🎙️ Jane Technologies, CEO, Soc Rosenfeld
Soc makes his second appearance on the podcast—we talk through Jane's recently launched app, DoorDash and Uber entering Cannabis in Canada, building an equitable marketplace for Cannabis & more..
💬 I’d also like to put CannaDataCon (February 2-3, 2022) on your radar which features speakers from Jane Technologies, BLAZE, Adaviv, Dispense, Happy Cabbage Analytics, LeafLink, Leafly, NABIS, Ordo, Trym, and more. There’s also a livestream option.
If you missed Soc’s first appearance on the Podcast (September 2021), link here.
Online Order Origination Point. Soc mentions drawing inspiration from Olo (NYSE: OLO—$1.2B Market Cap), which powers digital ordering and delivery programs for restaurants. Jane wants to empower consumers to purchase wherever orders originate. Starting with 2,500+ retailers, Jane can push a dispensaries online menu and allow customers to order off of that menu. Next was to empower brands by powering a brand’s website to allow customers to order directly from a local retailer. After that, they partnered with Leafly to power 1,800+ menus for Leafly on behalf of retail partners. Jane is agnostic to where consumers want to start their purchase journey, but rather power that purchase.
Different from Restaurants. While Uber (October 2022) and DoorDash (April 2022) have made announcements about jumping into Cannabis delivery in Toronto, the Cannabis industry is very different from restaurants (quick service restaurants). There are three key differences: 1) Menus rarely change so inventory is static where dispensaries have hundreds of SKUs that change regularly, 2) Menu items stay within the ecosystem (vs. being sold to other restaurants) whereas cannabis companies may operate wholesale in addition to retail, and 3) Different shopping experience as consumers shop sellers first vs. product first in Cannabis.
Data. Jane has cataloged over 1.6M SKUs, allowing dispensaries to not worry about how they name the same product as Jane ensures the right brand, photo, serving size and description. The company has patents on this and believes it applies to other verticals as well. While this powers a better eCommerce experience, the data can help brands better advertise to consumers with better demographics and psychographics, helping brands convert and track ROI. Jane actually shares this advertising revenue with the dispensary where the product is purchased—paying out tens of thousands of dollars a month to individual dispensaries.
App Awareness and Downloads. Jane launched its iOS app in October 2022, enabling users to browse products at local dispensaries and purchase within the app. The company has focused on developing a large SKU data set that allowed it to layer on a marketplace. The app currently has a 4.8 star rating (350+ reviews). Jane does not plan to launch a large marketing campaign in order to drive app awareness and downloads, but rather plans to collaborate with brands to do so. The company just announced they partnered with Cann on the brand’s “Cann-Do Holiday” short film, where the brand drives consumers to Jane’s marketplace to find where the product is available.
Subscription (SaaS) Revenue. Jane is creating a cannabis marketplace with a conscience, wherein they act more like Olo or ChowNow and focus on SaaS revenues rather than take rates (DoorDash or Uber Eats). While this creates more challenges as the company builds tools for a marketplace, advertising, and data business, Jane is building adjacent products to create win-win-win scenarios for dispensaries, brands and consumers. And this starts with sharing data with brands and dispensaries to help them provide a better consumer experience.
👋 The Highly Objective Podcast is hosted by Dai Truong, who leads Cannabis Investment Banking at Arlington Capital Advisors.. Third-party information presented here and links to third-party content are for informational purposes only and are not intended as a recommendation, offer or solicitation for the purchase or sale of any financial instrument, security or investment. The information provided is not warranted as to completeness or accuracy and is subject to change without notice. Linking to third-party sites in no way implies an endorsement or affiliation of any kind between Arlington Capital Advisors, LLC, or its affiliates and any third party. The information in this blog constitutes my own opinions (and any opinions posted by guest bloggers from time to time) and it should not be regarded as a description of services provided by Arlington Capital Advisors, LLC or any affiliate.