Why is everyone just attacking these people without trying the product at all? Does anyone share their scaling plans directly with HN? I'm very put off by the negativity here.
I think this is a great idea. There are a ton of patients who want a great new selection of their medicine delivered to them with no hassle. I'd love to try this service if they actually deliver on the "top shelf" promise. In my experience, not all "top shelf" flowers are made the same. Would be down to try a month though!
What is the benefit over an existing SF delivery service like the Green Cross? They have better rates and I can have up to an ounce delivered within 90 minutes. They also have 'top-shelf' product and an itemized list of strains available. I don't mean to denigrate the idea, just want to hear some thoughts because I have been extremely impressed with every aspect of the Green Cross' service.
I think they covered this in an episode of Weeds. Rich people love to pay extremely inflated prices for "exclusive" products that they think nobody else can get, and don't realize are exactly the same as the normal stuff.
I too don't understand such negative responses here. As far as how it looks the site seems just fine to me. Not being too familiar with this market I'm unsure of the feasibility of the business but the idea seems sound.
Is there any reason why you are cash only at the moment? You really should look into adding some kind of online payment integration (Stripe is very easy to get up and running if the allow it for this market).
Just a heads up, on Chrome/OSX your example boxes popup is created three times, one on top of the other.
Look into "high risk merchant accounts". Quite a few CC processors specialize in it. Porn shops, gun shops, marijuana dispensaries, etc, all fall under that umbrella.
Despite the derogatory name, I actually doubt these kind of businesses present a higher than normal financial risk. For example, all gun purchase undergo FBI's NICS background check, so I suspect that gun shops have a lower rate of CC fraud compared to other retailers. As for porn shops, Guy Ritchie says it better than me:
Tom: Listen to this one: you open a company called the "Arse Tickler's Faggots Fan Club".
Soap: You what?
Tom: You take out an advert in the back page of some gay mag, advertising the latest in arse-intruding dildos. You sell it with, I dunno, "does what no other dildo can do until now", "the latest and greatest in sexual technology", "guaranteed results or your money back", all that bollocks. Now, these dils cost twenty-five quid a pop. That's a snip for the amount of pleasure they're gonna give the recipients. But they send their cheques to the other company name – nothing offensive, er, "Bobbie's Bits" or something – for twenty-five quid. You take that twenty-five quid, you stick it in the bank until it clears. Now, this is the smart bit. You send back the cheque for twenty-five pound from the other company name, "Arse Tickler's Faggots Fan Club", saying we're sorry, we couldn't get the supplies from America because they ran out of stock. Now, you see how many people cash that cheque: not a single soul, because who wants their bank manager to know they tickle arse when they're not paying cheques?
> You really should look into adding some kind of online payment integration (Stripe is very easy to get up and running if the allow it for this market).
That's the hard part. Stripe's rules say you need to pay by Visa and MC's rules. It's hard to get merchant accounts for business like this. People selling porn have a hard time getting merchant accounts and everyone agrees that's legal.
The only thing wonky about this is the price. I really like the idea of having curated, nice strains delivered.
However, this is really a service for aficionados, (I think?.. who else would possibly smoke even an eighth a month regularly).
There is no problem getting mega-high quality herb delivered like 'right now' for cheaper than this.. if I were to subscribe to this service (I am not in SF) I would prefer a discount for a subscription lock-in.
This to me is like subscribing to a monthly-book.. where you send me a random book you think I'll like and charge me more-than-retail for it... when I can just get a book (even with recommendation.. every dealer will talk ad-nauseum about their strains) delivered instantly for ever-lower than 'retail' prices.
Curated delivery is good.. prices are a bit steep compared to the market. I smoke more weed than easily 95% of HNers; and I would pay for a subscription service.. but only if that service offered me more value than I could get from any halfway decent distributor (which I think is .. and maybe I am just wrong here .. very very difficult to do), or if it were cheaper than calling them.
Why is this any better than just calling a delivery service that already exists? You get to maintain direct control over the strains you get that way as well. And you don't get any of the promotions from a physical dispensary.
Ex. Magnolia Wellness in Oakland does a $25 3.5g with a donation of $35 or more on Saturday, and 4.5g eighths on Sunday, both of which beat the price per gram of this service.
We created Marvina for people who don't enjoy picking strains each month. Unless you are fairly knowledgable choosing from the hundreds of strains on the market can be overwhelming.
If you know exactly what strains you want then Marvina probably isn't for you.
You don't have to pick out a different strain every month (or however often you purchase). Once someone finds 2 or 3 that they like they just keep buying those. People are already faced with a huge number of choices for alcohol and numerous other consumable products, but have little difficulty identifying their favorites even if they're not not connoisseurs of any particular product.
I think there's also significant value to the supply chain if there's evidence that certain strains have a committed market over time. You get better informed decisions on what to deprecate/not grow in the future, and if you have a dedicated customer base for a particular strain, you've got data telling you exactly how much growing space to dedicate to that.
True, but I am not seeing the claimed consumer surplus. Data-driven decision-making is good up to a point, but it too easily becomes an excuse for chasing the lowest common denominator, because it mistakes popularity for quality. Budweiser is (I think) the most popular beer int e US, but anyone who likes beer knows it's not particularly good, it's just the least bad across multiple criteria.
It may be worth considering putting the Goldstar menu on your site so users know what options are available to them. Could even include Leafly reviews so people can have a bit more info on what they're getting each month.
I don't think it's hyperbolic; many of the dispensaries (the larger ones, yes) in Seattle, not even SF/BC, have well near 100+ strains.
While I certainly can echo your concern about "success means your customers leave you" there's certainly a draw to variety, and similar services (get random fruit delivered to your door each month) have managed to find a market segment, so I look forward to seeing if this pans out.
Well that's certainly a concern. We hope that everything about the experience will make people want to stick with it. Even if you are educated about marijuana strains its a better customer experience than going to a dispensary or using traditional delivery.
With the Marvina brand we wanted to stay away from traditional marijuana stereotypes. We want to create something more inclusive than the vibe that most current marijuana businesses give off.
Our two branding rules right now are:
1. No green
2. No puns
This is so ironic it's laughable. The entire point of Bitcoin is that its inherent decentralization inhibits regulatory activities like determining which businesses are and are not allowed. Yet the VC-funded ecosystem sprouting up around Bitcoin is so antithetical to its thesis of decentralization that the best tooling available is increasingly more centralized. Put another way, the decentralization of Bitcoin is actively against the interest of many of the companies starting to serve its market. BitPay, Coinbase, etc. are all predicated on the assumption that customers will transact almost entirely through their centralized platforms, foregoing the many benefits of decentralization, in exchange for the convenience of a nice GUI around Bitcoin. At the end of the day, what really is the difference between Bitcoin and credit cards, if the merchants enabling websites to seamlessly accept Bitcoin are just as regulatory as the credit card companies they are seeking to displace?
It just seems so backwards to me. I could write a longer post on this but it's way off topic.
So it gets delivered. And it is cash-only. How does that work? COD? I assume someone must be there to accept the delivery anyway (as apposed to just leaving it at the door). So I guess you just pay the person delivering it?
That makes sense. And until things improve on the legal front, it seems wise for customers to stay cash-only anyway. I know I do even though the dispensary I use takes credit cards.
And I understand the part about too many choices being overwhelming. My dispensary has 30-40 varieties and I often just stand there and stare at the board.
But, probably not a service I'd use. I have several convenient choices on my way home from work and being at home for a delivery is less convenient. But I can see it being very beneficial to people that might be home-bound and need their medicine. Best of luck.
Suggestion, get rid of the "retail value". I first saw that and thought "$115 for a 1/4?". Or at least make it less prominent. $95 for a 1/4 still seems high, but since you're aiming for the high-end weed and it's delivered, all in all, not too bad.
Seems like people don't understand the climate here with regards to Marijuana in SF. No one cares at all. There are a ton of dispensaries and delivery services, and they all operate lawfully. In fact, most of the deliveries I have seen/experienced happen in the street, as it is a transfer of medicine. Im sure these guys have drivers, and Im certain they don't send the medicine through the mail.
Absolutely! We have our eyes on topicals, edibles, and concentrates. That's really where the market is moving. Look out for an edibles only Marvina box soon!
Until then I'd recommend docGreen's cannabis infused creams. I think you can pick them up at SPARC in San Francisco.
And let me specify nice smelling natural arthritis cream. Like put something other than camphor in that stuff! A little lemon verbena... some lavender... us old lady hipsters are waiting. I just bought like $60 worth of hand lotion in Common Scents. Opportunity awaits you Marvina!
It's not very hard. In California a doctor can give you a recommendation for any condition for which marijuana may be helpful. This includes things like stress, anxiety, insomnia...
I've got with these guys, they have two offices in SF and an online appointment scheduler:
http://green215.com
My favorite reason I've heard of for prescribing medical marijuana: writer's block. A police officer told me that, so I'm inclined to believe its true.
That's cool; what are the repercussions of getting such a card, though? Do you get on TSA's no-fly lists? Are you automatically exempt from holding jobs in the Government? Something else that I'm missing, perhaps?
Trivially difficult. There are MMJ "clinics" that are basically rubber stamps: pay the fee, get your card. The apocryphal story is of a friend of a friend going to the clinic and saying, "So I have this problem, Doc. I can't seem to get enough pot," and being given a card.
It's perhaps not that easy, but it's within delta of that.
There are lots of jokes along those lines, but honestly, the marijuana doctors' actions seem pretty rational to me.
The thing is, marijuana is thought possibly to be beneficial for a huge swath of conditions, many of which are primarily self-reported like insomnia and migraines. A normal doctor would probably not give you the third degree you before suggesting a treatment for these conditions either. And since marijuana is largely benign even when it doesn't help, this is not really irresponsible on the marijuana doctors' part. My doctor was advocating a riskier course of treatment when he told me to take ibuprofen!
I believe THC and cannabinoids other than CBD do have their own medical benefits - they're just not publicized as much. Most probably because THC is psychoactive which a lot of people aren't comfortable compared to CBD which doesn't have the same sort of "high" effect.
Not necessarily, particularly depending on what you specifically want to treat.
If you go poking around weedmaps.com (well, after their site starts functioning again :/), and look into strain-specific details there, there absolutely are low THC strains available, and also amazingly high THC level strains. High and low CBN/CBD, etc.
In addition, they have some space dedicated to breaking out the main/known active contituents in MJ, and what they're believed best to affect.
they're not selling marijuana or delivering it, they're providing the technology and information to help their dispensary partners get busted by the feds
I think this is a great idea. There are a ton of patients who want a great new selection of their medicine delivered to them with no hassle. I'd love to try this service if they actually deliver on the "top shelf" promise. In my experience, not all "top shelf" flowers are made the same. Would be down to try a month though!