Page 42 - Entrepreneur-November 2018

Strategy

men with bloodshot eyes, along as far more efficient than the out to answer the phone. When Industry data shows that more
with most of the other shop- 10-minute spiel the dispensa- she came back in, she said, “I’m than 90 percent of consumer-
pers and employees at Colorado ry’s budtenders had given him sold. I talked to my kid, I had buying decisions are based on
pot stores, therefore present about the supposed differences no problem at all, and when I budtender recommendations.
a crucial challenge for a com- between the strains. Maybe, went to the bathroom just now, To even reach consumers, a new
pany like LucidMood: How do he thought, he was onto some- I realized I’m actually pretty product manufacturer must
you convince heavy marijuana thing here. fucking high.” first win over the budtenders—
users to get behind a prod- The project was hard to con- The positive testimonials and in Colorado, this turned
uct that barely works for them, tinue after a while; the weed continued to roll in. Some test out to be a big problem for
but might work for their light- left him foggy for at least 24 subjects said they’d been limit- LucidMood.
weight friends? hours. So he started research- ing cannabis to weekends but “They were like, ‘It tastes like
Turns out, the stoner guys do ing and discovered that the neg- could now use LucidMood on aromatherapy. I didn’t even get
have girlfriends. One of them ative side effects he’d thought weeknights. Others with med- high,’ ” Jones says. This was a
apparently likes weed, but the were an essential part of the ical problems said LucidMood tolerance problem; most bud-
other woman is what Jones cannabis experience—the social helped them be functional and tenders use cannabis every
calls “impairment-intolerant,”
meaning pot makes her uncom-
fortably intoxicated or anxious. JONES WOULD NEED TO WIN OVER ANY DISPENSARY’S
Jones understands people like
this, because he is one himself. MOST ARDENT CANNABIS CONNOISSEURS:
For decades, he was an “ambiv- THE BUDTENDERS. AND THAT, IT WOULD TURN OUT,
alent, occasional cannabis WAS THE HARDEST PART OF ALL.
user” who sometimes enjoyed
the heightened sensations of
being high but couldn’t handle
the hazy, slow day that inevita- anxiety, the short-term memory pain-free during the work- day, so LucidMood, which is
bly followed. Now LucidMood loss, the lethargic hangover— day. And jackpot: Test subjects designed for lightweights, had
is his go-to source. Didn’t this were often the result of too who had quit marijuana years no effect on them. Budtenders
guy want his girlfriend to give much THC, the chemical in pot ago after too many bad expe- then just figured the project
it a try? that causes a high. These nega- riences said they finally found was garbage. Only one out of
As the stunned budtender tive effects could be mitigated, something they like. Jones got every eight dispensaries Jones
looks on, the man with the Jones learned, by using a 1:1 excited. At the end of 2016, he sent samples to was willing to
bloodshot eyes and the ratio of THC to CBD, the other gave samples of his LucidMood stock it. Jones searched for a
pot-hating girlfriend reaches main active chemical ingredient vape pens out to Colorado’s solution. It couldn’t be adver-
for his wallet. He buys two in the plant. cannabis dispensaries, confi- tising; because weed is still a
LucidMood pens. Now he was seeing a business dent the product would soon federally illegal drug, advertis-
opportunity. be flying off shelves across the ing opportunities are limited.
THE FIRST TIME Jones went into He developed a set of cus- state. But he didn’t anticipate He realized he needed to some-
a marijuana dispensary, back tom formulations with the exactly how retail in the can- how win over the budtenders,
in 2014, he bought a gram of kinds of simple names he nabis world worked. A prod- so he began organizing meet-
every kind of weed they had. was once using for his per- uct didn’t just sit on a shelf, ings with them to explain his
At the time, he was a 52-year- sonal use—like Relax, Energy, awaiting discovery by consum- product. But that was a waste
old executive coach to Fortune and Sleep. Then he raised a ers. He’d need to first win over of time—the budtenders were
500 companies and had no quarter- million dollars, hired any dispensary’s most ardent yawning, drinking coffee, and
intention of becoming a heavy a Ph.D. neuroscientist to help cannabis connoisseurs: the unconvinced. He decided to try
marijuana user. But his back- him refine his products and budtenders. “It was freaking a new approach: He’d ask peo-
ground is in software and cog- testing methods, and orga- disastrous,” Jones says. ple who love weed about the
nitive science, and curiosity got nized clinical-style trials with The product, it turned out, people in their lives who don’t.
the better of him. He wanted 600 weed-averse people. would be the easy part. “People who are enthusiastic
to know what this big range of “Are you sure this is pot?” about cannabis might think it
newly legalized products actu- one middle-aged woman asked AS THE PRIMARY people who can help someone in their life,”
ally did. Everything he bought at an early LucidMood testing customers interact with at a dis- Jones says. “So we would go
had a strange strain name, so event. “I don’t feel anything.” pensary, budtenders have enor- and talk to the buyer and say,
he relabeled them based on Yes, it was pot, they told her. mous influence. They function ‘Do you have a spouse?’ The
what he found them good for: Twenty-five minutes after she like a concierge—listening to manager’s wife is often the
Creativity, Sex, Hiking, etc. This hit the vape, one of her teen- people’s needs and habits, and one. And they would say, ‘Yeah;
naming convention struck him agers called, and she stepped offering a product to match. we can’t get her to use any

74 / ENTREPRENEUR.COM / November 2018