While the cannabis industry may still be in its infancy, the retail marketplace is already experiencing a revolution unlike anything we have ever seen. The need for seamless compliance, efficient sales tracking, and intuitive customer loyalty is at an all-time high and there’s only one platform available that creates one fully-integrated ecosystem for the entire vertical. KlickTrack was invented by and for the dispensary owner but is far more than a POS, featuring fully customizable solutions for day-to-day operations and beyond.

CFN Media sat down with KlickTrack Co-founder Brendan Hill and COO Craig Olson at the recent CannaCon Expo in Seattle to learn more about what sets the platform apart and the future of cannabis retail.  

CFN Media:  How was KlickTrack initially developed?

Brendan Hill: As Cannabis retail operators, my partner Steve Kessler and I learned a lot. One of the major flaws we found revolved around the systems that support us. The track and trace systems, the point of sale systems, the menu systems, the texting systems, the loyalty programs – they were all sort of a patchwork of different companies that were available to us, but they’re all pretty expensive and none of them talk to each other.

Steve Kessler and Brendan Hill of KlickTrack, at the 2019 CannaCon Seattle.

So, we said to ourselves, “Why don’t we just do it ourselves and create something which solves all of our pain issues, brings everything together and has all of our metrics in one place?”

We partnered up with world-class developers who come from a background of amazing products that they had brought to market. We told them where our pain points were and they said, “No problem, let’s get to it.” They already had a compliance translator from their processor tool that they’ve been developing, which was then used for KlickTrack.

Along with the team, we worked out all the issues, found out what our pain points were and what we have now is a product which, I think far exceeds our competitors. It actually brings together the patchwork of services that I was talking about before. So now you have menu, you’ve got texting, you’ve got data analysis. We’ve got the ability for a customer to come into the shop, pull up on their phone basically a picture menu and be able to order right from there. That order goes into our back office, gets fulfilled, and pops up for the customer, speeding up the entire retail process.

CFN:  KlickTrack allows producers to get up close and personal with the consumers. Tell us how?

BH:  All cultivators and processors want to have their product presented at its best. They don’t want to be just on a paper menu with their name; they want to be seen and to entice. We wanted a customer to come into the shop, be able to see beautiful pictures and descriptions of different strains and say, ‘Oh, that one looks good’.

Producers can update brand photos and add videos to our platform in order to interact with potential customers. Perhaps they’ll see a sale sign displayed for say Lazy Bee Farms or Canna Oraginix they’ll click on that or they’ll walk by a case that has Lazy Bee in it and it will pop up on their KlickTrack menu, they’ll see a picture of it and then click on it. They’ll get the testing results and then, they click even further, they’ll see where Lazy Bee is grown and they’ll see their practices.

Our platform is going to grow quickly just like the industry, and we want to help to elevate the entire industry. I think processors, retailers, everyone should be talking the same language and I think KlickTrack is that language – we are bringing the industry together.

CFN:  Technical difficulties have plagued cannabis tracking and POS software in the past. How does KlickTrack solve these problems?

BH:  We’re retailers ourselves and we know the frustration of having an outage. We know the headache of having your sales system go down as ours did on 4/20 in 2018 – one of the busiest days in the industry all year. It went out for like five hours. We were writing paper tickets to be compliant and there were lines backing up, and we were just so frustrated and that was one of the reasons why we said to ourselves “We have got to create our own POS.”

What’s great about KlickTrack is that it’s cloud-based, our scanners super fast, it works on all iOS devices and available now at the App Store. You could literally be in the middle of a field at a concert or a festival and you could basically run KlickTrack anywhere. From home, you can type in an order and just send the order to the store. It’ll be filled and sent right out either for in store pickup or in states that allow it, for delivery

CFN:  What makes the perfect strategic partner for KlickTrack?

Craig Olson:  We’re seeking partners that can help us not only financially but also with our business strategy. We’ve begun discussions with larger funds and entities already and are actively planning our raises. We seek not only great investors but experts in this specific market.

We’ve been lucky enough to find some entities and individuals that meet that criteria. As opposed to companies that are being opportunistic that may have a point of sales that covers other, vastly different industries. this is a product built by experts in the industry who knew exactly what problems exist, and why they exist. I think that’s the primary competitive advantage and also the platform upon which it was built is new as opposed to PC-based solutions from two decades ago.

CFN:  What is your personal connection to cannabis?

BH: First and foremost I’m a musician; I’m the drummer for the band Blues Traveler, and still tour today. For me, as a musician and for many artists, what cannabis does it kind of gets you into that flow state, so that you’re able to create without thinking too much about all your other issues going on, Using cannabis helps me to stay focused and get into the zone. I personally use cannabis for more recreational purposes, but I see every day the benefits it has medically.

We have a lot of medical patients coming into our store, and they’re going through such difficult times where cannabis is the only thing that’s really helped them. It feels wonderful to be able to be able to help people like that with a product they can grow in their backyard, a product that can possibly help them to avoid opioids for pain management. I think we’re seeing that cannabis is making major breakthroughs in a lot of areas.

CFN:  How can people within the industry help guarantee it thrives during such uncertain times politically?

BH:  There is enormous potential for brands to go from small, medical-only statewide producers to nationwide fame. All that takes is to make sure they go through the licensing process properly. I think a lot of medical growers shun the compliance thing because they don’t want to deal with it.

I think in order for us to all come together and elevate the whole industry, we need all those great growers in the medical industry to come in and just get their names out there. I encourage everybody to go through the licensing process because the more companies that come online, the bigger the lobby, the bigger voice we have in Washington, and the more tax money that we pay. Think of the roads we could build, think of the education we could fund. Think of all that. Get into the legal industry because you can make change.

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About Rachelle Gordon

Rachelle Gordon is a Minneapolis-based writer. Find her online at www.rachellegordon.net.