Will vaping eventually replace smoking flower? Despite some high-profile setbacks, vaping cannabis continues to gain acceptance. Steve Abraham the Head of Investor Relations and Corporate Development at The Blinc Group joins Dan Humiston to talk about their latest technological advancements. He explains how their commitment to solving their client's needs keeps them at the forefront of cannabis vaping innovation. Produced by PodConx MJBulls - https://podconx.com/podcasts/raising-cannabis-capital Dan Humiston - https://podconx.com/guests/dan-humiston Steve Abraham - https://podconx.com/guests/steve-abraham The Blinc Group - https://www.theblincgroup.com/
Will vaping eventually replace smoking flower?
Despite some high-profile setbacks, vaping cannabis continues to gain acceptance. Steve Abraham the Head of Investor Relations and Corporate Development at The Blinc Group joins Dan Humiston to talk about their latest technological advancements. He explains how their commitment to solving their client's needs keeps them at the forefront of cannabis vaping innovation.
MJBulls - https://podconx.com/podcasts/raising-cannabis-capital
Dan Humiston - https://podconx.com/guests/dan-humiston
Steve Abraham - https://podconx.com/guests/steve-abraham
The Blinc Group - https://www.theblincgroup.com/
The Blinc Group
Dan Humiston: [00:00:00] Today at MJ bulls, we are joined by Steve Abraham, the head of investor relations and corporate development at the blink group. Steve, welcome to the.
Steve Abraham: Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate your time.
Dan Humiston: Well, I appreciate you dropping by today. A lot has happened since we last had you guys on the show, which was three years ago. I mean, it's like the whole world has changed since we last add you on the
show.
Steve Abraham: I don't know. I don't think much has happened in the last three years. Again, the last three days seem interminable. So I don't know what three years means.
Dan Humiston: Oh, my gosh. Well, for our listeners that missed that episode, the blink group designs develops supplies and supports premium cannabis, vaping hardware to pretty much the entire industry, including most of the major multi-state operators, licensed producers and brands. But I, I thought we'd jump right into it.
And , we would address the elephant. There's been a lot of noise about vaping in the news this last couple of weeks. And I wanted to maybe just touch on this [00:01:00] right now. What's the state of the cannabis vaping industry.
Steve Abraham: Well, I'm happy to touch on, , the nicotine piece if you'd like, but obviously I'm much more familiar with , the vape space and honestly, from a headline numbers. Not only is the cannabis industry growing, but vape itself is continuing to grow even within cannabis. It was just lucky at some headset data this morning and both in Canada and in the U S vape is continuing to take market share. Whereas in the us, it's the number two category and in Canada, where they products are a little bit newer. Three categories. So overall it's a healthy market. Interestingly generationally, we're seeing
a lot of the customers coming into it are actually the younger generations, gen Z, and the millennials. And that's driving the industry to a great extent. , and also when you look , forward is, , vaping is an area where, especially if you start to see significant price pressure on flour, there's a lot of opportunities,[00:02:00] for vape to sort of segment itself and to do different. And we're also importantly seeing growth in various parts of the vape industry. , we're seeing substantial growth in what I think of as sort of the higher end vapes being like the live resins and the rosin. Much more of a full spectrum product, closer to her plant rosin in particular, there's no chemical process. It's just heat and pressure where you can really deliver that phenomenal taste and quality of the product. And that's also where the quality of your vape cartridge and your vape battery is really critical in that process. So overall, we're seeing, we continue to see strong growth and believe that we will continue to go and follow.
Dan Humiston: Yeah, I I'm at your website right now. And I'm amazed at how much technology has advanced since three years ago. When I last time I was on your website, there's no way to keep up with this. If this isn't your main business and how do you help your clients [00:03:00] stay on top of all these advancements and make sure that their products are in the, the most advanced vaping equipment available.
Steve Abraham: Sure. One of the ways that we think about it, and there's a little bit of branding in here. If you let me apologize for that is we talk about powered by Blake. That's what makes a difference in, if you think about it, the way our head of marketing and co-founder talks about it, think Intel inside, right? We are the intelligence that can really. Fine tune the cartridge to your oil, to your manufacturing process. So it's not just that we're going to sell you a generic
vape, off the shelf is we're going to to meet with your team. . We want to see your oil.
We want to help you write your SOP is we want to work with you through your manufacturing and your filling process. And then after you've been through testing after we've helped design and tweak the cartridge specifically for your oil, the viscosity, the nature of it. We want to be there when you fell for the first time to make sure. That [00:04:00] your cartridges are being filled properly, that everything is working properly. Because look you've spent , a tremendous amount of time and money getting your product just the way you want it. And we want to help ensure that, Customers are getting it that way. And let me just add one thing. And one of the key reasons why we think this way and why we believe in a consultative sale and being part of our business is our CEO and founder has probably forgotten more about. Then most people in the industry now, and he's currently the chairman of two international standards. It's the ISO and cen they've standards committees.
Dan Humiston: Like he's seeing all the new stuff that's coming down the pike and he's like, oh, this would be perfect for you guys. This would work out great. , the other thing that you didn't talk about, but as a marketer, I like there's so many ways , that you brand vape cartridge, so that.
The company owns it. It's all there. Logoing and all their coloring. Talk about that for a
minute.
Steve Abraham: , it's one of [00:05:00] those great questions you'd like to get in an interview because I have an answer that, in many ways, sort of appeals to both parts of my brain, the branding side, but also the finance business side. We received a patent for a new system called the rings. And what essentially it is, it is , a removable, and that goes to the top or the, and the bottom of a cartridge. What's important about it is you can put your branding on it
and also you can put strain names on it. So you get sort of two marketing opportunities on the same thing. And just like anybody who's ever has that little bowl at home with a bunch of vape cartridges in it, where maybe you remember where you bought it from, but you don't know. So it's a great branding opportunity. But honestly, what appeals to me more given my finance background, it's a phenomenal tool for inventory management and also for reduction in working capital, because , let's say I'm a co-packer or I'm a, an MSO, and I have three lines.
A lot of them are moving to that. Good, better, best strategy. So they're going to have sort of three lines. [00:06:00] Okay. I'm launching them or I'm at the beginning of the year. I don't know exactly what's going to sell, but to make sure I have enough inventory, I'd buy 200,000 of each cartridge. Right. So call that
a $1.2 million in sort of working capital to buy those cartridge, assuming, about $2 landed a card. , let's say you're, your low cost would sell so much better , than your high-end one you're then reordering cartridges, where you still have lots of inventory.
The other ones with the ring system, you can simply take off the ring that has your. Premium brand on it and put a ring on, we can manufacture those locally, get them too quickly, and they cost you a dime 15 cents. So it really allows the manufacturers and the brand people to really just manage the business better.
And, one of our core values as a company is, find the problem solving. Right. So in this case, we're thinking about what are our customer's pain points. So again, this does all the branding and you [00:07:00] can have the strain and all the branding on you want it, but it also makes the finance people and the inventory managers, very happy as well.
Dan Humiston: Oh, my gosh. That's that's, it's one thing that everybody in the office can agree
on.
Steve Abraham: That's correct. That is, which has become one of my sort of pet projects is to become a little bit of
an evangelist on this product, because it just solves a business problem. It gives you tremendous freedom and it's patented. So it's something that we can do that others can't do.
Dan Humiston: Yeah, that's awesome. Well, speaking of only the other hats have, the many hats that you wear as head of investor relations. One of the things that you're probably always thinking about or in the process of is raising capital now, will that be in the horizon for the
blinks.
Steve Abraham: Sure currently in the early stages. And our expectation is to be, in the market actively raising money, sort of, call it November, December, maybe early into 2023. [00:08:00] and, and, in the use of the proceeds is really to be able to. Continue to expand the company. I think there's a tremendous opportunity in Europe and especially with, our know our founder and CEO's background, that should be a great market for us. We can continue to invest in, in the business itself and our expertise refining our products. , we hired a new COO. From the industry about two and a half months ago, we've already been able to get our prices down for what we're paying. We're passing that onto our customers while still maintaining good margins. We want to continue to invest in things like the ring system. What does the industry have that the industry needs? Is it a new type of coil is a new type of cartridge. Those are all the things that we want to be able to use those funds for. So really to be able to take that money and invest in growth in the business, we're doing terrifically today. Again, when you scale a business, the way we have, you got to take some time and grow the business to be able to meet that level. [00:09:00] But we really think there's tremendous opportunities, especially given how they've been growing and we expect to continue to grow.
Dan Humiston: Wow. I mean, there's just, like you said, . There is a lot of opportunity in the vape industry and you guys are right at the forefront of it. we'll have all the information to the blink group in our show notes. If anybody wants to continue this conversation or learn more, I'm sure somebody from Steve's team will be available to talk to you to talk to them.
Or even if you, Hey, if you're an investor and you're like, I want to get in early on this thing, I'm
Steve Abraham: Please co you know, anybody, if you have a questions about what was said, or if you have a question about investing or any of the products that we discussed, I'm just steve@theblinkgroup.com. . Please feel free to read.
Dan Humiston: Hopefully. We're not going to wait three years to have you back Steve, thanks so much for being on the show today. This
was fun.
Steve Abraham: Thank you so much for your time. I love to talk about the blink. I've been an investor for four years and employee for about, for almost a year now. So very happy.