Bryan Fields: [00:00:00] It's kind of scary to get started, but in anything in cannabis, everyone's just figuring it out. And I think for me, it's every single day is what can I learn in addition to what I done yesterday to try to get better and just kind of stack those days on a regular basis.
INTRO: Welcome to the Kaya Cast, the podcast for cannabis businesses looking to launch, grow, and scale their operations.
Bryan
Tommy Truong: Thank you so much for joining me today.
Bryan Fields: stoked to be here. Thanks for having me, Tommy.
Tommy Truong: So you, you host your own pod, the Dime podcast, and you talk to industry leaders. in our industry as well. What do you see happening in 2025? What are some, some of the trends that you're, you're seeing?
Bryan Fields: So I think there's like a, a heavy focus on technology. I think we've seen kind of last year was like everyone speaking about efficiencies. And balancing issues. And now I see a heavy focus more on technology automation. And I've heard some sprinkling in of AI, which I don't know if that really means anything to anyone.
It could just [00:01:00] be like CEOs from a talking standpoint.
Tommy Truong: means a lot to me.
Bryan Fields: Yeah, for sure. But I think like when you have an executive who's up there talking about AI, you're like, okay, tell us what that really means. In your workflow. But for me, I really try to dig into efficiency because I think you see all the big MSOs talk about efficiency.
And when you're vertically integrated, there's opportunities for efficiency along the way. But what does efficiency mean to you doesn't necessarily mean someone else. And I think that word can be used. Incorrectly, when they're not actually being efficient, they're just telling their team, Hey, we have to do more with less.
Tommy Truong: We see, we see that too. We, we see that trend across the board. And a lot of talk right now from a technology perspective is digital agents. This year is the year that we're going to see more digital agents scale certain processes in businesses, more so than last year.
I think now, um, that technology is there. What, what we're finding is there's a lot of things digital agents can do today [00:02:00] to, to help processes and scale certain functions, but these agents are getting supported month over month. And
Bryan Fields: day over day.
Tommy Truong: Yeah. Day over day. And it's funny. I was looking at Y Combinator and they're an incubator for a lot of tech startups and their mandate now is they're only going to invest in companies that work in AI and that are disrupting.
The, the labor market for more intermediate to advanced positions. So they're investing companies that, Hey, can we replace a hundred thousand dollar job or role? So that's, that's common. Where do you see organizations? Our organizations in like MSOs, et cetera, are they implementing, or are they looking at digital agents or, or are they just looking at their processes as a whole and redefining, okay, first principles, what is it that we can improve?
Bryan Fields: I think that's a great question. It probably [00:03:00] varies per MSO. What I've heard people talk about is from a marketing perspective, really hammering home on the personalization, maybe from the text messaging or the reward standpoint. That's where I think they focused on the way I would handle it might be a little differently.
I would take about the tool, put it internal first. That's how we're focusing with the agents. See what it can do internally. Maybe use it as like an internal tool by customer service, something you use internally. Feel comfortable with how it works before you roll it out. Okay. The one fallback with AI agents and changing so much is that it's really off putting for a customer who's coming to your site, trying to interact with your organization, and they have a bad experience with an AI agent, which to no fault of their own, the company's trying to be innovative, they're trying to push the envelope, but I always think start internal first, feel comfortable with how the tool works, maybe have somebody own how that works, and then have that person roll it out externally so that you don't have that egg on the face and be like, hey, the CRM told us it was a really cool tool, we tried it, didn't work, sorry to the customer.
Tommy Truong: That's a really, really good point. It's really sound [00:04:00] advice because it's true. Internal is the best way to understand the capabilities of AI agents. And you probably don't want. Today, unless it's fully vetted your AI agent to start giving customers. advice on certain products.
Bryan Fields: right.
Tommy Truong: Yeah. And let's just fully vet it.
How,
Bryan Fields: It's there's just too many differences, right? You, you, you just don't know. And those experiences are just so crucial, depending on right, it takes a lifetime to acquire a customer and it takes a single moment to lose them forever and decide, hey, there's endless competitors, I can just go here, I had a really off putting experience in this one moment.
I'm not going to go to this place next time. I'm going to try a different brand. I didn't have a good experience. And those are the single moments that I think companies, especially in our space are so heavily focused on because it's early on. And there is what I think is still first mover advantage.
They're still happening. People are still figuring out which brands they like, which products they like. But also in that same moment, if you have a bad experience, what is it? If you have a good experience, you tell [00:05:00] one person. If you have a bad experience you tell five or ten That statistic to me, I think still is true.
Tommy Truong: how are you deploying AI agents internally?
Bryan Fields: So we have an AI agent internally that helps from like a monitoring tool. We have a software program that we're developing and I'm just trying to get my feet on the ground with how that AI agent works. So what I've done is I have like an alert bot that tells me when customers take certain actions and then I have the AI agent review what's going on and then I can kind of work with the agent.
Hey, did this customer use this? Did this customer have a fail point? And that way I get comfortable with understanding. where their failure points in the communication with the AIG. Also, it helps me understand where's the customer challenging with the program that we've developed.
Tommy Truong: Oh, that's awesome. That's great. So how has that been working for you?
Bryan Fields: It's been hard. Uh, I'm gonna be totally honest with you. I was very optimistic and very excited to get started. And it was hard. It doesn't make it easy to get started. There are endless options. I mean, we saw DeepSea come out of what I thought was nowhere. All of a sudden, just rise to the top. You try to sign up for that, it's down because a thousand people are using [00:06:00] it.
So, There's endless options. It's kind of scary to get started, but in anything in cannabis, everyone's just figuring it out. And I think for me, it's every single day is what can I learn in addition to what I done yesterday to try to get better and just kind of stack those days on a regular basis.
Tommy Truong: So what do you set up with what language and, and framework?
Bryan Fields: Uh, it's open AI and it's through Azure is the portal that we use. So all of it is built through there.
Tommy Truong: Okay. And you guys built internally.
Bryan Fields: We built it internally and it's been hard. I wish I could tell you it was easy and it was, you know, you start going through the, these steps and, um, it's funny too, at a certain point yesterday I was using, uh, chat GBT to double check Gemini going through the steps.
Am I doing this right? And at a certain point I'm like, I've pretty much outsourced my entire role to just managing two AI agents. Compare and contrast like the steps that I'm doing.
Tommy Truong: Yeah, it's, it's a, it's an interesting world that we live in. We're pretty much at the forefront of what's possible. And I see [00:07:00] the marketplace, the software B2B marketplace to be completely different in a year. In a year,
Bryan Fields: Could be six months. It could be completely different, right? Like, what was it, two years ago they released ChatGPT? And now they've got endless competitors. They released ChatGPT, uh, I forgot what they call it, Operator or Task Agent, where you can tell it, hey, like, go research these things for me, come back.
It's mind blowing. Like you were saying, it's literally almost every single day. There's some sort of groundbreaking advancement where it's like an arms race, trying to figure out which one of these companies can do it faster, do it better and potentially cheaper because it's hard to tell right now, today, January 31st, who's going to win the arms race.
Tommy Truong: Yeah. It's very, very fascinating. So right now we're deploying it internally as well as on our platform as well. And the way that we see AI agents, what's going to happen in the future is how customers and people interact. There's going to be a layer across the board with, uh, with, [00:08:00] within, with the internet, so it's going to be through AI agents and companies then do they market to AI agents?
Bryan Fields: Maybe I think there, there comes to like a level where exactly like you're saying, we're, we're on the cusp of like a redefinition of what. Skilled individuals look like, right? It's no longer. Can you do your job? It's a matter of like, okay, if we give you an AI agent to do 50 50 percent of your job, can you do another 10 15 percent on top?
I think it's going to change the workforce. And some people I think are petrified of the concept because I think it really makes the 1 percent being the critical thinking now versus in the past, maybe you needed to have a super advanced degree that can do all these things. Now they've kind of like, even though all that out.
where everyone can do all these different things. You can be a lawyer in your free time just by going on a chat GBT, searching and working through those things. It's about the critical thinking. How can you apply these elements to your current role [00:09:00] and take it to the next?
Tommy Truong: Yeah, it's, it has opened the door for endless possibilities and I'm here for it. This is
Bryan Fields: too. Me too. Me too. Because I was a terrible student, right? But I was always someone who was like, I can figure out how to get around this. I don't need to learn this. I'll just figure out a way to do it. Now, it's just like the teacher back in high school was like, you'll never have a calculator, Bryan.
You need to learn all these things. And I was like, I'll be fine. I'll have the calculator. Now it's like, hey, I got AI agent. I don't need to know these things. I just need to understand. How to research these things, review these things, and then make critical decisions to accelerate the process to get to where I need to go.
And it's not this, it's not the fastest way, right? And it's definitely not the easiest way, but it's the path that I've found is the most helpful to really accelerate my learning process.
Tommy Truong: Yeah. So how do you see, are there any other huge, big things that you see coming up for cannabis businesses in 2025?
Bryan Fields: 100%. I think when we talk about AI agents, when we talk about efficiency and we talk about technology, I think you go internally, right? And you look at the supply chain. I think cannabis as a whole can [00:10:00] pull technology elements from big ag, from oil and gas, and they can apply it internally. So one of the things that we're seeing is that extraction companies specifically with the incoming plant being so variable and understanding that the more THC they get out from a quality standpoint, the more money they make, A fundamental focus of balancing out those unknown variables to really accelerate that process is the true value, right?
Like if the more you get out, the more you can benefit, it's about understanding where you are in your process and how can you scale that? Because everyone's facing the same challenge. It's just about how do you figure it out as fast as you can.
Tommy Truong: Yeah. And the, the ones that do the leaders in this space, and you know, what we found is, it's not about figuring it out. It's about, do you have the right muscle? To take advantage of new technologies when they come.
Bryan Fields: Yeah,
Tommy Truong: So it's not, it doesn't happen overnight. You can't change organization overnight.
Organization is made of people. You have 10, 000 people. You have to enroll 10, 000 people now with [00:11:00] a different mindset. And that, that takes time, but is there a plan for it?
Bryan Fields: it starts at the top, right? And it's a mindset exactly like you said. It's like, okay, guys, we've been doing something one way. If we can do it better, tell me how and utilize the tools around us to do that. And that's really, really hard in an industry like ours that is moving as fast, as fast as humanly possible.
And given the fragmented nature of the fact that like California and New York and Michigan don't operate the same makes moving that fast, even harder.
Tommy Truong: It does. area that I see AIJ agents really help is compliance. It's just made for compliance. You upload your rags in notebook LM, you know, have a consultant and you're pretty much now, uh, you pretty much now have the breadth of what. to be compliant, what the regs are. It's, it's, um, it's amazing to [00:12:00] me, the, now that the rocks can read and the context window of a human being is, is only so big, and now you have this context window available to you to absorb information and distill it to what's important.
Bryan Fields: It's wild, right? You could just literally copy and paste into the LLM and say, Hey, this is what I'm looking to do. Do I have any points that should be concerning? Is there anything I need to review? Anything I need to change? Give me the feedback. Boom. There it is. Then you could even take it one step further.
This is my packaging. Given the rules and regs, where do you think I can improve on it? Give me some ideas to consider from an aesthetic standpoint, from a CPG standpoint. You can take that feedback and also give it like that consultant vibe right back to you.
Tommy Truong: So you probably talk to a lot of technology companies. What do you see? In the pipeline for 2025, what are some of the really good innovative stuff that's coming out?
Bryan Fields: I see a lot of companies who don't believe what we're talking about today is a real thing. They tell me, hey Bri, they tell me, hey Bri, like you're crazy. [00:13:00] Something like this existed, like a lot of people would be using it. There's others. I would say it's kind of 50 50 today, um, that believe that this innovation needs to come.
I think. The other people are just like, it's very difficult in cannabis. Some people are so hell bent on keeping the lights on that they can't even consider outside opportunities for expansion or changes in the process. They're like, Hey, I got to make sure that I do this because I need to make sure I get paid for tomorrow.
And I think that is part of the fundamental Let's call it floor challenge of the industries that you've got some people who are struggling to stay afloat so desperately on a day to day basis, and you have others who are like, I'm gonna go as fast as I can and accelerate because we know we need to.
Tommy Truong: I see. What about technology companies that are serving the industry?
Bryan Fields: I think some of them are pushing the envelope. I think there's a few out there that I've interviewed, like Little Earths, for example. Um, they work with dispensaries and they've got a great platform and they continue to push the envelope for helping to find a pain point internally from the supply chain and to go [00:14:00] from there.
Tommy Truong: Wow. So what did they do?
Bryan Fields: I am not so fundamentally, like, advanced on their knowledge, but I think they've got like a, a, a, Deep seated route into like, um, their ERP platform and understanding, you know, where you're, you're potentially out and how you can restack again. But I don't want to be misquoted on that because that interview was a few months ago.
Tommy Truong: It's okay. I mean, two months, two months ago, a lot has changed since then.
Bryan Fields: Yeah. And we've spoken to a few since then. So.
Tommy Truong: Yeah. So tell me a little bit about your pod.
Bryan Fields: Sure. So the podcast, The Dime is a weekly dive into the strategic differences of the different companies. We've been fortunate to interview some of the biggest CEOs in the space, Boris Jordan, Kim Rivers, Charlie Pactel, also down to some of the leading scientists and our focus isn't on earnings and finances.
It's on strategies. It's on the unique frameworks that they've done in order to get to this part. And I think one of the elements that I really enjoy is that everyone kind of cannabis industry is like an entrepreneur and they face massive failures along the way. And we try to [00:15:00] distill those lessons learned from some of these industry leaders so that you and I or someone else who's still building their business doesn't have to make that same mistake that they made.
Maybe we're not at different scale or different elements of where they are. But at the end of the day, we're all trying to figure it out. And these people have figured out more than the others.
Tommy Truong: I love that so much. And that's the essence of pretty much our pod as well is how do we democratize information? And I feel like that's very much needed in our industry because people, and it's not so much now, but there, there was this. Element of people coming in thinking it's cannabis. It's going to be easier than other industries when it's, it's actually the complete opposite
Bryan Fields: Yeah, harder. Way harder.
Tommy Truong: way, way harder.
So why do, why do companies fail? What, what is the, the common trends that you see
Bryan Fields: Um, probably a plethora of different reasons. Probably financial issues being the one biggest one. Of not understanding of [00:16:00] You know, cost and inputs and outputs and understanding that from a fundamental standpoint, maybe not balancing a strong business. I think it's easy to get accelerated forward and saying, Hey, on a spreadsheet.
If we produce 10 units, we can do X. And if we produce 100 units, we can do Y. And I think it's easy to tell your team. Okay, like Just produce more, but more isn't always better. Sometimes that leads to more fragmented challenges, especially internally when you have a smaller team and you're trying to scale.
Or sometimes you accelerate and grow your company just faster than you really should, just given the nature of the industry. It is exciting to know, okay, like, New York is starting to open up, and let's get in there. But what happens if there's setbacks? Then we can't return some of that revenue for six, twelve months later than we thought.
Okay, well then we can't pay our bills. All right, we have to get a loan. Well, we can't do that now. Guess what? You're caught.
Tommy Truong: that is a consistent, what you mentioned is, is a, is a consistent thing amongst entrepreneurs is there's just too many opportunities and the more successful [00:17:00] you are, the more opportunities you have, but oftentimes it dilutes. the core business and diluting the core business dilutes the brain. There's an opportunity cost in doing too much
Bryan Fields: Yeah. Yeah. I like to think about as like, keep the main thing, the main thing, and then what is that North star and how do I drive forward? Because you're right. Like every day there is pain points and there's opportunities to achieve those. But then internally as an entrepreneur, you got to think to yourself, is somebody willing to pay for that?
And can I produce a product at a cost that allows the market to handle that? Because ultimately you could have the best product in the entire world, but if the market cannot afford to pay for that, it doesn't work.
Tommy Truong: No, it doesn't work at all. What you mentioned is actually, uh, you know, the moment that you said it. It, it gave me a picture of exactly, um, who I spoke to a few years ago that was going through the same things. And really what is, what it is, is a strong budgeting, strong [00:18:00] budgeting and visibility in where you're spending your money.
That is so important in this industry, in this industry, particularly if you're a cash based. And. To be honest with you, there's just so when, once you start a business, you start generating revenues, you're going to see a lot of money in your bank. Do you have visibility on how much profit you're making and how much money needs to go back into inventory?
And ultimately how much money needs to go back to taxes? Because that's a huge bill at the end. And oftentimes what happens is without strong bookkeeping and strong budgets, uh, entrepreneurs think they have more money than they actually do. And then They spend more than they do, or they pursue opportunities that is beyond the, what they should.
Bryan Fields: yeah, or maybe they don't have a good focus of what their unit costs are because we call it creative accounting or internally. They've got some other challenges, but that is where I think technology helps alleviate problems is if you have, quote unquote, [00:19:00] an efficiency problem. You should know about it and then do everything you can to try to solve that problem.
Really fundamentally focus on, you know, what are the, the two main things that you can do to improve, improve your, your business, dial in on those and do everything you can to improve those things. But I think it starts with having an honest approach of like, what are our unit economic costs and, and if we improve our efficiency in hydrocarbon, how much more can that unlock?
What happens if we added an extra run per day? What would that do to our business a week, month, year over time? It's
Tommy Truong: If you were, if you were a dispensary owner or a vertically integrated business, how would you deploy agents today to help streamline operations?
Bryan Fields: Wow, that's a great question. Uh, I think I would start, like, we can start with, like, making the plant from a cultivation standpoint. There's probably a lot of characteristics to monitor to ensure, let's say, if the highest THC potency is what sells the best in your dispensary. What can you monitor from the plant from the seed seed process to a plant in order to [00:20:00] help achieve that?
There are tons of tools for real time monitoring. Big Ag is one to really lean into. There's a few that we've worked with that I can highly recommend. And then I think moving upstream through the extraction process, the same concept. Put a sensor inside your hydrocarbon extraction facility, monitor THC in real time and understand how you're doing so that you can streamline your operations again.
If vape is your core product, what can you do to get more THC out of your flower that you've paid for on a regular basis to continue back upstream to the dispensary? And now when you've got a really rock solid understanding of what your internal cogs are, is how do you get the product out the door?
Tommy Truong: Okay, got it. The problem is there's not a lot of off the shelf that can do it, but there are some that can. How would you leverage? Agents to monitor. So once you get the tool, deploy agents and have them do the, do the monitoring.
Bryan Fields: So the first would have [00:21:00] to have like a sound understanding of what principles you're looking for, right? Like, what are the checks you're looking for at those specific days to let it know that you're within line of what you're trying to achieve? And then you can have the AI agent, just like I talked about before, kind of monitor those elements and alert you if anything looks out of whack.
And that way, internally, the AI agent isn't doing anything wildly outstanding. It's just double checking the work on a regular basis and then saying, Hey, Tommy, plant six and Bay five has a problem. Take a look.
Tommy Truong: Ah, that's awesome. So what was the, can you detail the second port, the second part of what you spoke about?
Bryan Fields: Sure. So in hydrocarbon extraction, one of the biggest variables we found is efficiency. So you put Biomass in and you get oil out and the more oil you get out, the more potential money you make. So the biggest challenge is you've got a recipe that you use that you've probably micro extracted and without the ability to monitor THC in real time.
It was [00:22:00] really difficult to understand how it's going. Should you, should you adjust the time or some of the characteristics to try to account for some of those unknown variables that you're facing?
Tommy Truong: Oh, okay.
Bryan Fields: what we've done is we've taken a sensor from oil and gas, we've plumbed it directly into the hydrocarbon extraction system and we monitor THC in real time and depending on where you position that sensor gives you better information and better visibility depending on where you are in your process and you can use that as like a check or a marker to know, okay, usually 20 minutes in, we're at this percentage right now, we're way more, something's not right.
Okay. Or, the other verse, we're usually at this percentage, and since we're at zero percentage, maybe the biomass we started with doesn't have any more THC in it, we can stop the run and get an extra run in per day. So now you go from, let's say, four runs to five runs per day, and it becomes a massive internal benefit because the challenge for some of these facilities is time.
Tommy Truong: Oh, that makes [00:23:00] sense. So the time thing I understand, what are some of the markers that somebody, that you can identify that,
Bryan Fields: it, it, it, it's, it, it varies, right? Because the incoming material, while it has a COA, might not be, uh,
Tommy Truong: what's a COA?
Bryan Fields: Certificate of analysis, right? So it says how much THC is in like, uh, the bag. It's like a big, for those who are unfamiliar, it's like a big bag of flour and in it is a percentage of THC relative that entire bag, but it might not be completely accurate.
Given the challenges we've seen from a lab standpoint of, you know, everyone's talking about lab shopping, putting their finger on the scale, which means that they don't feel so confident with those numbers and there's a big difference between extracting. 28 percent THC and 5 percent THC, right? Because it's the total THC that's available.
So you can do some back calculations if you want to figure that out, or you can plumb in a sensor right into it, monitor, and once it becomes less than a certain percentage that internally we've [00:24:00] decided is not worth us doing, you turn it off, put a new bag in, start the process again.
Tommy Truong: Oh, okay. Gotcha. Fascinating.
Bryan Fields: Yeah, it's just, but it's not, it's not groundbreaking tools. It's what oil and gas uses, right? Again, it's just another principle of going outside of the cannabis box and thinking, okay, what can we apply from other industries that are incredibly successful, utilize them internally in cannabis to make best practices, best practices.
I
Tommy Truong: And that's a really good point too. It's, it's, it's interesting. It's interesting that you say that because we come from the restaurant industry and there's a lot of parallels with the restaurant industry and the cannabis industry and the restaurant industry has been around forever. They're massive, they're huge, and they've seen the story before.
So why not look at best practices in this industry to scale your business? Just like what you mentioned.
Bryan Fields: think it starts with the mindset like you said originally, right? It's about the leadership and positioning it. Can we do something better? And [00:25:00] it's, I think there's ego involved, but I also think there's like a fundamental thought process of something like this existed, which a few people have said to me.
Bryan, wouldn't everybody use this? And my response to them is, of course. But the problem right now is that everybody's so heads down focused that they're not thinking outside the box. But once it becomes part of their thought process, Hey, if we measured something versus guessing, how much easier is your decision making?
It turns out massive,
Tommy Truong: Well, I mean, it's night and day.
Bryan Fields: crazy. Sometimes the sales conversations, it sells itself. They're like, well, if I knew this percentage, I could do so much better. And you're like, boom.
Tommy Truong: Wow. That's yeah. I mean, it's, it's obvious when you say it, but I guess it's not very obvious if you're living it and your head's, you know, you're walking through the forest.
Bryan Fields: Right because right now they're so focused on all right biomass in oil out What can we do to hit our numbers on a regular basis new technology is kind of scary But when you think about it, it's not [00:26:00] new it's just different and it's applied So there's that early Lager scale where there's people who are Open to applying new technology, and then there's like the, the adopters, and I forgot the rest of the scale, which would have been really helpful now, but that's where we currently are in cannabis.
We're still so early into the industry that not everyone yet has adopted technologies, but let's say in two, five years from now, technology will be a main piece of the supply chain across the board.
Tommy Truong: Yeah, it would be. I mean, it has to be in every industry.
Bryan Fields: There's no reason it wouldn't be.
Tommy Truong: No, no reason at all. So you
Bryan Fields: The one, the one element that I just wanted to share is that, like, I think that there is another level of, like, internal skill, right?
The, the recipe is what we've seen, is that everyone has, like, their quote unquote recipe, and I think once we start thinking about that perspective of, like, a supporting that person, not replacing that person, you take it to the next level.
Because the challenge we've seen is Sometimes that person is sick, and so and so who's newer to the role, who doesn't have 25, [00:27:00] 30 years experience doing extraction, isn't so familiar, makes mistakes, and those mistakes are costly for the business, which is part of the problem, what we've seen from a financial standpoint, is that if you're not making as much product because so and so is new, you've got downstream issues based on someone missing a day of work, which, again, is unfortunate and difficult to forecast.
Tommy Truong: very difficult. That's you hit the nail on the head in what I think one of the biggest benefits of. agents is there's a lot of costs in employee turnover and there's a lot of domain knowledge that gets lost. And when you hire somebody, it takes them quite a long time to get ramped up. What did you cut that in half?
What if, what if the majority of domain knowledge sticks with the business, then you have individuals that are just deploying these agents properly.
Bryan Fields: Right. What happens if the person who's brand new to the equipment could run it to, let's say, plus or minus 2 percent as the leading individual on the team? [00:28:00] Day one. Then you've really streamlined the process, and technology can make a big difference in helping that achieve, right? Normally, we run Blue Dream like this.
Bobby runs it like this. Tommy, run it similar to Bobby runs Blue Dream. Just follow the graph. It lays on top. Boom.
Tommy Truong: I wonder if we can ever get to a point where there's. a little bit more parody in growers.
Bryan Fields: It's a plant, though.
Tommy Truong: I know, I know. It's such a magical plant. And
Bryan Fields: Those guys are wizards, right? Like, true, true, true wizards. And watching them feel the plant and just understand what is missing and what it needs, It's just, it's one of the coolest parts of my job. Just asking those guys questions and being like, How the hell do you know that? And he's like, I just, I just know.
Tommy Truong: Yeah, they're, they're wizards. They're, yeah,
Bryan Fields: But that's what makes high end, like, flour, high [00:29:00] end flour, right? And I think eventually we could get to a point where maybe all hemp could go towards vapes, where it's not as important to have high end flour go through the vape process. But maybe that's just a hot take.
Tommy Truong: yeah. So you've mentioned two big things that you see are pitfalls of Businesses, actually, you know, in general, not just our industry. One is not a lack of understanding of cashflow and entrepreneurs chasing too many things at once. The team model, you want to go deep instead of going wide. What are some of the areas or other areas that you see entrepreneurs make, uh, in our industry mistakes that they make?
Bryan Fields: I think fear of change is a big one. And like we talked about, the, the inability to internalize how newer technology or technology that is not commonly used can be a massive saver to the business. Yes, it might [00:30:00] take some moments to adjust your workflow and internalize how it can make a difference. But if spending six months now utilizing a tool and incrementing it into your workflow can accelerate you with a hockey stick.
Two, three, four, five years from now without those fear of failures, like you're saying when Bobby leaves, but he's our expert, then we're back to square one, it really reduces the risk of failure from a fundamental standpoint, because you're really raising the floor for for opportunities that happen.
Tommy Truong: Yeah, that's a big one. And I'm just thinking about this now. I do think that our industry adopts technology a little bit slower than other industries.
Bryan Fields: I think they're skeptical. And I understand why. Because for so long, they had to grow weed up in the hills in California with fearful arrays and all those other things happening. And now to be out here where you're like, okay, like, Bryan, coming in with his new technology, like, I don't want him stealing my recipe,
And the ones that are, they spread like wildfire, but it takes an early adoption crew who's willing to say, [00:31:00] okay. I understand today the A. I. Agents might not be perfect, but if it's 50 percent of the way there and we can get a jump start on our competition because everyone's fighting for that one or 2%.
How do we do better? Well, technology and automation can help you do that.
Tommy Truong: Yeah. Yeah. It definitely can.
Bryan Fields: what can we do better? What can we do faster? What is the biggest pain point today that if we improve that, that we can grow our business? And we try to focus on that with the podcast, right? I try to ask all the guests, like, what tool out there? Like, do you wish somebody built? And like, what can be done in order to improve, you know, like a big pain point you're having?
And, you For me, as an entrepreneur building things, I'm just taking kind of solace and understanding, okay, here's the challenge. Here's the challenge. Here's the challenge. I can't build those because those are way too far out.
So for us, our focus is on hydrocarbon extraction, we were focused on real time THC monitoring for extraction efficiency. And that is what we've been tunnel focused on for the last about four years, and haven't really spoken publicly about it. Because It's a significant process of building, troubleshooting, and then working through it.
And for us now, [00:32:00] we just completed our pilot program, and we have five users using the program. And we're excited to kind of launch it over the next few months.
Tommy Truong: Oh, exciting. So How close are you to launching to the general public?
Bryan Fields: Uh, well, the biggest challenge for us is going to be acquiring the hardware since it is extremely expensive and takes about six months to build. We've got to be very selective with when we achieve the next one. But for us, I think, Tommy, you understand bugs from a software standpoint are the game we're fighting right now.
Tommy Truong: Oh, wow. So how, okay. Step back. How much is the hardware that clients have to buy?
Bryan Fields: It's a SAS model and I'm not comfortable with announcing the price because we haven't finalized our pilot program. We're in the final stages of that.
And I want to make sure if it's just Kellen and I, that we can do more to support them versus expanding it out. But I think, What we talked about before is like really locking in on what you do well and adding enormous amount of value for them versus chasing all these other opportunities of like cultivation and elements, which we want to do.
But right now we're tunnel focused on what we're achieving.
Tommy Truong: Yeah, that's awesome. That's great to hear. and I am [00:33:00] not in production at all. So my knowledge in this is very, very shallow. But what you're saying is customers will want sensors in each.
Portion of the barrel so that they understand where they're, where they are in each, um, when they progress,
Bryan Fields: Yep, you're measuring THC in real time, right?
Maybe we've gotten enough of the THC out So for example, we've got a customer who's got endless weed and for them the more turns per day they get the better They don't need to run longer because they've got endless biomass It really understands like what your North Star is as a fundamental goal and what you're trying to achieve But the tool allows you to really internalize where you can make better decisions
Tommy Truong: So what is the, uh, the return that you're seeing the value that customers are getting?
Bryan Fields: Time. The biggest variable is time. Uh, we've seen the ability to get more runs in per day, and the economics of that are just staggering. But it really depends. On the flip side, if you're doing tolling, which means that, like, biomass is being brought and you're splitting it, The more [00:34:00] THC you get out, the better both parties are.
So, ultimately, at the end of the day, it's just about understanding what your team does well, and using sensors, or technology, to, to make better, more informed decisions, depending on your goal.
Tommy Truong: So what is the best results that you've seen? Hey. Uh, somebody ran, was running three times at three cycles a day. Now they're running four, which is a 33, six.
Bryan Fields: six. That was the best, that was the best one we saw.
Tommy Truong: from what to what, what was it before?
Bryan Fields: They were running three times, they were doing three, three runs per day, and now they, they cut that down to add three more, so now they're doing six.
Tommy Truong: So you doubled their, their
Bryan Fields: we didn't double their output, they doubled their output, right? All they realized was that we had dead time that we weren't, we didn't know about.
Tommy Truong: So it's pretty much they've extracted the shit out of this already.
Bryan Fields: There's nothing else. Yeah.
Tommy Truong: Why is it in
Bryan Fields: Just wasting time, you're right, we're just standing around doing nothing.
Tommy Truong: So they doubled X or their equipment investment [00:35:00] pretty much.
Bryan Fields: Right. And something like that. It's, it's, it's difficult to really process as if I would just to tell you that, but that's why I think it's important to develop that trust. It's like, I can't tell you that you're going to double your output because I don't know your fundamental goals, what your organization is, what are you tolling?
Do you have endless biomass? I just have a tool that helps you make better, more informed decisions in real time. You place it where you want with our help, right? We'll help you do that. Then you can achieve everything you want, and it helps everything downstream.
Tommy Truong: Yeah, it does. I mean, that is the, the one thing that you can change in your process. And it's so upstream that the return is significant. It's staggering. You're double.
Bryan Fields: as first, when I was putting together the marketing material, I was like, oh, sick, this'll be great. And then I realized, I was like, they're going to think I'm a liar. They're going to be like three extra runs per day, seven days a week. That's 20 extra runs per week.
You know, 80 extra runs per month. I [00:36:00] mean, we're talking like another business is born on top
Tommy Truong: Yeah. Yeah. Pretty much.
Bryan Fields: I think the biggest unknown for people is that there is a disconnect probably between management and extraction sometimes with an understanding that we're only getting quote unquote 40 50 percent of the THC out of the biomass.
And then sometimes people do quote unquote a second pass, but you're still incurring those costs, a part of your process, and then it just becomes difficult because it's only getting 50 percent out of 100.
Tommy Truong: You just created a, a white label business out of nowhere. Pretty
Bryan Fields: You're not doing so good and you're getting 50 out of 100. If I got a 50 out of 100 on a test, my mom would smack me.
Tommy Truong: I know. Well, that's a really good example. I'm so happy that you're, you're doing this and, and really helping businesses maximize their investments.
Bryan Fields: It turns out that when you have a variable starting plant, a starting material like a plant, It's very difficult to have really dialed in SOPs based on your starting material being so variable. So it, it becomes really [00:37:00] challenging. And that's where, you know, we utilize the tools that the other industry has done in order to achieve those elements.
And it, it hasn't been an easy path because, you know, I wish, I wish it was easier, I guess, in some capacity. But if it was easier, then more people would be doing it. But for us, we understood that there was a big problem, um, which, which grew out of this. And we're doing everything we can to help the industry improve.
Tommy Truong: So what are the plans for the future? You're going to work with these customers. You're going to make sure that they're set up for success. And after that, what next?
Bryan Fields: going to go wider. So there's other. Other things that we can monitor in the supply chain process to continue on like we're talking about. I think the way to think about it is like a stoplight, right? If you go from from this point to this point and you know what you're doing on a regular basis, it helps continuity across the way and also helps reproducibility across state line from a consistency standpoint from an end product.
I'm sure we've all heard this product in Michigan done do the same thing as it does in Massachusetts. Well, that's because it might not be the same from a consistency [00:38:00] standpoint. So for us, it's about monitoring other components in the supply chain, which those customers are working with right now. Once the light bulb moment goes on, which is the most incredible moment where it makes sense and they see what they're going to do.
They're like, I need to put one here. I need to do this here. And I also want to monitor this down the way because this is another failure point that I have. And if I knew what was going on here, I could make better decisions and alleviate this bottleneck.
Tommy Truong: Ah, interesting. So at the end of the day, the end product becomes so much better. It's so much more consistent each run.
Bryan Fields: Yeah, because the wizards have the ability to really dial in the unknown process, right? Again, we're just giving the tool to help them do their job better. That's it.
it's pretty wild.
Tommy Truong: It's wild. That's awesome.
Bryan Fields: pretty wild.
Tommy Truong: Wow. Okay. So, uh, where, where are you live today? Can you just say which state?
Bryan Fields: I would say the more competitive states who have a focus and a need on margins [00:39:00] and consistency have been the ones who have been rigorously adopting the product.
Tommy Truong: Oh, awesome. That's congrats. You know what? You have to come back when this is not in stealth mode anymore. And,
Bryan Fields: the first person I've told, which is kind of uncomfortable to even say that out loud. Uh, we've been very quiet about it, but we've been on the road for the last three months installing the system non stop. So it's been, uh, pretty, pretty wild.
Tommy Truong: Oh, so you're dropping news, news.
Bryan Fields: Yeah, well, I think at the end of the day, right, like, at a certain point, it's no longer secret, and We've been out with this.
We don't even talk about on the podcast, really, because it's one of those where it's an internal tool that we've been doing for a while and that we've been silently building and excited to kind of work through it. And I didn't want to out any of our partners. Hopefully they're not listening. Upset about that.
I said this.
Tommy Truong: I'm sure that, you know, I'm sure everybody's, I'm sure that they're happy. They're just happy,
Bryan Fields: giving steroids to a horse is the way I think about it. Yeah.
Tommy Truong: Yeah. Well, Bryan, thank you so much for coming on, sharing some knowledge [00:40:00] and sharing the exciting stuff that you're doing.
Bryan Fields: Thanks for having me on,
Outro: Thanks for listening to the KayaKast podcast. We hope you enjoyed the show. Don't forget to subscribe to our podcast and your favorite podcast app, or visit our website to access the full archive of episodes from the show.
