Does cannabis need its own LinkedIn? Social media platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn do not work well for cannabis B2B.networking. Peter Vogel the Co-founder and CEO of Leafwire joins Dan Humiston to explain why they designed their platform specifically for people in cannabis, He reveals some of the exciting new features that they are launching and their plans to increase their 50 thousand members. Produced by PodConx MJBulls - https://podconx.com/podcasts/raising-cannabis-capital Dan Humiston - https://podconx.com/guests/dan-humiston Leafwire - https://www.leafwire.com/ Peter Vogel - https://podconx.com/guests/peter-vogel Recorded on Squadcast
Does cannabis need its own LinkedIn?
Social media platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn do not work well for cannabis B2B.networking. Peter Vogel the Co-founder and CEO of Leafwire joins Dan Humiston to explain why they designed their platform specifically for people in cannabis, He reveals some of the exciting new features that they are launching and their plans to increase their 50 thousand members.
MJBulls - https://podconx.com/podcasts/raising-cannabis-capital
Dan Humiston - https://podconx.com/guests/dan-humiston
Leafwire - https://www.leafwire.com/
Peter Vogel - https://podconx.com/guests/peter-vogel
Dan Humiston: [00:00:00] today on MJ bulls, we are joined by Peter Vogel, the CEO of leaf wire, Peter. Welcome to the.
peter-vogel: thanks for having me on.
Dan Humiston: Well, I created my profile and I connected with a bunch of my friends and I, I even made my first post. So I am officially on leaf flyer and I, and I'm mad at myself. I think I told you this before we started, I'm mad at myself for not for taking so long to join for our listeners who aren't members. Lee flyer is a cannabis industry, B2B social network platform with over 50,000 members in over a hundred hundred.
Peter to get started. I got to ask you the elephant in the room. We already have LinkedIn. Why do we need a cannabis B2B
social media platform?
peter-vogel: Yeah. Great question. And one, let me just say welcome to our community on leaf wire. We're really glad to have you on there. It may have taken you a couple of years, but Hey, you and you're you're here now. so I'll make sure to comment and post on everything that you put on there to help promote it.[00:01:00]
Okay, so the question about LinkedIn one, LinkedIn is so big. so LinkedIn is 600 million people. That's twice the population in the United States. So on LinkedIn, you're going to find every single industry, every single kind of job from everywhere in the world. And most of the people who work in canvas, they really want to see a much more Kind of highlight of cannabis, news, cannabis, science, cannabis, business. And the other thing we do is we have a variety of resources on there. You're not going to get it on like a LinkedIn. So we have an event. Calendar. We've more than a hundred events on there from Switzerland to Texas Jamaica.
And a lot of them have discounts really for our members. So you can get 20, 30, 40, 50% off. So you're never going to find something like that on LinkedIn, which has to be everything to everyone. You know, it's impossible for them to do something like that. Our job board too, I think, is the largest job board out there.
combined. Jobs from multiple different resources. Our members post them. [00:02:00] We pull down jobs from about 15 and largest. Ms. MSO is out there we pull jobs from indeed. So the combination of all those different sources is 10,000 plus cannabis, hemp jobs. And I don't think anyone out there has that many just because we pull from so many different sources to provide the biggest resource.
So. One, I would just say the focus and our ability to provide resources that someone like a LinkedIn could never do. And second is the stigma. You know, a lot of us I've in Colorado. A lot of us forget that cannabis is still illegal in more places than it's legal recreationally. So it's not normal in most places in the United States. Have someone smoking a joint or having an edible at a party or being able to talk openly about cannabis. Like that's not normal yet in the United States. Like we, we see a lot of us in the industry. We kind of forget because this is what we do all day. So all we do is talk about cannabis and the business of cannabis, but a lot of people have relatives.
They have ex-colleagues, they have family members, people who [00:03:00] they don't necessarily want to be talking about. Hemp and cannabis all day long cause there is still the stigmas there. And you also do have, if who knows, is cannabis last industry you ever work in? Do you want, you know, a hundred cannabis posts and then try and go back to a fortune 100.
Who's who they're going to look at your social media wow, this guy is a stoner. So, there's a lot of reasons that, that people find leaf wire feel safe there and comfortable. And LinkedIn also, most people don't know this. They just started taking down all paid ads that have anything to do with cannabis, marijuana, or even hemp.
I think. . And I know this because they took down our ads. We had, we had ads up that said, come join leaf wire, the, you know, the largest cannabis business network. And that's all it said it was all business. There. Wasn't pictures of the plants. It was just business. And they took down all of our ads. In addition to it, we've had multiple other companies tell us all the same. This just happened. Q1 of this year, LinkedIn had a bit of a crackdown and started to take down paid, advertise. [00:04:00] Even for ancillary companies, lighting, doesn't matter. Science. It's no longer being allowed.
Dan Humiston: You bring up a good point and I know that. Beat this drum a bunch on our podcast, different podcasts, but it bears repeating again. Is that Facebook, LinkedIn now, Instagram, Google , they all either shadow ban us or completely eliminate our ability to advertise, which is another reason why, what you're doing is so important because it's a B2B platform.
So if I want to send my message to other businesses, There's very few places that I can do
that.
peter-vogel: Right.
And that that's one of the things we found powerful by creating a tool like leaf wire is, you know, we're very much focused on business. We're not built for consumers. You're not going to find people on leaf wire, just talking about how high they are and their favorite strain of weed. You know, there's plenty of places you can go to for that.
On leaf wire, we have a newsfeed, so you can scroll down just like a link. But you'll see, people are asking each other [00:05:00] questions about licenses, about science, about new products, about events. Like if people can recommend testing facilities in certain cities.
, , a lot of people think that cannabis industry is just growers and dispensaries, but the reality is that it's basically. 20 X that big with every other industry in the world that is potentially servicing the industry. So lighting companies, packaging, shipping, HR, finance, investors, lawyers.
On leaf wire, , we attract all those diverse sectors. I mean, it's it's insurance companies that are now finally moving into cannabis it's banks that are offering accounts, it's technology for security, . Every company out there probably has about service writers.
They work with even if they don't realize it, but we all work with so many different companies and all of those are, are very focused, independent on the cannabis and hemp.
Dan Humiston: Yeah, I, for sure, for sure. You mentioned the conferences and the events and. You know, just really taken on a life of its own. , I have some experience in the event business, but I know that one of the initiatives that you have , is [00:06:00] helping out , with the apps, which are just nightmares from an event organizer.
I know the headaches of dealing with the app. Then I know that that was one of the initiatives, or I've heard you talking about moving forward. Can maybe , give our listeners an idea of
what your plans are with that.
peter-vogel: Sure. Yeah. And I'd love to, that is that we're really excited about for this year. One we're launching a mobile app for the first time ever. So everything we've done thus far has been more desktop oriented. You can use it on a mobile, but it's not a mobile app, so it's not quite as easy to use.
But anyway, so that's going to come out in the next probably two months or so we're also the working with conference organizers because we know. The experience most people have with those apps that you mentioned is kind of annoying. and we talked to probably about a hundred people to kind of survey them and find out people's experience.
You go to an event, they tell you to download an app you've never used. You have to register. You mostly don't check it that much because you don't even know like why you should be using it. You get back to your hotel room at night and you look at it and you say, oh [00:07:00] crap, I got two messages for people that wanted to meet me.
And you didn't, you didn't even see it. Then you go home. You never looked at that app again. So it's a completely wasted experience. There's no continuity, no connection. So we figured if we're going to be the largest business work in cannabis, which we already are, why not be the tool? People can use it any conference they go to.
So our idea is to work with conference organizers and let them upload a map of their event, the agenda of the event, the sponsors, the parties, et cetera. So all you have to do is open your leaf wire up and you can have all the information at your fingertips for that event. And we're going to offer that free of charge to conference organizer. And even tell them that we'll help promote their event on leaf fire. All for us, it's entirely an acquisition and engagement strategy. So we want people to start using us. And then when you connect with people at a show, it'll tag them as being from that show. And w w w we're going to have a little QR code thing that everyone has now, of course, where you can just snap a picture of the QR code and it'll connect you on leaf wire.
So then the next show you go to everyone you met. [00:08:00] Is it in your app already. So every time you do, you build your network bigger and bigger and bigger, and you never have to download a new app. And all the information is just at your fingertips. So we think it's something that the industry really wants.
We've already gotten seven LOI signed by conferences who say once we have it,
Dan Humiston: Oh, I'm not surprised. I'm not surprised this is a game-changer for conferences. Well, those are two big projects. In addition to expanding into other countries. Are you going to be able to fund this out of cashflow or are you going to do a
fundraise for this.
peter-vogel: So , we just started a series day about a week and a half ago. So we're raising about 2 million bucks and , anyone who wants more detail. We have a full data room and documentation we can share. And anyone out there is entered.
You can just email me@peteratleafwire.com and happy to share information with anyone who might be interested learning about.
Dan Humiston: well learning a little bit more about the potentially next LinkedIn in the cannabis industry. as you mentioned, the cannabis industry is so much bigger than people , can even wrap their heads around [00:09:00] and we'll have all of Lee flyer information in our show notes. So if you miss the email addresses, yeah.
Well, we'll have it all there for anyone and I'm sure. If nothing else, check out the site, build your profiles, connect to me. And and then if you wanted to talk to Peter about maybe participating in this next round, I'm sure he'd be happy to talk to you, Peter, real quick interview. I know we have a lot more to cover, so
we'll do this again maybe in six months, but I
appreciate you doing this today.
peter-vogel: Yeah, sure. Love to, happy to join anytime you want. , the only other thing I would add is one of the things really said about XE, the international opportunity. W we, since we already from a hundred countries we view Europe, legalization, central America, south America. We think there's no one else doing this in any of those countries or parts of the world.
So there's a lot of blue ocean. , we can make a foothold in a lot of those areas before anyone else even starts to network. So that's one of the things we think is really exciting is , the global nature of this.