HIGHERORBIT
Recorded in the back of a legal retail Cannabis dispensary . Sean & Charlie Kady - owners, explore the Canadian cannabis market with Industry leaders, master growers, product innovators and experts in hash, extracts, beverages and a whole lot of weed.
HIGHERORBIT
Shhhh, We're Thinking Out Here!
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Join us as we explore the mind of Greg Pantelic, the trailblazer behind 'AhLot,' a revolutionary cannabis company that entered the market without a license. Discover the story behind their 5x1 gram sample pack and the importance of curation in their brand. Dive into the complexities of launching multi-strain cannabis products and the role of blind strain evaluations.
Learn about inspiring success in the cannabis industry, explore Greg's latest venture, Thinker, and its innovative strategies, What is a Thinker customer? What's on and what's off?
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A Lot Subscription Service Origins
Speaker 1Hi, I'm Sean and I'm Charlie, and this is Higher Orbit how to do the second coffee. It's been a busy night. We're here back to back episodes, back in the studio, back at the shop 821 Queen Street West, with a very special guest today. Actually, charlie, I'm going to let you do the introduction. I feel, like you got teed up nicely. Good morning guys. Today I'm very happy to introduce a good friend of ours, greg Pintelich.
Speaker 2Yay, Pintelich, you put the each, you put the serve on us.
Speaker 1Yeah, a lot Thinker, been a huge time supporter and you know we've kind of known you for a while, got to know you. Yeah, he's been like, and like a day one supporter at Cosmic Charlie 100%. We've dated several times and been very successful, kind of doing that.
Speaker 2So thanks for coming in, man.
Speaker 1It's really nice to have like a known friend on the show. You know it makes this so much easier.
Speaker 2Yeah, no, 100%. Thanks for having me. Obviously big fan you guys. We actually met in my apartment very first time, that's right.
Speaker 1We were right Polariously.
Speaker 2Doing a delivery to the crib. Oh shit, I strayed hustle. I do remember that. I do remember that I got a flat tire on the way back. I remember I was beat.
Speaker 1I was cheese, but it turned out to be a beautiful relationship. Yeah, I remember the order came in as I looked in my email and I was like Charlie, somebody like ordered all of our lots.
Speaker 2We probably needed them for samples or like, for whatever.
Speaker 1I think you were blessing up your whole team. I think that's what you told me. You were like I'm buying them and giving them the whole team.
Speaker 2I think we all went whenever we launch a product. We always try to give everyone for the little wall of fame. I remember that. I remember that was a fire pack, the Missica I was going to say who was in that? There was a couple.
Speaker 1There was the Aquiletus.
Speaker 2How did you use to?
Speaker 1curate those. Yeah, coming back, I guess. Well, yeah, where did a lot start and how did that idea come to fruition?
Speaker 2I guess, Craig yeah, I'll start with a lot and get into the curation because that was one of my favorite products. I was like the a lot coast to coast. Yes, that was one I always wanted to bring to market.
Speaker 1I actually wanted to do it first at Lea Lea, and it's trailblazer, though. Right, I like to get the different.
Speaker 2Yeah, yeah, I always had a super productive relationship with weed and where that started back in high school when it was weed not just cannabis, as we discussed earlier but I'd always smoke and write down my high thoughts in my MacBook and in the notes page. The first thing I ever wrote down in that notes page was a higher level of thought, and that stood for that ended up being the acronym for HLOT, for a lot. Wow. I didn't know that. All the business plans multiple, like you know, the entire, a lot of business plan is pretty much like in there and a whole bunch of other interesting things, marketing ideas, which I'm sure we'll get into at some point on the on the pod but but yeah, like a lot really started, you know, come 2015,.
Speaker 22016 always been a fan of weed, I always had that productive relationship with it and always been in kind of like marketing and branding as well. And for me, when I saw the opportunity back in call 2015, there was rumblings of legalization at that point Like, hey, this is. There's an opportunity here for like strengths and passions to combine weed and marketing right, and we always want to create a beautiful experience around weed. That was always something that we felt was was missing in the market and back then there were very few players there's obviously a few doing it early in the medical game but, you know, kind of with an eye to wreck, there were very few, very few players like on that and really focused on brand, which is actually something that stood through from a lot, as we as we began transition more into the focus on thinker.
Speaker 2I wouldn't even say transition, just focus.
Speaker 1I like that.
Speaker 2I like that you have to focus right and when you're small you got to pick what you get. Sometimes you got to make the hard decision to pick one to focus on until that has enough legs to kind of run on zone and then you can choose the name after that. Yeah, but yeah, a lot, you know we, we, we looked at it, we looked at you know that's that story is. I mean, that story is pretty, pretty wild. But we were the. We were the first company to especially a legalization to get to market without actually being a license holder ourselves.
Speaker 2That was probably one of the most like interesting innovations that we did and brought to this industry early on. I didn't know that. Yeah, so like the first pack, I don't know it was before, I think, even Cosme Charlie's existence, but probably five by one gram.
Speaker 1We call it a first form of weed.
Speaker 2Yeah, five by one gram whole flower.
Speaker 1I remember that product. Yeah, I do remember that. Yeah, it came in little containers and a little like cryo backed thing like a plastic around a bubble wrap, to kind of right. It was like a little cardboard and like little things in it.
Speaker 2Yeah, Five like one gram samples. Yeah, it really was. And we saw the market. We saw there was this beautiful experience, the, the, the just taking it back, but the. The original concept for a lot was supposed to be subscription service. Two strains of weed. Send that out to you.
Speaker 1It hasn't still been done yet. That's like a monthly package and then like and then people get their little box monthly and they don't need to go to the store. They just, they just count on you for picking the fire. Premium Cosmo fast holder.
Speaker 2They bought a purple card, purple purple label. Ironically is a lot of color.
Speaker 1Yeah, that is a color that we share, that is true. Yeah, it's a common bond.
Speaker 2We actually didn't call it purple, it was. That's actually our swear jar. We called it ultra violet.
Speaker 1It looks like it was the pan tone. I think it was like three years. It reminds me of an aubergine, almost to like an eggplantie kind of. I mean I remember that Like. I mean that was like you know, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2So we could, we, yeah, so we, we. This was in 2016. We had this landing page up for the, for the, for a lot and for the subscription service and we were growing people. People were signing up to that at a rate of like 40% week over week, so it was like pretty rapid growth. I was still operating my tech company at the time and you know, but then, like the passions and everything, I was like, hey, this is, this is a real traction, People really want this. There's something interesting happens happening. You know, kind of follow your heart, follow your mind and and, and I left that business in January 1 of 2017 to do a lot, like just full time, full time.
Speaker 2Yeah, and then from there you know again, weren't the license holders? But we're able to do licensing deals with people to bring our products to market in a compliant.
Speaker 1I had a thought about that. I was like how scary was that making that jump to like be, like I'm going to do this full time Cause I remember like having that feeling as an entrepreneur with Charlie like we both had jobs before like are we doing this, and then you, like, you know you have your foot half out the door. You're kind of going through the motions cause you need that income, but your passion lies in.
Speaker 2You know where your passion lies, right, you know what was that experience like and like yeah, and you know I had already made the leap to entrepreneurship about three and a half, four years before, right? So I kind of graduated from business school. I was still working corporately, but I was. I was actually throughout business school. That's really when my entrepreneurship mind started firing again, got it, and I was like like I got it, I got to do this.
Speaker 2You know, I tried to innovate corporate, like in the corporate environment. There weren't always receptive to that and I was like, hey, you know what, like I believe in myself, I believe maybe it's that like Eastern European work ethic or whatever. It was like, hey, if you put in the work, you're going to get the results at some point. Right. So I believed in that with myself and made that leap entrepreneurially. But then leaving that business for Canvas, it really was just like a. It was just be honest with your heart and I think, as an entrepreneur, that's where some people are in it for different reasons. Right. For me, I think ultimately it is follower. I got to be passionate, I got to love what I do.
Speaker 1And I love this business.
Speaker 2And what I know about this business and why I love it seven, seven years in whatever it is. I joke about this, but I don't cheat on this business Like I. I'm fully focused on this business. I love this business.
Speaker 1I love that man, I love weed. Great answer, dude. No, totally.
Speaker 2That's where my heart lies.
Speaker 1You know, yeah, Craig's been a huge yeah, I mean, I feel like even for me and doing the entrepreneurship he's always got me marching on that's what I said. I had to ask him with that question because I felt like, um, I just, I just, I just, I just I love inspiring others and anybody that's listening and you're thinking about betting on yourself. Just do it. Yeah, man, you'll feel so good. It's, it's so confident. It's such a great confidence builder and and just so great for your personal growth.
Speaker 2So, um, I know, it's tough, it's really tough, yeah, it is tough.
Speaker 1I never. I'm not going to say it's going to be easy, but it is very satisfying and so fulfilling, Wouldn't you say? Right guys?
Speaker 2Yeah, you got it. You got to know what you're signing up for. You got yeah, and and there's, I mean there's, there's a million reasons to say no.
Speaker 1Ups and downs, peaks and valleys will say yeah, peaks and valleys.
Speaker 2But I think if you there's and you just have to be honest with yourself as an entrepreneur, do you have something real or not? And are you growing that and are you growing it profitable? You know, are you, are you building up actually real business?
Speaker 1And you evolving like I think, if somebody I can say it your brand has evolved so much, right like from the a lot days to where you guys are now like and what kind of what kind of helped you transition to, like the whole thought on the on-off thinker thing.
Speaker 2Yeah, so a lot, when you know, as I said before, you know five, five one gram Sample packs, like a lot exists to help people discover new products and brands. We did that through our sample packs, through our multi packs, the only, I pretty sure, still to this date, the only like multi LP, multi packs in the game. Yeah, do you?
Speaker 1remember what was in there.
Speaker 2Yeah, I could. I could pretty much tell you all of them oh wow four or five different packs, the first one for the first product. It was called the Discovery series volume one. Man, I hope I remember these. We had Seven acres. Yes, I haven't even street blueberry kush.
Speaker 1Okay, we had Saturday, the Saturday.
Speaker 2I think was like a dope brand. It was like hey, like just there's no around.
Speaker 1They're still around. I think they're trying to come back a little bit.
Speaker 2I had them and as kind of like our lower, lower THC, like Discovery type product. We also had Edison. I'm gonna forget the cultivar.
Speaker 1No worries, I'm, I have five. I think you're at four. I think you're at four. There's one missing, that's okay. No, no, edison.
Speaker 2Edison, seven acres, seven acres, even street, saturday.
Speaker 1Saturday, it's gonna come to you, it's gonna come we'll come back to that.
Speaker 2players in the game yeah, and we'll look it up.
Speaker 1I'm gonna have Carly Look it up. We'll come back, I'm afraid you didn't have Carmella, did you?
Speaker 2we had Carmella in a later pack.
Speaker 1I debuted.
Speaker 2Carmel, I think it was our high THC.
Speaker 1Oh yeah, before.
Speaker 2Carmel was on market. They were in our. They were in our pack.
Speaker 1Oh no, I drew dark helmet.
Speaker 2Yeah, the Jews are we just had drew on the show actually.
Speaker 1And that's like his legendary strain. Yeah yeah, and their new ones drop on Thursday. I don't know if you know about that. Yeah, yeah, I checked them out, like the case s'mores and the ozzy kush cake, I think, or whatever, but we love those guys.
Speaker 2I don't know what it was right along in in Alberta With just last week with their sales rep. Yeah, so it was pretty cool. I yeah heard that happened.
Speaker 1It was out like a.
Speaker 2We're, we're we're all together. Yeah, we were all, we were together. So yeah, it's just it's, it's, it's all was a business meets pleasure trip.
Speaker 1That's always fun. I know it was like it was like a business. I hear you, but you know, yeah, yeah, you're fine, the homies can hang out right.
Speaker 2Chaperone. Well, we were in the car all like three days, but oh, I don't know if you'll you get to shower.
Speaker 1The thinker brand is expanding the thinker brand yeah.
Speaker 2Yeah, yeah we're in Alberta, we're in, we're in Manitoba as well. Manitoba was really good. I was telling, telling us earlier, but yeah, manitoba was super cool. Lots of really like how they're innovating from a from a retail perspective and I think just like what, what that innovation of being able to sell other products in your cannabis stores is doing a normalized weed, you know, in society, go great, I could pick up, pick up some bananas, pick up my groceries and then pick up some weed, like that's nice, that's convenient and it's far less. You know it's very successful.
Speaker 2That's what I was threatening or like imposing they have like the one-stop-shop model.
Speaker 1You were saying yeah, so you can go to one location, get like yeah, you said a bunch of bananas.
Speaker 2Maybe like a piece of beer.
Speaker 1Yeah you know, some bread and then you get your butter, and then you get your weed too, yeah, so why not? And I think they have a pharmacy to right and get everything.
Speaker 2That'd be the whole issue like nicotine, like you could make it.
Speaker 1You can't buy nicotine where you get, where you get at a pharmacy. That's just like an oxy. I'm trying Second coffee but yeah, well, that's, that's really cool.
Starting Cannabis Business and Creating Thinker
Speaker 2Yeah, yeah, that's yeah, that that store in particular, ash Ash down market. I think that was a really cool, really cool shop out there. Marley's the the owner, entrepreneur there. I think she's doing a really great job. But yeah, you know, in terms of a lot and in transitioning over to thinker, you know it was we. So we brought four or five of these packs, like I said, worked with a bunch of different brands, brought a bunch bought, brought a bunch of different brands to market and I think through that, you know, we we essentially were able to we saw how difficult of a product that is to bring to market. As you guys probably know, right in this industry, you know when you're working with three different players, when we're working with five different players, Getting everybody to meet their deadlines can be difficult, the more of the more parties you add.
Speaker 2I know I was collaborating is great.
Speaker 1I think, the more parties you add to, the collaboration just becomes a little bit more difficult, right it's extremely difficult to bring a multi-strain pack to market. I'm regularly let alone like from three different.
Speaker 2LPs, let alone being on there at that time.
Speaker 2from a QA perspective, yeah, I think one of the things to and you know I don't know if we're all will get into it, but you know there's a lot of scrutiny around testing you know we might agree to, hey, we're putting out a high-tech CPAC. This at the time it was like 20 plus, had to be 20 plus. Right now it's like what, 27 or whatever plus pretty much you know I 20, I guess right, yeah, we get COAs in like the sick, like the lab results Coming in like 26 when I cool banger, we'd have to retest it after it was milled down and so close came in at 13. So it's oh no. So we have to make sure that they brought us back and they're met the test requirements and all that.
Speaker 1But what the different players with the different players.
Speaker 2We would curate, we'd blind evaluate. Strange, just so you guys know. I know you guys had tomorrow guest hosting. She was one of our Members, interesting, yeah, but maybe we can go into the history of that too. But you know she that's right. Did one you tell ever do that with you?
Speaker 2He was a guest, he was a guest, yeah, Because when, when COVID hit, we were like, how can we get back? And what we did was we actually opened up a spot on the curation committee, a guest spot every month, good job, and you'd have. And we were like, but tenders are getting laid off. A lot of people were losing their jobs. We're like, hey, well, I have. But tenders who are like front lines of this industry, blind evaluate strains.
Speaker 1It's a great experience for them too, and something they can put on their resume right.
Speaker 2Yeah, that's really dope, yeah, that's an awesome job. You know that when you say that like that shows that to me is one of the like more heartfelt, sincere, like touching moments in the industry is when I see that or people come up and say, hey, that that experience changed my life. There you go, like parlayed that into rep jobs, like to if they, if they're like whatever their passion was, they parlayed that experience Into, into, you know, progressing their career forward in the industry. So I was like man, that's really cool. I've seen that with a couple people. One of the people that was part of that, ben Markham, who we hired there you go the podcast big, big, big fan of the podcast, big supporter.
Speaker 1So shout out to buddy listening.
Speaker 2Yeah, good to, and we met back in like when he was working Prelegalization out of dispensary.
Speaker 1Yeah, he worked out a funny story like let's be honest, he worked at our competitor right across the street, so that's funny.
Speaker 2He was like this bow. Yeah, yeah, no, he is.
Speaker 1Yeah, he was a civilian and crush it there, and that's how we originally met him. Yeah, yeah, yeah, he's for you guys.
Speaker 2Yeah, and in store we were doing the star activation. I think he was at the neighborhood joy at the time and you know I just I, we just had a really good rapport and I was like man, this guy ever hits the market like I want to. I like talent, I like meeting good people in the industry and hardworking people in the industry and easy is a really great talent.
Speaker 1Yeah, I also think how beautiful that's also like one of the biggest joys I think about being a boss sometimes is like watching people level up and grow and I was something very satisfying in that and being able to scout talent and yeah, I recognize when people are really good at what they do and, yeah, hard workers and yeah, I'm putting that. Yeah, extra energy. There you go, charlie boomer. Yeah, when they go to the show, it's great. Um, yeah, uh, yeah, yeah, maybe we'll grind up something. We're gonna take a quick smoke break soon. Um, any other things? You want to wrap up the history of a lot before we get into the next segment?
Speaker 2Yeah, let me just, let me just get into a couple more minutes. Yeah it was really difficult to bring those a lot multi-packed products to market Um you had several several.
Speaker 1We did four or five times I think.
Speaker 2We were brought, you know, close to 20 brands uh, uh, to market. We're like, hey, we're really good at this bring products to market thing, we're really good at marketing uh, period, Uh. And we said, hey, you know what we're helping it's, it's challenging product, Certain things in our supply chain, uh, which I'd love to share with you guys at some point too, just like our, our sister company, uh, our co-packing business.
Speaker 1I've been interested about that, which does?
Speaker 2you know, which is which is a great thing, not only for our brain and product side of the business, but just for our business and for, I think honestly, for the industry overall. Um, it's a really, it's a really great thing. Um, but, you know, our supply chain improved where it was to the point where we were able to bring our own product to market, and we were, you know, we had brought brands to market, we had helped, you know, establish them or grow their brand equity value, but we weren't necessarily participating in there, in our own.
Speaker 2So we saw that opportunity. Um, and you know again, to build a business, it's one thing. To build a business in the industry, it's another thing to like. If you're going to build a business, it has to be sustainable. In order for it to be sustainable, it's got to be profitable.
Speaker 1It's so hard to work with so many people and have your own slice of that pie. Yeah, and a lot a lot.
Speaker 2If it's going to do its job of helping people discover other products and brands, it's got to be neutral. It can't have its own. You know it's. It's got to be. It's got to be.
Speaker 1You're helping out their seedlings.
Speaker 2Grow yeah, so you know, with that a lot, with that a higher level of thought, um, and I think, going back to the original kind of vision of what a lot could have been, um, thinker, thinker's our brainchild. Thinker's, the brainchild of a lot, thinker was born from that, um, you know it's the thought of, you know it's the thinker, the thinker in the thought. So you know, for us it's still filling that gap of. You know a lot's original vision of, like, creating a beautiful cannabis experience, um, the whole concept of the on and the off. Again, it's very reflective, very personal to me it's, it's indicative of your master document, of your notes, yeah, but also, just like my productive relationship with weed.
Speaker 2I use weed to turn my thoughts on, I think, in order to and to be productive, uh, and to, you know, whatever grow, grow a business. I do believe that in order to be productive, you have to be able to turn your thoughts off, be able to reflo-, be able to recharge and then be, be, be revitalized and ready to go the next day. So, you know, with with the on and off concept, we also saw a gap in the market where, looking back, you know, six or seven, six or seven years I think that's the history of this industry, people there was definitely a, you know, and I'll say um, I'll say ACMPR, uh, and and, and, and, and forward, Um, there was obviously a lot of ACMPR being medical right.
Speaker 1Yeah, yeah.
Cannabis Brand Focus and Differentiation
Speaker 2Yeah, and there was obviously a lot of, um, you know, people from the MMA, our days, mmpr days um, that did a lot of good work for the for the ACMPR to be formed and now, obviously, where we're at today, um, so, the for the ACMPR days, people were focused on, you know, medical patients and, frankly, they were focused on raising money. Let's, let's, let's be honest there, from a brand perspective, when legalization was like really starting to be a real thing, then everyone was actually at that point, I think, focusing on brand.
Speaker 2Um, there was, you know, I think, like Tokyo Smoke fundamentally changed was actually like a consumer facing brand before it was you're right, before they launched really Um and like experiential Um. I think they, you know, I think it was like them, us and a couple others that were actually focused on brand. I think, even if you look back at like old school tweed as a brand, what they were trying to do it was actually originally before they lost the vision, maybe.
Speaker 2Yeah, yeah, it was. It was. It was like actually brand focused. When legalization hit, it quickly became a game to dollars. Quarterly report yeah, and and that changes things, I understand but then it was also a race to price, like to to to to bomber One. When I saw that um $100 ounce first drop, I was like, oh, those are around, yeah Now.
Speaker 1now it's like a common ground thing.
Speaker 2but yeah, you're at when the first $100 ounce drops you were like I saw that product manager in store and I was like hey man, like congrats. But I'm like you know what you're doing, like you guys are like it's a race to the bottom now on price, you know.
Speaker 1Yeah, it's worth calling out man. Yeah, you know what I mean. Yeah, all right, I think we're going to take a quick break. I also wanted to make sure you follow uh thinker. What's the Instagram for thinker?
Speaker 2At thinker on off.
Speaker 1At thinker on off, make sure you follow. And at Greg Patelich.
Speaker 2Yeah, at Greg Pantelich.
Speaker 1Greg Pantelich, I'll put you this name. No, no, no, no, my mom calls me Pantelich.
Speaker 1Welcome back everybody. Hi orbit Big Bob again here with thinker on off and, uh, greg Pantelich, that's right, we were talking about what a lot and differentiators are building a brand. I also had a thought too. I was like Greg had this. Uh, he said that he had the a lot Bible. That's kind of become like the Bible for your brand book, I guess, like that journal and how I think also to remind everybody journaling is important and write it down, especially if you smoke lots of weed.
Speaker 2Yeah, so everyone's got ideas.
Speaker 1Some have no place. You go out and look down and somewhere good and somewhere bad, but important. Write them down like manifest that yeah, absolutely yeah.
Speaker 2I'm big on that, I'm big on, I'm definitely big on writing it down Period. I think, if he even just high, not high. If you write it down, it's like that one extra step of commitment to bring this life.
Speaker 1That's how things happen, that's how it happens for you, right? Yeah, 100%. What do you think? Well, I wanted to say what do you think like makes uh thinker on off like a big differentiator in your marketing and your, in your brand awareness? Like and I think you guys have been really successful at that Like, yeah.
Speaker 2I think, I think you know, first of all, being experience based, uh, being on and off as a focus versus strain based, right, you know we've taken a dual approach to that. First, you know, the simplification of the on and off that is for the thinker customer. The thinker customer wants that experience might be you know what, doesn't want to get too high, just wants to get that right amount of high in order to turn their thoughts on and be productive, or turn off and again go to giving it utility.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Cannabis Branding and Community
Speaker 2Exactly and given a specific experience, I think that's what's. That's what's that. That's the gap in the market today. Now, how do we get to that on and off, or how do we make that on and off kind of a reality? We actually start and this is more for people in the industry, this is more for trade Uh, we educate buntenders and retailers on this. We actually started with the TUR profiles, right, so you know we wanted the what. What TUR profiles draw, you know, are typically associated with that.
Speaker 1on, that's where, like, the curation, starts, the TUR profiles yeah.
Speaker 2So, like you're limiting your pining and carry-offing, and that's where we actually found the perfect strain for that, being the Jack Herrera craft cut of the Jack. There's not a lot of Jack.
Speaker 1No one has the.
Speaker 2Jack really On the market. So we saw that as a gap too. And it's also like it's that classic strain which brings that classic high. It's the strain I grew up smoking to dispensary days like it was just jack right. Like you do that what went before, like legendary, legendary strain.
Speaker 1Like I, even legacy days, I used to get crazy fire packs of jack. I don't know charlie remembers, but I used to get the correct I think. So I love jack when it's grown properly. It is one of the. I don't even like sativa. So there you go, right, like yeah, anyways, continue.
Speaker 2I know the thinkerons do well in this, in this.
Speaker 1They do very well, very well for us, yeah the.
Speaker 2So we did that. And then for the, for the off Um, we originally had an afghan skunk. We could again kind of keep it in line with the classics, but we, we, in the beginning of the year we switched it off to uh, to a dozy dough which the dozy cross was in. But the turf profile for that Um is primarily, you know, you're humbling your linalool and your mercene which again are typically associated with, you know, with that, with the off right, so Um, so we're really happy with that and the feedback that we've got. So I think a being effect driven, b focusing on brand and community are probably the two other biggest differentiators.
Speaker 2Um, you know, I've always been a bit of a contrarian. Uh, even in this industry, you know, people are doing value. Uh, and like biggest bang for buck, we're coming out with the smallest joints at like a fair, reasonable price. So even right now, the way I see it, people are investing, like marketing dollars and kind of going back to that conversation we had earlier. But when people started driving for a race to the bottom of price, people abandoned brand, people abandoned the customer, and so I thought it's an interesting opportunity.
Speaker 2Now, white space there's not a lot of white space in this industry, uh, but you know, one of the areas is to actually build brand and build, build community and build it from like the consumer up, which is, I think, typically what's Uh, uh, uh, you know the the game plan for successful consumer and package goods products right. I'm a wee person but I also recognize that this is a product that I love to buy, buy and store shelves Right. So it, you know, to some effect it is a cpg product. I think there are good lessons from that industry that could be brought to this and vice versa. But you know, first for for for this and being consumer first, um, you know, we, we have this thinker Person of mind. They like to throw their thinking cap right.
Speaker 2Yeah, but we know that they like to smoke, to turn their thoughts on and off. So how can we engage that customer? We don't need to reach, we don't need to reach everyone, we don't need to be the everything brand that's an east, it's yeah there's actually like no such thing as an everything brand, because it's just not, you can't have them all.
Speaker 2Yeah, you can't like, especially when you're starting off and especially when you're constrained and and you know resource constrained too. You got to be focused right and I think that's been the key to longevity in this industry for seven years. It's being focused and we're focused on this one customer segment. We're focused on delivering this, delivering this exceptional on and off experience.
Speaker 1Uh, you've been delivering for sure. Like I feel like uh. Even dating back, I recall going to uh An event at dynasty pot shop where there was, say that's where you know.
Speaker 1Like, if I recall, like you've been activating for a long time, events have been really hot these days. I feel like, um, you know, but I I think that you guys have been something and trying to do events for a long time and realizing that that's how you're going to connect with your audience and and, um, if I recall, there was like an on and an off section. You want to kind of remind us kind of what that was all about and kind of some of the different activations you guys have done. And in the last little bit, yeah, kind of um promote thinker.
Speaker 2Yeah, for sure, I think we we debuted, we really debuted with that. You know, shout out to dynasty rrip dynasty there in og we.
Speaker 1We looked up to them. When we opened on queen street west, it was definitely like yeah, yeah, so yeah that was a great store. It was a really good shop.
Speaker 2You know, alicia hennie. Yeah, good, good, a little crew there, um, but yeah, it was uh thinker garden, the think the thinker speakeasy.
Speaker 1That's where it was the speakeasy.
Exploring the Thinker Brand Concept
Speaker 2Thinker speakeasy. But yeah, it was, you know, always had a vision because that shop Again it was. What was interesting about it was that it had a tone on tone wall and door and I knew about the event space in the back. I remember going in, going back there. It was like christmas holiday, it was like december 20th, massive snowstorm Went back there and I was like, hey, alicia, can you open up the door? And I just take a look like at the back back space. So yeah, you know, and it was pretty like desolate, it was winter, there was no Crack pavement, whatever. I was like, okay, interesting space. And I was like, wait, there's like a shed back there. What's in there? She's like, oh, it's just like our storage, whatever garage. She's like, man, open that up, I'd love to take a look, right. So took a look, I was like, okay, there's a really interesting opportunity here where you have an outdoor space and like a covered Outdoor space, separate municipal address too. So there was some interesting things where, like, compliance is actually part.
Speaker 1It was actually part of the plant. Oh, it's the weird little building. You're right, charlie missed this one. But I went and I thought I had a great impact because it was like the secret. You had to needed the secret code and you had to follow thinker, and you run around the back door and it was like I'm here for the, the speakeasy.
Speaker 2Easy, right, you can do that.
Speaker 1Yeah. So it was like let me in the back door. And then I came in and then it was like it was like okay, this is the, this is our. It was like a more chill section. So if I recall the, was it off the off was more chill, am I correct?
Speaker 1It was more like a little more mellow, more intimate vibes, like kind of these cool little seats where you sat down. It was cushy, more like a like, kind of like a yoga position, gaming chairs, and that was a restumps. There we go, there we go, super vibey, but yeah we had like a library.
Speaker 2And the original concept actually was to be like kind of an on space and an off space. But we had some learnings from that, but we had like a thinker library. Uh, good segue opportunity.
Speaker 1I can't wait. Yeah, can't wait, we'll talk. We'll talk everybody about that.
Speaker 2Which were like curated books from, honestly, like around the world, um, and then we had a patio space as well which was like, just call it, like your outdoor space, but we had a bunch different kind of Programming out there as well. Um, but I think what we saw Was for some people, their on Was reading or their off was, so you couldn't really like label, like all the libraries, the on room or the off room, right Interesting. But again, it was for things for people to enjoy and for people to Turn their thoughts on off. Like with thinker, we want to inspire thought. That is the, that is the, that is the, that is that is why we exist. Inspired thought and how people ultimately kind of pursue their passions. I think that's super cool. So you know, we one of the most eye-opening things for me was people have their. You know, you can't really typecast. This is an on activity and this is an off activity, other than like it's different for different people, you know yeah but it's different for different people.
Speaker 2And the other thing is like let people like, just watch your customer. That that's me. That was the big thing, just as a marketer and putting my marketing hat on, I loved. I went. I think I don't think I missed a day if I did, it was like with good purpose, but I was there. You know, it was literally like working.
Speaker 2You know what a running a business is like, like it's it's more than a 40, it's not a nine to five, but it's that that's a full-time job, including weekends. But then on top of that it's like you go and you work your second job, right, I was literally like Not not a bartender, but I was literally like manning the Station. You know I was there and at times I could just sit back and observe and just watch our customer. I think as a marketer and I think in this industry what's no one's really like doing Dr, but just even to understand them better, understand what is there on, and like to me one of the coolest things we had a. We had a massive party there. It was one of the. It was probably like the opening weekend.
Speaker 2We had uh, incredible, uh dj lineup and um the both, both sections, the patio, the library the like, the driveway, like it was, it was, it was it was pop and, yeah, there was, there was, there was a problem, one point. And uh, but what was cool was I saw some people during this. Uh, during during all this, there's about three people that picked up books off the shelf, sat down and we're reading it's like, oh, they're reading in the the party in the midst of the clay chaos.
Speaker 1These people just I don't, I can't do that, but some people like to read in like a party environment.
Speaker 2Yeah, and I was like oh this is really interesting.
Speaker 2So like that, to me that was one of the like cool things for the brand and like from a community perspective, where it's like, oh, people are enjoying it and they're actually like vibing with the brand Overall and those books in that library. I saw it another time. Um, we did a uh pop-up at june plum Um on dundas west next to patswa, and that we had absolutely no product and like no mention of thinker whatsoever. Uh, right, again, adhering to regulations, things like that we're always, we always do that. Um, but we basically only had, we had to have a brand, a brand presence, without kind of mentioning name or or weed period. So we curated these books and we put them up on the wall and what was really interesting was there was someone that came in stoner and he was like he definitely was a thinker. He was like you're kind of like productive, so we got, I definitely got that I'm hot spot.
Speaker 2This was at June plum, which is like right next to pats. Yeah.
Speaker 1I went to that activity. It was very cool. It was like I had a coffee. I checked out the. I thought it was a cool activation. Man, I had a delicious roti era the the paddies are the best.
Speaker 1I'm sorry, it was amazing at a phenomenal party. I checked out the library and if I recall, you're right, it was very subtle, it was very. It was clever because it was like you Kind of ask or no. Yeah, it was a little bit of a nod, like kind of like you know. Yeah, if I recall you guys had the neon speak it might have just been the brain, it was.
Speaker 2maybe it just a brain, it was just the thinker.
Speaker 1I'm just said oh, just the Instagram. I think are on off. Yeah, you got it so.
Speaker 2But what was cool about it was there was like this, this thinker archetype, this customer didn't know him, came in and he was just looking at the books. I was like, hey, man, there's like you know, we started talking. He's like, oh, you're we company, what are? Yeah. And then at the very end I was like, what books, by the way, did you like vibe with? And he picked, he picked three or four. One was like. It was like it was basically like by your chef, jiro, like how to like how to eat sushi, like properly. There's another one like. I had my vintage slam magazines From like the year 2000, whatever. He was like vibing with those. And there was another one I think it was a book by there's not like. It was like a philosophy based book. And the day before we did that we had these books curated. But the day before the activation I was like, hey, it was like myself, tony, our VP of marketing, shout out to Tony, who's doing like great job owning the brand.
Speaker 1And one. Yeah, never mind, I like we get.
Speaker 2He's a great dude and my business partner, josh Brun. We all Curated from our own bucks. We just said hey, pick your selection and the ones that that thinker customer vibe with. We're like one of Tony's, one of mine and one of Josh's.
Speaker 1I was like man this is how, this is how we're getting the brand like. How See? I think that kind of ties back in like building a brand. It's so important to listen to your audience so, like you know, feedback taken and get on you for like, and now we're doing this activation. Well, exactly, I was saying I can't wait I can't wait for octo. July 29th and 30th we're gonna have the thinker libraries come into cosmic Charlize.
Speaker 2So everybody marketing a calendar, yeah, the thinker, the thinker library concept man. I'm so happy with this concept. I love how it's now come from, you know, from the speakeasy to other consumer activations, to now an in-store retail activation to Delight our thinkers that are coming out to Charlize, you know. So we have lots of them. Yeah, yeah, 100%. So the the it's gonna be, it's actually, it's actually a beautiful pop-up.
Speaker 1And and Tony cooked it up.
Speaker 2Tony cooked it up. Man, yeah, he did, yeah great job bringing that to life. And that was a real like touch, like turning point for him to light bulb went off when you saw consumers interact with the brand too. But we're gonna have that. We're gonna have that here at Charlize We've got a good collection.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2I'll sign up process too. Okay, we did old-school like library style, where you can like, actually like you got the pouch, you got the little car. The author is whoever is donated to the community library. So you guys got to sign off on that, right. And then if you kind of like vibe with it, then you can quote-unquote, sign it out and just like.
Speaker 1Arrangements like less to return to later.
Speaker 2We don't need to be missing any books.
Speaker 1Collecting late fees, you know.
Speaker 2So I think it's it's. I think if we just have them like, if they like it, they could sign the back and look at it and they're all out. But yeah, I think we're doing a collab with Tony's coffee company too.
Speaker 1He's gonna have some of his.
Speaker 2Sundays coffee.
Speaker 1So we welcome everybody to come down July 29th and 30th. 81 Queen Street West thinkers in the house with their library. I'm rent a book, have a cup of coffee and smoke some weed with us you know check the books. Don't rent them though.
Speaker 2Don't read them, sorry. I'll add one too, and I'll track you down on the street if you steal our books.
Speaker 1Yeah, I'm putting you on warning and we might even open up some of our high times. Our vintage high times will put those.
Speaker 2Yeah, yeah, I think her libraries appreciate that.
Speaker 1Oh, we'll put those on display as well. Yeah, so it's a true collab.
Speaker 1I can't remember when are we giving this away? Because I'm gonna plug that in real. Oh, no, worries, yeah, um yeah, right now, sign up to the pinnacle of hash technology. We're giving away the brand new Puffco peak pro. Go to higher orbit dot ca slash puffco. There's many ways to enter. The easiest way is to do follow us on Instagram, do our survey, which is available, that's right our listener survey. We're also giving away five rip tips. We still haven't gotten any questions. We're asking you guys send us some questions.
Speaker 2You got a question for Greg.
Speaker 1You had a question for me. Charlie Uh hit us up, sean at higher orbit early at higher. I got the. The fifth and final. It was emblem sour Kush by symbol.
Speaker 2I knew, I knew and you know what, my guide, my guide, jordan, from there, he's still, he's still there.
Speaker 1Adelicia, oh, american company red, white and babe and all those, those are you came out platinum babes? Yeah, apparently never heard of them, but apparently they're a big deal in America.
Speaker 2There's a lot of a products.
Speaker 1There's so many companies and products are markets and saying, yeah, I'm really looking forward to the thinker library, though man, that's gonna be dope.
Speaker 2Yeah, it's good. And again, it articulates the brand and tells that brand story without talking.
Speaker 1Yeah and we did the video game thing. That was a huge success. A little shift to the library. I think it's a little. We keep a classy yeah, have some coffee, check out a book and get stone with us.
Speaker 2The video game night was cool. A couple people saw mad at me there in that.
Speaker 1You ran it back.
Speaker 2No, I need, nobody could not lie, I was using like odd job. Oh, you can't be like there though grow up with a system, so like I need every, like, every edge I can get he's odd job in real life too, so it's okay yeah man. Hey, if I can, if I'm team average height in real life, then like I'm allowed to use like team little dude.
Speaker 1What you know, what I was gonna ask you. I had. I was interested in, like any innovations in the pipeline from thinker because I'm like I'm, I love all the products that come out and you guys have really developed a little following, and Queen West anyways, and yeah anything you can share with us.
Speaker 2Yeah, 100%. So Coming, coming a debut in August actually and just double again, doubling down and investing in our customer segment. Like who's the thinker customer? What do they want? What are they seeking? From an experience I would say there's kind of to. There are people that are looking for the right amount of high, not to get too high, and that's why I point to five gram join, smalls, jays on the market and kind of like an honest and true 18 to 22% on the jack, on the on the on, and like a 22 to 26 on the doze on the off. But you, you know that segment of customer who doesn't want to get too high, or that right amount of high, and then there's a segment that that's afraid of getting too high. That's that's a really interesting segment. I think they've been neglected. Frankly, I don't why.
Speaker 1Look at the space of like I'm thinking, you see, now you're one to one.
Speaker 2Yeah, and in the, in a world of infused, you know, a lot of people can. I don't say tired of it because I still hear a lot of people ask for you know products.
Speaker 1But I think people get turned away right, like if you get too high when you're just getting in the weeds, yeah, it can be a complete turn off. Yeah okay, like a 35 burger.
Speaker 2Yeah, I mean, I've spoke to you like 47s, but they do they hit?
Speaker 1do they get clogged a third of the way down?
Speaker 2Yeah, you know. But I'm not hating on it. I just know that that's not our lane, that's not thinkers lane, right? That's not the what's not what, that's not the experience the thinker customer Seeks.
Speaker 1But yeah, I think there's a broader audience to me and Charlie talk about this all the time. We can't get this tangerine dream winner to stock. It's a very low THC item but we have a following for it and I think that you're seeing, as these lower THC products leave the market, I'm getting out of them a lot more. Yeah, just to speak to your note about the right yeah, I'm on a high. You know there's a lot of people that aren't looking to get blottoed every time they have a little joint. Yeah, so I think that you guys have done a good job of I did. I like the construction of the J2. Yeah, the point. You five that format.
Speaker 2Yeah, we watch people over COVID smoke half grams, put it out two or three times, realtor roach. We're like, hey, again, create a beautiful experience, give you a fresh smoke every time. Right, but the thinker, so the innovation is the thinker. Light Benny shared it with you, yet but on and off light, okay, true. So when you look at that space, where's there the innovation? What isn't being done? Craft quality for like one-to-ones, cbd, cbd, dominant one-to-ones or low THC, one-to-ones and and and variety packs as well. So we're really good. The on and off is like when you look at OCS product sales, whatever, there's a lot or a product lifecycle at Derry spikes and then drops down. So it was like hype and then it's like what's next? The on and off has grown like this oh nice.
Speaker 2Oh and steady, slow and steady, slow and steady. That's awesome I think that variety pack is something missing in the in the balanced space. So we're dropping on and off light. The on is a CBD skunk haze, again going back to old schools, and the offs are the Is a organic critical cure. So CBD again. Knowing our customer segment, what's important? Them don't get too high. Cbd is relative pretty important. Organic is pretty important. So the mix pack is gonna have both both both lights on and off light.
Speaker 2That's gonna be, that's gonna be really cool and I think it'll do well in this, in this neighborhood in particular crush it for us.
Speaker 1Yeah, man, we're excited about that product. You definitely a segment that is popular for our clientele anyway.
Speaker 2So yeah, so we got that. We got our 24 Jays for the holidays coming out again. Yeah like staple for us. That's done really well.
Speaker 1Love that you stuck with it and you're making it better every year, and so this year's gonna be fire.
Speaker 2We took three main points. Like we're big feedback I've had the company I ran before this was an employee feedback business yeah, so I'm big feedback guy we took a lot of customer feedback and retailer feedback. We, the three the three things they said were put in Make sure it comes like fully assembled, this right. So we, we're part of that DIY culture. You know I'm not above putting a little Ikea tail, yeah, whatever. But like you know, customer experience wise, that's really important. So come fully assembled.
Speaker 2Second thing is put four bangers in the pack. You know so a lot of people. You know we had our thinker lights debut in that last year and that allowed us to discover the Get really positive feedback on that CBD scung gaze. We we're putting in where there's our thinker on the Jacker or the thinker off the dozy dough. We got a craft cut of pink kush going in there as well. Well, pink tip. And then the third piece of feedback was put a holiday stream in there. So we got candy cane in there. There's a menthol, menthol being the cultivars. So yeah, it's gonna be, it's gonna be a super dope pack.
Speaker 1And then oh, we're talking about having calendars in the summer. I kind of just love it. That's great. I'm already getting excited about Christmas.
Speaker 2I was. I was in, like I said, manitoba and Alberta last week and you know people like me Thank you for this on my radar and they actually want us to start these marketing it soon. These and the and the avan calendars oh yeah, I was educating people on that too. So, yeah, that was cool.
Speaker 1And then this is what I was gonna say. My one. I love, always love, the avan calendar this year. I have like giant fingers and was hard for me to get the little things open.
Speaker 2I felt like I was like. He took the good.
Speaker 1Homies, I don't know if I ever told them that top five feedback too was it okay.
Speaker 2All right, so big hands too small too small, yeah, and so we actually are making like our strongest effort to like, even, like, enhance the perforation cut.
Speaker 1It's a hard.
Speaker 2No, I love it for team Bob a good news.
Collaboration Plans and Special Episode Announced
Speaker 1That BG energy baby I I can't wait to see that. The 24 Jays of the holidays, that's awesome, and are we?
Speaker 2gonna see you at Hall of Flowers again. Yeah, yeah, you were down there.
Speaker 1Last time we loved it. Man, we're gonna, we're gonna do something out of there, yeah, so we'll have to, we'll have to run it back down to. We'll let you know too. Yeah, we're trying to do some a very special kind episode, but stay tuned for that. Yeah, around whole flowers.
Speaker 2Yeah, cool. Yeah, we're doing it. We don't. We don't like overall, we don't have Hall of Flowers budget for for those types of things. But the homies at a Camardon royalty, where I think we're gonna collaborate with them on a booth, I was just do a little something with them. Yeah, yeah, that's what. Yeah.
Speaker 1I love that you guys are always willing to collaborate. I think it's a awesome part of your brand, I think from day one, the curation you guys work with people. You make it happen them both. Thanks.
Speaker 2You're really fucking cool stuff yeah we're collaborating June, july, july 30, don't everybody forget, think your library time, I think you're on off, have a cup of coffee.
Speaker 1Don't forget to follow. I think her on off and at Greg.
Speaker 2Thank you so much, greg you.
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