When AJ Gentile, his wife Jennifer and his brother Gene started making marijuana-infused gummy bears in 2011, the cannabis laws of California were more like guidelines than detailed regulations. “We did everything by the book,” said AJ, “but we were always worried a squad in blue FBI or DEA windbreakers would burst through the door to put us out of business and throw us in jail.”
In the last few years however, local cannabis laws have started to evolve, and as the market evolves too, the Gentiles have stayed nimble, changing their offerings to meet market demands. They say their marijuana growing cooperative and delivery company SpeedWeed, has served 26,000 patients, and is on track to double last year’s revenue of $2.5 million. Now the founders are adding a new feature – teleconferences with doctors who can recommend cannabis.
At the start, the team’s foray into the gummy bear business took off right away. “We had them in 60 dispensaries within 60 days,” said AJ. Soon though, the trio saw the opportunity to increase their share of the product’s revenues by delivering it themselves, “to cut out the middleman,” said AJ. Beginning with Gene driving one delivery truck all over the Los Angeles area, the trio developed a hub and spoke system for delivery and hired more drivers as their customer base increased. The company now employs 70 people full time, including 50 drivers.
The SpeedWeed team says they found pot delivery to be a lucrative business. “Customers like convenience and they really value their privacy,” said AJ, “A soccer mom isn’t going to pull her minivan into a pot dispensary.” Many professionals also want to keep their use out of the public eye he said. SpeedWeed’s average patient takes a delivery of a little less than $100 worth of marijuana every 3-4 weeks.
When the founders noticed an increase in companies specializing in edibles including high quality gummy bears, they jettisoned that part of their business earlier this year, and focused more on the delivery of marijuana products to patients. It’s the area where they felt they had greater expertise. “Our background is in software development and building customer communication vehicles,” said Jennifer.
The founders plan to keep improving their software to manage the delivery process, record-keeping and accounting, so they can sell it to delivery companies in other parts of California and in other states to use.
Recently, SpeedWeed announced a new addition to their services - telemedicine appointments (video conferencing) that patients can use to obtain marijuana recommendations.
Medical marijuana is legal in California, but recreational sales are not, so each customer must have a doctor’s recommendation, which until now has meant a trip to the doctor’s office. Using the SpeedWeed app, patients can schedule an appointment via tele-conference to talk to a doctor about the need for a recommendation. Then they can immediately order the product they have been recommended.
To offer this feature, SpeedWeed has integrated a service called HelloMD directly into its software. The HelloMD service connects patients to doctors who can authorize their marijuana recommendation via internet video consultation.
“Delivery has been convenient and private, and patients wanted their doctor’s appointment to be convenient and private as well,” said AJ. He says this type of offering is new to the industry and will help set SpeedWeed apart from other delivery services. “I’d estimate there are 400 delivery services just in the Los Angeles area,” he said.
Competition is intense and other delivery services may start offering the same feature soon, but the SpeedWeed team hopes that if they can continue finding ways to improve the customer experience, they will continue to grow.
