Revolutionizing Joint Rolling: The Story of an Innovative Machine Kyle Loucks, the CEO of Roll Pros, joins Dan Humiston to discuss his journey of creating a machine that automates the process of rolling joints. He shares how he was inspired by his college days and the need for a solution to the inefficient process of hand-rolling joints. With 85 machines already in the market, Kyle talks about the success of Roll Pros and potential opportunities for growth and investment in the future. Produced by PodConx MJBulls - https://podconx.com/podcasts/raising-cannabis-capital Dan Humiston - https://podconx.com/guests/dan-humiston RollPros - https://rollpros.com/ Kyle Loucks - https://www.linkedin.com/in/kyleloucks/ Recorded on Squadcast - https://squadcast.fm/
Revolutionizing Joint Rolling: The Story of an Innovative Machine
Kyle Loucks, the CEO of Roll Pros, joins Dan Humiston to discuss his journey of creating a machine that automates the process of rolling joints. He shares how he was inspired by his college days and the need for a solution to the inefficient process of hand-rolling joints. With 85 machines already in the market, Kyle talks about the success of Roll Pros and potential opportunities for growth and investment in the future.
MJBulls - https://podconx.com/podcasts/raising-cannabis-capital
Dan Humiston - https://podconx.com/guests/dan-humiston
RollPros - https://rollpros.com/
Kyle Loucks - https://www.linkedin.com/in/kyleloucks/
Recorded on Squadcast - https://squadcast.fm/
[00:00:00]
today on the MJ Bulls Raising Cannabis Capital Podcast, we are joined by Kyle s, the founder, and c e o of role Pros. Kyle, welcome to the show.
Hey. Yeah, thanks for having me. Great. Great to be here.
Well, I tell you what, I'm really happy that you could join me today.
I've done a ton of interviews with entrepreneurs over the last five years, and I. Without a doubt. My favorite interviews are always with inventors, and so that's why I was so looking forward to, I watched this great video you did last night and I was all, all revved up for this interview. I, I, I, I'm really looking forward to it.
How did you come up with the idea to create a machine that rolls joints?
Yeah, well, I gotta give some credit to my my college days, being in a basement and sitting next to my roommate and, having a joint rolling competition with him. I feel like a lot of the great a lot of the people in the space, that's how they started. And so I gotta give some props to that.
And, With the engineering [00:01:00] mindsets, like I, I kind of really nerded out. I, I got into the details of every little part of the joint and how it pertained to, the experience. So that was, that was like kind of the backlog. And cannabis was always kind of a friend of mine cuz I was, I've been an inventor and I've been doing work for a lot of big companies.
And cannabis could always unlock that extra perspective that I needed in order to tackle, tackle the problem at hand. And this, this problem was actually like pretty clear, once I had my first pre-roll on the market, I was, it was hot, it burned like crap. And, I was like, this, this is definitely a segment of the market that needs needs some attention, and it's a hard problem to solve too. So I'm always, I always get jazzed when there's a, a complex problem that I get to, start thinking about.
Yeah. , like a lot of people will think about the cones , and I just was, it's gotta be [00:02:00] so difficult to fill up cones on scale. , and not to mention how much space they take up. , and your machine doesn't take up much space.
Yeah, so I started with like the, the general, the physi, there's a physical problem with filling a cone. With sticky, fluffy flour. It's like anybody that's tried to do that on their hand, on their own, knows it's hard to get a good density within your within your cone that you're trying to stuff.
And so I, you're relying on gravity material moisture content, all these variables. That, ultimately you have to degrade in order to get it to, fill properly. So that's how I started, and I went back to like the rolling, right, like just how you did with the little zigzag, belt roller.
Cuz that always gave me a nice consistent density on every joint. Yeah, so I, yeah, I really automated around that and the the [00:03:00] machine came out. Yeah, it's like kind of elegantly simple and compact. And yeah, it utilizes, the cones like that are, overseas, they're made overseas by hand.
So a huge like supply chain issues there, which, some of us experienced in 2021. And, I was able to surpass that and we're going straight to the paper mill. So yeah, it was like, it was like we made, we made things simpler and actually it started helping, it's more cost effective to the customer.
It's like half the price of a cone and, and yeah, it's like, It, it just takes a little bit more work to make it simple in the, in the beginning. But the, the long run solutions that come from that are, they're exponential.
Oh my gosh. I can't remember exactly what the cost of goods , but , it was really low. , you have calculated all the way down to like the pennies,
Oh yeah. Yeah. It's, so, it's 1 cent for the paper and [00:04:00] then 2 cents for the crutches. So it's, you're, you're at 3 cents per joint. Yeah. It's, it's crazy. Cheap and, yeah. And you can fit an entire. Roll of paper in a backpack. So it's like, shipping costs and, space, just space in general.
A whole pallet of cones would be replaced by, one small box of bobbins and crutches.
that's a lot of, and there's a lot of, you can make a lot of joints with one role.
Yeah. Yeah. You can make 40,000 joints with one roll, so, yeah.
Talk to me a little bit about the , dial in the draw.
Yeah. So one of the things that I was noticing in, in how they made 'em previously was you had to dry out your material and it's all about how long you vibrate the cone for, and that's how you can kind of get a consistent draw. And I don't like relying on gravity, like just in a. Design perspective, like my years of experience, just like don't [00:05:00] rely on it.
And so we're mechanically compacting the joint , on the radius. So you get that even compaction all the way across and you can also dial it in. So now there's a servo motor that is. Contracting that or releasing that diameter. So what you do is you roll a couple of joints, it rolls two at once you roll a couple of joints, you either do a drop, like a, like a light pole to see if it's got the right kind of amount of airflow that you want.
We also have a device that's called the draw check. It'll actually give you a, a number for like the vacuum drop. And then, and then you can adjust the machine now to either increase that draw, make it a tighter roll, or you can decrease it. And that's just right on the fly. It's like as it's moving you can kind of dial that dial in that draw.
That's crazy. . You can do a lot per hour. What's the total output? [00:06:00] Per hour?
Yeah, so it does, it clocks at about a thousand per hour. We only sell it at seven 50 per hour because, I'm a pretty conservative engineer and I, I want to kind of under promise and overachieve those expectations. So yeah, we, we only really advertise at seven 50, but it, it, it cranks 'em out pretty good.
And you can infuse these products too,
Yeah. Yeah. And that's, that's huge right now. Yeah, because I designed the machine to handle really sticky fresh material. , it actually almost runs better when you have yeah. Something infused in there. It's like holding it all together. It's like a binder. So it's yeah, if you've ever rolled a joint, that sticky flour like sticks to itself and so you can make a better joint with that rather than like dry material.
So, so yeah, it's, we've got several people doing the infused and. It's, it's working out great for them.
That's great. [00:07:00] That's great. , this is so far beyond just the conceptual stage. It's out in the market. People are using it. You've tested it out. I mean, this is an ideal opportunity for an investor. I don't know if this is, if, if, if you are in the Raising capital stage of your business. But will there be, or is there currently opportunities for people to participate in your growth?
At this current moment we're, we're not really doing any rounds. I do foresee maybe an opportunity in the future. It's all about the right people and the right relationships. So, I think if there was the right, if there was the right person we would look at it.
But yeah, we're, we're doing great right now and, I'm kind of enjoying the, the organic growth and yeah, like you said, we've got, we've got 85 machines now out in the wild, and Yeah. We're just, we're having a whole lot of success with that. And yeah, if, if there is somebody that's [00:08:00] looking, , I'd entertain the conversation for sure.
You're in a good position. A lot of companies needed the investment to survive and you're in a position where you're doing it organically, which is, which is great. But if maybe wanna take it to the next level and start mass producing these and , selling 'em on Auto Home Depot, you might. You might need to raise some money.
Yeah. Yeah.
, if, if there is somebody out there that's interested or if you just wanna learn more about roll Pros or get one in your, your business we will have links on our website. You gotta check out the video. , the video is the key to it, but you gotta check out the video.
Go to the website and if you have any questions, I'm sure Kyle or somebody from his team would be happy to talk to you. Kyle is really fun talking to you today. I, I, I can't wait to see one of these in, in the wild as you called it. So, but look forward to speaking to you again.
Yeah. Thanks Dan. Thanks for the conversation and yeah, looking forward to the future.