Plant Prophets
00:15:11 · Pranav Sood, S1
[00:15:11] S2: For sure. Yeah. So I guess just a little bit of context. Metrc Sure. Is is a compliance system that governments put in place to manage licensees. So all the license... If you get a license in California, right alongside your your license, you'll get an account to Metrc. And within Metrc, you have to use their barcodes. So they ship you barcodes, and then you tag your plants and track them throughout the system. Now where people like Trellis come in third party systems, we layer on top. So Metric only really deals with compliance issues. We deal with all of the operational workflows around it. So, you know, invoicing, sales, fulfillment, purchase orders, pretty much everything soup to nuts, we take care of on the operational side. And... But that being said, if you're using, like, an ERP system like ours and then also using Metrc, there's a lot of dual entry there. So we made sure that we had a very tight integration. So when you create plants and Trellis, that automatically flows into Metrc and creates the records there. And as everything moves through the supply chain, they do it in Trellis and then we just reflect that in Metrc. So it's single entry, but you get the benefit of all the operational workflows around the compliance as well. [00:16:29] S1: Okay. That's great. Now, how does that marry with... How does that all come together with the the Ocarina offering? How does that all work?
00:16:29 · S1, Pranav Sood
[00:16:29] S1: Okay. That's great. Now, how does that marry with... How does that all come together with the the Ocarina offering? How does that all work? [00:16:38] S2: Yeah. So within Ocarina, obviously, they have a portfolio of products. MJ free... Or MJ Platform, sorry, was the the first one. And then there... There's ample organics that'll be coming into the fold as well. And then you have Trellis. You have Solo. So they have a bunch of different product lines that cater to very specific areas. I think Trellis and MJ Platform are very similar, but we manage different markets. So Mhmm. We have a strong penetration in California. MJ Platform does not. MJ Platform has strong penetration in other markets where Trellis does not. So we're actually very complimentary in But that in addition to that, from a product perspective, there's a lot of expertise that we bring in from Metrc, for example, or CCA, which is another similar compliance system in California that they can leverage for MJ Platform. MJ Platform has a really strong business intelligence engine for data analytics that Trellis does not. And then we can leverage that as well. So there's a lot of synergies between the two, both from a product perspective as well as just market penetration. [00:17:49] S1: No. That's great. That is that is that is awesome. Now the marriage hasn't been that long. So have you seen the benefit? Has it starting to pay off as a unit?
00:17:49 · S1, Pranav Sood
[00:17:49] S1: No. That's great. That is that is that is awesome. Now the marriage hasn't been that long. So have you seen the benefit? Has it starting to pay off as a unit? [00:17:59] S2: Yeah. Absolutely. I I think, I mean, first and foremost, we can start focusing our core competency, which is building really strong software and a good product and and our as opposed to having to worry about capital raise and those types of things. So that was number one. Second is pretty much overnight, we were able to expand and scale the business. We can now leverage a 30 plus support team as opposed to our, you know, four or five person support team prior to the acquisition. So there's a lot of fundamental sort of infrastructure that Akerna brought to the table that we were able to leverage right away. And then I think long term, as we start to integrate some of the back end products and those types of things, there's gonna be even more synergy there while we can continue to focus on a really strong front end system that provides the marketplace with yet another solution to to manage their workflow. [00:18:58] S1: No. That's that's great. Now, you know, when you talk about this, right, and and I think I had the same conversation with Jessica, is it starts to sound like it's an... It's it's a pathway to like blockchain in in the cannabis space.
00:18:58 · S1, Pranav Sood
[00:18:58] S1: No. That's that's great. Now, you know, when you talk about this, right, and and I think I had the same conversation with Jessica, is it starts to sound like it's an... It's it's a pathway to like blockchain in in the cannabis space. [00:19:16] S2: I'm a... Blockchain is a very sensitive topic for me. So Okay. Alright. You know, it's it's funny because Yeah. Like, it's such a buzzword and it's been brought up so frequently. Okay. And the concept of blockchain is essentially a decentralized ledger. Now... [00:19:33] S1: Very difficult to execute. [00:19:35] S2: Well, it can be. I I think blockchain is a great tool on the regulatory government level. So if if the state or the federal government puts in a system like Metrc, but does it on a blockchain sort of environment, then it then it makes a ton of sense because everyone's feeding into this one ledger. Whereas if you're using Steed to Sales systems or ERP systems for individual operators, [00:20:01] S1: Mhmm. [00:20:02] S2: It makes less sense because you're just creating siloed ledgers for each individual operator that don't, you know, talk to each other. And then you lose the benefit of blockchain. I I I find, you know, yes, blockchain has its applications in this industry. But I believe it needs to be led from a regulatory government standpoint and allow third parties like ourselves to tie into that centralized blockchain. [00:20:27] S1: Right. So is there large... As you look at your offering, you know, when you were Trellis standalone business, was there a lot of competitors?
00:20:27 · S1, Pranav Sood, S3
[00:20:27] S1: Right. So is there large... As you look at your offering, you know, when you were Trellis standalone business, was there a lot of competitors? [00:20:40] S2: Yeah. I I would say so. I I would say there's probably, you know, three or four incumbents that have been around for ten, fifteen years. I I would put MJ Platform in that boat. And then you probably had a class of startups like Trellis that sort of emerged in the, you know, 2015 to to 2020 time frame. Mhmm. I I think there's... There were a lot of folks that came in, made a splash, raised some money, [00:21:09] S3: but the [00:21:09] S2: stickiness hasn't really been there. So there's definitely a lot of competition that continues to emerge, but the the real sticky platforms that can get those large enterprises and and stick with them, that number of competitors is is much smaller. [00:21:26] S1: Yeah. Now do do you believe now that with your total offering as being part of Kerner and and bringing it all together, does that is that a big separator for you guys from a competitors? Do... Or you view differently or or or do your customers still kinda break you up as they bring you on board?
00:21:26 · S1, Pranav Sood, S0
[00:21:26] S1: Yeah. Now do do you believe now that with your total offering as being part of Kerner and and bringing it all together, does that is that a big separator for you guys from a competitors? Do... Or you view differently or or or do your customers still kinda break you up as they bring you on board? [00:21:50] S2: Well, so I think our existing customer base Yeah. Is, you know, happy with the fact that we have expanded infrastructure or support SLAs and those types of things are improved because now we have larger scale. So I think it's only beneficial to our existing customer base. Mhmm. But in addition to that, we've now expanded our total addressable market as a combined entity. And there might be, you know, California operators that just didn't fit as well with MJ Platform, but now it's a perfect fit for Trellis. So as a combined organization, we're able to leverage that and gain traction. So I think for new customers, they have more options now under the same company. But again, are able to leverage that larger infrastructure and platform that we have as a combined entity. [00:22:43] S1: No. That's great. No. That's that's really good insight and good information. And we're gonna take a breakdown. I'm here today. I'm with Pranav Sud, who is the CEO and founder of Trellis. And we're gonna come back and we're gonna dig more into Trellis specifically. I would like to do that with you, Pranov. Thank you. [00:23:06] S0: Plant profits will return so our sponsors can profit from these messages.