POSaBIT provides a complete payment solution for any and all cannabis retailers and dispensaries. With an innovative point-of-sale and a host of cannabis payment options they provide a one stop solution to run your cannabis shot. Ryan Hamlin CEO and Founder of POSaBIT joins us to chat about doing business in the Cannabis Industry and what you need to know.
Video Transcription
Harry Brelsford 0:03 Hey 420MSP Harry here, continuing our podcast series with the logos on the Cannatech ecosystem stack behind me. This is an exciting one. We’re with POSaBIT, you’re down in the financial services bucket. I’m with Ryan Hamlin, sir, what is your story? What is POSaBIT? What’s going on?
Ryan Hamlin 1:00 Well, you know, POSaBIT has been around, I think of ourselves. It was almost a veteran in this new industry. We started the company in 2015. We’re a FinTech provider to the cannabis industry. And and we really came into that space, because we felt like that was where the greatest need was, particularly from a software standpoint. Obviously, cash only industry, you know, schedule one still. So traditional Merchant Services weren’t there. My background was with Microsoft. I was an executive there for 17 years. And so a group of us from from Amazon, Google, Microsoft got together and said, Hey, we really want to be in this cannabis industry. And let’s focus on software. And let’s try to solve this this FinTech problem that the industry has so rolled out our first payment product in late 2015. And, wow, yeah. Yeah, I can proudly say that we’re the number one provider in the space now, and our guests are almost our seventh year. And we offer full debit credit in ach capabilities. We work directly with the banks. We are a money services business. So we obviously have to abide by all of the AML policies and work closely with finCEN. And so, you know, compliance is really our goal in this industry, as you know, it’s extremely important. And particularly when you’re talking about finances and merchant services.
Harry Brelsford 2:27 Yeah, absolutely. And if you don’t mind, cuz, on the other side of the aisle, my parent company, SMB Nation, we’re a Microsoft partner community. So have had a long relationship with Microsoft, I was over in small business server and infrastructure. Quickly, what was your role at Microsoft? You got my curiosity? Yeah.
Ryan Hamlin 2:46 Well, I started in 94. And I was in the consumer space on MSN. And then I took over all of the security software for the company. So I ran the anti spam team, anti phishing all the antivirus. And then moved over and ran the forefront security suite for Windows Server and in the enterprise space. So yeah, it was started in product and worked my way up through, you know, poem and product manager and GM and and my last job running forefront was managing a team of about 1500 people and had about a half a billion in revenue responsibilities.
Harry Brelsford 3:23 Oh, boy. Yeah, that’s a real job. Well, let’s talk about that. How was the transition been with your other geek friends from fortune one, arguably, where I was never very successful in my career, because I’m an entrepreneur, so you’re an entrepreneur. Let’s talk about that. And then I have one or two more questions on POSaBIT yeah,
Ryan Hamlin 3:43 no, great question. And it’s, it’s, it’s funny, because I didn’t know what I didn’t know, when I was at Microsoft, you, you’re surrounded by a lot of talented people. And when you, you know, go into an area where you’re not an expert, there’s somebody there to help you. When you run your own company, you are the expert. And whether you like it or not, you wear every hat. So I can honestly say, and I joke with my Microsoft and Amazon friends today, I tell them, Hey, you guys have no idea really how to run a company. Until you’re responsible for employee salaries, and you’re responsible for product vision, and raising capital, and all of the HR side and all the legal side of it. Like, you know, I think I thought I knew a lot when I was at Microsoft, but man, I was pretty naive. It wasn’t until I really started doing this, that I and I love it. I mean, I honestly I wouldn’t trade it for a world but you know, it’s it’s funny, because we all have seen, you know, what Microsoft and other companies have continued to grow. And I’m sure my wife would have probably said I’d been nice if he would have stayed but I think, you know, for personal growth and for experience and frankly, I you know, POSaBIT is doing very, very well and we expect you know, big things coming out of that but, you know, it’s definitely a different world.
Harry Brelsford 4:58 Yeah, no, I Absolute I’m always curious, because again, I’ve had a long relationship with Microsoft. Now one of the things you get at Microsoft and I was a Microsoft vendor, just to be clear. But one of the things you had were, you alluded to the intellectual resources, but you had financial resources. And so here, you broke out and you’re, you’re being the entrepreneur. So have you grown organically? Or have you gone out and raised capital? I’m always interested in how people get there.
Ryan Hamlin 5:27 Well, I will say that was kind of fortunate is that I was there long enough to have a lot of good friends. So when we first came out, I did some seed capital myself, and then yeah, tapped into my buddies, and did some Angel raising through kind of my own network. And then you know, we did make the decision in 2018 to go public so POSaBIT, it is a publicly traded Oh, and forgive
Harry Brelsford 5:50 me, forgive me. I don’t know if there’s a lot of logos, man, I’m still learning.
Ryan Hamlin 5:54 So yeah, so we’re traded on the CSC. And our simple SP bit there, and then we’re on the OTC as well as POSAF. And so yeah, you know, since then, since going public, obviously, you know, things change there too. I mean, I earnings got my q1 earnings call next week, right? I mean, the whole world changes with financial audits and earnings calls and everything. So again, kind of another fun thing of being an entrepreneur and very different than you know, my time at Microsoft.
Harry Brelsford 6:22 All right, Ryan. Well, thank you, sir, for enlightening us in what POSaBIT does, I’ll, I’m gonna keep an eye on you again, as I as I play a principal analyst on YouTube. My job is to keep an eye on things. In fact, if you’re inviting analyst onto that call, if you could make a note, maybe shoot me a note now. I if I can I that’s that’s part of my job, love. All right. Thank you, Ryan. Thank you, Jenny.
Ryan Hamlin 6:49 Thank you. Have a great day.
