Today we’d like to introduce you to Lucas Gould
Hi Lucas, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I started Spendr back in 2022 after experiencing what it was like to purchase legal cannabis at medical marijuana dispensaries in Ohio. My background is in finance, payments, and technology, I worked at JPMorgan for 3+ years helping large, traditional businesses leverage fintech solutions & payments to help grow their business.
After personally seeing a huge need & frustration with payments in the cannabis industry, I decided to quit my job at JPMorgan, move back home to Cincinnati, and start Spendr.
Today, we help 50,000+ people and 75+ businesses across 5 states, while working with 40% of the Ohio cannabis dispensaries.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
It has not been a smooth road and I don’t think it ever is. Starting a company has tremendous barriers to cross and an infinite number of things that must be done to succeed. The hardest thing is “seeing around the corner” – knowing what will happen before it does, being able to anticipate the problems you will face. That is often impossible to do, especially when creating something that has never existed in a market that is in its infancy.
Our struggles have primarily been around dealing with the intense regulatory guidelines of both payments and cannabis, raising capital in an environment with high interest rates, high inflation, and in an industry that has widely scared institutional investors, and in articulating our value proposition and benefits to customers when we’re doing something that has never been done before.
The best thing we’ve found is to have a “we’ll figure it out” mentality, especially in the early days when we truly didn’t know what to do. Problems will come, it’s a given – what separates good from bad startups, I think, are those that can solve the problems with efficiency while staying true to the mission at hand, Staying persistent & determined to succeed no matter what happens.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about Spendr?
The business I started is called Spendr. It is a technology company that services both consumers and businesses in retail & online commerce. Consumers use our mobile app, the Spendr App, to make purchases, earn rewards, and get exclusive deals – all from our network of Spendr merchants.
Merchants use Spendr to offer cashless payments, while also leveraging our marketing, data, and promotions tools to acquire and retain new customers. We help businesses grow their revenue by personalizing marketing & promotions to their customers.
I am most proud that we’re based in Ohio and started supporting the Ohio medical cannabis market. This allowed us to see the true impact this has on people and the feedback we heard was extremely profound and humbling. The goods that people were buying with Spendr was/is medicine, and we make it easier, safer, more normal, and more affordable to do so. People are really thankful when you help them with better access to their medicine.
What sets us apart is our desire to care about our customers and our commitment to quality in everything we do. In all decisions, we think about our customers and how we’d want to be treated if we were on the other side using this product. For example, we don’t outsource our customer support – our customer support is taken from real people that sit in Cincinnati, OH so that our customers know they can call us, talk to someone who cares, have their problem resolved, and go on with their day. That type of quality support seems to be so low in supply today as company’s just focus on scale and maximizing profits.
If you’re interested in checking out more on Spendr, hit our website at www.spendr.com to learn more about how you can pay & earn rewards with the Spendr App.
What sort of changes are you expecting over the next 5-10 years?
Our industry, which is primarily the legal cannabis industry, is set for massive shifts over the next 5-10 years. There is impending change by the DEA on rescheduling cannabis from schedule I to schedule III. There is legislation in congress around banking access. There’s even talks on full fledged federal legalization.
There are currently 39 states that have adopted a medical or adult use cannabis market, and it doesn’t seem to be slowing down. I think we’ll see almost all the states adopt some form of a program in the next 5 years. I think more mainstream technology and service providers will enter the space as federal guidance gets cleaned up.
I personally think the far future of cannabis will look like a mix of liquor stores & micro craft breweries. If you want mass produced brands, go to one of the few dispensaries in your area. If you want high-end, small-batch product mixed with experience, you’ll go to a small, locally-owned dispensaries or a consumption lounge that serves food/other and allows you to trial different products.
Pricing:
- Free – Spendr is totally free to use
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.spendr.com
- Instagram: GetSpendr
- Facebook: GetSpendr
- Yelp: https://www.youtube.com/@GetSpendr
