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Tommy Truong: Jason, thank you so much for joining me today.
Jason Reposa: Thank you for having me, Tommy.
Tommy Truong: So I love talking to other entrepreneurs in the industry. Before we start, tell us, tell the audience a little bit about yourself.
Jason Reposa: Uh, my name is Jason Reposa. I am a multi, uh, multi-business founder. I've exited a few companies. Uh, had some great success in the past. Uh, tried my hand cannabis and here we are today. We make fast acting. We've been in the fast acting game since, like forever. Basically at this point. Stumbled upon fast acting technology in about 2019 or so and have kind of built all formulations around it.
Although our facility didn't technically launch until 2022. We, um, are now hitting, uh, kind of our stride with all the fast acting technology. And consumer education was really important back then because people didn't understand what they were getting into. But our fast acting tech, I mean, we have access to like [00:01:00] 30 to 40 different technologies at this point.
And you know, probably six, seven are gonna be six, seven are gonna be, um, uh, in-house formulations even. So we have our own kind of like r and d and all that other stuff internally. But yeah, we've been in it for a minute, but it's, you know, right now our big winners are in the syrup line. Um, so we make a syrup, which isn't like a totally like a corn syrupy syrup.
It's not like super thick and hard to like mix in. It's much more runnier, so it goes directly into your drinks and you just, you know, you can consume five milligrams, you can consume a hundred milligrams. It's up to you.
Tommy Truong: Yeah, I saw that it's, it's What has the market reception been? Because it's a really affordable way to consume.
Jason Reposa: Yeah, so from the way we look at it is this is what gets me fired up. Like when we had our original, original products, we maxed out at a hundred, a hundred milligrams, and we kept on hearing back from people, you, we just need more. We love [00:02:00] your product, awesome stuff, super fast acting, love it. But we need more than a hundred milligrams because the people who liked it the most were high dose consumers, and then they were like, it's like five.
Doses at 20 milligrams. Or sometimes people will be like, I take 50 milligrams at a times A. It's two. It's two, you know, servings for me, and people go above that. We found out much later, so we decided to create a stronger formulation. We went to 500 milligrams at first and then through. Uh, our internal kind of like development process.
We were like, we can go above that. But the regulations were like a thing. And so we worked with, with our invest, we're in the Massachusetts market, so we worked with our investigators and the regulators and determined that you can go above 500. And so we were the first ones to break the barrier of 500.
In Massachusetts. We went to a thousand milligrams. That's our good vibes x uh, line of products. And we haven't really looked back since then. We haven't really, we have, we don't. Really wanna go above a thousand milligrams ourselves because it becomes a little bit, 'cause we're also in a one ounce bottle.[00:03:00]
Um, and it's very concentrated already at that point. And our technology allows us to go higher. But it's becomes more of like a responsibility thing because it's what point, at one point, you know, you go to 3000 milligrams for instance, one drop of it is five migs. Right? So we're like, we have
Tommy Truong: gotta be really precise with.
Jason Reposa: Yeah, exactly. So for low dose consumers, you can still consume it, but for high dose consumers it hits the nail on the head. 'cause we're kind of more on that liquid gummy side where it's just like, it's just a delicious thing. You can take straight or you could mix it in a drink.
Tommy Truong: What got you into this business? Why did you start it?
Jason Reposa: Oh, I was, um, I had like, I locked my jaw up. I came from the medical side, right? So I'm not a traditional consumer in any sense. Yeah, of course. I dabbled when I was in high school and stuff like that. But when I locked my jaw from stress, I tried doctors and dentists, they were shooting needles in my head.
They were electro shocking 'cause they were like, we gotta solve this inflammation issue. And they were [00:04:00] trying to reduce the inflammation in my jaw. So it'd open it up and eventually it would open, but the next day it would be closed again. And so every time I go through these sessions. The next day my jaw would be shut again because they weren't treating the root cause.
They were treating the symptom. So what happened was when I tried cannabis, because as many people in my situation and other medical, you know, situations are like, let me try cannabis because nothing else is working. I tried it and it solved the root cause issue, which was stress. So. When I was able to solve my stress and relax at the end of the day, I would wake up and my jaw would be fine.
But it took me months to figure that out. And then once I figured that out, you know, I was like, well, I don't necessarily wanna smoke or vape. There's a big vape crisis thing happening in middle schools. I'm not sure if you have, uh, kids in. You know, at all or end that range. But I have a 15, a 13, and an 8-year-old.
And even back then, middle schools there were like kids vaping in the middle schools, like they had JUULs and stuff [00:05:00] like that. And it was just like, I'm like, I can't be that guy, right? So I started developing water-based formulas, which is what I like. I really kind of, uh, leaned into, uh, really heavily. So since we're able to take oil and put it into water and make it stable.
I just started using my own products. 'cause I was just doing like home experimentation stuff. And at that point I had sold my second company, so I was just sitting around doing nothing. I was like, what do I do next? You know, trying to figure out what to do with my life. And then I stumbled upon this technology, started going heavier, heavier into it.
And all of a sudden I was like, well, if it worked for me, it could work for so many more people. And so I decided at that moment, I was like, this is my next kind of mission in life and my purpose in life is to share this with as many people as I can.
Tommy Truong: Did your stress come from not doing anything?
Jason Reposa: The, when I locked my jaw, the stress was because I was actually in the process of selling the company. So I was, so, I'm not gonna bore you with the details, but basically I was running the process fairly solo, right? And so all the due diligence,[00:06:00]
Tommy Truong: What was it, by the way?
Jason Reposa: uh, it was a, it was a, it was a, it was a.
A media company called MBT Media, which had its premier kind of website. It was called buy back tracker.com still exists today. It was sold to a, it was sold to a public company though, and the public company, they had a gang of lawyers and accountants and VPs of whatever. And as me, I'm just like, okay. And of course I had business founders, but they were working on other things and they, you know, so it wasn't like, I was like, I was like, I got this, don't worry about it.
But I took on all that weight onto my shoulders, which literally, physically all. You know, was my shoulders and I was like stressed out every single night. And I was also hiking at the same time. So I was, I was doing the Inca Trail in Peru, and so as I'm doing this hike that day, it's a, it's just a weird story.
Like I hyper extended my knee, literally like a month before I was supposed to go on this trip at a trampoline park for my kid's birthday. And I told my buddy who I was going with, I'm like, I'm not sure if I can make it because I gotta hike, you know, [00:07:00] 14,000 feet. Right. So. I eventually make the hike, and then I woke up the next day through all the stress of work and through all the physical exer, ex exertion that I was going through during that hike, um, to Machu Picchu.
I woke up the next day and I was, I couldn't open my mouth. And so for the rest of my trip in Peru, including when I actually finally got to Machu Picchu, I was on a liquid diet. Like I couldn't open my mouth, but that was, it was all stress because of the sale of my company to, uh, it's kind of where it all started.
Tommy Truong: From the sale of your business to starting good fields. How long was that?
Jason Reposa: Two years almost. 'cause we sold in early 2019 actually. Yeah, a year and a half. And I founded Good Fields in 2020. August, 2020. So it was very beginning of 2019 when I
Tommy Truong: so I, you know, it's one thing to find something that really works for, you know, that, hey, this is great, this works for me. I, I gotta. I [00:08:00] gotta show it to the masses to actually committing, Hey, this is gonna be me for the next five, 10 years.
Jason Reposa: Committing is the hard part because I think, and I've, I've already originally came in with a five 10 year, now I'm on actually just, we're talking about director operation operations today. I'm like, this might be the last company I start because what else am I gonna do? This is my purpose in life right now.
Right? So what I was sick and tired of having ideas and really thinking, man, this is gonna be a big idea. I should just go do this. Not doing it and then seeing someone else do it and be like, man, that was mine. Right? And I actually have that inherent because of my, that's how I grew up. My father would always have these great ideas and then he'd stew for months afterwards being like, that's my idea.
Someone else did it. I had that idea two years ago or whatever. He'd be like always talking about all these ideas he had and somebody else did. I'm like. And in the back of my head, I'm like, I don't wanna be that guy. Like I wanna actually do it too. Right? So I had [00:09:00] this idea and I was like, I'm gonna commit to it.
I do have a little bit of capital to spend because of this exit. Let me put, you know, not all the chips in, but some of the chips in, in the beginning eventually, and turn it into a lot more chips later. But when I pushed those chips in, I was like, all right, this is a real commitment now. 'cause I'm putting real money in the line.
Tommy Truong: You find that it's the stress of making that decision is so, I'm trying to say just committing, relieves so much stress.
Jason Reposa: Yeah, because I, the way I looked at it was I'm sitting around, I'm like, there's only so much like I could garden. Sure. You know, I could, I was actually growing my own plants for a while. Uh. Uh, cannabis plants, but I'm a terrible grower, so I knew I was like that. I can't do that part, so I, let's stay away from there.
No cultivation from me, but once I committed, yeah, I was, there was, I was like, I had the purpose and the mission in front of me, so there's no [00:10:00] stress. It was like just go time.
Tommy Truong: Did you, where the product is today to the initial inception? What, how has it evolved?
Jason Reposa: We actually did almost a full 360 because the original products I created were very close to what we have today. What I did in the beginning was I, I was so focused, 'cause I'm a technology guy, uh, I've always been the CTO, you know, VP of technology, whatever you wanna call it. Like I've always been all that person.
I've been the computer science guy. From the beginning. So when I felt like the tech original technology that I created, even though it worked for me, I was like, there's better technology out there. So I went on this huge hunt of all this different technology, which is why we have access to so many. When I actually stumbled upon better and better technology, it was better because it was faster at the time and we got it down to like three minutes.
We were having like 20 nano meter pet particle [00:11:00] size. It was like it was fast, right? And so we launched that product and but you compromise on things like taste.
Tommy Truong: Hmm.
Jason Reposa: There's, if you get these big particles and you shrink 'em all down, the surface area goes exponential, which means the bitterness becomes exponential.
So the smaller you make the particle, the worse it tastes. And so hard lesson there is like I over-engineered it in a sense, right? And so now we've kind of come full circle where we've backed off the particle size a little bit to make it just better and more, more palatable. So you can take it straight now.
Tommy Truong: So what, uh, how so, how is it fast acting? If I'm taking this, how long before I feel it and how
Jason Reposa: Like it's, it's closer to like 10 to 15 minutes now. Where originally it was like I said, three to five. It's more like a 10 to 15. Um, and there's a, yeah, there's a place for three minutes still if you really need that. And I know there's, people have like little like, um, dissolvable tablets and stuff like that that were pretty fast acting, uh, which are great.
But we found the consumer was still, they were fine with 10 to 15. So we were like, well, let's, [00:12:00] you know, let's make the taste a little bit better now. And since we've been doing it so long and. We survey people constantly. We have a survey running right now where we're giving, um, $3 per submission for the survey.
We're looking for 300 or so. 300. We're about a thousand dollars budget for the survey and. We're constantly asking people like questions like this, like, is it still fast acting in your head? Like, and everybody says, yeah, we're still fine with 15, you know, minutes. It's okay. You know, it doesn't have to be three as long as it's under an hour people, it's like, it's fast acting enough.
You know what I mean? But it used to be upsetting to me 'cause I'd see other people be like, we're a fast acting at 20 to 30 minutes. And I'd be like, that's not fast acting. We're fast acting. You know what I mean? And I'd get on my high horse and be like, we're we're three minutes, you know? That's all behind me now, fortunately, because I do not think about it in that perspective.
It's about consumer acceptance. It's like, what do the people actually want? What are they gonna spend their hard earned dollars on? Et cetera, et cetera. And we find that. Like we're doing well, but the grass is always greener [00:13:00] because it's like, it's still hard as f to be able to even just be existing in this market right now.
Even though we have a popular product, it's so hard just to exist. So anybody who's trying to come in today, you have to have a real differentiator. You know, especially on your brand and stuff like that. People, you're just like, oh, just slap a label on it. That's our new brand. And it's just like, it's not that easy.
But um. Yeah, and it's not that easy to make our product either, so it's like people think it's like, oh, they're doing so great. We should copy them. And I'm like, good luck. Grass is always greener, man. If you wanna take that on, go for it.
Tommy Truong: when you got into the game, the beverage market isn't where it was today. Right. So when you got in,
Jason Reposa: it. We started in beverages, to be fair. Yeah, 2019 I was making seltzer in my basement.
Tommy Truong: So what was that like then and how has the market evolved today with beverages?
Jason Reposa: So we started too early. And that's the trick is that like we always used to have this internal saying because can was out, [00:14:00] CANN can, uh, with a little, you know, eight ounce drinks. Um, and now they have the high boys, like 12 ounce drinks and they had all the celebrity backing and stuff like that. And, you know, they'd raised millions of dollars and we were like.
Great. Let them educate everybody and we'll just come behind them because I'm not spending, we don't have that type of budget. You know, our marketing budget back then was maybe like $10,000 a month or something like that, which still sounds like a lot in this world. Um, but like we are, we are like, let them spend a hundred thousand a month or more just to educate the market so we can come right behind them and kind of ride their coattails without having to spend all the money.
Now looking back, it's like. The, the way this, this has evolved, and we were in the hemp side super early too. I actually had a hemp company before I had the cannabis company. So we were super early in the hemp side. And Chris, uh, Fontes, he was the one who actually tipped me off to this, that it's a thing again, because people were talking about C, B, D and all.
I'm like, dude, C, b, d, we can't touch, you know, the, that doesn't sell. Nobody buys that stuff. It was a huge [00:15:00] hype cycle. It's dead. So when he, Chris Fontes, who's, uh, Trojan Horse Cannabis, which I think he rebranded as high Spirits. I apologize dude, for if I'm getting your names wrong, but, um, but he, we jumped in a, a a a call one day and he was just like, Hey, you should get into hemp.
And I'm like, I was in hemp. I don't wanna be part of it anymore. And then he was like, but it's happening again. And so we jumped in 2023, I wanna say. Um. We talked, we started talks in 2022 and finally got our first batch done in 2023. 'cause it was still like they didn't, the co-packers were really around and all this other stuff.
But the way I see it today is drinks are a just a great way to socialize. I consume my own drinks. We do actually have hemp drinks ourselves still. Um, and it's a good market, but of course with the hemp ruling, like we're just, we are not sure where to go from here because we're kind of still business as usual.
We're still making new batches and stuff like that. But we're hoping through the, [00:16:00] uh, advocacy efforts of, you know, with the lobbyists as well, with HBA Head Hemp Beverage Alliance, et cetera, which we're a part of, like, we're hoping that we're able to convince how this is gonna move forward. And IL you know, they did ban THC, which is a.
Distinction that we have to be clear. They said it could be 0.4 milligrams or less, which is tiny. And no one's really doing that, but they didn't ban it, right? So our job now is to get 0.4 to five, right? So if we can get back to five milligrams, I think a lot of people will be in business. And I think a lot of jobs will be saved.
But as it stands now, the industry is kind of dead. But again, it comes up back up to advocacy. But the way we started versus the way we ended, we were super early. And then a bunch of people put the effort in and focused on just this thing like breeze, like Aaron, that that's crazy. Like their whole trajectory and story, like definitely I remember trying their products at a [00:17:00] mj.
Uh, no, it was a Benzinga event back in, it was in Miami like years ago and I was like, alright, this could be a thing again, because I talked to Chris already and I see Aaron coming up with these drinks and I'm like, this might be happening again. So. I'm glad it's here, but I'll be sad if it does actually go away, because that's actually my preferred format.
Like, I like my products, don't get me wrong. Uh, but I'm a, I'm a low dose consumer myself. I'm five migs, 10 migs maybe, um, a night if I'm, you know, if I'm feeling crazy, I'll go to like 15 migs, but that's over a period of like couple hours, you know?
Tommy Truong: Same I am. If I'm to consume it, it's beverage a hundred percent and
Jason Reposa: Yeah. It's so convenient. It's, and for me it's always been about access. It's about like, and I, I'm not preaching to the choir here. Your audience obviously has these same thoughts, I'm sure, but it's like, it should just be readily accessible. Whether you want it to be in a liquor store or not, that's a different thing.
But like as long as it's accessible, I'm happy. You know what I mean? And the easiest way to get it accessible is to put it next to products. [00:18:00] Like other vice products like alcohol, like it just makes a ton of sense to me. So that's why when I saw liquor stores carrying it near me, I was just like, oh, like cycling frog and art over that, that team, like when I saw that down the street from me, I'm like, I gotta, I'm like, they're in my territory now.
Like what am I doing? Why am I sitting down and taking this right now? I should be actively like doing this.
Tommy Truong: Yeah, and it's, for me, anytime I see on a shelf, I just feel, I feel acceptance. You know what I mean?
Jason Reposa: That's what it is. It's like I, I feel seen because it's just like, I, I don't go to, I don't drink alcohol anymore. Alcohol was a big part of my life in my twenties, my thirties. But as I got close to my forties, I think it was around 40 maybe when I stopped drinking entirely. Um, I'd have onesie, twosies and stuff like that, but like.
I about 40 or so, 41 maybe. I can't remember exactly when I just stopped cold Turkey. I was just like, I'm just done with this whole thing. 'cause I also have my own formulas at that point. You know what I mean? So like I was already making my own cannabis formulations and so I didn't need to [00:19:00] alcohol to relax at the end of the day and then feel like trash the next day.
Instead, I could have a little gummy or a little of my own products and then I'd be, you know, you know, right as rain in the morning.
Tommy Truong: Good vibes itself. You guys are droppers. Do you feel that you are in the beverage space? Kind of,
Jason Reposa: Yes, because we, a lot of people do use it that way. Like when we, when we do surveys, it's almost 50 50. I mean, and even on my podcast, I have a little segment where we ask people how they take it and it's 50 50 people just love it to mix it into drinks because. Especially our unflavored really does impart zero flavor into anything you're doing, any, any drink you want.
So coffees and stuff like that are totally, you know, uh, in the realm of possibilities for infusion. But when you drop it in, it just goes in so smooth that like, yeah, it's a hundred percent a beverage or mix in type
Tommy Truong: I'm thinking a mocktail Sprite, whatever. Drop it in
Jason Reposa: Yeah, people love Sprite. They, they love [00:20:00] like blue raspberry.
Like we've got some of those fun flavors out there too, like grape and blue raspberry and watermelon. Those are like our OG flavors. Um, and then we have some more exotic flavors like mago, guava and pink lemonade and cran, um, cran palm, which are more like, those are a thousand milligram products. Those are like just a little more fun flavors.
Tommy Truong: Where do you, where do you find that you fit in the industry in terms of, 'cause it's not an edible, it's not a beverage,
Jason Reposa: We fight that all the time, which is why it's like, I, you know, if you, if you're thinking about starting a competitor, go for it. Because the more competition, the better we could expand this category together. You can spend your own money to help. Me too. Thank you. Um, because edibles are 10 times bigger than the tincture market.
But we're classified as a tincture because we're over a hundred milligrams in Massachusetts. And so for us being in the tincture side, nobody's going to the dispensary be like, oh, I want a tincture today. Nobody says that unless they have like a medical condition. They're like, oh, I want a tincture. 'cause that's the medicinal version of cannabis.
[00:21:00] So if you're looking to have fun, people are like gummies and pre-rolls and fun stuff like that. Or drinks right. Um, so it's an incredibly tough category to be in. We're 1.5% of the market and we're like half of that. So in total, we're like 0.7% of the Massachusetts market. 1.5% of is tinctures in total.
Tommy Truong: yeah, but you guys aren't tinctures. That's, that's the thing.
Jason Reposa: right? Well, we are because we are, we
Tommy Truong: from a consumer perspective.
Jason Reposa: Right, exactly. So, exactly. But from the regulatory side, we very much are, because of the way we actually produce it and the bottle and the dropper, like, it's very much on purpose, a tincture like that. Um, I know other people fly a little closer to the sun where they, they make a thousand milligram tincture for instance, in this, in this market.
Um, and they don't have like a way to dose it fairly cleanly. So it's just like a thousand milligrams and it's just like. You pour it out instead. I'm just like, that's a oof, like, I personally wouldn't be comfortable giving somebody [00:22:00] something. They could just pour like that and be like, I think it's like 50 migs.
I don't know. Um, I think it's a little bit, again, I always go back to the responsibility and I don't wanna throw shade on my competitors necessarily, but I just to, to highlight the fact that we truly are a tincture. In that sense, it's more for us. We do compete with edibles. Bec from the consumer perspective though.
Tommy Truong: What did, is this the biggest, if you're, if you're think, I mean, you probably do this if you're planning for. The biggest 1, 2, 3 problems that you're gonna solve over the next year or so? What would it be?
Jason Reposa: Getting people to think that we're not tincture number one,
Tommy Truong: Right.
Jason Reposa: you just talked about, right. No, because that's a, that's a super real, that's a real, real issue that we deal with all the time because again, nobody's being like, oh, I'm gonna go onto this online menu, find the tincture category and find me, um, we get people searching by name and they'll find us that way.
But like, nobody clicks into the tincture category. So that's, you know, the number one thing is the marketing. Uh, we really do our doubling down on [00:23:00] marketing. The way we look at marketing is it's. That that marketing team is responsible for getting it off the shelf and into customer's hands. Right. The sales team gets it into the store, but the sales team's job isn't to get, necessarily to get into a customer's hand.
So doubling down on our marketing efforts, branding efforts. So we have a few, you know, terms that we've been working with, like liquid gummies, which is what I mentioned, which I think is pretty close to what we're doing here. And so that's why it's like we're testing the waters with some of the terminology here, just to make sure it's very clear that like.
We're closer to an edible in that sense, but we're very much in the tincture category. Um, but yeah, so marketing's probably number one thing, two efficiencies. So, uh, you know, we just, our director of production just became our director of operations and for us it's really like. We see there's a bunch of bottlenecks.
Now this person has the authority to kind of like unlock a lot of this stuff, whereas before they didn't, they were kind of just like isolated to the production side. So I think that's a key unlock in the near future. Um, and the big one [00:24:00] is like, we really do want to put a bunch more effort into the hemp side because we do see good return on it.
It's just that like with the unknowns right now, it's really hard to commit much more capital to it. 'cause it's just like, I guess we're just gonna roll that next thing. 'cause we had plans to create all these new skews. Uh, we had like. W six, like nine more SKUs we were gonna launch in 2026 and now that all got pulled back, we're just like, I guess we're not doing those anymore.
You know, we do have some other SKUs that we are gonna launch simply because we already paid for half the bill 'cause they want to 50%. So we're like, might as well pay the rest of it and get them, get at least our money back 'cause we'll sell through it in a year. Uh, but like, those are the big things. I would say marketing is almost the number one thing in store marketing, digital marketing, using platforms like Jane and Dutchie to do, you know, sponsored ads and stuff like that.
There's a lot of nuance into marketing. Marketing is such a wide thing, so that'd be our number one, because we have a problem and are because people just don't look for tincture. [00:25:00] Great.
Tommy Truong: Yeah, when I saw your product, it reminded me of, I used to work with somebody that had. This was maybe like 10 years ago, where back then, and I don't know, it's still around. He loved these little tinctures or whatever, but he would put it in water and it would flavor your water, and he'll drink that,
Jason Reposa: Yeah. Well, we have, I wanna sh I don't, I don't have any in front of me unfortunately, but like. We actually have a que this, the mio. Like we have that, that's our, that's our tech. Actually, lemme just grab one real quick. I know it's gonna be weird to be going off camera on a podcast, but I have to see one over my shoulder.
Um, we actually have these squeeze bottles in the hemp side, right? So this is watermelon and then there's, uh, lemonade. But it's literally just pop the cap, squeeze it in and you're done.
Tommy Truong: yeah,
Jason Reposa: that stuff is super convenient. I carry one of these on me, um, usually when I'm going to like a restaurant or something.
Tommy Truong: yeah. Adam, I'm thinking that's such a clever way of consuming, it's so, it's such a clever way of consuming what, you know, you, you probably, and I, I really [00:26:00] do like liquid gummies. I, I got it right away. So, I mean,
Jason Reposa: Well, there's confusion in the market, which again, it's a, it's a messaging issue that we're working through right now.
Tommy Truong: do you, what do you find in terms of your market? How do consumers consume good lives?
Jason Reposa: So there's a, you know, it's, like I said, it's split 50 50 straight up or not, but like, so there are some people, and again, high dose is a, there's a real need for high dose products because a lot of the high dose products used to only be available on the medical side. And the limit, what people believed the limit to be was 500 milligrams until we broke that barrier.
Uh, by just looking at the regulations and very clearly seeing like it's up to 5,000 milligrams, there's a real need here. We're not talking about getting, giving a thousand milligram product to a, a new consumer who's never tried it before. We actually tell the bud tenders all the time. This is a really strong product.
Like you [00:27:00] cannot do not recommend this to anybody who's never tried. Uh, any weed before in their entire lives is they're not gonna have a good time unless they have very clear instructions of like, just to try a couple drops at a time kind of thing. So we do get a lot of people trying it straight, but again, that whole mocktail movement, that is a thing.
And we definitely, you know, lean into it on our social media and stuff like that. We're always mixing it into stuff we don't really ever do social media taking it straight, uh, but a lot of people do take it straight because that's just the quickest, you know, and easiest way because it does happen in 15 minutes or so, and it does taste great straight.
Um, but you know, we get people that tell us all the time that they'll take, you know, 50 milligrams, a hundred milligrams at a time. We have this company, uh, company, the two co-founders of this company, they split a bottle of 500 milligrams. Uh, you know, when they, so they have 250 milligrams each or so a night if they want it.
Yeah. So we get people coming in, they'll buy six of 'em at a time. Um.
Tommy Truong: go straight to the moon,
Jason Reposa: I know. Well, that's the, like I can't do that. But what I'm saying is [00:28:00] these are responsible people. They just have a higher tolerance and they know how to adjust their tolerance and they, or adjust their dosing to match that. So it's not irresponsible in any way because they're dialed in.
They don't actually need to think about, oh, how many drops? Is this how they just like take a swig? Actually, funny story, we actually have this, so the security cam footage somewhere, I actually don't remember the story. That this would happen to him. But a guy went into a dispensary, bought a thousand milligram product, the bud tender, hands it to him.
They exchanged the cap, you know, the money, whatever, hands it to him, guy cracks it open in the store and everybody's like, stop. You can't do that in here. You can't do that in here. Like, you can't open product, right? It's not, it's like very much against the rules. Like you have to leave the facility or the dispensary in order to like even, you know, try the product cracks open the bottle, chugs the entire thousand milligram product, puts it back on the table, and he is just like too late.
And he walked out. He paid for it at least. But that's a huge compliance violation. I don't remember what store it was, [00:29:00] but it was like really bad. But a thousand milligrams, just taking it
Tommy Truong: just follow that guy's day.
Jason Reposa: What is going on in that guy's life that he decided that was gonna be the moment who he was gonna have?
Tommy Truong: I just wanna see his.
Jason Reposa: Yeah, I don't get it. So anyways, but like there are people who do have really high tolerances and of course I also. You know, I have an old, I have a old friend from high school who's an oncologist who very much was asking me to create higher dose products too, because for her patients. So, uh, and not all these people are going up to get their medical cards or anything like that.
They're just like, is there something on the adult use side that we could just pop in real quick, grab it and gimme a little bit of, you know, 10, 15, 50 milligrams of THC that will get my appetite back so I can start eating food again and stuff like that. So we do serve a very specific purpose in the medical side as well.
But there are other people out there who, when they even wanna relax at the end of the day, still need like a hundred milligrams at a time.
Tommy Truong: You know, I, I've always wondered, and I love [00:30:00] talking to brands about this because it's, it's interesting. Do you have a specific avatar, customer, consumer? you guys market to and what is your, your ideal customer?
Jason Reposa: Um, that's proprietary. I'll give you examples though. So, 'cause you get to be like whoever loves weed, right? But it's not actually that. Right. For good vibes specifically. It's almost always that high dose consumer because those are the people who are buying the most of the product. So we focus on that.
ICP specifically. Um, so high dose consumers, people who. They know weed already. They don't have to be educated on it. Right? They could be either in the industry or just have a really high tolerance because of, you know, their consumption use over time. Um, and they, uh, so there's not an age necessarily on these people.
I would say definitely skews a little bit older though, to be, to be fair, like 35, 40, 45 and older, uh, people who have been [00:31:00] consuming for, for a little bit, but maybe can't smoke anymore. Um, so there, there's a lot of these kind of changes or switchers that are trying to find products that, you know, maybe they can't, they don't wanna smoke anymore and they wanna trust something a little bit different, which we all, we get a lot of people tell us that all the time.
It's just like, my doctor says I can't smoke anymore, so I gotta trust something new and I found your product and I need like 50 mgs. Right? Um, so that's a big one for us. And then on the good feel side, the hemp products, which is like the squeeze bottles like I just showed you. Um, this is really after that beverage audience.
So the people who are like. Um, they really like the social aspects of drinking. Uh, and they are a low dose consumer because one squared is about, like a short square is like two, like two milligrams or so. So it's very easy to kind of like dial in exactly your dose and you can have multiple incest experiences with it.
Tommy Truong: I, I, I love asking that. 'cause when you tell me, and first, did you stumble upon this, did you know right away that this was your audience or it was just over time based on.
Jason Reposa: over time. Yeah, it was [00:32:00] always over time because when I, when we first started, it's funny because founders, they have a really intimate experience of how they consume and that's what you lean on in the beginning. And so since I was a low dose consumer, everything in my head was low dose, low dose, low dose, and people had to literally punch me in the face practically to be like, we need more weed.
We just want more. Can you make it, I love your product, but that's one or two servings for me. Make bigger, you know, bigger dosing. So it took us probably like 18 months to two years after launching. Before we were just like, all right, let's release this product. ' cause we had the product already. Like we probably have between 40 and 50 products in r and d At any given moment, we don't release them.
But we've tried stick packs, we've tried tablets and capsules and every form of edible you could ever imagine, like hot, hot chocolate [00:33:00] powders. And, um, anyways, I could go on all the different types we've tried, but like. The grass is always greener, man. If we were to start in a whole new category, if we started making gummies, which we've definitely experimented with, I even created my own molds, custom molds and stuff like that.
I got into silicone pouring and mixing and epoxies and stuff like that to try to create like these really great molds. And there's a whole, all of my LinkedIn history has like a bunch of these little experiments kinda along the way. And if we were to go into another category. It is so hard just to exist in one category, nevermind multiple, unless you're vertical.
MSO, whether publicly traded or just well-funded, which again, funding is kind of dried up for a lot of that stuff. Like by all means, try these things. But many people have tried to come into our category, for instance, they're gone already. Like it's just, you have to have a team dedicated to these things.
And so we're just focused on one thing and one thing only. And I dare you to compete with us because we will. We will trounce you. We go one of the smartest teams in cannabis, besides the [00:34:00] fact that we're number one in the category with more than half of the actual market, and we are not slowing down.
We're putting the gas pedal down. We're always raising the bar. We're on our fourth or fifth formulation of this product. We're making it better every day practically at this point. So. I would love more competition because it helps me ultimately. 'cause they can educate other consumers and they'll, consumers will find us and be like, oh, actually I really like this product instead.
Sounds, you know, I should probably reel back a little more humble here, but like, seriously, I'm, I'm, I'm joking. It's like if I was to try gummies, I bet the gummy companies would be saying the same thing about me. They'd be like, good luck dude. Gummies are like $5 a pack right now. What are you gonna do?
Like make a dollar a unit, 50 cents a unit. You know what I mean?
Tommy Truong: when you, when you talked about how your salespeople get the products through the door, and marketing is what gets it sold. It's a complete opposite of B2B. When I look at my business, it's, it's marketing that builds awareness, but marketing doesn't close the [00:35:00] deal. It's sales that closes the deal. Right.
It's,
Jason Reposa: We, we work off a pull, not push. We work off a pull. Like if the customers are drawing it off the shelves, the buyers are calling us being like, Hey, we're outta stock. And then we'd be like, have you paid your bill? And they're like, oh, I'll take care of it right away. And then they'll be like, freaking the CFO pay the fricking bill.
I gotta get this product back in. You know?
Tommy Truong: Yeah, it's interesting. It's interesting when you say that I,
Jason Reposa: Well, because they're also dealing with 700 SKUs. Right stores between 300. I've heard SKU U counts almost close to a thousand s skews in one store. They're like, they don't have time for one point a half percent of the market tincture market. They don't have time for us.
Right? So it's like the consumer has to draw it out of their shelves and then when we have to call and be like, Hey, by the way, you've been sold out for like two weeks. Place your order already. What are you doing?
Tommy Truong: It's insane. You, you spoke about iterations, and I know you can't share much, but what goes into improving your product? Like what are you improving and
Jason Reposa: Yeah, taste [00:36:00] profile, like there's so many things because we get feedback and our first versions that taste was a little bit off in some of the, some of the flavors. And then we would improve that. Sometimes we're improving the actual base formula, the fast acting portion of it. So we're we, we're on our second.
Developing our third version of that by itself. Um, but yeah, taste profiles lingering after tastes is kind of like a big focus of us right now because it tastes really great. And in all fairness, to my fairness to my team, like we're working on these things, so I don't wanna like throw anybody on my team under the bus 'cause they're fantastic at what they do.
But there is a lingering little aftertaste. And what we do to use the word taste again, is. We need people to own these things, and our r and d team owns that aftertaste and I, when I taste it, I remind them constantly like we still have an aftertaste here. Figure it out, fix it. Like I have lots of ideas of how to fix it.
'cause I created the original formulations, right? So for me, I'm just like, not necessarily a good five specifically that [00:37:00] came from a different kind of source. But the original, original like OG stuff, like I've been in labs and doing formulation myself for a long time too. So like if you want, I'll jump into the lab and we'll figure it out together.
Here's like three ideas that I have. Like, let's try to figure out this aftertaste issue as one example. Um. But like, some people are like, oh, you know, you say you, you don't have, um, you don't have sugar. But we do on a per serving basis though, we have like 0.2 grams of sugar, something tiny. So like people are like, well, there's still, it says corn syrup on there.
You said you were at corn syrup. I'm like, yes, we're not. But you. Well, we are, we do include corn syrup, but it's such a minuscule amount because that's really just to round out the flavor a little bit. It's not like when you pour it, it's like a droopy syrup that's coming out. It's not that at all. It's very watery, very runny.
So from our perspective. We take surveying really seriously. Right? You know, in the beginning we would, even before we first launched, we probably surveyed a couple hundred people before we even had a first product in the market. And [00:38:00] then we continue to do it on an average basis. We probably survey like a thousand people a year, all a, a minimal.
Um, just to get more feedback to see if there's any lingering things out there. So always be testing, always getting it, you know, and sometimes they don't know what they're talking about. Don't get me wrong. Like, sometimes surveys can totally put you in the wrong direction too. You have to be careful there.
So you have to, you have to kind of like separate the, um, the wheat from the chaff in the sense, because we need to figure out what actually is the issue versus like what they, what consumers are reporting.
Tommy Truong: That's so true. It's, you do have to, 'cause you can get the, the people that complain oftentimes are the loudest, but it
Jason Reposa: Squeaky wheel gets the
Tommy Truong: Yeah.
Jason Reposa: Yeah. So we have to be careful with that because, um, so what we do, and again, using the word taste again, but not in the flavor sense, but actually in the, the, um, the, the other sense of having good taste, I should say, is that. Yeah, we always strive to identify things that [00:39:00] we think are wrong before the consumer even sees it.
Tommy Truong: Mm-hmm.
Jason Reposa: So that aftertaste issue we've been, before people even started reporting it to us, we were working on it. We've been working on it for months now. So like now that we, we've, we know it and the consumer knows it, now it's like time for us to fix that little thing. But really cleaning it up so, so much that it just is a hundred percent clean from start to finish.
Um. But it's really hard because we're packing so much THC into these things that it's really hard. Um, a thousand milligrams in a one ounce bottle that's hard to cover up. I'm not gonna lie, but we've done a phenomenal job up to this point. But we can always get better.
Tommy Truong: It's a thousand. When you say a thousand milligrams, that my ass puckers. You know what I mean?
Jason Reposa: You're like, oh my God. Yeah. It's a lot. I'm not gonna lie. Like I it for low dose consumers, it's a year supply, right?
Tommy Truong: Yeah, it's a lot. Or would you? And you, you don't have to, uh, answer if you don't want to. Would you guys ever consider putting in other cannabinoids, [00:40:00] or
Jason Reposa: we have, so we have a plus line, which is a more functional line, so. Um, we have the straight THC side, which is what we're talking about pre predominantly, but we have a sleep formula. We have the balance formula, which is like a one-to-one, and we have a new one coming out, uh, in, I believe January we'll have our third in the balance line.
Yes, purpose specific is kind of where my heart is because I take the sleep product every night. Um, and of course sleep is kind of a loaded word. FDA, like all this stuff kinda gets weird when you start talking about sleep because you know you can't, unless it's medically. Or clinical trials have happened.
You can't really use that word, but I'm using it colloquially at this point, so please don't sue me. FDA or whatever you wanna call it. Um, but the point is, uh, I mean a lot of people call their products sleep, but I consume it every night before bed and I am out and I wake up. Awesome. And I'm just like, I, this is for me, that's the product that I want.
Right? So other cannabinoids totally on the table. I will say that anybody who's messing around with alternative cannabinoids right now, you should also be [00:41:00] paying attention to the hemp regulation side as well, because a lot of these products come through the hemp side, uh, such as cb, N-N-T-H-C-V, like some of those more, uh, minor cannabinoids that are represented in the plant in really minuscule amounts.
However, how do you make CBN. It's all converted. Like if you're buying, if you get CBN on the market, that's all converted. Nobody's taking their beautiful Delta nine THC buds and then, you know, putting sunlight on it and oxidizing it and doing all kinds of crazy stuff to like produce CBN from it like nine months later, eventually get some CBN out of it that's meaningful.
Like nobody's doing that. Everybody's taking whatever you wanna start with, say CB, D and creating all these other analogs like CBN and stuff like that. So especially like THCV. It's all chemistry at this point, which TR said I don't mind. And the reason why I don't mind it now again, there's nefarious players out there, super shady people who are pushing like HHCT, HCO, like all that stuff and delta aids and stuff like that.
But [00:42:00] I always think of back. To Bayer. Bayer, the pharmaceutical company, German company that have, uh, aspirin, right? That compound was found in birch bark specific species of birch or something like that. It's an analgesic, it's a pain reliever. They found it because I think there was. Your old European settlers or whatever you wanna call 'em.
I don't, I'm making shit up. Sorry. But like whoever stumbled upon it, they were using this bark to be able to kind of like ease their pain. And so somebody took that bark and then eventually turned it into a chemistry equation. Once they turned into a chemistry, re created the lab version of it, put it onto the market.
Everybody is super excited and happy. We have a pain reliever. This is amazing. Nobody like Bayer isn't growing a thousand acres of birch plants. To scrape and produce and like take all apart and put it all back together in these chemical compounds to be able to make aspirate. Nobody's doing that. So when I think of the chemistry up behind this and [00:43:00] synthetic is a loose word, I don't use that.
When I talk about this stuff, I talk a lot about converted material. When you're taking CBD and converting into other products, there are, you can do this in a safe way, tertiary extent. There's other IMRs and. L um, I can't remember the term anymore. The chemistry. My chemistry d like, it's been a ce. I've done the chemistry stuff, but there's right-handed like compounds.
There's left-handed compounds and like you can't make them match. Exactly. And like, there's weird things that can happen. There's a old study that a scientist put me on from the seventies where they were doing birth control. It ended up creating a bunch of birth defects because of this one little. You know, flip of a atom kind of thing.
So they're, for the most part, safe ways to do these things. It needs to be tested better, but conversion, I don't think is the evil in here. I think it really is for the companies who are doing it the right way and appropriate way, uh, and everything above board, and not trying to make a quick buck and here for 20, 30 years in the market, the long term play because they love weed and they're gonna continue to be in this market.
I think for those people, I think those people are gonna take it very seriously and do it the right way. [00:44:00] Should be able to use converted material without having to think about like, you know, some kind of crazy enforcement action brought on them. Because if we don't have, if we don't have these, if we don't have the starting material to make CBN, this is why I said you have to pay attention to the hemp rules that are coming through, uh, or the things that would be advocating for, uh, for instance, from the HBA.
If we don't have some of the starting material, CBN in the market will just disappear across the country. Because there's no meaningful amount that you can get from a plant unless you, as far as I know, there's no genetics that do it. I know there's CBG genetics because that's the mother cannabinoid, but other than that, there's T-H-C-C-B-D and CBG are the main three compounds you can get from a plant besides, you know, unless you do wanna do some conversions and in order to make it like a meaningful, almost commoditized product at that point.
Tommy Truong: No, you're right. It's if I was a consumer and I was worried about is the product I'm taking. So you know, when you convert something it's, you'll get some good, [00:45:00] but there's gonna be residual bad too. How as a consumer can I identify which brands are doing it right.
Jason Reposa: So COA is, or everything, if they don't publish your COAs, walk away immediately. Like if you don't have a COA for the products that they put on their website, walk away. Do not even look back. I always look at COAs. Um, even on pro, like my pro, my friends will ask me sometimes like, Hey, what about this product?
It'll be like some hemp company I'd never heard of, and I just go through the list. Do you have a COA Right on the COA. Is it converted or natural? D nine, right? Because if it's converted, you can tell it'll have meaningful amounts of D eight and D 10 present, right? If it has no D eight or D 10 present, it's probably a natural, uh, Delta nine source.
Right? So have they testing for pesticides, solvents, things like that. Like the residual solvent thing is a real thing. Every COA. Has a specific, either they have a QR code or they'll have like a, a, a, um, a certificate on it. You can call the lab and be like, is this a [00:46:00] legitimate one? 'cause sometimes people forge them, right?
I've had stuff passed to me. They were like, Hey, we got this natural denied. We should use it. 'cause we all use natural products in ours. Um, more of like a moral stance in anything. And um, because even converted Delta nine, it's like a half or a third of the price of the natural D nine. Even in the hemp side, you can get like.
I converted Delta nine for like $600 a kilo at this point. Uh, probably less. I haven't looked in a minute, but when I think about the natural side, it's really like those markers that I always look to. But if you call the lab, they'll tell you like, yep, this is a legitimate certificate. Um, and. You know, this is a legitimate certificate and you know, whatever, whatever, whatever.
You could also look at reviews too. I mean, you know, there's ways to manipulate digital data, so I don't really always trust reviews, but if people are having a really good time and they're really eff efficacious products like a gummy or a drink or whatever, like, that's usually the first place you look as a consumer regardless.
But the COAs is really where the, the truth is.
Tommy Truong: I, I, I know that we're almost off for time, but this, this is a question [00:47:00] that I always ask every brand is how can retailers leverage their brand partners better to sell more?
Jason Reposa: Man, that is a great question. So we always advocate for partnerships on advertising. So in any marketing advertising initiatives, we try to see if we can go 50 50 on these things, because if we're spending all the money, it's like financially, it's like it's really hard to do. Um, so partnerships now, people always will say like, Hey, how about a billboard?
Can we go 50 50 on a billboard? We'll put your brand up there and our brand up there, you know, the dispensary and the, you know, the brand that's featured in there. And I'm like,
Tommy Truong: Okay.
Jason Reposa: I don't think billboards work. I don't care what data you're looking at. Like, I just don't think it works. And, uh, for, uh, for maybe for us or our
Tommy Truong: Well, it definitely doesn't work on a standalone basis. Like if you're doing a billboard that's, you're stacking it on so many other things.
Jason Reposa: Right. So when I think of advertising, I always go back to digital advertising. 'cause that's kind of, we used to run an agency, we did a ton of digital advertising. I think we're, at one point we're spending a [00:48:00] million dollars a month in Google, for instance. So going to the actual like media, digital media side of things and trying to get partnerships that way.
The only other thing that I think is really important is allowing, you know, having. Effective floor space for brands, I think is a really great way to kind of partner because, you know, we have, uh, we have a couple things in the works right now, which I can't announce necessarily or just yet, but like we're really focusing on in-store promotion because again, we have a discovery problem.
So when people walk into the store and if you're a brand isn't on the shelves, there. And they walk up to the register and they say, Hey, I want a pack of gummies, whatever. They're gonna see the gummies over there. They're like, oh, what are these gummies? What are these gummies? And that's it, right? They're not, forget about tinctures.
Not even just other gummy brands aren't seen. Right. So effective in-store marketing partnerships through that sampling is a great way to, you know, do things. Um. Massachusetts Sampling is all outta whack. New New York has a great system right now. We'll see how long that lasts, where you can just like walk into a store with a hundred samples and hand ' em up like [00:49:00] Santa Claus, just like, here you go, everybody wants to sample.
Um, we're in Massachusetts. You can definitely not do that. So sampling is hard, but bud tenders love samples. Yeah. So as far as partnering with retailers, it really comes down to, for us, primarily digital ad spend, if we can get like a 50 50 split on something. 'cause we're driving traffic to them too, like.
It's, it's keystone here. It's 50% margin, right? So it's like if I am sending you a product for $10, you're putting it on the shelf for 20. Same thing on ads. If I'm gonna spend $10 in ads or $20 in ads, can you come up with that $10 for us too? So, 'cause we're driving traffic too, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Doesn't always work. There are some players out there that are totally get the math and like, yeah, and let's double the ad spend now because it's, you know, the ROAS is fantastic on these things. So. From my perspective, it's those partnerships. Work, work really, really well. Actually. The last thing I will say about partnerships, though, events can be also really popular.
Sometimes at dispensary will have an event and they'll invite like three, three brands to it, and we always try to be one of those brands because [00:50:00] when they're putting all this effort into promoting, uh, this event, we kind of tag along with all that marketing as well. Again, discovery issue. We want people to see who we are, what we're about, so they can go into the stores and buy it.
Tommy Truong: Yeah, I, when I, the first, when I stumbled upon you guys, I got it right away.
Jason Reposa: Oh, great.
Tommy Truong: Yeah, I got it right away. I'm
Jason Reposa: marketing is doing okay. I know we have a brand product person too, whose sole job is for brand and product. So as we develop new products. She's the person who's in there, you know, working with our, um, director of production now, director of operations, as well as the brand side of it.
And she works with really, really talented designers to be able to create these really just beautiful brands. Uh, and just, or I should say designs around the brand specifically. So like our spooky vibes, which is the glow in the dark product. That one was. Um, just a really great execution. We're going into this kind of like eight bit, kind of like pixel art kind of thing, style a little bit too, which is a [00:51:00] lot of fun.
Uh, but yeah, as we continue to release new products, we always have to go back to the home base, which is do people understand what we're talking about? You know what I mean? Because if we go too far off the off, you're off the path. People are like, what are these guys doing over here? I don't get it anymore.
Right.
Tommy Truong: Yeah. Why? I got you guys. So, well, my first impression right, was I would, if I, if you were in my city, it would be just smoothies all day,
Jason Reposa: Yeah.
Tommy Truong: all day
Jason Reposa: People ask us all the time, they're like, Hey, when you come to Pennsylvania, when you come to New York, when you come to Connecticut, when get requests all the time to go into other states, we're thinking about it. I will say that the rules make it a little bit hard. In different states for us, because it's a thousand milligram product, uh, or 500 in some cases.
So the rules make it a little bit harder to go, kind of like lateral here. But, you know, it's definitely something that we're interested in. But I, you know, we have a lot of work to do. It's a lot of meat on the bone in, in the, in Massachusetts still, you know, there's a lot of money being made. Here's a lot [00:52:00] more, a lot more people who need to discover us still.
I still postulate 95% of the adult use population in Massachusetts has still never heard of us.
Tommy Truong: Well, there's, yeah, you, there's no point in. Spending more money to grow in another state when you've, you haven't, uh,
Jason Reposa: That's the folly of so many brands. We've said, so many brands come in, they launch huge, and then three months later, like they're not in the shelves anymore. You can't, you have to be able to, you have to be coming with hundreds of thousands of dollars to support this brand. I'm not going into a new market.
With, you know, I'm not talking about the cogs themselves of making the product. I'm talking about supporting with marketing. Like if you're not coming in with a hundred thousand dollars minimum to support a new state, what are you doing? You're going to fail, get lost. Like you can't be that superhero who's in every single state on airplanes one day after another doing a popup in different, like you need a team to do these things.
And I caution everybody about scaling too fast. Like get ahold of [00:53:00] yourself. Like I see some brands, even some of our competitors are going to like six states at the same time. And I'm like, guys, like, are you VC funded? How do you have all the capital to support these states? And if you don't, you're going to lose.
And you're definitely gonna lose against us.
Tommy Truong: Yeah, no, definitely. You hit the nail on the head people. It's, you see, we in our space see that a lot about Canadian businesses going to the US and expanding too fast. And those companies usually fail within six months,
Jason Reposa: Tail between the legs, just being like, well, that we tried, but we didn't. It didn't work. But it's like you didn't have a plan. You were just like, I'm just gonna show up and start selling weed. People love us. They love weed, don't they? You know what I mean? So like it doesn't work like that anymore.
Tommy Truong: Jason, before I let you go, I got rapid fire questions for you.
Jason Reposa: Yeah, let's go.
Tommy Truong: Uh, are you a daytime person or a nighttime person?
Jason Reposa: Nighttime
Tommy Truong: flower, edible vape or tincture?
Jason Reposa: Tinctures. I'm always tinctures. Yeah. Um, edible to a certain extent. I do occasionally enjoy like a gummy. Uh, like [00:54:00] I have a lot of friends in the market too. They'll just give us gummies to like sample and stuff like that. So I do like some of my friends gummies.
Tommy Truong: Uh, favorite strain.
Jason Reposa: Ooh. I would say I'm not huge on strains simply because I don't smoke anymore. Um, but I do like a good CBG white. Um, that is like when the CBG whites were coming out originally and people still have 'em. I actually rent to a guy the other day. He had like a nice little CBG white bud. The CBGI think was, is really underrated still in the market.
Tommy Truong: Hmm. First experience with cannabis.
Jason Reposa: I was probably in high school. I was probably at a party and I was, yeah, I was probably like 17 or 18 at a party and somebody was passing a joint and I did not feel a single thing. I was like, it didn't work, like I don't get it, you know?
Tommy Truong: You know what? That's very common.
Jason Reposa: Yeah. It was for me, I just don't even, I didn't, wasn't responding at all to it, and now I'm like a super responder. I'm like, gimme five M and I'm good.
Tommy Truong: [00:55:00] Worst experience.
Jason Reposa: Man, the anxiety. So what I would do is since I suffer from anxiety, you know, stress, like the anxiety on with cannabis goes the other way. And so probably one of the worst ones, I would say is the problem with being a human Guinea pig of your own lab is that sometimes I'll take like the, the, you know, the residual mix home.
If I'm in, not in the facility, not in the license side, but like if I'm doing experiments, you know, um, uh, you know, at my home lab or whatever, and I'm like, I've got this little bit of stuff left, it's probably like maybe 10 m don't worry about it. And I'll have like a big sip of it. And next thing I know, I'm like, I'm like, I gotta go to bed.
I cannot interact with anybody right now, nevermind my kids or my wife, like, I'm going to bed right now. So the worst experiences are usually at the end of the day. And I think I have a really, you know, 10 mig, five 10 MIG kind of sample line around, and [00:56:00] it's just like some residual, fast acting, whatever I'm working with.
And I'll just like shoot it and be like, eh, it'll be fine. I bet. And then it was not fine.
Tommy Truong: What's your best experience?
Jason Reposa: Oh man. My best experiences are always titrated. It's like two to five milligrams at a time, over a period of hours, and I'm hanging with friends. Right. It's just like. Um, I like to hang out with my wife. She doesn't consume, uh, she kind of, not really, she doesn't really consume, I can't say that in any confident way that she does at all, but I dunno.
I like hanging out with my kids and reading like bedtime stories with my kids, like a little stoned. It's fantastic. We laugh so much. It's ridiculous 'cause I'm just like making up the story. I'm making different, I'm like sound. The names that I use are just like totally the wrong name. Like, I'll pronounce Gregory Gregory.
And I'll just repeat that. Like Greg Gory says this and I'm like, in my head I'm like, am I saying this right? Like, I'm like a little stoned. So it's like those are some of the best times. It's [00:57:00] just reading stories to my kids, uh, specifically my youngest because my other two kids are teenagers now. They don't necessarily want me crawling in bed with them reading a book.
But, um, yeah, best times they're probably reading stories with my youngest. Uh, just a little bit stone. Nothing crazy.
Tommy Truong: Can you tell, uh, our audience, uh, in 30 seconds what your business does or, or what you guys are about?
Jason Reposa: We are. I wear my passion on my sleeve. I take everything very personally. Every time something happens, I take it very personally to the point where I have a hard time kind of containing myself and I will bounce up and down in a chair until I get to say something, but. Who we are is mission driven, right?
We believe that people who feel good can do more good. And so we are in the business of making people feel good. Hence the name good feels. So all we want to do and all we want to put into this world is that positivity, [00:58:00] and that's why my podcast is really about positive stories in the market because everybody wants to talk about the negativity.
Let's talk about the positive stories of high functioning people that are able to be. High, sometimes, not all the time, or sometimes in cases of other people all the time, and still be very high functioning people. So we're definitely mission driven in the fact that we wanna put up products that make people feel good so they can do more good, and everybody wants to do more good.
Tommy Truong: Jason, thank you so much. Before I let you go, how can our listeners find you?
Jason Reposa: We're everywhere. So I would say at Jason Reposa, R-E-P-O-S-A on most platforms, good feels Ma, although we are thinking about changing that to good vibes because people know this is good vibes in this market. Um, high functioning podcast, like all that stuff exists as a way to. Uh, engage with me and, uh, our products here.
So at Jason Reza most places, Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, wherever.
Tommy Truong: Jason, thank you so much for joining me today.
Jason Reposa: Absolutely. Thank you so much, Tommy.
Outro: [00:59:00] Thanks for listening to the Kaya Cast Podcast. We hope you enjoyed the show. Don't forget to subscribe to our podcast in your favorite podcast or visit our website.
