce platform. And now for consumers. They can shop with confidence to know that every single product that they're looking for and ordering is actually will be delivered to them or is waiting for them at that specific dispensary in their neighborhood.
3:58
So how do you integrate with I mean, I guess I don't agree. I don't know how many inventory systems there are out there. But how do you do that part of it?
4:05
Yeah, there. It's a complex problem. And something that, you know, we take full advantage of because it's, it's it's, you know, plagued this industry really, since the onset of the legal market. There are over 50 point of sale systems, to our knowledge in the US industry alone. And what that means, and we integrate with all of them, and we've proven that, but essentially, the problem is to Josh is, it's one thing to just technically integrate, right from software, meaning can my software speak to your software, can Jane speak to that point of sale system, but down one of the other pieces, you know, for instance, you could have a single product that's being sold at two separate dispensaries, and that exact same product could be represented very differently in the backend systems that could be abbreviated that could be misspelled, so on and so forth. We have some very sophisticated Matching algorithms that will take these disparate ways the skews are named standardize that and so that now you know that this is actually that strain or that cartridge, that specific skew. That's really the nuts and bolts of it. And that's something that we do very, very well.
5:17
Wow. Alright, so right now, when did you launch? And how did you? First off? I guess we didn't really go into your background. So your former Army, I'm a former Navy and, and so thank you so much for your for your service. And from there, you actually went to MIT. And then you continued on with McKinsey and Company. And now you're in the cannabis industry. And again, I think that there's it's really interesting when I think you look at the perception that perception is changing and I have it's inevitable is that you know, the standards are are absolutely going Improve the the user experience is absolutely going to improve. And so it's kind of, you know, I kind of look at your background. And, you know, it's probably unfair, but it seems like you're, you're kind of bringing, you know, maybe a little bit of a different sort of credit, not credibility, but you know, a different sort of background into this space than you might think that's just some, you know, hippie burnout that just opened up a dispensary, which is, you know, from, we have plenty clients in this space is really not the case. But but I think it's going to be really interesting to watch, the evolution is already taking place. And as particularly, I think, specifically over the next five to 10 years, this is a major, major economic industry here.
6:44
Right. And I think, you know, we tend to get very excited about the economics and that's a it's I mean, it's going to be enormous it already is, and we know that we're just in the early, early onset of this legal market, not just here in the US, but a global push Which is very, very exciting. You know, I family in Southeast Asia and there's conversations in Thailand and Malaysia of things getting legalized, which is you would never, you know, 10 years ago never even think of that. But perhaps what I'm most excited about and kind of tying this back to my own personal background, is that cannabis for me, you know, once I started to develop a real passion for this plant, I realized that it just it's one of the very few things that can tie different kinds of people and cultures, demographics together, right? Republicans, Democrats, young, old military veterans, quote unquote hippies, I tend to maybe straddle both of those worlds now. Athletes it, it really permeates and transcends everyone. And that's a really powerful thing. And I don't think many industries other than perhaps food, like everybody has to eat food and enjoy it, everybody. Listen. Music and enjoys it. And in my opinion, more and more people are turning to cannabis and finding relief and wellness and well being in it, no matter where you grew up what language you speak, whether you serve in the military or not, and that's I'm, I'm just one person in a sea of millions who consume cannabis. And, you know, I feel very blessed that I have a little bit of a stage to share my own personal experience and hopefully that resonates with others, you know, whether they're military veterans or not.
8:28
Yeah. So, I guess one thing that we encounter quite a bit, you know, especially when we're kind of on the PR side of things are the branding side of things is that there's, there's definitely, I think, a cultural acceptance that's happening, but there's still a lot of people who I think just because of the background of it being perceived as only a recreational outlet for you know, someone that might be considered undesirable in their eyes. You know, again, I think that that's changing. But what else do you think needs to happen? for continued except as a guy? Again, I think legalization as that continues to move across the country, I think is going to be a big part of that. Anything else?
9:16
Yeah, I think I think obviously, there's there's the political side to things and obviously, and we know, it's a matter of if not if anymore, it's a matter of when. And I have to think that, you know, our leaders in government will listen to the citizens of this country and realize that this is something that the citizens want and hopefully can create smart consensus around around really good regulation. I think though, at the end of the day, no matter what the regulation is, it's still the people right now that you've tried cannabis and find wellness and well being in it, or you haven't and so, the, I guess my recommendation is, if you've tried cannabis, share your story. Even even if it's not something that you choose to continue to consume, but really sharing the truth behind it, oh, you know, this is why I use it. I don't use it to get high I use it for arthritis, I use it for you know, my, my pet, I use it to help me go to sleep, whatever that is sharing and humanizing the experience and not letting the you know this, this Hollywood public perception of quote unquote stoner kind of take over. Because that's not true. We are people that consume cannabis for thousands of different reasons. And then I think if you haven't consumed cannabis for yourself, not that you know, I'm telling you to try it. It's speaking to those that have speak to the military veteran who was on a dozen opiates and now he's writing in cannabis and feels a whole lot better speak to the parent who you know, had a child with seizures and now can find that a teacher can solve most of that or at least address you know the discomfort talk to people with terminally terminal illnesses that are finding relief. We need to just stop hiding behind regulation or dogma and start talking to actual people whether or not again this is cannabis is right for you are not I think we need to understand why people are consuming this. Why is this growing so much in in momentum and public sentiment? And then I think when we start asking these questions will start uncovering the truth and I think that's the most important thing.
11:33
Yeah, well said Well said. So moving forward for I heart Jane then. I mean, it's it's you built up a pretty big network about how many dispensaries are connected right now.
11:44
We're close to 900 dispensaries across the country.
11:49
That's some pretty good penetration. And so obviously, I think, as more states light up and I didn't mean that intentionally. I'm Light up as in, come on line and now there's there'll be a new crop of dispensaries available. I mean, I guess the idea is, you know, you have such great penetration right now, kind of becoming that that one stop shop to be able to search across all the local dispensaries for somebody. That's that's quite I mean that's really helpful.
12:20
Yeah. And that's our mission Josh is is you know, when you go on grub hub, you know, you have full faith that they have a lot of the restaurants in your area, when you go on Netflix, you trust that that that that Netflix has every documentary you want it, we go on Amazon, they've done a very good job to convince you that any retail product under the sun is on that website. This is what we're trying to provide for the at least here in the United States is there are we have nearly 200,000 distinct skews on our marketplace. They treat people differently and they serve people differently. We want to provide that power of choice and selection and variety for for the cannabis consumers. Here in this country, and the only way we can do that is to continue to bring value and partner with these dispensaries or across all these legal legal states.
13:10
Yeah. So how many states are you? I mean between between medical and recreation how many states are you in?
13:20
We're in active right now. 24 states and that number is growing every week.
13:26
Yep. Yeah, it is. Awesome. Well, Socrates Rosenfeld, thank you so much for joining us again. You're the Co-Founder and CEO of Iheartjane.com. Thank you so much for joining us. Thanks so much, Josh. This is this has been great.
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