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Y<\/span>ou walk into your favorite dispensary, check in at the front desk, step up to the counter and it hits you \u2014\u00a0the product you came all this way to purchase isn\u2019t even there. If you buy your cannabis from brick and mortar stores, then it\u2019s almost certainly happened to you before; at best it\u2019s frustrating, at worst \u2014 like when you need pain relief and the only product that you know works isn\u2019t available \u2014\u00a0it can be truly distressing.<\/p>\n In the future, cannabis consumers will probably look back on this sort of problem with a mixture of confusion and pity, at least if Los Angeles-based cannabis lifestyle tech company Tokr <\/a>has anything to do with it.<\/p>\n Tokr Co-Founder and CPO Brian Campbell said their software is bridging the information gap between cannabis consumers and retailers, meaning in the not-so-distant future, users will not only know if their favorite strain is in-stock at their go-to dispensary, the dispensary operator will know how much demand to expect for that strain \u2014meaning it\u2019s less likely to be prematurely out of stock in the first place.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re all about providing consumers a direct connection to dispensaries,\u201d Campbell said. \u201cWe\u2019re also giving dispensaries data on who\u2019s visiting them and buying their stuff, how often. It\u2019s a huge opportunity, not just to create a great app, but also to kind of change the industry as a whole; what we\u2019re really looking to do is provide more of a lifestyle mentality \u2014\u00a0something somebody like my mom would feel comfortable buying for pain or migraines, or that a professional would be comfortable buying for stress or sleep \u2014\u00a0we\u2019re trying to make cannabis a more professional.\u201d<\/p>\n That\u2019s a tall order, and one being placed by many newcomers in the cannabis industry. Lots of companies are banking on the idea that they can reinvent the way people relate to and purchase cannabis, with varying degrees of success.<\/p>\n Tokr co-founders (from left) Brian Campbell, Matt Singer and Alex Melillo.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n But the way Tokr Co-founder and CEO Matt Singer sees it, his company\u2019s success will lie less in \u201crebranding\u201d cannabis and more in making it quick and easy to access \u2014\u00a0like almost everything else you might buy in today\u2019s internet-based market and culture.<\/p>\n \u201cConsumers are lacking a modernized approach to finding cannabis and the products that can help them,\u201d Singer said. \u201cCannabis is doing a lot of positive things for a lot of different people \u2014\u00a0we want to make it easier for them to access it, like if they were going to buy a t-shirt on Postmates.\u201d<\/p>\n When you watch a movie on Netflix and like it, an algorithm finds similar films and recommends them to you. Tokr\u2019s app does that for cannabis, but it also provides access to discounts, promotional offers and more.<\/p>\n The streamlining of analytics, mass marketing and lifestyle branding is no small feat, but Tokr is running a lean operation, based out of Los Angeles, California\u2019s \u201cSilicon Beach,\u201d a coastal enclave on LA\u2019s Venice Beach that\u2019s home to over 500 tech companies and several incubators and accelerators.<\/p>\n California<\/a> is a big, somewhat predictive market for cannabis; what happens there has at least a passing impact on how policy and business proceeds throughout the rest of the country. Tokr is focusing its current operations on the Los Angeles medical market, but it has immediate plans to expand to NorCal, national aspirations for medical and recreational markets and rapidly developing plans for expansion on the Pacific coast and beyond.<\/p>\n Singer said that his previous job \u2014\u00a0digitizing the NFL\u2019s playbook, starting with the Denver Broncos \u2014\u00a0also put him in contact with major players in Colorado\u2019s cannabis market<\/a>. Additionally, Tokr has open enrollment for patients and dispensary partners, so much of the company\u2019s growth is happening organically.<\/p>\n \u201cWe definitely have Colorado, Nevada, Oregon and Washington on the radar \u2014\u00a0not sure about the order. We\u2019re extremely automated, dispensaries can enroll themselves straight from our website, so we don\u2019t have to build full sales force teams in all states,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019ve actually seen a lot of customers from Oregon and Colorado, where they\u2019re already coming in on the backend because they\u2019ve heard of us.\u201d<\/p>\n Automated analytics are going to be a crucial part of any large, regulated cannabis market, and Tokr provides immediate value for consumer and companies with its data right now, but as the market continues to expand and more people join the system on both sides, dispensaries will be able to practically let the system run itself.<\/p>\n \u201cWe do have a lot of tech partnership, like POS systems, that give us direct access \u2014 with dispensary approval of course \u2014\u00a0we get tied into their inventory levels,\u201d Campbell said. \u201cSo not only does that allow them to quickly deal with updating menus, we do it on our site automatically.\u201d<\/p>\n The biggest challenges facing the company? Marketing in an environment where traditional outlets for publicity are limited or restricted to cannabis businesses. Like many cannabis companies, Tokr relies on a tenuous relationship with social media to get the word out. But by sponsoring lifestyle events and using guerrilla marketing techniques to spread the word, the company has already established a substantial presence in a major market.<\/p>\n Alex Melillo, Tokr Co-founder and COO, said the industry\u2019s limited access to traditional business tools is a big part of what motivates Tokr.<\/p>\n \u201cThe cannabis industry really lacks business tools, and we want to use Tokr as an opportunity to give this industry what it needs to maximize these businesses,\u201d Melillo said. \u201cWe also really want to work on taking the negative connotations away from cannabis and let more people know they ways they can enhance their lifestyle, medically and recreationally alike, and give the information needed to get the products and strains that meet their lifestyle needs.\u201d<\/p>\n TELL US<\/b>, have you ever tried a cannabis app?<\/p>\n The post Tokr Aims to Bridge Information Gap Between Retailers & Consumers<\/a> appeared first on Cannabis Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n
A new app helps to locate the perfect strain. You walk into your favorite dispensary, check in at the front desk, step up to the counter and it hits you \u2014\u00a0the product you came all this way to purchase isn\u2019t even there. If you buy your cannabis from brick andContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":20864,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[50,73,74,106,2271],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20863"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20863"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20863\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20865,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20863\/revisions\/20865"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20864"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20863"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"http:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/tokrcofounders-1.jpg\")
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\nRead More: Tokr Aims to Bridge Information Gap Between Retailers & Consumers<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"