Start Up Stories

Start-up Stories

Canada’s cannabis sector is innovative, high tech and ready to compete globally. Here are a few of the visionaries:

Namaste Technologies

Sean Dollinger, CEO

Tell us about Namaste Technologies, and what it brings to market.

NamasteMD is changing the way Canadians can acquire prescriptions and access medical cannabis. We are the first Canadian company to digitize patient acquisition of cannabis.

While most Canadian cannabis companies rely on physical clinics and doctors to reach patients, our online marketplace offers patients the chance to access the largest selection of medical cannabis sourced from both domestic and international cultivators. This gives patients the broadest selection of cannabis to best support their wellness.

This is different than existing online platforms for medical cannabis, which tend to make it very difficult for patients to switch between providers and access different types of medicines. Namaste offers everything from one location.

We are also using machine learning to improve conversion rates, and most of all, to optimize our users’ buying experience.

Tell us about your start-up story; when and how did you get into the cannabis sector?

Namaste Technologies began as an e-commerce start-up selling vaporizers and accessories through international markets. We established a presence in over 20 countries and quickly became the largest online retailer globally.

From there, we identified the opportunity to leverage our database of vaporizer consumers and acquire medical cannabis patients and we launched NamasteMD, Canada’s first fully-integrated patient acquisition portal, which is approved and available on iPhones and Android devices as well as on PC.

This strategy will eventually be rolled out in every country where we operate and which has a form of legalized cannabis.

If we could take away one lesson from the experience of going from small start-up to public company it would be to always focus on customers first. In today’s world of global e-commerce, your online reputation and consumer feedback are critical to growth.

We’re lucky to now have both vaporizer customers and medical cannabis patients and we are committed to staying ahead of the curve on consumer experiences. For instance, we are integrating machine learning algorithms to personalize a consumer’s buying experience by providing them with more relevant content that suits their needs.

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What’s ahead for your team?

Our company slogan is “We Are the Future of Cannabis,” and our vision is to continue to drive innovation in the cannabis industry by introducing new technology to the market and to provide patients with personalized content and strain recommendations based on their specific needs. We will be using our machine learning algorithms to optimize the full experience for medical cannabis patients and to offer the largest diversity in the market.

Tell us about the team culture at NamasteMD.

Our team culture is one of radical candor! We debate ideas and solutions — no egos, just the best results.

NamasteMD in numbers.

Namaste operates online retail sites in over 20 countries and in nine languages. Our management team is diversified across the Canada and overseas. We have engineers in Dublin, Romania and Spain, with sales team members across the globe.

Learn more:

NamasteTechnologies.com NamasteMD.com

Slang Worldwide

Peter Miller, CEO

Tell us about Slang, and what it brings to market.

Slang offers access to the best brands, distributed throughout the largest legal markets in the world. In the U.S., for example, we have a strong supply chain and a distribution footprint across 11 states. We are focused on placing the best brands on our platform, so that our consumers can expect a consistent experience and level of quality from their favourite branded products in every legal cannabis market.

Tell us about your start-up story; when and how did you get into the cannabis sector?

I got started in the cannabis sector in early 2013 and with a background in tech and a family history of traditional agriculture, the cannabis sector was a major leap for me.

The successful ballot initiative in Colorado in 2012 opened my eyes to the legalization movement and led to my discovery of the fledgling Marijuana for Medical Purposes Regulations (MMPR). I dove in headfirst, incorporating Agripharm Corp. in 2013 and vending it into Mettrum Health Corp. in 2014.

By 2016 my focus was on the best products, brands and ideas coming out of the American market. In this industry, things change quickly and the changes are bigger than most people expect or are used to seeing in other fields, making it important to balance speed and attention to the market with focus, execution and long-term thinking.

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All my education, insights and experience are now focused on pairing the best brands with the best distribution and supported by the best supply chain. Slang Worldwide is the vehicle for executing that mission.

What do you see ahead for the industry?

At a macro level, the future of the industry is certain; people will enjoy cannabis as they have for thousands of years, and the groups that produce the best cannabis products and experiences will be successful.

The short-term outlook for regulation, the capital markets, and consumer trends are anybody’s guess. Our team has a pretty polished crystal ball, but I’m not sure it’s clearer than anyone else’s. All we can do, and will do, is stay educated, focused, and execute our strategy with all of our human and capital resources.

Tell us about your team.

Our team is like the United Nations of cannabis, with experience and perspectives from the cannabis and capital markets in North America, Europe and Africa. We try to maintain a meritocracy and let the best ideas win.

Any statistics or data that you would like to share?

Good data and statistics are elusive in this space and a significant source of competitive advantage. With our footprint I believe we have some great data which we will continue to collect, analyze and use to inform our decisions. Stay tuned.

Learn more:slangworldwide.co

Civilized

Derek Riedle, Publisher

Tell us about Civilized, and what it brings to market.

Civilized is a premium media and lifestyle brand that embraces and highlights the modern cannabis culture. Our vision is to reflect the millions of motivated and productive adults who choose to enjoy cannabis as part of a balanced lifestyle. No other industry has the high-growth potential of cannabis, and we believe that quality media can help accelerate the development of this industry by sharing stories, ideas and information that’s been more or less forbidden for the better part of a century.

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Tell us about your start-up story; when and how did you get into the cannabis sector?

I’d worked in marketing, communications and politics for my entire adult life. And, I’d also been a cannabis consumer, so I fundamentally understood that the reality of cannabis was very different from the stereotypes and media story. So, I was personally invested in living a more authentic life and emerging from the cannabis closet. Plus, as a professional communicator, the opportunity to break stereotypes and change culture was irresistible to me.

We launched Civilized on September 22, 2015, and by doing so we paired two of the fastest growing industries together: digital publishing and cannabis.

And we haven’t looked back! Today, we continue to embrace an audience that has always existed and is not reflected in current cannabis culture: productive, motivated people who enjoy cannabis responsibly.

What’s next for your team?

Nobody can predict the future, but here’s what I can say: We are playing the long game, steadily growing our audience, our range of meaningful brand experiences and shareholder value.

We have a very talented team, for example, our chief content officer is Cory Jones, former chief content officer of Playboy Enterprises. We have Michael Cohl, former chair of Live Nation, and Mitch Fox, former group president of Condé Nast and former publisher of Vanity Fair on our board of directors.

Civilized in numbers.

Well, reflecting on 2017:

• We more than doubled our traffic with over 9 million visitors to Civilized.life

• We grew our monthly traffic by more than 325% (from 350k monthly in Q1 to almost 1.5M monthly in Q4)

• We beat our annual traffic goal by 50%

• We wrote and produced almost 3,000 pieces of editorial content

• We grew our content notification database from 1,000 to 17,000 subscribers

Random fun fact?

I’m a diehard Toronto Maple Leafs fan — GO LEAFS GO!

Learn more:

www.civilized.life Facebook: civilized.life Twitter: @civilized_Life

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