From Apache Pilot to Cannabis Pioneer with Socrates Rosenfeld of Jane Technologies

In this compelling episode of Roots to Risk, hosts Eric Schneider and Isaac Bock dive deep into the journey of Socrates Rosenfeld, co-founder and CEO of Jane Technologies.

From his beginnings as a US Army Apache helicopter pilot to becoming a trailblazer in the cannabis tech industry, Socrates shares his personal and professional evolution. Discover how Jane Technologies revolutionized cannabis e-commerce, creating an ecosystem that benefits consumers, retailers, and brands alike.

Socrates discusses the challenges and triumphs of building a successful platform, the impact of potential rescheduling of cannabis, and the importance of community and authenticity in business. Join us for an inspiring conversation about innovation, resilience, and the future of cannabis technology.

Transcript

00:00 Eric Schneider:
This is the Roots to Risk Podcast hosted by Eric Schneider, alongside Isaac Bach. Roots To Risk brings you insights, the latest stories, and long form discussions about the cannabis industry. You’ll hear interviews with industry leaders and their perspective on current and future trends, how they’ve built success and what challenges they have faced. Our goal is to facilitate candid conversations and provide informative content for the cannabis community at large. Let’s go. What’s going on ib? How are we feeling today?

00:32 is:
I’m Gaby. How are you doing?

00:34 Eric Schneider:
I’m good, I’m good. Excited for this one. Have a, a really well known player in the space, Jane Technologies, you know, one of the leading technology providers in the cannabis industry, offering a wide variety of, of different technology solutions. Probably best known for its e-commerce platform and, and being launched in 2017. So they’ve been in the space for quite some time. But really excited to have Socrates Rosenfeld, co-founder and CEO of Jane Technologies. His background’s incredible.

01:06 Eric Schneider:
After leaving active duty in 2011 as a US Army veteran and Apache helicopter commander, Socrates turned to cannabis to re acclimate to civilian life because of cannabis wasn’t legal at the time in Massachusetts where he lived. He was forced to rely on the black market where he couldn’t be sure about the quality of cannabis he was buying. And the frustration of that experience, coupled with the lack of access to cannabis for his fellow vets led Socrates, the co-found Jane Technologies with his brother Abraham, and their stories unbelievable.

01:38 Eric Schneider:
And, and I’m excited to bring him on and to learn more about him and, and hear about what they’re building in the future.

01:45 is:
Yeah, absolutely. Very excited to hear, you know, how they kind of got Jane up off the ground. And especially given his background, I’m excited to hear like what the transition period was like for him personally and where they see the industry and their future going over the next couple of years.

02:00 Eric Schneider:
Yeah, absolutely. Well, let’s bring him in. Hey, Socrates, how we doing? Thanks for joining us on the Roots to Risk podcast. Appreciate you. Thanks,

02:09 Socrates Rosenfeld:
Eric. It’s great to be on with you. And Isaac did.

02:13 Eric Schneider:
Absolutely. So I, you know, we’re, we’re very familiar with Jane Technologies and, and it’s awesome what you guys have built and the platform and, and obviously, you know, we’ll, we’ll dig into where you guys started and what you’re getting into. But we’d love to just learn a little bit more about your background, how you got into the cannabis space, and then you know, what you’ve built at Jane Technologies.

02:33 Socrates Rosenfeld:
Sure. And thanks for asking that. My background I grew up in, just outside of Boston. Cannabis for me was never really on my radar. It was all around me, but it was never something I was really interested in. I, I was more focused on, I don’t know what I was focused on, to be honest with you, achieving and, you know, getting into a good college and getting a scholarship. ’cause my, you know, my parents couldn’t a afford college for me.

03:04 Socrates Rosenfeld:
So ended up going to West Point, which was an experience one that I’m grateful for, but it was certainly an experience. Yeah. Was in the Army. I formerly served as a Apache helicopter pilot. I commanded a, a company in Iraq, deployed all around the world as well. And then I got out after serving about seven plus years on active duty. I was 29 years old. Found myself back in Boston with really no idea who I was or what I wanted to do in my life.

03:41 Socrates Rosenfeld:
Literally taking the uniform off was like taking my sense of self off.

03:47 Socrates Rosenfeld:
And I struggled to find my balance again and felt disoriented. I felt unsure of myself. And so I tried to do what I always did and, you know, work hard and focus on tasks. And I still wasn’t getting well. And finally, you know, almost just out of despair was like, all right, I’m gonna try to smoke some weed. And that’s what people tell me that I trust and love. Tell me like, Hey, this helps you calm down and relax.

04:20 Socrates Rosenfeld:
And I consumed cannabis for the first time, and it was a profound experience. The the feeling that I felt was something that I hadn’t felt since I was a child. And that was joy and peace. And I, I will never forget that feeling. And that set me on this course of just developing a real passion and love and gratitude for this plant. I was in business school at the time, and I remember thinking, you know, man, I was at MIT so this is like all about technology and startups.

04:57 Socrates Rosenfeld:
And I was so excited about that. And at the same time, I was also excited about cannabis. And I thought, man, if those two worlds ever combine, that would be the ultimate trip. That would be the dream. And I came out to California, you know, in Massachusetts I was, I was getting cannabis from the illicit market, which wasn’t great. I had no idea what I was putting in my body and what was working and what wasn’t. And I just felt, it just felt weird and shifted out to California, got my medical card, it was like Willy Wonka, man, it was amazing.

05:33 Socrates Rosenfeld:
Go into a dispensary and smell all the flour and talk all to all the bud tenders. But it was still inconvenient for me to, you know, shop for cannabis. Like I was shopping for everything else in my life, which was largely online.

05:47 Socrates Rosenfeld:
And we came up with this idea to make shopping as simple and as convenient and safe as shopping for anything else in this world. Pitched this idea to my bro and a couple of friends from business school and a childhood friend. And to my pleasant surprise, they were like, this is a good idea and we wanna join you on this thing. And, you know, we haven’t looked back since. And that was about 20 15, 20 16. And so it’s been eight, nine years now of committing my life to this plant and providing access to this plant that has helped me.

06:28 Socrates Rosenfeld:
And you know, it’s, it’s not for everyone, but for those that it does help. We wanna provide really safe access to this plant. And the way we know how to do that is build software to help those retailers and brands reach the right consumers at the right time.

06:43 Eric Schneider:
That’s awesome. Well, first off, thank you for your service. Yeah, that’s of a very cool story, man. Thanks

06:48 Socrates Rosenfeld:
Man. Appreciate it.

06:50 Eric Schneider:
And yeah, I mean, Jane, technology is what you guys have built in just providing access. You know, it, it’s not only benefiting the consumer, but also benefiting dispensaries, right. And boosting sales.

07:04 Socrates Rosenfeld:
Yeah, it’s an ecosystem. Yeah. Right. And you take, you know, Amazon has an ecosystem. DoorDash has an ecosystem, you know, Amazon’s ecosystem is a hundred percent surrounded by the consumer. They’re all about the consumer. And it’s beautiful as a consumer, right? I go online, I can do, I have full purchasing power. I, I can search for anything I want, read my reviews, I could get recommendations and it, and then the product ends up on my doorstep.

07:39 Socrates Rosenfeld:
But unlike Amazon, the cannabis industry, you can’t ship directly to the consumer, which is in a weird way, on one side, very limiting on a whole nother side, is actually quite beautiful because it drives value into the local communities. Yeah. You know, it’s pretty, it’s cool. It’s like they’re, it’s part of the communities and we see it here in Santa Cruz. You know, we have a dozen plus dispensaries in this very small town in California, and it helps shape the community look and feel.

08:11 Socrates Rosenfeld:
And they run community events and it’s, it’s wonderful. And so when we were building Jade, we thought, okay, yes, the consumer’s important, but equally important are these retailers that are taking all the risk, that are trying to figure out how to get this product to the consumer. And then what we’ve uncovered as well is the brand is also an equal member of this ecosystem as well. And so if you can balance and create what we call win-win businesses, not only for the consumer, but do it for the retailer and the brand.

08:46 Socrates Rosenfeld:
That’s how you scale this industry. And when it’s in balance, not to pick on, you know, DoorDash, but, you know, they started off pretty balanced with the restaurants, but now the way their model works is they’re almost in competition with the restaurant. And so if you’re DoorDash, you’re trying to figure out ways to disintermediate the restaurant and create these ghost kitchens, and you talk about shaping a community, you guys come visit me in Santa Cruz, the first thing we’re gonna do is maybe go to a dispensary, but the the, the, the next thing we’re gonna do is go, go get something to eat.

09:22 Socrates Rosenfeld:
And that’s how you look, that’s how you feel a community. And when you start pulling that away from local communities, that becomes a problem. Not only for employment, but just the identity of a, of a neighborhood. And I think it’s actually this beautiful, through a weird overregulated industry in a weird way, it’s kind of created this, these pockets of cannabis communities. And the software should be enabling that, not minimizing that, not eding that to put money in their own pocket, but we, we believe if we can help connect the consumers with their local dispensaries and brands, ultimately we’ll all win.

10:03 Socrates Rosenfeld:
And that’s how we have built our model.

10:06 is:
Yeah. And, and with that kind of conversation around community and, you know, maintaining that, how was it early on getting those local dispensaries and brands on board? Were they skeptical at first? Or was it an easy sell

10:19 Eric Schneider:
<crosstalk>? Like how was it going from zero to one? Yeah. You know what I mean?

10:24 Socrates Rosenfeld:
Oh man, thanks for asking that. ’cause that’s the s that’s the SI don’t know, man, that’s some of the hardest times. It’s also some of the most beautiful times, right? You talk to any great band, you know, like, oh shit, I saw you Kendrick when it was early, or I saw the roots when they were playing to, you know, a room of a hundred people. And you, you, you think about a band like the Roots that had been grinding for so long, you know, that, that, that was the, that was their opportunity to find their sound.

11:00 Socrates Rosenfeld:
And so the founding team, the early employees, we, I look back on that time and it was nuts. You know, we literally, we would go and kind of not sneak into the dispensaries, but we would go on these, what’s known as, you know, back in the day you’d have these, these cultivators come in with, with Turkey bags of flour.

11:24 Socrates Rosenfeld:
And you know, they would go to the purchasing manager and the purchasing manager would sit at the desk, smell it, you know, test it like yay nay. And we would be in the waiting room with these guys with our backpacks on and they would assume that we were pitching them flour. But really we would go in there and we would open up our laptop and say, Hey, we don’t, we don’t need flower for you, but man, do we have a software that you’re gonna love? And nine times outta that and 10 we got kicked out, they were like, dude, we don’t do online. We don’t sign contracts, we have weed maps, you know, as a listing service, but we don’t care.

11:58 Socrates Rosenfeld:
Like, and we told ’em, we were like, guys, eventually consumers are gonna wanna shop online for this. Let let us help you out.

12:07 Socrates Rosenfeld:
And those were some of the hardest days to go from zero to one, but also the most beautiful, you know, and only speaking to, to entrepreneurs and founders, do they really understand that. But that helped develop our sound, hone our product, hone our brand, refine our brand. And what we learned was that, you know, the customers are great, we’ve gotta listen to the end user, but we really have to show empathy and compassion for these retailers and really start to understand where their pain points are and can we help them. And from those conversations, you know, the ones that didn’t kick us out, I’m forever grateful for those relationships.

12:45 Socrates Rosenfeld:
We call them. We don’t call them clients, we call them partners ’cause they’re truly, we’re in this together and their needs, they communicate those needs to us. And if we can fix them through software, we do that.

12:57 Socrates Rosenfeld:
And if we can’t, we tell them, but it, if it wasn’t for those early customers, we wouldn’t be here today or those early, early partners. We wouldn’t be here today. So yeah, really, really grateful for that. And I still have my backpack, man, that I used to go around as our marketing. I used to take stickers and tag them onto street signs thinking that that was gonna be somehow some magical thing that would unlock, you know, millions of consumers. And so far, no, not yet. We just have to do it the old fashioned way, man.

13:28 Socrates Rosenfeld:
And building good product, listening to our customers and iterating over and over and over again. So yeah, I look back on those times as some of the sweetest moments, man, which is a great reminder, starting going a tangent. But like, here we are, we think we’re big now, you know, one day we’re gonna look back and be like, man, I missed those days when we were kind of small back in 2024.

13:51 Socrates Rosenfeld:
You know, or the things that we think were really daunting now, we look, I look back on the times in 2017 where I was like, man, I thought that was really the biggest challenge we ever faced. And I look back and I was like, that was so simple. You know? So I try to remind myself that what we’re experiencing now as a team is what we’re meant to experience and we’re ready for it. And we can overcome those challenges. And I say, oh, okay, what is my future self gonna be telling myself now? So it’s a good reminder, man, to just have faith in the process.

14:24 Socrates Rosenfeld:
Trust yourself, take action and do the best you can and just don’t run outta money so you can keep this dream alive.

14:33 is:
No, a hundred percent. On that note, how have, like, how have the calendars you guys face internally as well as the problems, you know, partners are facing changed since 2015? The industry’s changed a lot over that time, so I’m sure you guys are seeing a, a lot of unique challenges come up.

14:49 Socrates Rosenfeld:
Yeah, man, you know, a, a lot more sophistication, right? I remember <laugh> forget some retailer telling me in Colorado, he was like, dude, I just have to open my doors and I’ll sell. I don’t care what I have to carry. Like it, it’ll fly off the shelves. And that was back in, you know, 20 16, 20 17. Those days are no longer, right? This is a very competitive retail CPG market. You have to have branding, you have to understand your consumers, you have to transform data into insights.

15:25 Socrates Rosenfeld:
You have to be very savvy with how you market and advertise yourself. Payments is a big roadblock in this space. How do you navigate around that? How do you preserve margin? How do you create loyalty with the consumer? All those things that the normal mom and pop retailer outside of cannabis has had deal with. You know, now cannabis isn’t just cannabis, cannabis is a CPG item.

15:50 Socrates Rosenfeld:
Now what’s the brand? How does this speak to me? You know, am I speaking to the right consumer at the right time? Those are all very complicated things on top of a very already complicated industry with a lot of red tape, regulatory red tape, et cetera. On one hand that’s extremely daunting on a whole nother hand. It’s exciting for us because it’s an opportunity to solve these very hard problems. And if you can do that, you got a business and we have a saying at the company, we say, we go where it’s harder because where it’s hard, that’s where the value is.

16:26 Socrates Rosenfeld:
And we saw a lot of folks going where it was easy and that was okay. ’cause you could, you could get away with that. Now you, you can’t now you can’t take shortcuts now. You can’t just copy the dude down the street. How do you differentiate yourself? And that’s by going where it’s the hardest and not being afraid to do that. And so we’ve done that again, in partnership with our brand and, and retail partners. But this is, this has turned into a very sophisticated complex market. And so you can’t just have an online menu.

16:59 Socrates Rosenfeld:
What are you doing with advertising, payments, loyalty, those kinds of things, data, those, those are, those are becoming more and more top of mind for these retailers and brands.

17:15 Eric Schneider:
And, and obviously, you know, Jane started as a, an e-commerce platform, but it’s, it’s evolved into much more than that. You know, c can you walk me through some of the additional iterations and, you know, services that are in the pipeline? Sure. You know, now and, and moving on to, into 2025.

17:32 Socrates Rosenfeld:
Yeah. And this is all in the spirit of growing the industry. ’cause again, if we can help grow the industry, we grow, this is not in the spirit of, you know, like, cool, what cool software thing can we do next? ’cause quite frankly, no one has the funding to do that <laugh>, right? And you have to go where the value is. And so we started with online menus, but from there, that unlocked a new adjacency in advertising, right? Which now allowed us to start speaking to the brands.

18:02 Socrates Rosenfeld:
And how do we build a, an advertising infrastructure that is win-win win for not only the, the brand, but the retailer and the consumer. And ultimately Jane, okay, now we’re doing advertising on menu. Is there some stuff that we can do off menu and help new customers come into the retail ecosystem?

18:26 Socrates Rosenfeld:
You know, largely we have a lot of curation online. I love online, right? Because it’s like walking into a, I was about to say, walking into like a record store. Not a lot of those anymore. But there’s one down the street <laugh> in Santa Cruz, which I love ’cause it’s kind of novel, right? You go there and you’re like, oh shit, sorry for swearing. Oh man. Like I found this cool underground hip hop album that I never heard of, but really I get my music from Spotify, right?

18:59 Socrates Rosenfeld:
I like this song. What it is, what does it do? It opens up a whole new world for me on new music from all over the world that I never would otherwise have access to. Amazon does a great job of that. Netflix does a great job of that, right? This curation. And, and those are online businesses.

19:14 Socrates Rosenfeld:
Well, hell man, why can’t we bring that inside the store? So we were thinking about this and saying, okay, well can we create an in-store experience where, you know, if Eric or Isaac, you guys walk into a store and that’s the second, third, fourth time you’ve been there, can we help the retail staff, those budtenders recognize who you are, recommend good products to you, say, Hey man, if you like this, you’ll like that back by data. So we’ve rolled out a point of sale system an in-store, self-service kiosk that will help out with that.

19:45 Socrates Rosenfeld:
So, and then the last thing we’re solving for, you know, outside of all, you know, e-commerce advertising in-store infrastructure is this Jane Gold program, which is really exciting for us. Where can we connect and allow, I don’t know, do you have a favorite cannabis brand? Do you guys like geek out about any, any brand? Are you allowed to say what brands you like?

20:11 Eric Schneider:
I’m a, I’m a big fan of Kate Miller and Miss Grass. Yeah.

20:14 Socrates Rosenfeld:
Oh, right on. Yeah. A New Yorker. I sat with Kate back in 2017, man. So that’s

20:21 Eric Schneider:
Not a lot. Yeah, she’s been, she’s been in it for, been in it. She’s built unbelievable brand across.

20:26 Socrates Rosenfeld:
Okay, Ms. Grass, love Ms. Grass. Those one-to-one pre-rolls are great. So I Ms Grass, if they wanna run an in-store activation, right? They’ll, they’ll go to a store, they’ll say, Hey store, we wanna run a deal where anybody who buys missed Grass products gets 10% off the weekend for Memorial Day weekend. Right? And that’s awesome. And you, you’re there, you go to the store and they’re like, Hey, miss Grass is running this special, you’re geeking out, you’re stoked on that, right?

20:59 Socrates Rosenfeld:
’cause you get your favorite product at a discount, the store is stoked on that. ’cause you’re coming in, you get the discount, you’re probably buying more than just Miss Grass.

21:10 Socrates Rosenfeld:
Miss Grass is the one subsidizing this, right? That’s the company that they’re, they’re, they’re the one paying for that discount on behalf of the retailer. But they’re the ones left out. Like they don’t know that it was Eric that walked in. They have no idea what else you purchased. They can’t form that direct relationship with you. And so what we’ve come up with, and it’s not easy, but this took us about seven years and it’s patented where now Miss Grass can just go to Jane and say, Hey, anybody who’s buying missed grass, we want, we give them 10% off agnostic to the retailer.

21:48 Socrates Rosenfeld:
And so now this is what we mean by win win win. You go back to that retailer, you order online or even in, in the store, Hey, we’re running this discount for missed grass products. Again, you’re stoked, you’re happy, you get your discount.

22:01 Socrates Rosenfeld:
Retailers stoked, they’re happy. They got you in the store, you bought some products, they didn’t have to pay, they, it didn’t eat into their margin. But now Miss Grass is able to form a direct connection with you and understands the ROI of that. And so that is, it seems simple to talk about it. It is extremely complicated to build. And that is something that we’re very excited about because it helps the brand, it helps the retailer and ultimately it helps the consumer.

22:32 Socrates Rosenfeld:
And again, if that all happens, Jane wins, the industry wins. And that’s something that imagine, I don’t know, imagine going to your grocery store and your favorite beverage brand is running discounts. And now they can track you and follow you and say, Hey, if you love Coca-Cola keep shopping Coca-Cola, we’ll keep putting money directly into your bank account. And that’s what we’ve unlocked. And so we’re excited for the patent and excited what this means for the future of the industry.

23:05 Eric Schneider:
I feel like usually things that are very simple are not easy to build.

23:09 Socrates Rosenfeld:
Amen. Simple doesn’t mean easy. Yeah. Simple doesn’t, a hundred percent. Exactly.

23:14 Eric Schneider:
I guess, you know, for obviously there’s been a lot of like news as of late as it relates to, to schedule three potentially, like how does, like what are your thoughts or feelings, like how does that impact you guys and your business? Obviously Sure. Being ancillary traded on the nasdaq, but I’m assuming that it still has

23:36 Socrates Rosenfeld:
For

23:36 Eric Schneider:
Sure an impact on Jane and you know, what you guys are doing and, and how you see the industry as a whole.

23:41 Socrates Rosenfeld:
I’m gonna talk as two kind of, I’m gonna wear two hats here. One, as a citizen of this country or this world, like full stop, get everybody outta jail and at least treat cannabis like we’re treating alcohol. That’s where we need to go, period. Like that’s, in fact, it’s a medicine. It shouldn’t be treated like alcohol. But anyways, if that’s, if that’s the ultimate vision, we’re in a good spot, right? And, and anybody who’s been incarcerated for nonviolent crimes around this plant should be let go and, and released immediately.

24:20 Socrates Rosenfeld:
Is that what Schedule three does know? But it’s a, so now I’m wearing my business guy hat or whatever. It’s a great step forward for the industry, okay? We’re not sitting in schedule one anymore, we’re seeing some progress. We can do medical research. The biggest thing that we know, and there’s still a lot to be determined, but the biggest thing that we do know is that two 80 e this huge tax burden that’s been just like this wet blanket over the industry for so long is gonna be lifted.

24:50 Socrates Rosenfeld:
And for us, that’s beautiful because all these advertising, the, you know, the money spent on advertising, perhaps even on e-commerce software as a marketing spend, that has never been able to be written off in tax deductible. Now it will be. And so talking to some of our biggest advertisers, they’re saying, Hey, we think we can double our advertising spend and, and, and maintain the same margin. So I’m extremely excited for the licensed operators in this space. Cultivators, retailers, brands, manufacturers, distributors, because they’re gonna get some relief.

25:28 Socrates Rosenfeld:
And in doing so, you know, we’ll benefit from that. But ultimately the industry will benefit from that. It’s now we can be treated as a normal business.

25:39 Socrates Rosenfeld:
Do I think maybe this has some effect on the consumers who have been borderline like, oh I don’t know, maybe, but you know, people have been breaking the law for decades to get to this plant. You know, I don’t, I don’t think moving it from schedule one to schedule three is gonna get a lot more people in ’cause they’re coming in anyways. Ultimately what this does is freeze out cash flow for the businesses who need it. It allows ’em to up list on the major stock exchanges and get out of, you know, the Canadian Stock Exchange. No, no, no shade to Canada. But just treat businesses like normal businesses.

26:10 Socrates Rosenfeld:
’cause that’s what they’re doing. They are normal businesses. They’re doing the right thing. Let’s, let’s, let’s, let’s all create a fair playing field where, where, you know, we can hopefully generate as much success as possible. And then as a software ancillary business, you know, we feel excited about that and optimistic. ’cause we think more cash flow means more business for us.

26:31 is:
No, that makes a ton of sense on that topic. And I don’t know, I haven’t looked too much into what the impact will be, but is there gonna be, you know, a change in how you guys are able to advertise for your clients or the types of advertisements you’re able to run? I know that’s something even we run into with, you know, Instagram and LinkedIn and Facebook.

26:49 Socrates Rosenfeld:
Yeah, man, you gotta, you gotta talk about, you know, our friend Mark Zuckerberg on that one, <laugh> Google. I wonder, I wonder, I, I don’t know. I wish I did. I don’t know. I hope that they, I mean you can advertise alcohol and other stuff on there. Why can’t you advertise this plant to schedule three, allow these publicly traded companies to start getting involved?

27:21 Socrates Rosenfeld:
I don’t know. And in talking to them, they don’t know either. Right now they’re trying to figure that out. And so I think eventually the answer is yes immediately. I, I, I just don’t know. But the bottom line is, you know, to be able to advertise on Instagram is great, but what we’re realizing being in the, in this advertising space, media space for three, four years now, is it’s all about attribution. And for those that don’t know what attribution is, it’s like, cool, I I, I ran an advertisement.

27:54 Socrates Rosenfeld:
So what, and I don’t know if Google and Facebook can tell you, Hey, you ran a hundred thousand dollars, a million dollars worth of advertisement, this is what it drove in sales, $10 million, right? So you’re, you’re, you’re seeing a 10 x roas. We can say that. And so we’re earning trust with our advertising partners because we can tell them, Hey, you put a dollar in, you got eight bucks out. Like, and we can show the data on that.

28:26 Socrates Rosenfeld:
So I hope it does unlock for top of funnel, but at the end of the day, you’re gonna have to, to get back to attribution. And that’s what we’re really excited about. So I think ultimately Isaac, yes, the answer is yes, you’ll be able to do it. I don’t know if it’s immediate and I wish, you know, mark Zuckerberg or the guys at Google could, could tell us one way or the other. But I think they’re afraid of SEC and regulations and they’re like, Hey, this ain’t worth the juice, isn’t worth the squeeze for us right now. Right? I hope that the feds with Schedule three can be very clear on what is and what isn’t allowed.

29:02 Socrates Rosenfeld:
But maybe that’s wishful thinking.

29:06 Eric Schneider:
One, one final question I had and then we can get into some, some fun stuff. Just a few. This

29:10 Socrates Rosenfeld:
Is already fun, man.

29:12 Eric Schneider:
Nah, I appreciate it. And like, being in, in your seat, you know, do you think like the, the big big players like the, the Amazons of the world, like the Google, like are they gonna wanna get into the space at some point? Do you see them sniffing around? Like are they curious about it? You know, is it, you know, what are your overall thoughts? I mean, you guys are poised for something like that if, if that were to be the case, right? But I was just get curious on your thoughts on, on

29:46 Socrates Rosenfeld:
That. Yeah, I have a few thoughts on that. Go back to one of the pioneers of the legal cannabis industry. Steve D’Angelo, he wrote in this book, his book Cannabis Manifesto. He said, you know, a lot of people are afraid of corporations moving in to this space. This is a, you know, I was so fortunate to be part of the medical industry in California. I dunno if you guys ever experienced that, but it was, it was beautiful. It was, there was some weird stuff obviously ’cause gray, gray markets attract a certain kind of archetype, but the majority of people involved were compassionate people that understood the, the power and the medicinal benefits of this plant.

30:28 Socrates Rosenfeld:
And there was community and love and, and so there was a lot of hesitation and apprehension that, hey, when legalization happens with Prop 64 here in California, corporations were gonna come move in and, you know, commoditize this plant and whitewash everything.

30:44 Socrates Rosenfeld:
And, and what he said was like, Hey, we have an opportunity to show corporations that you can do well by doing good. And again, maybe that’s wishful thinking, but I I, I don’t think so, and I would speak on behalf of the, the team here at Jane that we don’t think so. So I, you know, does Amazon have a heart at this point? I don’t, I don’t. I I don’t think so. I think they’re going to where ever they can grow their stock price wherever the margin is.

31:17 Socrates Rosenfeld:
And the beautiful part about that is this is a big industry, man, this is big, this is gonna be bigger than I’m gonna go down in history is maybe one of the dumbest comments ever. But I think cannabis is gonna be bigger than alcohol at some point. You know, maybe not in our generation, but future generations, you know, talk to the young folks here. You might, you guys are probably young folks anyways, but like, people are drinking a lot less, man, especially when you start consuming cannabis. You’re starting to see in, you know, these social tonics, like can, et cetera, hemp infuse beverages, starting to eat shelf space away from the white claws and the beers and the IPAs of the world.

31:59 Socrates Rosenfeld:
So it’s, it’s interesting to watch this leading indicator.

32:05 Socrates Rosenfeld:
But, so yes, at some point these big corporations will come in. But if you take Amazon as an example, I still can’t order a six pack off Amazon and have it shipped to me. You know, I, I need to go and pick this up at a Whole Foods or, or something like that, or get it delivered to me last mile. But I don’t think cannabis ever gets shipped in the mail. I don’t say, I don’t wanna say ever, but not for the foreseeable decades where like I can buy an eighth of cannabis.

32:37 Socrates Rosenfeld:
How cool would that be though? You guys sitting in Denver, New York, you could buy a, an ounce from, you know, Humboldt. That would be pretty rad. I don’t see that coming anytime soon. So for Amazon it’s largely a direct to consumer business. They’re like, ah, man, that might be a little bit complicated for us.

32:55 Socrates Rosenfeld:
But last mile providers, DoorDash, Uber, they’re already delivering alcohol. So I could see it. Instacart. Yeah, why not? And that’s why, you know, coming back to the, the quote from Steve DiAngelo, can we position ourselves as strategically as, as Jane to be the infrastructure to go and enable those businesses to come into this space? And again, maybe wishful thinking, but we believe in it. If we can convince those folks that, hey, what you’re doing, you’re not delivering a cheeseburger, you’re not delivering beer, you’re delivering medicine.

33:26 Socrates Rosenfeld:
And there’s some integrity to that, there’s some respect to that. And that’s how we, we’ve tried to approach it from our software and maybe we can inspire other big corporations, software companies when they come in to do the same.

33:41 Eric Schneider:
That’s awesome, man. No, and, and I, I’ve, I’ve really enjoyed this conversation. Like your authenticity, like jumps off the page. Thanks.

33:48 Socrates Rosenfeld:
Thanks Dan. Thanks guys. Appreciate it.

33:49 Eric Schneider:
And it’s, it’s really cool to see like what you guys have built and the platform that you built and the foundation that it’s built on. And that’s ultimately why you guys have had success, right? It’s doing things the, the right way all the time and not the easiest way is, you know, something that really stuck with me, what you said, and I, I hear a hint of the, the military background in, in that, which is awesome.

34:15 Socrates Rosenfeld:
Oh man, I’m trying to shake that. Okay. Alright. No,

34:17 Eric Schneider:
It’s good though. I dunno. Like, obviously it’s not even the same, not even on the same level, but like Isaac and I both played, you know, division one sports and like a lot of those fundamentals and the right, you know, that’s

34:28 Socrates Rosenfeld:
It, man,

34:29 Eric Schneider:
You gotta hit the line, right? Those little details are what matters. Yeah. And you know, I think ’cause the big stuff is easy, right? It’s what everybody’s thinking about. And so it’s those little things that really make the difference.

34:41 Socrates Rosenfeld:
Yeah, that’s it. I’ll tell you one, one last anecdote. Yeah.

34:46 Socrates Rosenfeld:
So my, my friends and family joke that, you know, I started consuming cannabis in my thirties and I was like started get into like, you know, the Grateful Dead and art and music and they’re like, cool man, that’s where, that’s where you’re supposed to do in like high school, college. But I didn’t have that experience <laugh>. So I was just, I remember I lived in Boston across from the, the Museum of Fine Arts and the last hour was free for college students. And so I would, I would like smoke a tiny little pinner, put my headphones on and go walk the hallways of, of the MFA and I.

35:24 Socrates Rosenfeld:
They had a Picasso exhibit and you, and it was like Picasso’s work over time. And I only knew Picasso as like, you know, the weird imp like

35:35 Eric Schneider:
Impressionist

35:36 is:
Yeah.

35:36 Socrates Rosenfeld:
Doodles and, you know, upside down eyeballs and things like that. But if you see his early work, it was perfect, like perfect lines, perfect lighting, perfect shadows. He, he was like obsessed with drawing, like how do you get water, right? And at some point after he mastered the fundamentals, he could basically make it as his own and transform the art. You see that with Jimi Hendrix.

36:07 Socrates Rosenfeld:
If you look at listen to Jimi Hendrix early work, he, he was mastering the blue scale and he was perfect and then he became Jimi Hendrix. And so as Miles Davis says, sometimes it takes a whole lifetime to find your sound. Like that’s the fundamental work. And those are the zero to one moments. And that’s what we always come back to. We’re gonna start a new business. We, we think we better, we’re better than we are. We’re like, ah, screw it man.

36:35 Socrates Rosenfeld:
We don’t need the fundamentals. Let’s just jump to this. You know, we’re, we’re, and we always get checked like, oh no man, we gotta go back to the fundamentals and the, the, the masters business, art, whatever it is, sports, you master the fundamentals and then you can redefine the game. And not to say that we’re there, but we’re on our path. And it’s that for me, the journey of that is so fulfilling. And to share that with so many other like-minded special talented people on the Jane team is triple a lifetime man.

37:07 Socrates Rosenfeld:
Really, I’m, I’m grateful for it.

37:13 Eric Schneider:
Very cool. That was awesome. Yeah. <laugh>, Isaac, you wanna, you wanna hit ’em with some, some fun ones? Yeah. And then we’ll get, we’ll get some,

37:20 is:
Yeah. So you’ve, you’ve named a lot of musicians, but what’s, what’s the go-to on your playlist these days? Like what’s the, who’s

37:29 Socrates Rosenfeld:
The Bob Barley? Dude? Barley. I got a, I I I, yeah, about as cliche as it can be. I have, I drive a little crappy beater car. I love the car. I shouldn’t say it’s crappy. I love it. It’s still got a CD player and I put Exodus, Hey, you do. Right on man. That’s why I’m gonna the record store. And I put in Exodus in January 1st, 2016, I quit my corporate job, put the CD in. I was like cruising around. And that, that CD is always on the first CD slot. And that’s, that’s on repeat to the dismay of my wife and friends who drive with me.

38:01 Socrates Rosenfeld:
They’re like, bro, you gotta shake this up, man. Can you get an MP three player? You know, plug your phone in. But <laugh> yeah, I would say Bob Marley, Stevie Wonder, those are the two for me.

38:11 is:
I love it. I love it. Yeah, no, I, I have the m and m shows still, it’s been in my car since high school, so that, that a good

38:18 Socrates Rosenfeld:
One, bro. Yeah. Oh man.

38:20 is:
That, that city will never come out. But you know, what is maybe one book that you’ve pulled from through your personal or professional, you know, career that you’ve turned back to for some good life lessons has helped you along the way

38:35 Socrates Rosenfeld:
Along? These are great questions I love to read. If I had to pick one book that changed my life, the Four Agreements Man by Don Miguel Ruiz, I don’t know if you guys ever heard of it. It’s very simple, not easy, but four simple agreements with yourself that, that changed my life. And the first one is be impeccable with your word. You know, like, don’t use the word against you or anybody else.

39:07 Socrates Rosenfeld:
Don’t take anything personally, don’t make assumptions and then do your best. Right? It seems simple and the way he speaks to it is beautiful. So yeah. And shout out to Dom Miguel Ruiz, Ecker Tole, Ram Dass, all these teachers who have understood that the greatest wisdom is the wisdom of the self. And I come back to that book a lot ’cause you guys know this, right? The seats we sit in are lonely sometimes life is daunting sometimes and it gets overwhelming if you’re focused on, if you feel like the world is working against you or at you.

39:46 Socrates Rosenfeld:
And what I’ve come to realize is like <affirmative>, the internal is much more important than the external. If you can handle your internal, then you can navigate the external, not the other way around. And that book for me was profound as I was getting outta the army trying to figure out who I was. And I’m still trying to figure that out. But yeah, that, that’s a book I come back to quite often.

40:07 is:
A hundred percent. I mean, we’re all continuous works in progress, so you’re, you never quite figure it out. Amen. So, amen. And then last one, when Eric and I make a trip out to visit you in Santa Cruz, what’s the, what’s the restaurant you’re gonna take us to first?

40:22 Socrates Rosenfeld:
Alright, first thing we’re gonna do is we’re gonna, we’re gonna, I assume you guys consume, but we’re gonna smoke Kosher kush grown by the Santa Cruz Veterans Alliance, SEVA, it very high in mercy. It’s grown beautifully. It’s grown by veterans, for veterans for healing. Love those guys. So we’ll do that and then we’ll go, I don’t wanna blow up the spot. No <laugh>, no one cares what I say anyways, but pleasure point Juice juices in pleasure point.

40:54 Socrates Rosenfeld:
We’re gonna get the que Siberia tacos and a watermelon, a Sandia agu fresca and we’ll go cruise. Look at the wave, man. So you guys are welcome. Anytime. All right,

41:04 is:
That sounds incredible. Bi tacos are one of my favorites, so

41:07 Socrates Rosenfeld:
<laugh>. There you go. Right on.

41:10 Eric Schneider:
Dude, Socrates, this has been awesome, man, really, you know, appreciative of your time and wisdom and, and everything that you put into Jane Technologies and, and like I said, you know, the, the passion and enthusiasm really jumps off the page and it’s an honor to, to have this podcast with you and, and best of luck in future endeavors, man.

41:31 Socrates Rosenfeld:
Thanks brother. Appreciate you guys for all that you do and all that you contribute to the community and really grateful to be on your show and share, share the, the space with you.

41:42 Eric Schneider:
That was awesome.

41:43 is:
That was a, yeah, that was a very good episode. <laugh>.

41:47 Eric Schneider:
Oh wow. Impressive, impressive guy. But like I said it a number of times, like his authenticity and passion, like you just felt it, you know what I mean?

41:58 is:
Yeah. You, you definitely couldn’t fake the way he was going through and explaining, you know, his personal journey and how much he loves and respects, you know, the members of his team and what they’re building at again. So it was, it was a very enjoyable conversation for sure.

42:15 Eric Schneider:
Inputs equal outputs, man, you know, it’s, it’s no surprise why they’ve been a, a market leader and what they’re continuing to build in the space and, you know, roll out new tools to help operators and, you know, create those win win, win opportunities, right? And it, it’s great to see that they’re constantly trying to iterate and continue to add value for their customers.

42:41 is:
No, a hundred percent. I thought, you know, their viewing of their customers as partners is kind of how we try to position ourselves as well. So definitely, you know, respect that and the fact that that’s their, their core value, you know, is very important and leads to a lot of their success.

43:01 Eric Schneider:
Absolutely. And excited for the next one as always. But you know, that was a great one and I know we were joking before that no one really cares what we have to say, but we bring on some pretty cool people that have some good stuff to say. So that’s all that matters, right?

43:16 is:
I don’t think anyone’s tuning in to hear you and I speak, so I think ah,

43:21 Eric Schneider:
It’s all good man. And it, it’s great to share this platform with you and, and bring on cool people like Socrates to hear about their journey and like I said, excited for the next one.

43:31 is:
Absolutely, man.