For new consumers, one of the biggest impediments to buying cannabis is the lack of trusted information available. It can turn their first visit inside a marijuana dispensary, an experience that should be an exciting, uplifting occasion, into one of the most daunting tasks.
Thankfully for new and curious consumers they have access to Jointly, a platform that provides data-driven guidance to help simplify the vast amount of available information and shortens the learning curve. It will have you maximizing your understanding and enjoyment of cannabis before you even realize it.
Getting Personal
Most new product or service solutions come from a personal connection or relationship that causes the right person to recognize the shortfall and have a desire for a better solution. This is especially true in cannabis where everyone’s relationship with the plant is unique, but they are all still looking for an improved quality of life from their product choices.
Jointly is no different, and their story begins with their founder and CEO David Kooi.
His personal journey with cannabis started back in 2012, when he discovered a whole new world inside a pack of medicated peach gummies. After misunderstanding cannabis for much of his early life, he was captivated by the potential that this plant had for improving his own wellbeing.
However, he found himself increasingly frustrated by the industry’s lack of data-driven guidance and the claims made by growers and manufacturers without substantial proof to back them up. He was also frustrated by the unpredictability of his own personal cannabis experiences and yearned for someone to make it all make sense.
Driven by this frustration and personal curiosity, he delved into understanding the complex nature of this plant. The myriad of variables that could potentially impact the cannabis experience, from the variety of product types to everyone’s unique physiological responses, truly fascinated him.
Cannabis for him, like most, has been transformative. It has opened new experiences and significantly improved his quality of life. From enhancing his enjoyment of music, hiking, and writing, to calming his busy mind and stimulating his creativity, cannabis has been a game-changer. It has helped him manage his anxiety, sleep better, and foster deeper connections with moments, people, and places.
Jointly was envisioned as a platform that could fill this existing knowledge gap by providing reliable, data-backed information about cannabis products and their effectiveness for specific goals. If people could easily discern which products worked best for their unique needs and understood how to consume cannabis for the most beneficial effect, cannabis could potentially improve the lives of millions.
Building The Foundation
Jointly was conceived in 2018 by David and his business partner, Eric Gutshall, as a tool to bridge the information gap in the cannabis industry. Their vision was to provide consumers with reliable, data-driven insights into the effectiveness of various cannabis products, countering the unsubstantiated claims in the industry due to the lack of data and research.
Their primary strategy was to leverage goal-specific product performance data to facilitate a meaningful connection between buyers and sellers.
They aim to address three core problems:
- Guiding consumers to find success with cannabis.
- Helping consumers choose what to buy.
- Assisting sellers in deciding what to offer their customers.
They developed the Jointly mobile app and launched it in April 2020. The app provides consumers with a platform for Purposeful Cannabis Consumption.
Since 2020, dozens of enhancements have been made to the app’s features and usability. By practicing Purposeful Consumption today, users of the Jointly app report a nearly 50% improvement in the quality of their cannabis experience.
In parallel, they also started developing software solutions for retailers. After collecting feedback from various retailers, they came up with the concept of Jointly Matches in late 2021 and launched in 2022.
Today, they are working closely with their initial retail partners to ensure their success and to continue to improve their suite of products.
The company has successfully evolved from a mere idea into a comprehensive platform, both for consumers seeking guidance and sellers needing data-backed insights to improve their offerings.
Helping Cannabis Consumers Level Up Their Knowledge
Cannabis consumers can shop for top-rated cannabis products through both the Jointly app and website. Jointly shopping uses a data-driven, goal-based approach to match people with cannabis products that best suit their needs, providing predictive performance across twelve distinct goals, including relaxation, stress relief, improved sleep, and creativity, among others.
Jointly draws from the collective wisdom of hundreds of thousands of cannabis enthusiasts to deliver a better cannabis experience to the user.
Their product matching algorithm takes into account goal-specific ratings from real people and considers the product’s characteristics like product type, cannabinoid content, strain, and more when predicting its performance for each goal. It refines its predictions over time.
In a time when the cannabis market is flooded with products, Jointly helps consumers make informed decisions about what to buy, based on statistical likelihood of providing the desired experience. They pride themselves on having twice as many goal-specific product ratings as other platforms, aiding users to make evidence-based purchases.
Their app also promotes Purposeful Consumption, encouraging users to rate the products they consume in terms of their effectiveness at helping them reach their goals. This feedback loop helps refine product recommendations to align with personal preferences, experiences, and ratings.
Jointly also assists consumers in creating the conditions for a good cannabis experience, considering fifteen factors that can impact the user’s experience, such as dose, time between doses, hydration, ingestion method, and setting.
Most cannabis consumers intuitively understand that cannabis enhances their lives. At Jointly, they are not just acknowledging this fact, but also providing evidence for it. They recently published The Theory of Purposeful Cannabis Consumption using a combination of data from Jointly and external sources to prove that Purposeful Consumption leads to greater wellbeing.
Giving Retailers The Edge
Simply put, Jointly equips cannabis retailers to better serve their customers and increase sales. Their key offering to retailers is Jointly Matches, sales software that integrates with existing point-of-sale (POS) systems.
This tool arms budtenders with the power of nearly a half a million goal-specific product ratings, making the purchasing experience more personalized and effective. It simplifies budtender training, boosts revenue, mitigates the impact of staff turnover, and connects customers with the best products for their needs.
Jointly Matches uses a sophisticated product matching algorithm that accounts for customer’s goals, product type, cannabinoid content, strain, and more.
This is powered 100% organically by the feedback of hundreds of thousands of cannabis enthusiasts who rate products and reflect on their cannabis experiences on Jointly’s mobile app.
The ultimate goal is to send customers home satisfied with their purchases, ready for a good experience, and eager to return to the store.
The Future of Data-Driven Cannabis Purchasing
If we’ve learned anything about the cannabis industry, it’s not to make confident predictions about the future. The approach at Jointly is to focus on what they are doing now and next, while keeping their options open for the future and staying true to their values.
Their immediate focus is on refining and expanding their current offerings. Their software for retailers and consumers will need to be continuously developed and tested to meet and exceed needs and expectations.
They are also strengthening their data collection and analysis capabilities, which enhances the accuracy and effectiveness of their recommendations. Partnerships with more retailers, both physical and online, will be crucial to expanding their reach and influence in the industry.
In five to ten years, Jointly could be a significant player in the cannabis market. As the industry continues to grow and mature, Jointly’s data-driven approach will become increasingly valuable.
They expect to have a wide network of retail partners and a robust user base, providing them with a wealth of data to enhance their offerings. Through their unique, goal-specific product performance data, Jointly could shape the way consumers and retailers interact, as a reliable, useful, and trustworthy partner to both.
Whether you are a new consumer looking for a starting point on your cannabis journey, an experienced smoker looking to expand your horizons into a new category, or a retail looking to provide your customers with all the necessary tools to make the most informed buying decisions, Jointly is here to help you elevate all those experiences to new highs!
Enjoyed that first hit? Come chill with us every week at the Friday Sesh for a freshly packed bowl of the week’s best cannabis news!
6 Responses
As a small farm brand, I am concerned about how a platform like this might skew perceptions in favor of large corporate brands. If my products are only available in dozens of stores, but a large brand is in hundreds, will this app be rating their products much higher simply because they receive more reviews? Thus, further encouraging purchasing of corporate brands which leads to more reviews and in the end homogenizes what is available to the consumer across the state and eventually nation?
Hi Judi! We got you 🙂 The algorithm that recommends products on Jointly does not give additional weight to products with more ratings. The algorithm requires a minimum number of ratings to begin to understand how a product’s performance varies from the expectation we’d have for its performance based on its makeup, but that minimum is easily achieved by small brands, especially brands in dozens of stores.
Hi Judi! We got you 🙂 The algorithm that recommends products does not give additional weight to products with MORE ratings. The algorithm requires a minimum number of ratings to begin to understand how a product’s performance varies from the expectation we’d have for its performance based on its makeup, but that minimum is easily achieved by small brands, especially brands in dozens of stores.
Great article and great product! Well done jointly!
Brilliant!
Brilliant!