International Startup Event – PIRATE Summit 2020 – Features Cannabis Entrepreneur John Manlove

John Manlove, the CEO and Founder of Apex Trading and Bushel44, wasn’t on a plane this morning headed to Europe, but he was up early to speak virtually at this year’s PIRATE Summit broadcasting live from Cologne, Germany. PIRATE Summit brings together the movers and shakers of the digital world. In fact, it’s Europe’s largest invitation-only conference for early-stage startups, investors and corporate executives.

John’s presentation – Keeping Focused While Capitalizing on Opportunity within the Emerging Cannabis and Hemp Industries – takes a look at the history of cannabis throughout the ages, delves into the origin story of Apex Trading, examines how Apex Trading and Bushel44 solve problems, and how the companies remain focused through it all.

Here’s a sneak-peak at some of John’s speaking notes from the presentation: “As with all technology companies we’re here to solve problems. And while the cannabis and hemp industries are unique, at the core they experience many of the same challenges as conventional manufacturing and agricultural industries.

A Way to Sell – Product and service providers need a way to sell their goods or services to buyers virtually. In craft industries like ours, traditional marketplaces offer value here but do very little to foster a relationship between a buyer and seller.

Manual Process Elimination -Not only do businesses need a way to facilitate selling/buying their good or service, but they also need to eliminate manual processes where possible – for example, what we like to call Excel Hell, resulting in countless hours spent simply manually updating information in spreadsheets.

Lack of Affordable All In One Solutions – Many companies, especially smaller startups, can’t afford an all-in-one solution like SAP/Oracle and typically rely on several different affordable pieces of software, which, unless integrated, results in double entry. 

Yet, as you can imagine our space is a bit unique:

Immature Market / Illicit – The a good chunk of owner/operators come from the illicit market and are tech adverse at first and skeptical of technology and may not fully understand the full ROI it provides

Overcrowded / Piecemeal Solutions – A market crowded with solutions, making it hard to identify the right solution and finding a close to an all-in-one as you can get.

Less Ability to Focus on Craft – The craft comes first, typically leading to inefficiency within the company. These people want to produce and sell, like the good ol’ days. Now they not only have to management expenses, payroll and much more but when it comes to sales there is a need for an alternative to the standard marketplace.”

We’ll provide a link to the presentation as soon as it becomes available.

In the meantime, to learn more about how Apex Trading can help your wholesale cannabis business with inventory, order and sales management, sign up for a quick demo – Wholesale Cannabis Management Demo.