In this episode we interview Chad Johnson, CEO of H!ghten Sifter, who has developed a solventless extract method for cannabis in the convenience of your own home. The company’s sifter is set to disrupt a $40-million-dollar kief industry. In just 30 seconds the H!ghten Sifter gives consumers easy access to 10x’s more ready to consume kief than they are getting from their grinder today. Kief is a hidden gem.
The H!ghten Sifter is about the size of a kitchen toaster. If you’re bored with cannabis leaf or looking for something new - then this is the answer you’ve been looking for. Kief can be used in many ways. You can sprinkle it into a bowl or joint, or add it when making homemade cannabutter or oil. In addition, you can press it into hash or filter it and press it into rosin. Listen to this episode to learn more about kief and the revolutionary new sifter.
To learn more about H!ghten Sifter visit their website: https://hightensifter.com/
https://www.instagram.com/hightensifter/
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Episode Transcript
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Ronjini Joshua (00:10):
In this episode we interview Chad Johnson from
heightened heightened is arevolutionary technology company
whose patent pending shake andvibrate technology is hoping to
disrupt the solventlessextraction market. So we
interviewed Chad at mjbizcon,Let's get into the green room.
(00:32):
Hello, today we're here withChad Johnson, CEO and founder of
H!ghten. doing fantastic, areyou good. We're here at mjbizcon
in Las Vegas, and we're kind ofrolling around the convention
center. And Chad, you guys areexhibiting this year. So tell us
a little bit about what you'redoing with heightened
Chad Johnson (00:53):
lots of stuff. We are a younger company, we are
bringing to market a shake andvibrate technology.
Interestingly enough that wasinvented in my garage if you
could get any more cliche, uhhuh. Grab startup, got it very
much garage startupbootstrapped. Some suburban dads
made the dream happen. And weare ex Boeing, our consumer
(01:17):
sector and for the first timeever, our pro sector for the
commercial market.
Ronjini Joshua (01:23):
So I know I jumped the gun a little bit
because we are going to talk alittle bit about your journey
first. So tell us a little bitabout like how you got into
cannabis. What brought you intoit personally?
Chad Johnson (01:34):
Great question.
Like everyone else I had yourtypical story of I tried
cannabis once or twice from froma friend and it was the wrong
strain for me. And it's not agood experience. And therefore
all cannabis is bad, right? Um,fast forward a few years back in
2015. At Christmas time, I wasintroduced to a vape pen from
(01:54):
California. And it just sohappened to be the right strain
for me and an instant. For thefirst time ever, my anxiety
melted away.
Ronjini Joshua (02:07):
Oh, you were mentioning that you're a medical
patient.
Chad Johnson (02:09):
I am a medical patient. I have generalized
anxiety disorder, which at thetime years ago, I was still
trying to figure out kind of,okay, things are working. It's
like I went through PTSD, I wentto all these different things.
But in that day, in that moment,the NASCAR track in my head for
the first time in my life turnedoff. And it was unbelievable,
(02:31):
because I got to really enjoyChristmas and the holidays with
my family. And after that, I waslike, Okay, there's more to
cannabis than I understand. So Istarted on YouTube, and I pulled
up a PBS documentary, TheScience of cannabis. And I was
absolutely fascinated by thedocumentary, and some of the not
(02:52):
so true truths that we've cometo believe about cannabis aren't
quite so true. And it just sentme down a rabbit hole of
curiosity. And fast forward myconsumption. So part of my
background prior to cannabis, Iactually was an Ironman Distance
(03:13):
triathlete, okay? So I'msomewhat of an extremist
personality. And hey, if alittle bit as good, a lot must
be better. So as I'm very quickto find that third rail and
touch it before I find my wayback to the middle, so my
consumption without the properguidance, and someone that
really knew what they were doingwent up a lot faster than it
should have quickly got me towait, what's this little thing
(03:36):
called teeth. And I startedplaying with that. And I
realized like, Oh, this isreally great. And then my taste
for went up and up and up. And Istarted just making it because
you can't buy it atdispensaries. And I had, I knew
so little about cannabis. Ididn't know that you could
actually buy a hand sifter box.
I went to Michael's I boughtsell Ziploc container, and I
made it by hand. And from mydays of Ironman training, I had
(04:00):
holes in both my rotator cuffs.
And I was so just sit there andgo back and forth for any so
yeah, really painful. Yeah. AndI was going back and forth one
night, and I'm like, my shoulderreally hurts. And in that, let
me rub some on it. Yeah, in thatin that very moment. It happened
(04:24):
exactly like this one. I betthere's a way you could automate
this. And then my 20 years ofmarketing experience kicked in
and I went, I bet a lot ofpeople have this problem. And
that just sent me down therabbit hole and I called up some
people from my team and said,hey, hey, guys, can I have this
(04:45):
idea? Do you think you couldmake this work? And that was
five years and eight generationsof the consumer prototype new
well, to get to market and thepro one. We are debuting first
generation.
Ronjini Joshua (04:57):
Wow. Yeah, see, I mean this The great thing I
love about interviewing peoplein the cannabis industry, half
of them well, I don't know abouthalf, but like half of them are,
you know, they come to it withlike, oh, I tried it in my use,
I loved it, I went with it. Andthen the other half found it
solved a huge problem in theirlife. And then I would say, I
(05:19):
guess it's thirds, I guess thelast third would be, you know,
they're advocating for someonethat they love and that a
person's in the industry and orthey need to use it for
medicinal purposes or personalreasons. And I think like, we
just see so many passionatepeople about it, that like
solving your own problem is likethe first step. Now, I don't
(05:39):
know about much about thesifting industry. So like, tell
me like, what, what kind ofcompetition Do you have? What
kind of demand is there for whatyou're doing? And like, what can
you actually like net out of itfrom from doing what you guys
do?
Chad Johnson (05:54):
It's a good question. So typically, when I
think about competition, it'syour typical tumblers that are
out there. Pollen Master is oneof them. And then you've got
Bubble Hash. So using water forextraction, these are pretty
universally used techniques. Andthen you've got hand sifter
(06:14):
boxes. So manual, which is whatI ran up against the interesting
thing and what makes us reallydifferent, not necessarily
better or worse, but justdifferent than those guys is our
shake and vibrate technology.
And really a core, you know,height is a technology company.
And we just happen to beapplying this technology to
hemp, and cannabis first. Yeah.
(06:35):
And the difference of why youget such clean sift so quickly,
is because the combination ofmotion and vibration is bound
are bouncing the buds on thescreen, and knocking the kief
off, where in tumblers, it'srubbing it and you're putting
much more volume in. And it'syou know, taking quite a bit of
(06:56):
time. And that one was really, Ithink designed for commercial
and has been somewhat adopted byconsumers to degree.
Ronjini Joshua (07:06):
And if you're watching this on YouTube, we
started with a short video. Soyou should have seen it at the
very beginning.
Chad Johnson (07:14):
And now, you know, we saw an opportunity in the
consumer market of hey, peoplewant to have more control over
their experience, you know, andwe saw an opportunity of if you
take that that barrier barrierout of effort of like hey, with
the tumblers it's great if youhave a lot of high volume, but
if you don't it's not it's notas convenient not so great
(07:36):
solution for bubble. The peoplethat isn't it, bless them. You
have to be really passionateabout your craft like that is a
it's absolutely amazing andgetting to absolutely full melt
Pash is unbelievable. You know,there's a lot of people out
there that like, you know, thefive star or four star Michelin
meals. But you know what, I'mperfectly good with McDonald's
(07:59):
from time to time. Yeah, so thisis where heighten comes in and
fills a gap of hey, we can helpcreate and you know, create
these new experiences bysimplifying essentially
democratizing the extractionprocess. So you can get world
class Keith, what's interestingis is the motion and the
(08:23):
vibration is not much differentthan like Afghanis style of
extraction that's been going onfor 1000s of years by hand. And
all we've done is automate theprocess.
Ronjini Joshua (08:35):
It's cool. You know, you brought something up
earlier when our previousconversation like before we
started, and we were talkingabout craft brewing and regular
brewing and, and thisconversation actually comes up a
lot in in my interviews is thatwe kind of end up talking a lot
about the comparisons betweenyou know, cannabis and the wine
(08:55):
or the alcohol industry, and howdiverse that alcohol industry
has become with craft brews andthings like that. Can you talk a
little bit about what we weretalking about before of like,
you know, kind of personalizingyour experience but this
opportunity to be able to haveyou know, your own craft? Yeah,
designer, a book designercannabis.
Chad Johnson (09:16):
Essentially, yeah, you can make your own designer
cannabis to a degree. So really,it comes down to what we shared
earlier is that insight aroundkind of control and
understanding that people are todegree afraid of it. And the
sorry, I'm just blanking out fora quick second. Really, the
(09:40):
insight that we saw withcannabis that got us most
excited was really cannabisdespite how much pop culture
value it has and cache and andmystique around it. At its core.
It's a commodity right, and itcan be made very, very cheaply.
And we understand what the.comBoom and when Many things
(10:00):
throughout history, things oftenget overvalued in the market
crashes. So as someone who'sbeen in marketing for the past
20 years and consumer insightswork, and really trying to
understand consumer behaviors,and the most important question
of why, why are they doing thebear here is why are they
seeking these things out? And welooked for benchmarks. And yeah,
I think beer was the easy lowhanging fruit of hey, you know,
(10:24):
because there's so much varietyand alcohol and all those
things, and then likes andwhatever. Exactly. And it's a
even making custom drinks andthings like that. And that's
kind of where we started. But wewent a level deeper than that.
And we actually saw similaritiesto the coffee industry. And this
is where that you know, going alevel deeper from product
(10:45):
insight to consumer insightbehavior. You'll see you think
about coffee, there is a anaudience out there that will
drink Maxwell House and foldersand be perfectly happy with it.
And there's nothing wrong withit. There's another group out
there that will only drink $10drinks from Starbucks. Yeah, the
difference. The Maxwell Houseand Folgers are functional
consumers where your Starbucksis more of your passion, right?
(11:11):
And we're like, okay, there'sreally something to that.
Because if you now translatethat to beer, but like Miller
Lite, or your functionals, thatdon't understand the passion
around drinking craft or littleon making craft at home. It's
not better or worse. It's justdifferent. And there's an
audience for both of them. Andwhat we realize is Wait a
(11:33):
second, there's really a marketif you look at cannabis. Okay,
again, it started with with beercraft brew started with Sam
maps, you know, craft coffeestarted with Howard Schultz.
Today, when you go intodispensaries, oftentimes you
don't see Keith, you don'treally see hash, a lot of things
are chemically extracted, again,not right or wrong, but for
(11:57):
people looking for, for uniqueexperiences a little different.
You know, this is something thatwe're like, okay, there's really
something here of, we kind ofsee where the market is going.
But like, Wait a second. Theseextraction equipments,
extraction equipment, exists ata commercial level. So they're
(12:19):
making products for consumers,why doesn't someone just help
consumers make the productsthemselves right? And that was
kind of the whole idea of takingfrom one industry to the next
and how we kind of leapfrog towhere we're at.
Ronjini Joshua (12:30):
So do you find that this is going to be like on
the consumer level, probablypretty niche. And then maybe
resonate a little bit more withlike you were mentioning growers
and people that want to, youknow, have different product
lines.
Chad Johnson (12:45):
From a from a commercial perspective, we
really see an edge just kind ofyour small to medium sized
growers. Based on, you know, ourprojected price point and
volume, we're projecting over100 pounds an hour, which is
quite a bit more than acompetition right now. I think
we've have a pretty good idea ofthat market. From a grower
(13:07):
standpoint, I thinkcommercially, we see
opportunities with infusions andedibles. And even if you go to
like California, you startseeing strain specific edibles
and things where these growersare starting to do solventless
extraction. And again, this iswhere we started learning from
(13:30):
from one industry for the other.
Actually, last year at mjbizcon.
John Mackey, the CEO of WholeFoods spoke, and it triggered a
light bulb when he startedtalking. I was like, Wait a
second 2530 years ago, everybodywas laughing at the people going
to Whole Foods. Yeah. And it wasseen as that very niche and you
know, crunchy granola, andwhatever I can, you know, today,
(13:54):
nobody wants chemicals in theirfood, right? So the question is
for those people that are finewith it, that's great. But for
those that don't want chemicals,what options you have if again,
Keith and hash are not there.
You're starting to get to, youknow, in the edibles, they're
using distillates which arestripping out the terpenes to
degree. So this is now a way ofhaving that full experience. And
(14:15):
this is what the growers and theprocesses are really looking to
get to the consumers. We alsosee a big opportunity in a
culinary space, the value one ofthe values of sifting and
extracting the key out is you'reremoving the chlorophyll, you're
removing the leaf matter itself.
(14:37):
So that infusion is muchcleaner. It's much tastier, it's
much more potent, but it givesyou a much cleaner experience.
Again, not better justdifferent. And we see that
translating from a you knowcommercial culinary to everyday
people in the kitchen. So as wego from that commercial level to
(15:00):
the consumer, you're right outof the gate, it's going to be
niche. It's going to be homegrowers that have a whole bunch
of extra trim and larf that wetalked to Tom through, like,
yeah, I've got a couple poundsof trim sitting around and I
don't know what to do with it,or you talk to the guy. It's
like, yeah, I process it, but ittakes me like, you know, two or
three days of doing it manual.
It's like, oh, my gosh, yeah,like you that's again, that's
(15:23):
your hardcore passion people.
Yeah. Within that subset, thoseare guys are looking to get to
the hash and the stuff that youcan't buy at the at the
dispensaries. But on the flipside of that, and as we look to
the next generation of cannabisconsumers that are looking,
again, to evolve, we very, verymuch believe that, you know,
(15:46):
the, there's going to be amarket where today, it's like
dinner parties, and it's wineand how you pair with wine. At
some point, it's going to becannabis. And it's going to be
throwing dinner parties for yourfriends and infusing the food
and bringing them on a journey.
Yeah, and we really see thismachine is something that,
honestly, we use, like kitchenin a Kitchenaid and gravel as
(16:07):
brand examples as a foundationfor how we designed, you know,
solid steel, 23 pounds, it'sbuilt like a tank, but you know,
and it's about 75 decibels. Soas loud as a blender. And in
seconds, you can have all thekeys you need for your recipes.
So that we see that kind of likethe ability to now have it not
(16:29):
only on demand, but to be ableto kind of now mix and match and
make your own creations issomething you've never been able
to before to now really takecontrol and shape how you want
to feel.
Ronjini Joshua (16:44):
Yeah, I mean, this is really interesting,
because we get to see a lot ofthese different like, even, I
mean, there's a lot oftechnology that's going into
cannabis now, and I don't know,what do you think about? How do
you feel about the pandemic? Andhow that affected the cannabis
industry? I hear. Some peoplesay that it accelerated it, some
(17:05):
people feel like it kind of puta stamp on it, especially with
the finance in the financesector, like what do you what is
your opinion, like? Did thathelp you? Fine tune what you
guys are doing now? Are youupset that you wasted a year at
home? You know, where do youstand on
Chad Johnson (17:23):
that? It's a great question. So starting at the
macro level for the industry, Ipersonally think it's gonna be a
few years until we really knowhow this affected the trajectory
of the industry, because it's sonew. And I don't want to say
it's unprecedented because it'sreally not I mean, look at like,
you know, you know, Spanish fluin 1918. So things like this
(17:44):
have happened before. It's justgoing to be interesting as far
as how quickly it's going toramp up how much the
conversation changes. Yeah, nowthat people are out and about
because, you know, cannabis isreally, it's a very social,
social plant when consuming. SoI think now that people are
(18:04):
going to be out and about andmingling, I think, you know,
conversations are going to startchanging. Once you get out of
the social media vacuum of beinglocked in a house from a
heightened perspective.
Initially, we hated it likeeverybody else. But in
hindsight, like any goodentrepreneur, we can see the
(18:24):
silver lining and where wereally benefited from it. And I
think what it did is it helpedus in a, in a safer space, get a
lot more nose and tell us wherewe were wrong. Tell us, you
know, what people didn't likeabout the machine, why they
weren't going to buy it, wherethe messaging was confusing. And
we just use all this kind ofindividual one on one
(18:47):
communication, to keep evolvingevery single message, the big
benefit that it had his youknow, from a marketing
standpoint, my partners and Iunderstood coming in, if you
lead with commercial, it's goingto be very hard as a brand to
bridge the gap to consumer, onceyou really established yourself.
So what the pandemic allowed usto do was take the time to
(19:10):
really build out the brandFoundation, all of the right
ways of doing things. And thenwe just happen to bifurcate that
messaging. So it all for so bothconsumer and commercial can live
under that macro umbrella ofcontrol over experiences,
Ronjini Joshua (19:29):
right? Yeah, no, that's, that's awesome. I like
that. It's a little bit of boththen. Yeah. Right. Well, I am so
glad you spent your time todaywith us.
Chad Johnson (19:42):
There's one other thing I want to touch on that we
didn't get to yes, please. Yes,I'd love to as far as kind of
like for me again. So Ipersonally a big fan of Simon
Sinek start with why andinfinite game. And to me so much
of this has to have some sort ofpurpose behind it. It's my
frustration of working marketingfor 20 years and working for so
(20:04):
many wonderful companies whoseintentions were great. But the
actions when it came to actuallygiving back and doing more often
fell short in realities. Andpart of my frustration coming in
as, as I sit here today, someonewho has been diagnosed with
generalized anxiety disorder hada number of other issues over my
(20:24):
life that I realized if I hadbetter better understood
cannabis, how different my lifehad been before earlier. And it
makes me because I, my anxietydisorder led me to do things I
honestly don't believe I wouldhave done if I had better
understanding and better controlover and now, this is not
(20:46):
cannabis would have solved it.
This is hey, at least it wouldhave been another tool. So where
someone was, and oh, okay,whatever my takeaway was, it
made me angry. Yeah, really,really, really, actually just
angry, that there are so manypeople suffering unnecessarily.
And nobody's willing to fund theresearch at scale, because it's
(21:12):
very difficult to patent a plantand profit. So the whole idea is
heighten exists to crowdsourcefund cannabis research at a
global scale. So the plan is,once we get up and running and
profitable, is to literallystart taking profits, and
directly fund research and thenmake it publicly available,
(21:33):
because it's just the rightthing to do. And when you buy
the machine, not only yougetting great technology, you're
helping get more out of your buggetting better experiences. Oh,
by the way, you're also youhappen to be paying it forward
to helping someone else out to.
And that really, that is whyafter five years of being told
(21:53):
no, and getting beaten down, andhaving the world against me,
including my family, at onepoint, actually one of my
business partners is not aconsumer and walked away at one
point, because he was sopassionate on the other end,
that is why the business existsis to help other people.
Ronjini Joshua (22:14):
Well, I mean, I've talked to plenty of
researchers that are alwayslooking for funds. And it's it
is it's impossible for them toget the funding that they need.
They're, you know, constantlyhaving to justify what they're
working on. And it's hard to dothat when they haven't been able
to work on it long enough. Andthen their funds run out. So
this is awesome. It's a great,really great way to give back to
people that you know, have hadsimilar like experiences as you
(22:38):
have. And you know, one of thethings that I we talk about in
this podcast two is that, youknow, a lot of the people that
are coming in here are verypassionate, very dedicated,
they're like, they're in it towin it, they want to see this
through. And I think it's such areally cool volatile time where
you can become I mean, eventhough it's not the beginning of
the cannabis industry, it's kindof the beginning of the cannabis
(22:59):
very much the big game. So like,you know, we've we see, yeah,
we're learning from peoplewho've been in it for a while.
But now it's like, actually, thewheels are turning and, and
things are changing andshifting. And there's cool
technologies that are likeallowing experiences to happen
in so many different ways. Soit's very, very exciting. I
really appreciate your insight,I would love to talk to you a
(23:22):
little bit more about you know,just what you guys are expecting
here at mjbizcon this year. And,you know, like we were all
hidden away last year. So whatare you what are you most
excited about here at the showtoday?
Chad Johnson (23:36):
Honestly, to be in person? Yeah, at the show. We
learned, you know, getting oneof our learnings last year doing
mjbizcon online, for as much,you know, interest is now people
were getting in the product whenpeople see it. If people haven't
seen it, and you're can't see itin person, it's hard for people
to really understand the valuebecause it's not really top of
(23:56):
mind for anyone. So now beingthere in person being able to
show off the machine and moreimportantly, just talk to
people. You know, I think that'swhat's really exciting. And I
think the other is theopportunity to learn. Because
there's so much to your pointand so much other great
technology out there. And youknow, you know startups and
(24:16):
businesses that like I My hopeis there are a ton more guys out
in the garage or women out inthe garage, just like me,
because we are the guys at theshow the really big guys their
worst nightmare. Yeah.
Ronjini Joshua (24:32):
That's funny, um, that I love everything that
you're saying. What do youthink? What do you what do you
expect out of the show? I mean,obviously you guys are coming.
You're launching a new product.
Can you tell us a little bitmore about kind of like, what
your approach is to coming in asa little guy? Yeah, up against
the
Chad Johnson (24:49):
David David versus Goliath. Yeah. Interesting side
note, David David versusGoliath. If everyone's a fan of
Malcolm Gladwell. He's a reallyfascinating theory. We're
actually David Wood. was the onethat was more favored than
Goliath in that fight. It's afact. It's a fascinating high
theory, okay. But it's thatwhole mentality of you might be
(25:10):
the small, we might be thestartup. But we also understand
that the patent that the patentpending technology we have is
unlike anything else at theshow, so one would love to see
if there's anything like it.
Yeah. And to havingconversations with the right
potential partners, as we lookat, you know, growers and
processors, but there's tons ofgreat you know, distributors,
(25:31):
wholesalers, online retailers,brick and mortar retailers,
would love to talk with, youknow, the exhibitors in the
culinary industry and just learnwhat don't we know, that? That,
you know, would be great toknow, one and two, how can we
help you? Yes, that's thebiggest thing that I found from
the conversations and thepartners that we're working with
(25:53):
today. It's a mutuallybeneficial relationship. Yeah,
you know, innovate the product.
Exactly. And it's more of, youknow, they, they, you know, as a
younger company, and I thinkthere's a lot of passion and
drive around the startup and theuniqueness I think is what is
(26:15):
you know, standing out to toother kind of vendors and those
in the field and I think that'sreally where we hope to get the
most out of being in person andand having those one to one
conversations Yeah,
Ronjini Joshua (26:29):
I'm sure that everyone despite whatever is
happening, I know likeeveryone's just happy to be out
at this point. Because yeah,it's pretty obvious that it was
about time for people to getback to business I think very
much so. Well, it's been lovelytalking to you. I can't wait to
see what else you guys come outwith and like how everything
(26:49):
works out because I Yeah, I'msure I have a feeling that this
is just the beginning the tip ofthe iceberg for heighten and
we're looking forward to seeingwhat you guys are going to come
up with. Yeah. Housingsifter.com, heightened sifter.
We'll have all the everything inthe show notes so everyone will
be able to find you. Awesome.
Thank you. All right. Thank youguys. The Green Room podcast is
(27:09):
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(27:58):
listening and be well
In this episode we interview Chad Johnson from
heightened heightened is arevolutionary technology company
whose patent pending shake andvibrate technology is hoping to
disrupt the solventlessextraction market. So we
interviewed Chad at mjbizcon,Let's get into the green room.
(00:32):
Hello, today we're here withChad Johnson, CEO and founder of
H!ghten. doing fantastic, areyou good. We're here at mjbizcon
in Las Vegas, and we're kind ofrolling around the convention
center. And Chad, you guys areexhibiting this year. So tell us
a little bit about what you'redoing with heightened
Chad Johnson (00:53):
lots of stuff. We are a younger company, we are
bringing to market a shake andvibrate technology.
Interestingly enough that wasinvented in my garage if you
could get any more cliche, uhhuh. Grab startup, got it very
much garage startupbootstrapped. Some suburban dads
made the dream happen. And weare ex Boeing, our consumer
(01:17):
sector and for the first timeever, our pro sector for the
commercial market.
Ronjini Joshua (01:23):
So I know I jumped the gun a little bit
because we are going to talk alittle bit about your journey
first. So tell us a little bitabout like how you got into
cannabis. What brought you intoit personally?
Chad Johnson (01:34):
Great question.
Like everyone else I had yourtypical story of I tried
cannabis once or twice from froma friend and it was the wrong
strain for me. And it's not agood experience. And therefore
all cannabis is bad, right? Um,fast forward a few years back in
2015. At Christmas time, I wasintroduced to a vape pen from
(01:54):
California. And it just sohappened to be the right strain
for me and an instant. For thefirst time ever, my anxiety
melted away.
Ronjini Joshua (02:07):
Oh, you were mentioning that you're a medical
patient.
Chad Johnson (02:09):
I am a medical patient. I have generalized
anxiety disorder, which at thetime years ago, I was still
trying to figure out kind of,okay, things are working. It's
like I went through PTSD, I wentto all these different things.
But in that day, in that moment,the NASCAR track in my head for
the first time in my life turnedoff. And it was unbelievable,
(02:31):
because I got to really enjoyChristmas and the holidays with
my family. And after that, I waslike, Okay, there's more to
cannabis than I understand. So Istarted on YouTube, and I pulled
up a PBS documentary, TheScience of cannabis. And I was
absolutely fascinated by thedocumentary, and some of the not
(02:52):
so true truths that we've cometo believe about cannabis aren't
quite so true. And it just sentme down a rabbit hole of
curiosity. And fast forward myconsumption. So part of my
background prior to cannabis, Iactually was an Ironman Distance
(03:13):
triathlete, okay? So I'msomewhat of an extremist
personality. And hey, if alittle bit as good, a lot must
be better. So as I'm very quickto find that third rail and
touch it before I find my wayback to the middle, so my
consumption without the properguidance, and someone that
really knew what they were doingwent up a lot faster than it
should have quickly got me towait, what's this little thing
(03:36):
called teeth. And I startedplaying with that. And I
realized like, Oh, this isreally great. And then my taste
for went up and up and up. And Istarted just making it because
you can't buy it atdispensaries. And I had, I knew
so little about cannabis. Ididn't know that you could
actually buy a hand sifter box.
I went to Michael's I boughtsell Ziploc container, and I
made it by hand. And from mydays of Ironman training, I had
(04:00):
holes in both my rotator cuffs.
And I was so just sit there andgo back and forth for any so
yeah, really painful. Yeah. AndI was going back and forth one
night, and I'm like, my shoulderreally hurts. And in that, let
me rub some on it. Yeah, in thatin that very moment. It happened
(04:24):
exactly like this one. I betthere's a way you could automate
this. And then my 20 years ofmarketing experience kicked in
and I went, I bet a lot ofpeople have this problem. And
that just sent me down therabbit hole and I called up some
people from my team and said,hey, hey, guys, can I have this
(04:45):
idea? Do you think you couldmake this work? And that was
five years and eight generationsof the consumer prototype new
well, to get to market and thepro one. We are debuting first
generation.
Ronjini Joshua (04:57):
Wow. Yeah, see, I mean this The great thing I
love about interviewing peoplein the cannabis industry, half
of them well, I don't know abouthalf, but like half of them are,
you know, they come to it withlike, oh, I tried it in my use,
I loved it, I went with it. Andthen the other half found it
solved a huge problem in theirlife. And then I would say, I
(05:19):
guess it's thirds, I guess thelast third would be, you know,
they're advocating for someonethat they love and that a
person's in the industry and orthey need to use it for
medicinal purposes or personalreasons. And I think like, we
just see so many passionatepeople about it, that like
solving your own problem is likethe first step. Now, I don't
(05:39):
know about much about thesifting industry. So like, tell
me like, what, what kind ofcompetition Do you have? What
kind of demand is there for whatyou're doing? And like, what can
you actually like net out of itfrom from doing what you guys
do?
Chad Johnson (05:54):
It's a good question. So typically, when I
think about competition, it'syour typical tumblers that are
out there. Pollen Master is oneof them. And then you've got
Bubble Hash. So using water forextraction, these are pretty
universally used techniques. Andthen you've got hand sifter
(06:14):
boxes. So manual, which is whatI ran up against the interesting
thing and what makes us reallydifferent, not necessarily
better or worse, but justdifferent than those guys is our
shake and vibrate technology.
And really a core, you know,height is a technology company.
And we just happen to beapplying this technology to
hemp, and cannabis first. Yeah.
(06:35):
And the difference of why youget such clean sift so quickly,
is because the combination ofmotion and vibration is bound
are bouncing the buds on thescreen, and knocking the kief
off, where in tumblers, it'srubbing it and you're putting
much more volume in. And it'syou know, taking quite a bit of
(06:56):
time. And that one was really, Ithink designed for commercial
and has been somewhat adopted byconsumers to degree.
Ronjini Joshua (07:06):
And if you're watching this on YouTube, we
started with a short video. Soyou should have seen it at the
very beginning.
Chad Johnson (07:14):
And now, you know, we saw an opportunity in the
consumer market of hey, peoplewant to have more control over
their experience, you know, andwe saw an opportunity of if you
take that that barrier barrierout of effort of like hey, with
the tumblers it's great if youhave a lot of high volume, but
if you don't it's not it's notas convenient not so great
(07:36):
solution for bubble. The peoplethat isn't it, bless them. You
have to be really passionateabout your craft like that is a
it's absolutely amazing andgetting to absolutely full melt
Pash is unbelievable. You know,there's a lot of people out
there that like, you know, thefive star or four star Michelin
meals. But you know what, I'mperfectly good with McDonald's
(07:59):
from time to time. Yeah, so thisis where heighten comes in and
fills a gap of hey, we can helpcreate and you know, create
these new experiences bysimplifying essentially
democratizing the extractionprocess. So you can get world
class Keith, what's interestingis is the motion and the
(08:23):
vibration is not much differentthan like Afghanis style of
extraction that's been going onfor 1000s of years by hand. And
all we've done is automate theprocess.
Ronjini Joshua (08:35):
It's cool. You know, you brought something up
earlier when our previousconversation like before we
started, and we were talkingabout craft brewing and regular
brewing and, and thisconversation actually comes up a
lot in in my interviews is thatwe kind of end up talking a lot
about the comparisons betweenyou know, cannabis and the wine
(08:55):
or the alcohol industry, and howdiverse that alcohol industry
has become with craft brews andthings like that. Can you talk a
little bit about what we weretalking about before of like,
you know, kind of personalizingyour experience but this
opportunity to be able to haveyou know, your own craft? Yeah,
designer, a book designercannabis.
Chad Johnson (09:16):
Essentially, yeah, you can make your own designer
cannabis to a degree. So really,it comes down to what we shared
earlier is that insight aroundkind of control and
understanding that people are todegree afraid of it. And the
sorry, I'm just blanking out fora quick second. Really, the
(09:40):
insight that we saw withcannabis that got us most
excited was really cannabisdespite how much pop culture
value it has and cache and andmystique around it. At its core.
It's a commodity right, and itcan be made very, very cheaply.
And we understand what the.comBoom and when Many things
(10:00):
throughout history, things oftenget overvalued in the market
crashes. So as someone who'sbeen in marketing for the past
20 years and consumer insightswork, and really trying to
understand consumer behaviors,and the most important question
of why, why are they doing thebear here is why are they
seeking these things out? And welooked for benchmarks. And yeah,
I think beer was the easy lowhanging fruit of hey, you know,
(10:24):
because there's so much varietyand alcohol and all those
things, and then likes andwhatever. Exactly. And it's a
even making custom drinks andthings like that. And that's
kind of where we started. But wewent a level deeper than that.
And we actually saw similaritiesto the coffee industry. And this
is where that you know, going alevel deeper from product
(10:45):
insight to consumer insightbehavior. You'll see you think
about coffee, there is a anaudience out there that will
drink Maxwell House and foldersand be perfectly happy with it.
And there's nothing wrong withit. There's another group out
there that will only drink $10drinks from Starbucks. Yeah, the
difference. The Maxwell Houseand Folgers are functional
consumers where your Starbucksis more of your passion, right?
(11:11):
And we're like, okay, there'sreally something to that.
Because if you now translatethat to beer, but like Miller
Lite, or your functionals, thatdon't understand the passion
around drinking craft or littleon making craft at home. It's
not better or worse. It's justdifferent. And there's an
audience for both of them. Andwhat we realize is Wait a
(11:33):
second, there's really a marketif you look at cannabis. Okay,
again, it started with with beercraft brew started with Sam
maps, you know, craft coffeestarted with Howard Schultz.
Today, when you go intodispensaries, oftentimes you
don't see Keith, you don'treally see hash, a lot of things
are chemically extracted, again,not right or wrong, but for
(11:57):
people looking for, for uniqueexperiences a little different.
You know, this is something thatwe're like, okay, there's really
something here of, we kind ofsee where the market is going.
But like, Wait a second. Theseextraction equipments,
extraction equipment, exists ata commercial level. So they're
(12:19):
making products for consumers,why doesn't someone just help
consumers make the productsthemselves right? And that was
kind of the whole idea of takingfrom one industry to the next
and how we kind of leapfrog towhere we're at.
Ronjini Joshua (12:30):
So do you find that this is going to be like on
the consumer level, probablypretty niche. And then maybe
resonate a little bit more withlike you were mentioning growers
and people that want to, youknow, have different product
lines.
Chad Johnson (12:45):
From a from a commercial perspective, we
really see an edge just kind ofyour small to medium sized
growers. Based on, you know, ourprojected price point and
volume, we're projecting over100 pounds an hour, which is
quite a bit more than acompetition right now. I think
we've have a pretty good idea ofthat market. From a grower
(13:07):
standpoint, I thinkcommercially, we see
opportunities with infusions andedibles. And even if you go to
like California, you startseeing strain specific edibles
and things where these growersare starting to do solventless
extraction. And again, this iswhere we started learning from
(13:30):
from one industry for the other.
Actually, last year at mjbizcon.
John Mackey, the CEO of WholeFoods spoke, and it triggered a
light bulb when he startedtalking. I was like, Wait a
second 2530 years ago, everybodywas laughing at the people going
to Whole Foods. Yeah. And it wasseen as that very niche and you
know, crunchy granola, andwhatever I can, you know, today,
(13:54):
nobody wants chemicals in theirfood, right? So the question is
for those people that are finewith it, that's great. But for
those that don't want chemicals,what options you have if again,
Keith and hash are not there.
You're starting to get to, youknow, in the edibles, they're
using distillates which arestripping out the terpenes to
degree. So this is now a way ofhaving that full experience. And
(14:15):
this is what the growers and theprocesses are really looking to
get to the consumers. We alsosee a big opportunity in a
culinary space, the value one ofthe values of sifting and
extracting the key out is you'reremoving the chlorophyll, you're
removing the leaf matter itself.
(14:37):
So that infusion is muchcleaner. It's much tastier, it's
much more potent, but it givesyou a much cleaner experience.
Again, not better justdifferent. And we see that
translating from a you knowcommercial culinary to everyday
people in the kitchen. So as wego from that commercial level to
(15:00):
the consumer, you're right outof the gate, it's going to be
niche. It's going to be homegrowers that have a whole bunch
of extra trim and larf that wetalked to Tom through, like,
yeah, I've got a couple poundsof trim sitting around and I
don't know what to do with it,or you talk to the guy. It's
like, yeah, I process it, but ittakes me like, you know, two or
three days of doing it manual.
It's like, oh, my gosh, yeah,like you that's again, that's
(15:23):
your hardcore passion people.
Yeah. Within that subset, thoseare guys are looking to get to
the hash and the stuff that youcan't buy at the at the
dispensaries. But on the flipside of that, and as we look to
the next generation of cannabisconsumers that are looking,
again, to evolve, we very, verymuch believe that, you know,
(15:46):
the, there's going to be amarket where today, it's like
dinner parties, and it's wineand how you pair with wine. At
some point, it's going to becannabis. And it's going to be
throwing dinner parties for yourfriends and infusing the food
and bringing them on a journey.
Yeah, and we really see thismachine is something that,
honestly, we use, like kitchenin a Kitchenaid and gravel as
(16:07):
brand examples as a foundationfor how we designed, you know,
solid steel, 23 pounds, it'sbuilt like a tank, but you know,
and it's about 75 decibels. Soas loud as a blender. And in
seconds, you can have all thekeys you need for your recipes.
So that we see that kind of likethe ability to now have it not
(16:29):
only on demand, but to be ableto kind of now mix and match and
make your own creations issomething you've never been able
to before to now really takecontrol and shape how you want
to feel.
Ronjini Joshua (16:44):
Yeah, I mean, this is really interesting,
because we get to see a lot ofthese different like, even, I
mean, there's a lot oftechnology that's going into
cannabis now, and I don't know,what do you think about? How do
you feel about the pandemic? Andhow that affected the cannabis
industry? I hear. Some peoplesay that it accelerated it, some
(17:05):
people feel like it kind of puta stamp on it, especially with
the finance in the financesector, like what do you what is
your opinion, like? Did thathelp you? Fine tune what you
guys are doing now? Are youupset that you wasted a year at
home? You know, where do youstand on
Chad Johnson (17:23):
that? It's a great question. So starting at the
macro level for the industry, Ipersonally think it's gonna be a
few years until we really knowhow this affected the trajectory
of the industry, because it's sonew. And I don't want to say
it's unprecedented because it'sreally not I mean, look at like,
you know, you know, Spanish fluin 1918. So things like this
(17:44):
have happened before. It's justgoing to be interesting as far
as how quickly it's going toramp up how much the
conversation changes. Yeah, nowthat people are out and about
because, you know, cannabis isreally, it's a very social,
social plant when consuming. SoI think now that people are
(18:04):
going to be out and about andmingling, I think, you know,
conversations are going to startchanging. Once you get out of
the social media vacuum of beinglocked in a house from a
heightened perspective.
Initially, we hated it likeeverybody else. But in
hindsight, like any goodentrepreneur, we can see the
(18:24):
silver lining and where wereally benefited from it. And I
think what it did is it helpedus in a, in a safer space, get a
lot more nose and tell us wherewe were wrong. Tell us, you
know, what people didn't likeabout the machine, why they
weren't going to buy it, wherethe messaging was confusing. And
we just use all this kind ofindividual one on one
(18:47):
communication, to keep evolvingevery single message, the big
benefit that it had his youknow, from a marketing
standpoint, my partners and Iunderstood coming in, if you
lead with commercial, it's goingto be very hard as a brand to
bridge the gap to consumer, onceyou really established yourself.
So what the pandemic allowed usto do was take the time to
(19:10):
really build out the brandFoundation, all of the right
ways of doing things. And thenwe just happen to bifurcate that
messaging. So it all for so bothconsumer and commercial can live
under that macro umbrella ofcontrol over experiences,
Ronjini Joshua (19:29):
right? Yeah, no, that's, that's awesome. I like
that. It's a little bit of boththen. Yeah. Right. Well, I am so
glad you spent your time todaywith us.
Chad Johnson (19:42):
There's one other thing I want to touch on that we
didn't get to yes, please. Yes,I'd love to as far as kind of
like for me again. So Ipersonally a big fan of Simon
Sinek start with why andinfinite game. And to me so much
of this has to have some sort ofpurpose behind it. It's my
frustration of working marketingfor 20 years and working for so
(20:04):
many wonderful companies whoseintentions were great. But the
actions when it came to actuallygiving back and doing more often
fell short in realities. Andpart of my frustration coming in
as, as I sit here today, someonewho has been diagnosed with
generalized anxiety disorder hada number of other issues over my
(20:24):
life that I realized if I hadbetter better understood
cannabis, how different my lifehad been before earlier. And it
makes me because I, my anxietydisorder led me to do things I
honestly don't believe I wouldhave done if I had better
understanding and better controlover and now, this is not
(20:46):
cannabis would have solved it.
This is hey, at least it wouldhave been another tool. So where
someone was, and oh, okay,whatever my takeaway was, it
made me angry. Yeah, really,really, really, actually just
angry, that there are so manypeople suffering unnecessarily.
And nobody's willing to fund theresearch at scale, because it's
(21:12):
very difficult to patent a plantand profit. So the whole idea is
heighten exists to crowdsourcefund cannabis research at a
global scale. So the plan is,once we get up and running and
profitable, is to literallystart taking profits, and
directly fund research and thenmake it publicly available,
(21:33):
because it's just the rightthing to do. And when you buy
the machine, not only yougetting great technology, you're
helping get more out of your buggetting better experiences. Oh,
by the way, you're also youhappen to be paying it forward
to helping someone else out to.
And that really, that is whyafter five years of being told
(21:53):
no, and getting beaten down, andhaving the world against me,
including my family, at onepoint, actually one of my
business partners is not aconsumer and walked away at one
point, because he was sopassionate on the other end,
that is why the business existsis to help other people.
Ronjini Joshua (22:14):
Well, I mean, I've talked to plenty of
researchers that are alwayslooking for funds. And it's it
is it's impossible for them toget the funding that they need.
They're, you know, constantlyhaving to justify what they're
working on. And it's hard to dothat when they haven't been able
to work on it long enough. Andthen their funds run out. So
this is awesome. It's a great,really great way to give back to
people that you know, have hadsimilar like experiences as you
(22:38):
have. And you know, one of thethings that I we talk about in
this podcast two is that, youknow, a lot of the people that
are coming in here are verypassionate, very dedicated,
they're like, they're in it towin it, they want to see this
through. And I think it's such areally cool volatile time where
you can become I mean, eventhough it's not the beginning of
the cannabis industry, it's kindof the beginning of the cannabis
(22:59):
very much the big game. So like,you know, we've we see, yeah,
we're learning from peoplewho've been in it for a while.
But now it's like, actually, thewheels are turning and, and
things are changing andshifting. And there's cool
technologies that are likeallowing experiences to happen
in so many different ways. Soit's very, very exciting. I
really appreciate your insight,I would love to talk to you a
(23:22):
little bit more about you know,just what you guys are expecting
here at mjbizcon this year. And,you know, like we were all
hidden away last year. So whatare you what are you most
excited about here at the showtoday?
Chad Johnson (23:36):
Honestly, to be in person? Yeah, at the show. We
learned, you know, getting oneof our learnings last year doing
mjbizcon online, for as much,you know, interest is now people
were getting in the product whenpeople see it. If people haven't
seen it, and you're can't see itin person, it's hard for people
to really understand the valuebecause it's not really top of
(23:56):
mind for anyone. So now beingthere in person being able to
show off the machine and moreimportantly, just talk to
people. You know, I think that'swhat's really exciting. And I
think the other is theopportunity to learn. Because
there's so much to your pointand so much other great
technology out there. And youknow, you know startups and
(24:16):
businesses that like I My hopeis there are a ton more guys out
in the garage or women out inthe garage, just like me,
because we are the guys at theshow the really big guys their
worst nightmare. Yeah.
Ronjini Joshua (24:32):
That's funny, um, that I love everything that
you're saying. What do youthink? What do you what do you
expect out of the show? I mean,obviously you guys are coming.
You're launching a new product.
Can you tell us a little bitmore about kind of like, what
your approach is to coming in asa little guy? Yeah, up against
the
Chad Johnson (24:49):
David David versus Goliath. Yeah. Interesting side
note, David David versusGoliath. If everyone's a fan of
Malcolm Gladwell. He's a reallyfascinating theory. We're
actually David Wood. was the onethat was more favored than
Goliath in that fight. It's afact. It's a fascinating high
theory, okay. But it's thatwhole mentality of you might be
(25:10):
the small, we might be thestartup. But we also understand
that the patent that the patentpending technology we have is
unlike anything else at theshow, so one would love to see
if there's anything like it.
Yeah. And to havingconversations with the right
potential partners, as we lookat, you know, growers and
processors, but there's tons ofgreat you know, distributors,
(25:31):
wholesalers, online retailers,brick and mortar retailers,
would love to talk with, youknow, the exhibitors in the
culinary industry and just learnwhat don't we know, that? That,
you know, would be great toknow, one and two, how can we
help you? Yes, that's thebiggest thing that I found from
the conversations and thepartners that we're working with
(25:53):
today. It's a mutuallybeneficial relationship. Yeah,
you know, innovate the product.
Exactly. And it's more of, youknow, they, they, you know, as a
younger company, and I thinkthere's a lot of passion and
drive around the startup and theuniqueness I think is what is
(26:15):
you know, standing out to toother kind of vendors and those
in the field and I think that'sreally where we hope to get the
most out of being in person andand having those one to one
conversations Yeah,
Ronjini Joshua (26:29):
I'm sure that everyone despite whatever is
happening, I know likeeveryone's just happy to be out
at this point. Because yeah,it's pretty obvious that it was
about time for people to getback to business I think very
much so. Well, it's been lovelytalking to you. I can't wait to
see what else you guys come outwith and like how everything
(26:49):
works out because I Yeah, I'msure I have a feeling that this
is just the beginning the tip ofthe iceberg for heighten and
we're looking forward to seeingwhat you guys are going to come
up with. Yeah. Housingsifter.com, heightened sifter.
We'll have all the everything inthe show notes so everyone will
be able to find you. Awesome.
Thank you. All right. Thank youguys. The Green Room podcast is
(27:09):
brought to life by green seedPR, cannabis green tech focus PR
agency, and a dedicatedproduction team of editors
mixers and show Booker's. A hugethank you to the vessel team for
providing their studio for ourrecording. Don't forget to
subscribe and share thegreenroom podcast with friends,
colleagues and family. That wayyou'll never miss an episode and
(27:32):
we can keep the lights on. Ifyou're feeling extra generous.
Please leave us a review onfavorite podcast listening
platform. You can also find uson Instagram at green seed PR
and to the live video versionsof all of our podcasts on
YouTube. Would you like to be onthe guest on the show or do you
have a great guest referral?
Awesome. Submit your guests atGreen hyphen room. Thanks for
(27:58):
listening and be well
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