Intro: [00:00:00] Welcome to Kaya Cast the podcast for cannabis businesses looking to launch, grow, and scale their operations.
Tommy Truong: So how did you end up owning a tech company in the cannabis industry?
Noel Burkman: Yeah, I asked myself that a lot. Um, I was working for a company called Big Chalk and Big Chalk had a, it was a, it's a data analytics company in the CPG space. And they had branched out into cannabis, uh, spun off a company called Hoodie Analytics, and through my work with the hoodie analytics team, um, and kind of my, my antennas went off when I saw the opportunity, the market opportunity in the cannabis space, the maturity of the technology in the space and, um, kind of the, the, the, the, the compliance actually.
The, the, the regulatory issues were, were fairly [00:01:00] attractive to me. We could talk about that later, but, um, you know, my, my specialty has been going into kind of constrained or legacy industries and modernizing them with new technology, and I've done that across multiple industries over many years.
Tommy Truong: Ah. Gotcha. And then did you see a huge opportunity in the education side of the industry?
Noel Burkman: Education. Education of the consumer. Yeah. I mean, so, so I, I put it, so the, the short answer is yes. The, the, the, the longer answer is the opportunity to open up the market doing so. There was, there, there's, I would argue that segmentation, the traditional CPG or, or e-commerce segment marketing segmentation just doesn't, doesn't happen that often within cannabis.
And so they've been marketing to the same customers and competing for the same, same pie, and just trying to get a bigger slice where I say, okay, there's a bigger pie out here, [00:02:00] and how do you get to that bigger pie? And, and, and that's. You know, opening up the CRM to new customers that aren't in market yet, and there's a barrier, there's, there's a lot of barriers to entry from, from stigma to awareness to pricing, and to just understanding a very complicated product, right?
So when I, you know, it's, it's less about education per se, and more about turning down the noise and creating an experience that asks those complicated questions in an easy way. And using math and AI in the backend to translate that into, okay, here's the right product for you based on what you're telling me, based on what you already know and not bringing in.
Go ahead. Go ahead.
Tommy Truong: Yeah. Yeah. No, we talk about that a lot in the industry right now is. Hazard. Hazard struggles. Right. And you mentioned that, that we're going after the same pie, the recreational, uh, medical industry. But the health industry is so much [00:03:00] bigger than the cannabis industry. And health is, as in people want to sleep better, they want better gut health, they want all these things.
I, you know, there's functional mushrooms had a huge surge recently and the functional mushroom industry is, it's that it's targeting health. That industry has grown to half a billion dollars
Noel Burkman: Yeah. Wellness, I mean, in, in the, the, the, the 55 and older, and we'll even bring that down to the 45 and older category. So the largest consuming or the largest converting segment into the cannabis market. They're looking for wellness use cases. To your point, I wanna sleep better. I want focus, I wanna reduce pain, I wanna relax.
They're not super interested in. And understanding necessarily the cannabinoids and the ratios of CB, D, you know, that, that they, they just want to, they wanna shop for it. They shop for aspirin. I have a problem. I want a solution. And what's my best way to that solution? And if you give it to 'em in a, if, in a confident way, you know, you ask a [00:04:00] question, give a response.
You, you, on the retail side, you're creating a, a different type of relationship with the customer, right? The, the most, THC for the buck customer, they were there day one. Easy acquisition. They were lined up and ready to go. You didn't really have to do a whole lot of, of kind of special outreach. They were excited to buy cannabis legally.
They did it now. Now they're now, everybody's fighting for that customer when when we're saying that's great service. Those customers, and by the way, there's an opportunity to expand their wallet share and the bigger opportunity for de commoditizing cannabis is bringing in different segments that you're creating tr like Whole Foods.
You know, if you create that, that whole Foods relationship with them, you will now have a more loyal customer that is going to spend more money more often with you.
Tommy Truong: If you were, and I think about this a lot, who would I target if I, if I owned a brand in the cannabis industry or even a dispensary, you know, you have your normal recreational customers, but [00:05:00] who would I target and what products would I hold to target these niche, uh, the riches that are in the niches, right?
Demographics. And for me, I would talk entrepreneurs. Me, I care about productivity and energy and there's so many different, um, products in our industry that will give you a natural boost in productivity and energy.
Noel Burkman: Well that's segmentation, right? So yeah, there's the entrepreneurs, but if I looked at it just in, in terms of like cohort size, the biggest cohort size is. 45 and older, right? I mean, you have a, we have an inverted, um, uh, age pyramid in, in the United States, right? So this, you have this growing older, you know, the silver tsunami, whatever you wanna call it.
So that's, that's where the massive opportunity is. Not to say you wouldn't focus on other segments as well. But, but again, [00:06:00] segmentation is important. And the conversations I've had in, in retail, you know, it, it seems to be a relatively, I'm not gonna say a new concept, but, but it's co it's, it's more complicated than they're used to, is taking the CRM, understanding how to segment it, building out messaging for those cr and the for, for those segments.
And then reaching out to segments that aren't in their CRM yet. I think that's, that's the biggest challenge is creating awareness around, around. Uh, the dispensary, I would say, you know, where I live, um, just outside of Chicago, the dispensaries, we've done some analysis and your average dispensary in a Chicago suburb is missing probably about two to three x the potential customer base within a couple miles of their location because their, their barrier to entry want awareness that they create the awareness.
Getting that new customer in the door with the current experience is very difficult. Right. So creating new [00:07:00] experiences that engage those segments in the way they need to be engaged. You can't force somebody to talk. The retailers can't force somebody to talk their language. They have to talk their, they have to make the bridge to talk to them.
So, and that's where hemp does a very good job. The hemp hemp drive product, hemp drive companies, they, they, they have a better CPG understanding and they, they do a much better job at connecting with customers and the way they need to be connected with.
Tommy Truong: So what do they do differently that cannabis companies can learn from?
Noel Burkman: Uh, they use different words. They use different imagery. They have different online experiences. Um, they have a more wellness, to your point, they have a more wellness focused approach to how they engage with the customer. And they, they bring, because it's hemp derived anyways, they can bring the, they don't need to bring in the, the complications of cannabinoids and, and terpenes.
Right? And so I think. What we do is turn down that noise, right? Make it kind of that Google [00:08:00] warm box approach. Just what are the relevant questions? How do you want to feel, how do you want it to taste? How intense do you want it, and how do you want to consume it? From those questions, I, we can tell what is the best product for you at any given, um, retailer's within any given retailer's inventory?
Tommy Truong: Where does, how does, uh, strain brain fit into this equation? There's, for me, I always think about there are two problems to solve and they're worth solving. One is, how do you attract people in different segments? Right. For me personally, how do you attract entrepreneurs? I will spend 400, $500 a month if it increase my productivity.
I will not spend that recreationally to, you know, I'm, I'm a, I'm a different consumer. I'm a health consumer. So if you help me sleep better, be more productive, have more energy throughout the day and, and do it naturally, I'll spend a ton of money for that. So that's one. And then when that person comes in [00:09:00] and they're not educated on, on a type of products, how do you guide them through, uh, their experience?
Noel Burkman: So I'll take the second part of that first. 'cause the, the, the first part of that I think is more complicated, but, but doable. So the, the second part is normalizing the conversation. I mean, just yesterday we, we, we did a, we did a, a dispensary tour with some, some new people to the industry to just get some market data.
We went to six different dispensaries. Okay. Independents, um, big MSOs. Right, and, and kind of went with some people and kind of coached them and said, okay, here's your use case. You're, you're, you're 45 and older and you wanna sleep, or, and, and so we want, we, and we wanted to have the same conversation in each place.
Go, go in and talk to a bud tender. I love bud tenders, right? So this isn't a slam on them. This is, this is more of an operations issue. But, but in every case, nobody, nobody asked. What are you looking for? What problem are you looking to solve? Right? And how, what is your comfort level? What's your experience?
[00:10:00] And they use terms like, you know, how it hits and couch lock and, and you know, it's like, it was fine, but it, there was never, they would never have made a sale to this cohort. Meaning. And so the, the idea is, okay, so if, if, if these bud tenders have strain brain as a tool, it does a few things, it normalizes the conversation, right?
So if they go from bud tender to bud tender. They're still starting in the conversation in the same way. Right? Here are the four questions we're gonna ask, and those are very important. Four questions for the, I mean, the bud tender should ask right out of the gate, how do you want to feel? What do you, what problem are you looking to solve?
Right? Sleep, focus, I just wanna party whatever. That's, that's, that's a very important foundational question. How do you want to consume, obviously, format each one of these starts to narrow it down. And how intense do you want it to be? And then, you know, our, I, the, the bud tender will get to some subjectivity and their recommendation, our algorithm is, is fairly concise.
And there might be some discrepancy between the bud tender and the recommendation, but it's a point of conversation now to [00:11:00] have with the customer. And if the customer comes in a second time and is asked this, you know, if they were to have a separate, if they were not using string brain, they would have a separate conversation and possibly get a second recommendation.
And now you've killed consumer confidence. And created anxiety and not, but if you start the conversation in the same way, ask the same questions, you've then said, okay, you asked me the same questions. Why are you recommending something different? If you're recommending something different or if you get, or they, they, they agree with the recommendation, then, then there's a tremendous amount of customer confidence there.
That's the first part of your que that's the second part of your question. Right? You go, if you go in and you wanted to, you know, I want more focus. Let's start with that question. And build on that. Uh, how do you get more people into the dispensaries and, and obviously with being a regulated industry, limited in, in terms of how, how you can market and make yourself a present, but what use the assets you have, right?
They have customers. Those customers, for example, we're working [00:12:00] with one dispensary. Those customers have parents, right? So, so how do you have a bring your parents to the dispensary week? And use strain brain as that piece that makes them more comfortable and normalizing the conversation. And depending on where you're at, be at the farmer's market with a tablet that, that I'm gonna be, I'm, I'm strain brain biased here, but you know, that has strain brain and it's ask these really simple questions and creates their first order for them, obviously with a discount or some promo to get 'em in the store.
But you know, those, use those mechanisms at your disposal. Sponsoring within the community. Engaging the customers you already have. They're gonna be your best referrals that they're bringing in other customers under the right, having the right conversation. So bring 'em in, but have the right conversation with them.
I wrote an article again about sending my mom into a dispensary and um, she came out and she's like, some kid said, smoke this cheetah piss and you'll get couch lock. And he said it like it's a good thing, right? And not the conversation to have with my [00:13:00] mom.
Tommy Truong: Yeah, you hit the nail on the head. If, if you're listening and you want to target a different segment, it, it, it now comes down to where are these people and what do you think these people care about? So I, I always think about, okay, well let's say if I wanted to target developers, for example, highly skilled professionals that get paid to focus, right?
Where are these developers and can you in, in a room with these developers, how would you start this conversation? And then from there, you're gonna learn so much on your outreach strategy. You're gonna fail a lot, you're gonna get some aha moments, and you just follow down that path to try to get more people into the store.
Noel Burkman: so I think there's, there's two parts to that. It's, it's what do you want and what don't you want, right? I think when, when you get into, if you're new to cannabis, there's, there's a lot of potential outcomes you don't want. Right. [00:14:00] So if you can give them a journey, a path that gets them to what they want and, and allow them to understand what mistakes can be made that take, and, and part of the reason I got into this was 'cause when I was younger, I had journeys I did not want.
Right, because you know, very, here, take this. No, no, no, no instruction on what it was or how much I should take. And I had some very unpleasant experiences. And part of this is not just to get people the right par, the right product, but also to, to minimize those, those negative outcomes. 'cause while they're not physically harming, they're, they're just unpleasant.
And we'd really like to avoid those 'cause they're avoidable. So it's finding out what they want. I think you have to, influencers matter. Right. If you find those influencers that can speak to their personal experience with the products and how it helped them, how they use it, how they help them. I mean, we've seen that psychedelics have been, have been a big, because the influencers are talking about [00:15:00] psilocybin and they're talking about, uh, DMT and these other things.
Uh, you don't have that in cannabis right now. I don't see it a lot, at least. Um, they talk it very generally in a very general sense, and we gotta get specific with the right people. Who are using it. I mean, so you, like you said, you use it to focus. I, I would love to have a, an interview with you that talks about how you're using that to be more productive.
Tommy Truong: Hmm, that's a really good point because a part of understanding how you should go to market is talking to people in the segment that are doing it already. And the more you understand your customers, the better you understand how to actually reach these customers. And when you reach these customers, what do I do?
They actually care about. How, how should you communicate with these customers? That's a huge, people are missing a lot. I, the cannabis industry is, I think right now, half the size of what the health and wellness industry is. Health and wellness is.
Noel Burkman: if, I [00:16:00] mean, I, I would say it's, it's a lot less than half. Yeah, I mean, depending on, on what you include in that category. But, but if you go into, um, CVS right now, I mean, they're, they're whole, they have whole new sections with, with gummies of different, you know, from, from ashwagandha to, um, magnesium to aton.
And if you, if you, if you just, if you get into that loop on your ins in your Instagram feed or TikTok, all you're gonna be throwing are supplements And, um. Formulations of that, and I mean, it's, it's, it's massive and it's cannabis is to lose at the moment.
Tommy Truong: Yeah, and if the, the, the segment that you're targeting is a segment that actually has money,
Noel Burkman: Well,
Tommy Truong: which is the, come on guys.
Noel Burkman: right and, and, and like, listen, if you're in Michigan and you're. Most of the retailers I've talked to, they only know one lever to pull [00:17:00] price. I believe that for the right marketer, the right retailer in Michigan, there's a Whole foods opportunity in the right location where you can get customers coming in and spending.
And spending a lot more money for the experience and attention you're giving 'em the quality of product, the perce, the perception of quality and the actual quality of product. You're giving 'em the consistency and experience. I think there's an opportunity for retailers in Michigan to stop pulling the pricing lever and stand out in different ways.
Otherwise, you're just, you're just, I mean, if you go, there's a, there's an area in Michigan called New Buffalo, um, right over the border and it's, I think it's. It, it's certainly the most concentration of dispensaries in Michigan and with like a square mile or something. But how do you differentiate? Right?
Tommy Truong: Yeah.
Noel Burkman: it's, it's, if it price is your only differentiation, you have an end date and it's just a matter of how far out that is.
Tommy Truong: So tell me a little bit more about StrainBrain. What are the [00:18:00] problems that you guys are solving and how is it that you guys are solving this problem?
Noel Burkman: So I, I'd love to tell you that, uh, I was the, the genius behind the algorithms, but I'm not, and you know, we, it was started by two, two guys outta Canada, Andrew Graham, and, uh, I'm sorry, Andrew Lieber and, and Graham. And they, they were doing, um. AI diagnostics for I think, early diagnostics for bone marrow detection, bone marrow cancer detection, and, uh, went into a dispensary and they're like, there's gotta be a better way. There's gotta be a better way to shop for this. They didn't particularly have a lot of experience with cannabis, but they understood human behavior. They understand how AI can apply to, this was four years ago, so it was fairly early on in the, the modern AI journey, and they repurposed some of their diagnostic algorithms towards.
Um, cannabis and they took a very medical approach, meaning that they understood that meta-analysis was more important than than COA [00:19:00] data. Right. And that's
Tommy Truong: So for, for those that are listening, uh, can you explain a little. Bit more on what, what that means.
Noel Burkman: so meta-analysis is looking at broad research and kind of nor finding the signal in that broad research on, on the outcome of a, in this case, of a strain.
Or a product. Um, so COAs may say one thing, product description may say something else, but what are customers? What is the, what is the actual science on the molecule say? And then what is the consumer sentiment and the experience? So taking all of that into account in a, in a meta fashion, and, and each one of these things is weighted differently in the algorithm.
We're constantly evaluating the weight of those as well,
Tommy Truong: Oh wow. So you are, you're not only solving when the customer comes through, how do you structure the conversation to get to the heart of what somebody feels? But then you're also using that data that you're receiving to communicate with the customer base
Noel Burkman: Yeah, so that, that's, that That'll be coming in 2026. [00:20:00] So that, that second piece of, of how, how we then move up that mar MarTech stack and engagement and help help them better engage customers in a one-on-one basis.
Tommy Truong: Wow. I had no idea that you guys had your own data. And it makes so much more sense because ultimately at the end of the day, cannabinoids, terpenes, et cetera, should all, that's the foundation, the product itself. You know, it just goes to that foundation. That's the base layer.
Noel Burkman: Right, right. So the, there's an like, there's a product intent. Right when new product development, and I'll just take CPG 'cause I don't, I'm not convinced that it's necessarily the same approach in cannabis yet. It's getting there. You know, this product intent, like marketing's job is always to say like, okay, what's the opportunity in the market and do I have a product to solve that opportunity?
If not, let's make one. And then what are the price points that the consumer's willing to pay? Right? So, so this product intent. There's actual, you know, with [00:21:00] cannabis in particular with, with, with flour, you have continuity issues from flower to flower, from batch to batch. So there's stabilization of quality and consistency of quality.
And then it's okay, how do we, we, we, we've, we believe there's an opportunity for this product and we believe there's a market for it. And we now, the price point, I think that there's not the same kind of thought that goes into it because they're not selling it in the same way you would. And the CPG in the traditional CPG world.
So if we can bring those other two pieces into line, like, okay, how are we selling it? Then we
Tommy Truong: does DPG uh,
Noel Burkman: I, I say consumer packaged goods. So, so anything going into a grocery store and from cereal to, um, alcohol to whatever is, is packaged up for consumers. You know, those products aren't there by accident.
You know, they, they do a lot of testing on what consumers are looking for with the ta. It's why if you go from one country to another, there's different taste profiles, right? So you get potato chips that are one [00:22:00] flavor in, in Japan and another flavor in, in, in the UK or something. That's because they've tested the market to understand what those preferences are and applying that same, and, and we have that, we see that by region.
So part of our tech, we just, we also evaluate what people are searching for. And we see very much a regionality to flavor profiles, to product formats. Um, this is, you know, we work closely, like I said, hoodie analytics. They do a very good job of, of helping us understand those, um, those trends. But, but there's regionality here too, and, and within, there's urban, we see differences between urban and suburban and rural preferences.
So it's, it's, the more you understand that and can market to those, those different nuances, the more effective you're going to be.
Tommy Truong: Yeah, that makes, well, I mean, that makes a lot of sense for sure. If I was a retailer today, right? And you, you're in a position that you work with a lot of retailers to really help them understand their customers customer base better, and leverage [00:23:00] technology to communicate better. Segment. You have a customer base Today, the only real, you can only increase sales twofold.
One, you can increase the number of customers that come through the door, so maybe the frequency of your existing customer base, but that really doesn't necessarily happen that much. Everybody has. Everybody has a budget. Increase the number of unique customers that come through or increase the size of the order.
Right? Not a lot of ways that you can really impact your sales, if
Noel Burkman: A third, I would say third is frequency, right?
Tommy Truong: Yeah. Yeah. Frequency, how, how should a retailer approach increasing the footprint of, of their store leveraging a technology like strain brain.
Noel Burkman: Yeah, so, so like Greenlight, they're one of our, one of our customers, they do a very good job of creating awareness. So, so, you know, different states have different [00:24:00] regulations and, and different retailers also have different resources. So, so, you know, it's, it's, it's what, based on what resources you have available, what knowledge you have available.
And I would say that, that any retailer of almost any size can find a, a. Outreach, I'm gonna call 'em an outreach expert. 'cause that's a different set of, you know, a bunch of, from, from SEO to market engagement, to awareness to social, you know, there's, there's different ways to do it. Green light, they, they actually are allowed, I guess in Missouri you can run radio ads.
So they've run radio ads to say, Hey, come, we have this AI bud tender. Don't be afraid it's gonna ask you all the questions. You know, it's, it's, it's about creating that awareness in the community. And, and I think in different, that means different. There's no one answer. For every retailer. It really depends on the, on the, the, the, the, the dynamics of that retailer, what their demographics are, where they are, what their competitive landscape is.
But I would say you have to understand your cut [00:25:00] consumers and who's shopping with you already. You have to understand who's around you, which isn't that hard. I mean, there's, there's ways to do that that are fairly simple. And then understand, you know, like I said, by me. Farmers' markets, bring your parents to the dispensary.
Be cre like, get creative. I don't see a lot of cre marketing creativity. I went, you know, if I, I go to Denver, someone goes to school there, I open the, the local papers that are a advertising cannabis and I'm like, okay. They've been in business for 15 years or however long they've been selling cannabis legally in Denver, and they're showing the same tribal images and language and.
From paper to paper, and they're talking about, I mean, they are missing so much opportunity by not, if one of them just got outta line and started talking to consumers in a, in a, in a more gentle way with different imagery and about use cases and wellness, they would crush it.
Tommy Truong: They, I, I [00:26:00] always think to myself, just like any, any business, you kind of start small and you run a lot of experiments, and the first experiment that you run, you may not. Most likely are not gonna be successful, but you're gonna learn a lot on the
Noel Burkman: Well,
Tommy Truong: that comes back
Noel Burkman: so here's my take. I'm sorry. Go
Tommy Truong: yeah, yeah. No, no, no.
Go ahead. But I, I, I feel as, although there's no magic bullet, and a lot of people think that they have to go big and it has to work the first time that they outreach to their audience, which is a huge mistake that I see.
Noel Burkman: that's a great point. I mean, this is trial and error, right? Do small. Correct. What worked, what didn't work? Let's make a correction. Let's eat, let's do two different things and see what works a little bit better. I feel like when I go through my, my Instagram feed or, or if I go to MJ biz or whatever, these conferences, I just feel like everybody there is talking to each other, right?
They're doing what they do. 'cause that's what everybody else is doing. Or they don't want to be, I [00:27:00] don't exactly know what the, the pathology is. They don't wanna be different. They're afraid to be different. They don't understand how to be different. But if I look at cannabis feeds and social media, you know, they're talking about getting high and they're talking about cheap and the cheap THC and, you know, showing people eight up blunts and all, that's fine for that segment, but it's, it's, it's isolating and even pushing away more opportunity.
Tommy Truong: You, you hit the nail on the head. It's pushing away.
Noel Burkman: Yeah.
Tommy Truong: The health industry, the health consumer is so much bigger than the recreational cannabis consumer that you go too hard on blunts on just the culture stuff, right? That it pushes away the, the professionals. So there is, there is a lane that you have to pick and choose, I would say, but.
I, I always think, well, okay, if I, if I owned a, a dispensary, how would I experiment this? And there's a lot of ways that you can [00:28:00] go. Granted, it depends on regulations, depends on what you can do, what you can say, all those things. You have to make sure that you're on side. But THCV, for example, helps you focus.
And if you've taken it, you, you would know that, hey, this is actually a really good tool that doesn't get you high, but it maximizes your, the time that you have in a particular task would not not be great in universities
Noel Burkman: Right, right.
Tommy Truong: and then now you have that nugget. It's just figuring out what the right messaging is, what that, what that looks like, what the outreach looks like, and you kind of go down the rabbit hole. What works, what doesn't work? You get your first initial customers that come in, you interview them, and then the door opens when you talk to your customers.
Noel Burkman: And, and the good news is everything you're saying, and I'm saying we're not the first people, we're not the first industry to do this, right. The, the, the, the playbook's there. I'm not saying anything that's [00:29:00] revolutionary in terms of marketing. Right. The, the playbook's there and, and it's been done and tested and there's methods and processes that are all there to do exactly what you're saying.
Run those small tests. See what works. Set your expectations right now. Listen, I get it. They don't have a lot of extra money, but
Tommy Truong: You don't need money for this. You don't, you, you start small. You don't need a lot of things. You just need action and some intention. And, um, the persistence to try, get feedback, calibrate, try, get feedback, calibrate, and it takes. a march towards infinity, I
Noel Burkman: listen, do some, you can go and do some research and see what keywords the hemp companies are investing in. Right? And those are keywords that you might want to think about right. On a, on a local basis, because they're doing a really good job of monopolizing those keywords
Tommy Truong: Yeah.
Noel Burkman: on those ideas.
Tommy Truong: So tell me a little bit more about Stream Ring. I, [00:30:00] you know, we, I know a little bit about it and I know that you guys use proprietary AI to kind of, kind of really dial things in. How can a a retailer leverage this technology today to increase sales?
Noel Burkman: It's super simple. That was the one other reason we bought it. 'cause of the elegance of the implementation. Um, we're implemented with a lot of the top e-comm platforms. Um, Dutchy Jane. Weed maps, few others, and, and doing an, an integration with, with a, with a new platform is super easy for us. And once it's integrated, literally the dispensary puts in three lines of code in the header that injects our script in there.
And now our script sits on top of their website just kind of innocuously in the, in whatever corner they choose with whatever imagery they choose. And it could be as big or small as they want. And now the customer has an option. To have a different shopping experience. I think the, the, the, the trending top, the trending buzzword is conversational [00:31:00] commerce, right?
Which is like a IBM and SAP. They're kind of all pushing that and you see it in other industries. Uh, um, Amazon has Rufuss and Walmart has their version of it. But this is that first foray into that new menu experience in cannabis, which. Gets out of the more traditional matrix of products and says, let's have a conversation.
Let me understand how you wanna feel and gets, and it's, you know, in most cases, this is a 10 minute install to, it's not a deep integration. We're not going deep into systems. Um, and
Tommy Truong: What does integration do? You've, you're, you're connected now to the marketplace.
Noel Burkman: the integration, it brings our, our modal, our, our convers, our chat, our, it's not a chat bot, but our interface into their e-commerce.
Environment. So if they click on the bottom, GI gimme a recommendation, it opens up the modal now gives 'em this, this AI driven experience that we really engineered off of the Google One Box experience, meaning we're taking away all of the [00:32:00] noise, as much noise as we can, and bringing out all of the anxiety inducing pieces and just asking a few questions to get them to a product.
We have another version that's an embedded version, meaning it can be built into a standalone page. We have a couple of dispensaries that are coming out with this and they're gonna. Use this as a landing page or a turn down the noise page, and we can change the journey that's more focused on wellness or more focused on performance.
But the base, the base, um, implementation is this bud Ai bud tender that sits in the corner. And when you're ready to use it, it opens up and, and asks you four simple questions to get you to a, a recommendation. And we only go against products that, that are in inventory, right? So you're never gonna get a recommendation of something that's not there.
Um.
Tommy Truong: Can you leverage this in store?
Noel Burkman: Yeah, so, so like Greenlight runs it on all their kiosks, right? So we are integrated to the kiosk as well. And, and some cases they're, you know, they're using it, um, not, uh, to different MSOs are using it, uh, when they do do [00:33:00] this outreach in the field right to, with people that aren't as experienced with cannabis to say, Hey, we're just gonna ask you four simple questions and get you a recommendation.
Um, on a tablet or a phone, so, so it can be deployed. It's actually mobile first development, so it's, it's a great mobile experience.
Tommy Truong: If somebody wanted to experience this for themselves. Where can they go online today?
Noel Burkman: Oh, lots of places. Uh, let's, I'll go East Coast to West Coast, so east coast. I know there's the ones that are just coming to the top of mind. Higher Collective on the East coast, uh, Midwest in the Chicagoland area. Windy City, dispensary, Greenlight, Missouri, obviously Greenlight. Um, we are, there's a couple of new pilots that are gonna come online next week that are going to bring us into about 200 more locations across the country.
And I'm missing a, a ton. There's a union Chill in, [00:34:00] in New York and New Jersey torches in New York City. Um, uh, there's a, a ton more, I, I can't remember off the top of my head, but there, there's a, there's a lot of different places
Tommy Truong: that's, that's so neat. I, I always think about. For me, what is the best customer experience? But, so let's say a customer goes through this, they get what they want, what is the experience afterwards that, how, how does, how do you guys increase the frequency of customers coming back and what should be a strategy that's deployed to increase the customer base too?
Noel Burkman: So, so the first part of the question is, okay, so now how, and we work with, we work with dispensaries on marketing, right? Because we understand that, that just getting the sale, the one sale is great. Getting the second sale is better and the third and larger carts are better. So, so [00:35:00] then it becomes, okay, how, what does that communication campaign look like with that customer?
And this gets into segmentation and I keep talking about segmentation ' cause
Tommy Truong: Do, sorry. Do you guys plug into, say, a loyalty platform
Noel Burkman: do, so we're, we're integrated with, with Spring Big, we're integrated with Alpine. We'll soon to be integrated with, uh, Dutchess loyalty program. Um, so, so the, so, so like Greenlight uses, so every time you do, you get, you can sign up through Strain Brain and you get and send a hundred points or something at Greenlight, for example.
And then they have every day that you come back and just do a search. You can get points even if you don't complete a transaction and they move the number around. So some days it's five points, some days it's a hundred points, gamifies it a little bit, but then it's about the conver, the communication and conversation with the customer afterwards.
And this is again, more, more stuff we're coming out with in 2026, which is okay, you purchased this through Strain Brain, how'd you like it? Did it meet your expectations or we didn't it? So we're gonna use [00:36:00] that data to continue to improve. And then the customer, again, there's the, there's the research that shows when you ask them specifically about their actions and you react to it, it increases their, their loyalty and connection to that retail location and their propensity to spend more per product, um, and be less concerned in some cases about discounting and cheapest product.
Tommy Truong: So it's, that's something that you. You mentioned something really important is the closed loop feedback that you have with your customers. And I, I feel as though business owners, I'm not talking about dispensaries themselves, but there's not enough conversations with customers. And if you don't have that closed loop feedback on how you're doing, you can never really calibrate and do you, how well do you understand your business is how well you understand your customers.
That's just rule number one.
Noel Burkman: And, and retailers have a choice, right? They can be seen as an intimate business, like a local coffee shop. They can be seen as just an operations. [00:37:00] You know, we get you cheap product. We don't know a lot about you, um, or an innovative company like you come to us because, you know, we're, we're doing some really cool stuff with products and I don't see a lot of retailers thinking a lot about what do we want a relationship with our customer to be?
And then how are we driving that, the dynamics of that relationship.
Tommy Truong: Do you find, um, and a lot of people will think this, but I, I would love to know your, your, um, your experience on this of is there a disconnection or is there a worry that retailers have that they lose a connection with their customers? 'cause they're leveraging technology to have these conversations?
Noel Burkman: I don't. My experience is that there's, I haven't heard that a whole lot. The technology is going to, because I don't think they have a whole lot. I think, you know, if you look at it, they don't really have a lot of intimacy with their [00:38:00] customers. Right. They're really, I mean, broad strokes here, but they're driving, they're, they're, they're marketing on price, almost unilateral, not a hundred percent, but almost unilaterally.
They're marketing on price. And that really takes out the intimacy thing that I think especially the new, you know, the new segments coming to the market are looking for, like, I want, I want you to, if you know my name when I come in, that would be great. And that goes a long way. If you know my name, when you send me an email and you talk about my last purchase and my history and you're showing that you understand me, I'm gonna be, it changes our relationship, so, so I think.
I don't know that there's a fundamental understanding either way of how tech, certainly you can implement technology in a very cold way, right? That does turn people off. But you can also use it to drive a very personal relationship. And, and I think both of those are kind of lost
Tommy Truong: Yeah, it's, I'm a huge believer that technology compliments [00:39:00] customer experience, and you kind of have to put it into your retail experience properly. Obviously, you can't just fully. turn your, you know.
Noel Burkman: I mean, that's, and that's the, you know, we, but we're not looking to push bartenders out, like use this tool to just create a consistent experience. Right. And, and get to ask the important questions on a consistent basis to help the customers find the right product and, and just connect.
Right. And that's, that's, we're looking, we're, we're looking to create, I mean, if you go to a, listen, if you go to a standard cannabis menu right now, there's not a lot of human connection there. Right. It's, it's, there's a lot of words that are nonsensical. There's, there's chemicals, chemistry. That's doesn't mean a lot to people.
To some people. And so, how do you, go ahead.
Tommy Truong: you know, I, I visit dispos often and it surprises me on. How many times I just get order takers. [00:40:00] You know, you, you talk to somebody and if they're just an order taker, you're losing so much. You're leaving so much money on the table that you're, you're leaving a lot of upsell, but also the customer experience.
Now, why am I coming back? Uh, you've been zero help to me and getting so I have to come in educated already. I have to understand your menu and that's just a terrible experience.
Noel Burkman: A hundred percent. Yeah, I mean that's, that's that, that intimacy piece, there is no intimacy in that, in that relationship. And that's, you know, even if you look at it doesn't have to Whole Foods, I keep using them just 'cause they've done a great job over the years of creating a perception, rea real or otherwise of quality and speaking to a segment.
Right. And that's, that's. The more you can do that, the more you can create a great relationship, create experiences, and, and just not, and just dollars and cents. Get, get higher margin, more shoppers, more often to your [00:41:00] dispensary and differentiate yourself. And what's the differentiation from dispensary to dispensary?
Tommy Truong: No, no. I know that you have to run, we, I have to have you back as you,
Noel Burkman: Love it. Appreciate it.
Tommy Truong: uh. I love talking about. How to increase sales in the dispensary, and I'm sure that our listeners, uh, love that as well. Right? This is a huge topic for everybody.
Noel Burkman: Let's do it. It was great. Enjoyed the conversation. Great. Enjoyed your perspective and your input.
Tommy Truong: How can our listeners find you?
Noel Burkman: Uh, they can find me in the usual ways. I'm, I'm on all of the social channels. I'm on LinkedIn orNoel@strainbrain.co. Or LinkedIn. You can find me at slash knoll berkman Twitter. I think I'm at slash knoll Berkman strain or Instagram, we, you can find strain brain. I think it's just strain brain slash strain brain.
I check that, but [00:42:00] usually.
Tommy Truong: and you want to just reach out and talk a little bit more on how to increase your, the footprint of people coming to your business, reach out to no wealth of knowledge. No. Thank you so much for coming on, and I, we will have to let, uh, have you on sometime in the near future. Just continue this.
Noel Burkman: Tom, appreciate it. Appreciate you. Great, great conversation. Really enjoyed it.
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