The pot delivery space is heating up: Canary and Dave have combined forces in Seattle and Eaze just raised $10 million to deliver Mary Jane to San Francisco. But very few pot delivery startups focus on the actual product.
GreenRush focuses on dispensaries and their products, giving those vendors the opportunity to list their own inventory. It offers an online portal for both new and returning users to check out a detailed menu of products from dispensaries they already know.
Most medical marijuana delivery services focus on providing a fleet of delivery people to facilitate deliveries, but the actual variety of strains and products are limited. With GreenRush, users can search by dispensaries they already know, and products they’ve already purchased, so that they get exactly what they expect.
“I use a food analogy for it,” said Founder and CEO Paul Warshaw. “When you go to GrubHub or Seamless to order a burrito, you wouldn’t want GrubHub or Seamless to choose which burrito you get. We’re applying that depth of control to the medical marijuana space.”
GreenRush partners with dispensaries that have their own delivery people, simply allowing those dispensaries to sign up for free and start listing inventory. Once users are verified, they can place orders from various dispensaries complete with the same order/reorder process you’d see on a GrubHub or Seamless.
Dispensaries can sign up and list products for free and are charged between 5 percent and 10 percent for each transaction made through the platform.
For the past three months, GreenRush partnered with five dispensaries for a beta test that ended up processing around 2,000 orders, and the company is finally ready to go live to the public.
With a history in marketing (from his previous company BallDrop), Warshaw feels like customer acquisition is where GreenRush will give competitors a run for their money.
The company is thus far self-funded but has a strategic partnership with Ecann, which owns and operates a number of properties in the cannabis space, to help leverage Ecann’s various brands for co-marketing opportunities.
Warshaw says the biggest challenge right now centers around understanding the laws in each municipality and each state as the company expands beyond the San Francisco area.
You can check out GreenRush here.