What’s next for this podcast? Does it live on? Or come to its eventual end, as all things eventually do :)
🟠 Please take our Podcast Survey to give us your insights
In this episode, I discuss our edible business behind-the-scenes, how things have changed, and what we’re planning to do next (including how it affects the podcast’s future).
After 8 years in the cannabis business, it seems like we make major business changes every couple of years, and suppose this is just the next phase of that constant change :)
🟠 Podcast Survey Link to give us your insights
Thank you,
Wayne Schwind
your podcast host :)
Chapters:
00:00 - Intro, what’s next
01:52 - AI Voice Clone V1
03:42 - Business strategy in a rapidly changing environment
18:38 - What podcast changes should we make?
25:32 - Hiring, marketing job details
28:02 - AI Voice Cloning
Full Transcript from the Episode
Hello everyone. I'm recording this May 16th, 2023. And I wanna do an update check in on the podcast and where we're at right now as a business and what the future might look like as well. You might have noticed over the past couple months there's been a much lower, upload frequency for episodes.
And again, want to check in, let you know why you've we've been short on episodes recently and what we're planning for the future where we're. We see things going and if the podcast, if we continue to do it what's next? Will we keep going? Types of episodes, how often, we might put stuff out and the frequency of it.
Another thing I wanted to put out to our listeners is that we're looking to hire and it's gonna, the job's kind of around content production. For the podcast and even our, the business Periodic edibles design, video, graphics, audio, all those kind of things. And so I'll discuss a little bit about what that job role might look like and if you're interested or might be a fit, how to reach out to us.
And the last thing I'll talk about on this one is AI, and you've probably seen somewhere in the news how popular that topic has gotten recently, and specifically for how we might be able to use that as a business. The job role that I just talked about would also involve really, Learning about that is we've been working on it a lot, trying to see what's available, how it could be used.
And so I'm gonna talk a little bit at the end where I'm looking at a part of that is a AI voice clone, how we might be able to replicate some of our top blogs which is, would be really interesting. So I'll discuss a little bit about that at the end, along with the job in our hiring. All of that.
I want to jump into our kind of bigger picture business strategy and discuss that. And as we go through this there's a link in the show notes to a survey. These answers or that survey is really important for us to make these decisions and. On all these items I'm discussing in this episode.
So when you have a chance it's a quick survey. Click that link in the show notes, please take that for us. The answers we get from whoever takes that is gonna have a big impact on decisions we make and what we decide to do with the podcast. Specifically, All right. So big picture. Our business strategy has really changed a lot over the last few years for periodic edibles and actually really from the very beginning, since starting the business in 2015, it's been.
Crazy to see the waves and changes as legalization occurs. How that changes the market conditions, how try to run a profitable business and adapt to it has been a rollercoaster to say the least. Has it has been for everybody out there operating in the industry. And, in 2015 when we first started, it was medical.
The recreational market hadn't been set into place in Oregon yet, so it was. Around then that there was, it was a lot easier, I would say, to operate. And that's a good thing and a bad thing. It means, Companies that are, less trustworthy or not doing things legitimately have an easier time to operate and fly behind the scenes as well.
At the same time, it also makes it easier for a small business or someone that is trying to really build a product that's quality and focusing on the end customer and caring about those things like we tried to do easier for them to operate as well. Less overhead. Once things get.
Really regulated and the cost of doing business is millions of dollars. That becomes a big part of the business. You have to raise money. There's groups, there's investors and it can change the focus, and the priorities of a business. So it's always a catch 22. But those medical days early on were much more in that easier to operate scenario.
And then 2017 is when we got our recreational license. And then it was, much higher overhead. Certain things with, taxes and how they, we were taxed was a big issue for a lot of the small businesses. And so from 2017 really to 2020 even in 2021, that was really our focus was around the recreational market, which for us meant only being able to sell to dispensaries that were licensed.
Inside the state of Oregon. And there were a lot of dispensaries. I think, I don't know what the current number is today in 2023. But last time I checked, I feel like there was six, 700 maybe it was 809 or pretty high number for Oregon, which only has 4 million residents, which is smaller than a lot of states in the country.
But early on, again, tho, that was really a good system and I think Oregon did one of the best jobs at Supporting small businesses. When I've given past updates on our business and strategy and kind of what's going on behind the scenes, I've think I've said that multiple times. They did, compared to a lot of the other states that really hyper regulated, maybe set limited licenses.
And so very few people, they're in those states, you really did have to have millions of dollars minimum just to even start playing the game or trying to start a business. And then early on in Oregon there was, it wasn't really saturated yet. They did an open license. There was no caps on licenses.
So around 2017, 18 years were great. 2019, I think, is when it first became a little stagnant for us. Maybe we stayed the same in sales and even 2022, the pandemic was interesting for cannabis. It definitely helped. Like you saw it really do for e-commerce and online shopping, but by that point, Oregon was such a micro economy around cannabis specifically, that even with the 2020 pandemic increases the amount of competition and oversaturation around then was where things then started to decrease and go downhill.
And I know a lot of companies experienced similar things and struggled with that, and you see some of the best or really quality small businesses that I thought would be around a really long time going out of business. And so that's when we decided to make a strategy shift in 2021 and around that time to really sell our license and get out of the o l ccc, which is.
If you're not in Oregon, that's the regulatory board that gives out licenses and you operate just inside the state you're in. And get out of the cannabis side for now. To scale up on that side, you have to expand. If you wanna expand into other states, you have to have operations for each individual state, whether you're making it there yourself or you start working with a co-packer or a white labeler that will make your products.
It's completely separate distribution. All the stores are different. Different labeling, they have different preferences. And so it's really hard to grow and scale state by state on the cannabis market side. And you're seeing some really attempt to do it. Bigger operators, multi-state operators are, and that's gonna be interesting.
I think when federal legalization comes, what it's gonna mean for all those business models. Because if you can state trade across state lines, do interstate commerce, but then you've built, your operations inside of 10 different states and you only need one of those 10, nine of 'em become irrelevant.
You can see how you'd could really sink a lot of investment in capital that are lost costs or causes because. With federal legalization or interstate commerce, you don't need all that set up. And so that current framework leans towards having millions and millions of dollars to really test and experiment, try to expand under that, these kind of conditions to, with a lot of uncertainty of what the future is gonna actually look like.
And how long is that gonna take? Five years from now to even after they federally legalize? We're still probably two to three to five more years before Interstate, it gets implemented and interstate commerce starts another 10 to 20 to, all the states eventually trading together.
Some might still not allow it, is it gonna happen state by state one at a time, and that's gonna be a long drawn out process. All that's a lot to say that the current market conditions just weren't favorable for a smaller company like ourselves where we self-financed and really bootstrapped the business from the very beginning and were able to grow it.
Cuz we found success early on and we made a decent profit and so we could keep growing and scaling the business, without having to raise a lot of money to do that led us into our next major change in strategy our business strategy and approach, which. I don't know the exact date or month or time, but it was around that 2022 end of then 2021 to really look at selling the business or getting out of the cannabis side.
And around that time we had started up our hemp side, the C b D side, which we. It was a soft, rough start. We were testing out the market, see what that looked like because we were so all in on, the cannabis and the Oregon market, I knew, after the Farm Bill in 2018 that legalized hemp and C B D and that market really exploded for those few years after.
And then like it's the canvas side also got oversaturated, real big price compression and things like that. We wanted to see if that was feasible because the market size and potential is so much bigger and more accessible than the cannabis side was we started looking at that as well.
So the decision was to, A couple decisions we had to make is, are we gonna sell the license, the cannabis side of the operations, maybe the whole business together. There's a lot that went into kind of just the market research around selling a business and what the current, organ market was like, what the value might be.
And what we ended up doing was hybrid split approach. That's led us up to where we are today is sell off the cannabis side of our business. The license our turnkey facility that we had built out for doing edibles, full compliance with estate and those things, there was value in that.
So we sold that piece and at the same time decided to keep the brand and the product lines, but infuse with hemp instead of cannabis and start doing that. So selling part of it, keeping the hemp side. And that selling side was a pretty long process. I ended up from the point of making that decision to marketing the, that side of the business in Oregon to actually selling it to fully closing out escrow and getting that money.
And to the b you know, the bank account was maybe almost two years. It was really a long process and so that actually all finalized, closed out. What was it? Probably the end of 2022 around there when everything was officially done. And then we have been since then, continuing on the hemp side, which allows us to do e-commerce ship around the country to most states.
Some of it, some states do have specific laws where you can't. But what's funny and why that strategy made so much sense was a mistake I made early on in our marketing and sales approach. And when we started this podcast, so we started the podcast in 2017. We've put a lot of time and money and hired people around also writing content.
So not just doing, content production from the podcast episodes, but also writing blogs and which turned into a lot of like SEO traffic, so s e O. If you're not familiar as search engine optimization it's really what shows up on Google when someone searches for something. If you have a lot of content or Google looks at your website favorably depending on your traffic, a lot of variables, they'll, you'll show up in the top results.
And so you get traffic to your website and those are people that have never heard of you before. They're looking for a solution to their question or their problem. And then you might show up. And I really built and we really built as a company, but my strategy, we built a digital brand starting in 2017 and for years put money and a lot of effort into that when in reality that was the wrong marketing strategy for an Oregon cannabis business.
We, I should have directed us to put way more effort and energy into direct in-store sales and marketing. And actually done very little on the internet. Because when you make content on the internet, everyone in the world can find it. More narrow down. Most of our visitors are in the United States.
*You can now buy our edibles online with free shipping.
And then even if you are in Oregon, you also are now listening maybe to our content or reading it. But we have to convince somebody to then walk into a dispensary. Where our products are available, maybe their favorite one doesn't even carry us.
And then buy our product. And so there's a lot of middle steps in between that, where building a digital brand really wasn't the right strategy, but it was the right strategy for e-commerce. Where someone can be on our website and directly from there go to a storefront and buy edibles shipped directly to your door.
And so it was a little bit of luck and irony that I, we put all that into a digital marketing strategy for the brand that is now, it seems to be paying off for our hemp e-commerce business or C b D strategy. But early on I probably shouldn't have done that and maybe wouldn't have.
Again, make a podcast, write blogs, put a bunch of effort into that. If we were just gonna stay in Oregon, so we sold off the Oregon side of the business. Now we're fully focused on hemp C B D, eCommerce, keeping our same product lines. We've added some if you only know us from Oregon or seen our caramels in Oregon we do a coconut oil now we do a line of tinture as well.
Still keeping that effects focused approach. And because our business strategy has now shifted so greatly, which seems to, it seems to have shifted every two or three years, major changes of when we've, really readjusted and reevaluated what we're doing. The key driving pillar now for us is actually our writing.
So it's our blogs and our content on the website. And the podcast is taking a little bit of a backseat temporarily, which is why we've uploaded few episodes over the past couple months. I'm trying to reevaluate and figure out what. One we want the podcast strategy to be. And then two, what you want it to be, where our listeners find value.
And if those align, then great, we are gonna do, and keep focusing on the podcast and make sure it's valuable. But if that podcast doesn't align with our core business strategy, eventually potentially shutting it down worst case scenario or if that's what the strategy needs to be or maybe readjusting how we do it.
And those are, it's such a hard decision to make, even deciding to sell the organ side of the business, the cannabis side. When you put in, 2015, what is that? Almost eight. Six, seven years. Actually making that decision to sell that part of it and stop doing the cannabis market in Oregon was really difficult.
Just that much time into something to then decide to walk away is unless you're forced to, cuz it completely fails or you run outta money. It was really tough decision and we weren't in that position. We could have kept it going, but it just didn't make sense with the hemp commerce side. And so now I'm faced with a little bit of a similar scenario with the podcast.
We've done now over 400 different episodes between our interviews that we do with guests. Some of our budtender focus content we did in the past. And walking away from the podcast after 400 episodes in 2017 to now is seven years roughly. We've been doing it. Would be a really tough decision, but that's something we've gotta evaluate and look at.
So that's our business strategy right now. Again, our key pillar that drives business results for us, that allows us to keep operating is our written content and our e-commerce website. And really focusing on that. So I've been putting more attention and focus into that and got around finally doing this update episode where I wanna really get your insights as a listener, who our audience is and what you find valuable.
And that's where the survey. Is really important to getting those insights from you. And again, link to that survey in the show notes. It's a quick survey. Really appreciate if you took that and let us know what you'd like to see from the podcast going forward and how you find it valuable. Now I want to cover just a little bit some of the questions that are in the survey specifically why we're asking 'em or framed them that way and what I think the podcast might look like going forward.
Depending on the results we get from the survey and how the AI and the new platforms are that are out there might also factor into the podcast and how we might. Use those. So we've been experimenting and testing with ai like I said around content editing, post-production. There's so many different ways and areas you can use it.
It's so crazy. Every week I try to keep up and watch like a weekly news update on AI and new. New services and companies that are out there. But it's almost impossible cuz there's so many in ways it's being used. It's quite fascinating. Looking at a couple of the first questions on the survey one i, I put in there why do you listen to the podcast?
So for this one is, do you listen for information or education only, like you just want to get. Maybe from like our science focused episodes, core insights or key types of information out of the episodes. Or do you listen for entertainment at all? So do you like listening to me talk interview guests, just the conversations that are free flowing, that we have some of our longer episodes like that or both?
Do you, I. Like to get the information from the podcast or education and at the same time, maybe do find it entertaining or nice to listen to passively if you're, doing the dishes or, mowing the yard or whatever it might be. And I'm, that question's important because what it actually will translate into is how we put out episodes.
So if most of you are only really interested in the information or getting the education out of it, We may start editing down episodes. So if we did hour long interview with a guest, maybe we use AI to edit out some of the filler, some of the, in between conversational type stuff.
And really focus on a specific topic or question around cannabis or hemp or the science, and edit out stuff that isn't specific to that education. So that's something we could do on future episodes. What you would probably end up seeing if we went that route is shorter more condensed episodes that are very topic or like a question specific type focus.
So again, is that, having a guest on to do an interview as an example. If we record, a 60 minute interview, would you like that to just be uploaded as one 60 minute interview, or potentially three shorter interviews that are maybe 10 to 20 minutes long and they're edited down to be more condensed.
And again, focus on a specific question. So that's where that question will lead, how we might make future content. And as well, if you're really If most listeners are really just looking for the information, something else we might be able to do is convert like some of our top performing blogs and stuff that we've taken the time to written, convert those into episodes as well.
And an audio version where, again, very information educational based. It might be a little drier, but it would be shorter, quicker, more condensed type content. It just focused on the education. And again, when I say entertainment purposes, it's more of that kind of passive conversation that I have with guests a lot of time where it's more free flowing and conversational podcast style.
That's what that question's kind of asking. And then another big one is what value do you get from the podcast? So in general, I'm just curious why most of you listen. What is the biggest piece that you like to get out of it? That first one kind of. Makes it very simplified and generic, right information or entertainment.
But that question, what value to get is more, is not multiple choice. It's just free entry. So if you want to describe something or maybe your scenario or experience or whatever it might be that's a spot where I want to get insights of, maybe things I'm not even thinking of. Curious of how what value you'd like to get from the podcast.
And there's a couple other quick questions in there on the types of episodes. Like I said, the frequency we might upload. A lot of that's up in the air right now. And then at the end I ask a question about Patreon and would you potentially sponsor our work monthly? And so Patreon probably most people are familiar, but if you're not, it's essentially essentially a, like a subscription type service where some episodes might be a.
Only available if you're a Patreon subscriber and you pay a monthly amount. We would set that, I don't, that range is a question that's in there, but I've always been curious about or interested with the Patreon model. So we've always done the podcast and just put out everything we do for free because we do sell a product.
So it's a way to put out good education, people can find it, get value out of it, and if whoever finds us is also someone that might want to buy edibles online.
That's the way we stay in business and keep making podcast content and stuff like that. But I've also been curious, if we didn't sell a product one day or we started this podcast just purely because of the curiosity of cannabis and never actually built a edible company, is that something that's valuable enough that you might be interested in signing up and paying us monthly for just as a podcast as a product on its own, which, makes the podcast more interesting and valuable to us and allows us to keep going or potentially make more revenue in different ways through doing like a Patreon type setup.
So I put that question in there. I've never we've never done that. I'm curious your thoughts on that, if that's something you think might be interesting and even, with what we currently offer, is that valuable enough or something to pay for? But if there's enough, Revenue or Patreon subscribers.
That could mean putting out more podcast content or different types of content that you might find more valuable. So those are some of the big ones. On the survey, there's a couple more detailed questions. I think there's only seven or eight questions on there. Most of 'em are multiple choice.
So again, link to that in the show notes. Your insights are really valuable to us and actually really matter for the future of this podcast and what we might decide to do with it. So for hiring the role and what we're looking to do or the job would be is really around marketing. Digital marketing, content production that we do.
And I'll say if you're interested or this might be a fit for you email me directly. It's wayne periodic effects.com. Tell me how you might be a fit. Send over your resume. We can start a conversation and AI is gonna be a big part of the next couple people that we hire. Man, these tools are so powerful in how they can be used.
And that itself can be a catch 22. You can use this tool like any tool to do a lot of good. It can also be used to cause a lot of harm and negativity, which I think is gonna be a constant struggle for human civilization to deal with and figure out over the next. Decades or centuries or whatever it is, how is AI gonna fit into our lives and be used potentially for good?
And how do we combat the forces of how it might be used for evil or to be, to do bad things essentially, cuz it can be used for both. And so the job is again, content production, digital marketing. We have the podcast, so there's post-production, audio editing. Video editing might be a good fit for you if that aligns with, your past experience or even just stuff you like to do for fun on your own.
If that's a fit, I'm definitely open to training somebody that maybe doesn't have a background in marketing or is it familiar with it? As far as like a professional experience, but does have a passion or an interest in doing that kind of work. And so there's also, social media doing artwork or graphics digital design things like that.
Also writing our blogs putting out, again, that's our key driver for our business. So our blogs in writing are gonna be a huge part of what we're looking to put more higher around and put more effort into. And Especially copywriting if you have experience with that or just writing in general.
That's one actually, if I've found the hardest things to hire for and find someone that's good at is just good writing is a very difficult art and it takes decades of experience to get good at. And you gotta have a real interest for spending that time to learn and always improve writing and effectiveness around that to help provide education and information to people.
So those are a couple of the areas that we'll focus on for the job. And again, using AI in all of those categories. Right now me and the team are constantly using AI and testing it around. Everything from the podcast, like I said, the audio editing, even video, potentially. Using AI for graphics and video illustrations, artwork, and then writing as well.
Chat GPTs the big one that everyone's probably familiar with or has heard of at some point recently, over the past few months. And so how do we use that in our writing process? One thing I will say I've come to find and. I don't think AI is necessarily gonna take over everything the way some have portrayed it recently.
And how I've seen that is around writing. So in theory chat, g p T, we could do a. Yeah, really a hundred blogs a day. If we just put in a topic, let chat gpt, spit something out, post it to our website. But you really need the human is that inter intermediary that can.
One prompt AI writing tools to put out the right type of content, but then you still have to read it one just because it could be dead wrong. So you have to have the experience or knowledge to know, Hey, is this just giving us a completely wrong answer? And you still have to edit the content to make it valuable.
There's probably our websites that are just putting out. Mass produce unedited content from AI writers, but using that tool can basically make a good writer great or an okay writer good. It levels up writing and content by be able to do more of it, but also help.
A lot of that in between are busy work that you don't have to do now with these AI platforms. So learning those being educated on those will be a big part of the job, regardless of what the fit might be. So again, if you're interested potentially in working for us, email me directly, wayne periodic effects.com and we can start a conversation and see where there might be a fit.
And Leslie, I'll wrap up by just talking a little bit about voice cloning around AI and what we might start, look at doing and at least testing out. Maybe in the next podcast update, I've actually started working with a voice Cloer and I'm maybe in the next one I'll write out a script, have the AI voice cl or read the script.
So it won't be me just recording audio like I am right now. I'll see how good that sounds. And maybe post it as an episode and then ask at the end. Could you tell if this was, that this was AI generate content or do you think this was me? Literally talking into a microphone. Which one do you think it was?
Because that stuff's getting pretty good. So again, you still need that human in the middle to, Edit it, audit it, make sure things are correct and done well. But we might be able to put out more content or take blog episodes and just have a AI voice clone of my voice that would still sound like me, which is really crazy and freaky to start working with this kind of tool to make content.
Cuz it's getting pretty good and it sounds like I'm talking into a microphone sometimes when I literally, you can just write a script and it's just. AI reading the script, but makes it sound like me a lot. So that's something we might do on the next one. Again, that would also be part of the job role if we start going down that direction.
But if that works, and it sounds good, and you, our listeners still get just as much value whether I'm talking literally into the microphone or not. It'll make an interesting approach to our strategy where we could potentially put out more episodes, multiples per week, shorter, condensed ones where we could just write up scripts and even have a team that makes scripts and we have our system and our style down.
And then we can just use the AI voice clone to make it sound like I'm literally reading those when I'm not. We're just automating that part of it. So there's a fascinating area there that could, we could really use quite extensively to put out more content, more frequently, more focused and condensed.
If that's something, again, back to that survey people are interested in. And if the tools with where they're currently at is something we are able to do. That's the part we're still trying to figure out. But again, maybe on that next update episode, if we get it good enough, we'll maybe use it and see if you, the listeners can detect the difference.
Can you tell if it was ai my clone voice versus me actually speaking in the microphone That's pretty much the update. Again, like I said multiple times, the link to that survey is in the show notes. It's hugely important for us to get your insights and decide what to do next with this podcast, how much interest there is, what value you get out of it.
And if we decide to. One, keep doing it or shut it down, or two, change our strategy in how we're making content. So please take that survey if you have a chance. It's fairly quick. And again, if you're interested in working with us or a job here, email me directly, wayne@periodiceffects.com.