“A Healthier, More Predictable THC Option Via A Carbonated Beverage” with Jason Reposa of GoodFeels

Jeffrey (0s):
Well, hello, everybody. Welcome back to Radio Entrepreneurs. As I’ve said before I was away, I was working on clients and putting together a new edition of my book. And I want to thank Jonathan Freedman who stepped in. Sure. He did a better job than I would cause that’s always been Jonathan’s case president of Mage LLC, my business partner, he does a great job and I’m looking forward to our next guest. It’s Jason Reposa, CEO and founder of Good Feels. Wow. What’s Good Feels all about? I’m looking at all that technology behind you.

Jason (34s):
Yeah, that’s a bottling machine I built. So basically thank you for having me Jeffrey. My name is Jason co-founder. I mean the founder and CEO of Good Feels. So the way we like to say it is that Good Feels is for people that want to live in a fun and inspired life. That’s a healthy life. That’s full of excitement and meaning. That can mean a lot of different things for people. For me, that means enjoying time with my friends and family while feeling good. So I can be present with my kids, my kids, and my work. And this is a cannabis company and cannabis isn’t really known for those attributes specifically, but we’re trying to bring this innovation to the market. Specifically, the licenses Massachusetts

Jeffrey (1m 13s):
Grew up with some brands who would absolutely say cannabis made them feel better.

Jason (1m 19s):
Right. But I’m more meant of the, the simple fact that the, you know, healthy lifestyle isn’t necessarily attached to it like that wellness aspect.

Jeffrey (1m 29s):
Right. Right. So tell us about your products and also how you got into this business. Sure.

Jason (1m 35s):
So our first product is a first product is a fast acting cannabis infused sparkling beverage. That helps adults that are seeking a healthier way to relax at the end of the day, or to be just social with friends. It can also act as an alternative to alcohol, which is a lot of the use case for many people who want to reduce or completely eliminate their alcohol consumption. But the reason why I got into this was because back in 2019, I was in the process of selling my company and my jaw locked up totally due to stress. I couldn’t open my mouth basically. And after about a month of trying and failing with different remedies, including some doctor recommended interventions, you know, whether it was surgery or, you know, injections and, you know, needles into the skull and stuff like that.

Jason (2m 26s):
I started using cannabis and it helped me tremendously. But you know, there’s a conflict with that though, because I have a middle school, I’m a father of three and neither middle schoolers. And I felt that vaping and smoking were really, you know, they weren’t, they were contradictory to my life and my beliefs and being healthy. So, and for specifically for extending a good example for my children. So, you know, I tried edibles, but they didn’t really have the same effect on me as they were to unpredictable. And then, so I basically decided at some point I was like, there has to be a better way to do all of those. And so I just did a bunch of Googling, like anybody that a search searching and searching. And then eventually I started looking through journals and stuff like that.

Jason (3m 9s):
But during my research, I found that you could make cannabis oil, water compatible, which allowed it to have many more benefits above traditional edibles. And I hung on to that concept and kind of really, really developed it further and further. And, but basically just at a high level, the, the, the benefits over the traditional traditional edibles is that you’re actually getting a Delta nine THC and not some by-product of THC, which is what happens in your stomach. We need to have an edible also it’s fast acting. That’s why we have a fast acting cannabis infused beverage. So you don’t have to wait an hour for an edible to kick in.

Jason (3m 49s):
You can literally five, 10 minutes later, you start feeling the effects. And beyond that, you actually, it has a higher bioavailability. And basically what that means is that when you take an edible, it has about a 20% bioavailability, which means that like, if you take a five milligram edible, you’re getting typically into your stomach, into your bloodstream of one milligram dose. And if you take a five milligram beverage, for instance, I just happened to have one to pick up here, you’ll get, you know, four to five milligrams and 80% plus by availability. So you’re getting more bang for your buck when it comes to the actual consumption of the THC.

Jeffrey (4m 29s):
So where are you selling this product?

Jason (4m 32s):
Well, it’s not for sale today. We’ll hope we’re hoping to launch in July, you know, potentially depending on inspections, it’s a highly regulated industry where, so hopefully by July, but it, you know, by latest hope, we hope to be in market in August with a few select partners that we really trust, try not target between five and 10 dispensary’s to begin with, but you have to go into an actual dispensary, into an adult use based dispensary in order to get the product.

Jeffrey (5m 1s):
So you’d be selling through the dispensary’s not through a, let’s say a regular retailer, correct?

Jason (5m 5s):
Yeah. You can’t just go to your Walgreens and pick this up or your Walmart or whatever. You have to go to a, a licensed dispensary. And since we’re the product manufacturer, we can’t sell directly to consumers. Either. We have to go through dispensary’s or the newest iteration of the regulations. We can also go through delivery.

Jeffrey (5m 23s):
So this is the non-refrigerated product. I’m assuming

Jason (5m 26s):
We would prefer it. It was refrigerated. So we are working with some dispensaries and getting refrigerators into their, into their facilities. But it’s shelf stable though. It’s just, you know, the way we look at it, it’s almost like a beer. You go to 5% beer or you get one bottle of this and it’s the equivalent. So it has that same. On-ramp like I said, within five to 10 minutes, but it has that same off-ramp as well. So within about an hour, you have one per hour, like you’d have a beer and you’d still be sober potentially at the end of that hour. And that’s kinda like the similar chakra, that’s all good. We’re trying to accomplish. So

Jeffrey (6m 5s):
Dispensary’s, don’t necessarily have to buy the refrigeration to be selling,

Jason (6m 9s):
No, they don’t bake bacon. They could have on the, you know, what they say in the industry, as far as I’m new to the CPG industry, specifically beverages. And so what they say is cold is sold, right? So if it’s cold, people are more likely to have that in that impulse buyers. Right. And so it just better, if you see in a fridge, you like, that looks delicious. Like I’m just going to get it versus buying a six pack or a four pack of it, warm, and then having to refrigerate it, you know, or throw ice in it and diluting it

Jeffrey (6m 38s):
Was there some resistance from some of the dispensary’s because, you know, I assume some of them were not designed to be selling, you know, the have refrigerator cases.

Jason (6m 47s):
No, everybody, we, we can’t get to market quick enough basically is what’s happening right now. The demand is skyrocketing. I am in touch with a new dispensary at least once a week. That just found us randomly. The way I like to say was I was trying to, this is, this is started as a proof of concept, but it became much bigger than I was ever expecting. And so since it become bigger than me, we’re actually going to go through a funding round soon. But basically I, without what I was originally trying to do was as a proof of concept was I was trying to be like, like a dandelion, right? So you cut your grass, cut your grass, cut your grass, whatever. But you know, every time in the spring you’re going to have those Danny lines pop up. Right. And so it’s kind of just working in the background until all of a sudden you see a data line.

Jason (7m 28s):
Pop-up, that’s what I was trying to do, you know, to create that impact all of a sudden, but people are finding us much quicker than I ever anticipated. So dispensary’s are contacting us, like I said, but a once, once a week, just to, to figure out what we’re going to launch so we can, so we can purchase cases in cases of it.

Jeffrey (7m 47s):
Wow. That’s interesting. So do you have business partners?

Jason (7m 51s):
No. I’m a hundred percent self-funded, which is why it’s hard for me to take a D take capital now because I’ve been a hundred percent. Self-funding this I, like I said, I’d sold my, I sold the company in 2019. I sold a company in 2020. And so right before the pandemic and I started this in the pandemic. Right. And so I feel like I was a hundred percent ready to put all my, all the funding in there, myself to finish, to get to the finish line quote unquote, which basically is the starting line in this highly regulated industry. And then we’re going to go in 20, 22 into around, because we, we know that we were going to be going into like a much larger facility.

Jason (8m 34s):
The facility right now is set up to be a proof of concept. And it can still do, you know, millions of bottles a year, but it’s just not the scale to service the entire Massachusetts market right now. But that’s the plan for 2022 is to move into that facility.

Jeffrey (8m 51s):
Oh, interesting. So how do you, where do you see yourself in a couple of years? Because you are limited with your growth, right,

Jason (9m 2s):
Exactly. And so, and you know, our three-year plan basically puts us to a place where we’re servicing all of Massachusetts market and all the dispensary’s. We like the slow growth strategy. We’re not trying to grow overnight, but at the end of three years, we do find ourselves in the majority of the stores at that point. So, you know, by the end of this year, we’ll have about seven employees. And by the end of 20, 20, 20, 22, we’ll have about 20, 25 employees we’re expecting and then metal kickoff, our, our bigger facility, which we’re aiming to be about 15,000 square feet or so

Jeffrey (9m 41s):
Great. We’ve been speaking with Jason Rapoza CEO, founder of Good Feels. I would have loved to have tasted the product. Are you going to have a sugar-free version as well? These are technically

Jason (9m 54s):
Sugar-free, there’s a touch of, and I can get into the, all the science behind this, but basically it’s, it’s technically a sugar-free according to, to the, to the rules that the, I believe FDA put in place for what considered is considered a sugar-free, but it has less than a fraction of a fraction of a gram of sweetener in it.

Jeffrey (10m 15s):
So Jason, if somebody wants to find the company, learn more about it, how would they find you?

Jason (10m 20s):
So if you’re looking just to find more about our products and our beliefs, then when the website’s the best option, that’d be, get Good Feels.com that’s G T Good Feels.com. I’m still negotiating with the Good Feels.com owner of that domain to try to get that one. But right now it’s get Good Feels.com. And if you’re looking as a, you know, potentially as an investor, or, you know, if you just want to connect as a business, another business operator, then that’d be LinkedIn. If you just search for good, Good Feels, that’ll be there. Or you can just email me directly too. So it’s just jason@getgoodfields.com, traditional spelling of Jason, J a S O N at Good-Feet get Good Feels.com.

Jason (11m 1s):
That’d be the best ways

Jeffrey (11m 3s):
Jason. I appreciate your taking the time to be on radio entrepreneurs. And hopefully you’re going to come back again. As you roll this out into the marketplace, we can talk more about products, products, extension, want to thank you for being on the show today. Thank you so much. Thank you for having me great remind everybody. This is radio entrepreneurs.