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TRANSCRIPTION WITH SPEAKERS
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[00:00] SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Canada's podcast.
[00:05] SPEAKER_00: Hello everyone, I'm Bonnie Elge, one of your hosts of Canada's podcast.
[00:10] SPEAKER_00: And today I'm delighted to be here with Joel Taylor.
[00:14] SPEAKER_00: Joel is the founder of Patience Choice, a medical cannabis company headquartered here in Calgary, Alberta.
[00:21] SPEAKER_00: And Joel, welcome to the show. So glad that we could have you here today.
[00:25] SPEAKER_01: Thanks so much for having me, Bonnie. It's really great to be on Canada's podcast today.
[00:28] SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
[00:29] SPEAKER_00: Well, I think we need to jump right in.
[00:32] SPEAKER_00: Let's talk about how you began your career as an entrepreneur.
[00:36] SPEAKER_00: Has it always been something that's been in your blood or tell us a little bit about what has evolved for you over the years to lead you to this place?
[00:48] SPEAKER_01: Thanks, that.
[00:49] SPEAKER_01: You know, starting off as an entrepreneur was something that it wasn't something that came naturally to me as a kid.
[00:55] SPEAKER_01: It wasn't something I wasn't that kid selling candy bars out of their locker.
[00:58] SPEAKER_01: I'd love to say that that was the case, but it just wasn't, you know, it started off as, you know, helping friends with their businesses and realizing the freedom that they had while I was working away at a job or using my time off to work at another job to help my friends with their businesses.
[01:15] SPEAKER_01: And I just saw, I saw the stress in their face, but I certainly saw the amount of freedom that, you know, it gave them in the end, right?
[01:22] SPEAKER_01: The ability to say, this is what my business does.
[01:25] SPEAKER_01: These are the things that I want to do with my time and life.
[01:29] SPEAKER_01: And, you know, it was really, really exciting being a part of that.
[01:33] SPEAKER_01: You know, when I was in school as a heavy duty mechanic, I had an opportunity to buy a large wholesale lot of tools from a tool supplier because they were going out of business and they had them all on sale.
[01:44] SPEAKER_01: And I bought a pallet of them and I had them shipped to the house.
[01:47] SPEAKER_01: And then I began selling them to my classmates at SAIT as we were going through the program.
[01:53] SPEAKER_01: I guess I kind of caught the real bug at that point, understanding that, you know, there is opportunity to turn a side hustle or, you know, these jobs that everybody's doing on the side anyways for not enough money to turn that into something real.
[02:06] SPEAKER_01: I became involved in the medical cannabis space and I really saw what it was doing and I thought I don't have enough of a hand on affecting positive change to it.
[02:20] SPEAKER_01: And that was really something that I wanted to do was sort of change the way that medical cannabis looked in Canada.
[02:26] SPEAKER_01: And it wasn't about, you know, from an ego perspective of trying to put my thumbprint on something.
[02:30] SPEAKER_01: I just saw something that wasn't quite right and I knew I was in a position that I could affect the change.
[02:36] SPEAKER_01: And so that's why we want to develop patient choice to be able to do that to make it a little bit better for patients out there.
[02:42] SPEAKER_01: It's causing me a lot of gray hair and a stress out white, but I think at the end of the day, you know, we're trying to do something good and as an entrepreneur, it's really satisfying to do something that not just only is a successful business, but it also is kind of a place of heart as well.
[02:57] SPEAKER_01: It feels good to be doing something good as well, a positive impact for your business.
[03:02] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, for sure. Well, and I'm curious like it, I mean, it's still a relatively new industry in Canada from the perspective.
[03:12] SPEAKER_00: It's just been legalized for a few years. So what has it been like to navigate that?
[03:17] SPEAKER_00: Like I would imagine it's a huge learning curve and with all of the regulations and different bodies that you must have to be accountable to it must have been quite quite an effort to really understand and navigate that industry.
[03:35] SPEAKER_01: Oh, it's unbelievable, you know, and health Canada, it's they're not the easiest to deal with and I understand, you know, with the global pandemic and everything like that, health Canada is very underwater with a lot of things.
[03:47] SPEAKER_01: And so, you know, managing the medical cannabis regime has become very difficult, but, you know, when we were putting together patient choice, I knew that there were certain things that I just can't do.
[03:57] SPEAKER_01: I just don't know so we need someone who's technical, we need someone that can actually go through the terrifying health Canada stereo instructions of regulations that they have for us.
[04:08] SPEAKER_01: And I just sought out those partners and work with relationships that I had for people that were really good at certain things.
[04:15] SPEAKER_01: And it's just sort of aggregating good people that you know to put together a business and that's what that's what makes it successful is, you know, reaching within your network to find outside of your network.
[04:27] SPEAKER_01: My partner and compliance Jeff Myers actually did our license. He was the first individual license holder in Canada.
[04:34] SPEAKER_01: We had to get it amended to become a business, but Jeff is just absolutely phenomenal when it comes to reading and understanding the regulatory process of health Canada.
[04:43] SPEAKER_01: And, you know, I can't thank him enough for being a part of the team for that. It's just not something that I have the patience to do or I don't know if it's the wherewithal, but I just can't sit there and read stereo instructions like that.
[04:57] SPEAKER_01: And having a partner that's able to do that is completely invaluable. So you need to seek those people out when you're aggregating everybody together to build your team.
[05:05] SPEAKER_01: That's really what the success is of everyone around you coming together to make a business successful as a entrepreneur. It's not just you. It's got to be everybody.
[05:15] SPEAKER_00: Everybody, absolutely. So you and I were chatting before it before the interview. You talked a little bit about you've had a lot of lessons learned by or failing forward.
[05:29] SPEAKER_00: And I wonder if you could maybe share a couple of you know, I think our entrepreneurial community is always wanting to learn from each other and and how do you bounce back when you run into Robo Watson challenges.
[05:42] SPEAKER_00: What are some of your stories and how have you overcome those challenges?
[05:48] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, failing is is all part of it. And and sometimes you fail fantastically. Sometimes it is absolutely atrocious and painful and stressful and it takes time to recover from these things.
[06:03] SPEAKER_01: All of these things are impermanent and you can continue to move forward and don't let the idea of you know failing stop you.
[06:12] SPEAKER_01: You're going to fail. You're going to fail all the time. I mean, we'd never walk if we if we weren't falling down as toddlers and rolling around on the floor, but it's it's having that courage to get up and try again. And then when everything's against you to just kind of got it and keep on going.
[06:30] SPEAKER_01: Not knowing when you're licked, I think that the human spirit is something that holds a lot more power over us than we really kind of understand sometimes and you know, I don't mean that from the point of view where I've got crystals and stuff all over my house or anything like that.
[06:45] SPEAKER_01: And then he don't people to do that, but you know, there's a lot more within you for mental and physical endurance than then you really realize and you can get through things.
[06:55] SPEAKER_01: You can get through these tough things and in the second you come out the other side of it and you look back in the rear view mirror, they start to look pretty small when you're facing them at just its a mountain, but in the rear view mirror, which it will be one day, you know, you think, wow, that was that was an incredible learning experience.
[07:11] SPEAKER_01: It feels like being at sea where you're constantly drowning in the waves are getting bigger and bigger, but you kind of forget that you're getting much better. It's women the whole time and you know, it can be difficult, but you're really, really succeeding or a lot of other people are sort of giving up or losing hope and just hang in there.
[07:28] SPEAKER_01: You got it. It's within you.
[07:31] SPEAKER_00: So what, Joel, what helps to keep you grounded? Like what are some of the things maybe that you do personally, whether it's, you know, within your routine or some of the podcast books, whatever you might pull on, like what helps to keep you grounded so you can have the resilience to get through those times.
[07:50] SPEAKER_01: Oh my god, my wife.
[07:53] SPEAKER_01: Number one, that's my partner.
[07:56] SPEAKER_01: You know, it's really, really important to have someone that you trust, someone that you can, someone that you can talk to, someone that you can tell all of these problems to be a mentor or a spouse or partner or someone.
[08:09] SPEAKER_01: You have to be able to discuss these things with someone that can just accept what you're saying and not necessarily poor tons of advice on you and you should have could have done this and you should have could have done that.
[08:22] SPEAKER_01: You need to be able to share these things in order to get them out so that you can talk about them, think through what it is that's going on with you and my wife has been an absolute gem.
[08:32] SPEAKER_01: She's a perfect sounding board.
[08:36] SPEAKER_01: She loves to play devil's advocate for me as well, which is for me is incredibly helpful, you know, she loves to be able to reverse the role for me so I can, so that I can step out and take a second perspective.
[08:47] SPEAKER_01: But I think that that's really important.
[08:50] SPEAKER_01: Finding ways to relieve stress as an entrepreneur is a must and I don't mean you need to go out and go skydiving or anything ridiculous like that.
[08:59] SPEAKER_01: If it's just watering your plants or taking a few minutes to stretch or taking the luxury time of being able to walk your kids to school and things like that, those are really grounding moments for you that kind of say, hey, you know, this is my life, this is what's happening here.
[09:13] SPEAKER_01: I've got a lot of work stress, which is pretty normal for entrepreneurs and startups, but you need that grounding moment where you can just go to bring yourself together and say, this is not so bad.
[09:24] SPEAKER_01: I'm creating a great life here.
[09:26] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, good people in it.
[09:34] SPEAKER_00: And so what fuels that passion for you in terms of what keeps you going, you certainly are in need to stream and share some of those challenges.
[09:45] SPEAKER_00: So what keeps you going like what's your vision for for patients choice and how you want the business to go.
[09:53] SPEAKER_01: But what I would really like to see for patients choice is ultimately to create a space where medical cannabis patients be them growers or just cannabis users, you know, topicals, edibles, whatever it is if they are.
[10:09] SPEAKER_01: I want them to have a place where it's easy for them to access a large variety of licensed producers.
[10:17] SPEAKER_01: I want to streamline the over complex medical cannabis processes and regulatory compliance hoops that they have to jump through make that as simple as possible.
[10:27] SPEAKER_01: I think that we kind of forget that the reason we're here in the medical cannabis space is because of the medical patients.
[10:34] SPEAKER_01: Now recreational cannabis is very popular and I know that medical patients like to dip into wreck because it's it's the grab and go.
[10:43] SPEAKER_01: It's easy to go into a store and manage medication and things like that.
[10:46] SPEAKER_01: I'd really like to see a lot more focus in the medical industry of medical specific brands medical specific products.
[10:54] SPEAKER_01: I'd like to see much more much more education go out there for patients as well.
[11:00] SPEAKER_01: Now that when my license holder I can't I can't make suggestions to patients and I have to be cautious about how we educate our patients.
[11:08] SPEAKER_01: And we just really like to see patients have a lot more education coming into, you know, the marketplace where they're actually buying.
[11:16] SPEAKER_01: And I'd like to see a little more equity for, you know, sort of small to medium size cannabis producers and enterprises micro cultivators to be able to reach directly out to a patient and sell to them directly.
[11:28] SPEAKER_01: Good medication without having to go to a recreational channel where they're losing 50% off the top or being held hostage by a large scale license producer where they're having to bulk sell cannabis out to an LP that sits on it for months and months and then sells it when it's dry and stay.
[11:45] SPEAKER_01: Those are some of the things that we'd like to see change in medical cannabis, but the reins are pretty tight right now and Canada health cannabis holding it pretty tight.
[11:53] SPEAKER_01: I understand that they don't want to let the horse all the way out of the barn because it's very difficult to get it back in, but I think we'll see a lot of the regulation over the next couple of years and I think that'll be a good thing.
[12:03] SPEAKER_00: Right, right.
[12:05] SPEAKER_00: Well, and I mean your your businesses online. So were you impacted at all with that pandemic or did you see did you have to pivot or make any adjustments as a result of what we've been living through over the last 18 months or.
[12:23] SPEAKER_01: It's it's something that you know every business and every Canadian was affected by thankfully our direct business wasn't affected by COVID-19 as much as a lot of others, but I would say that our partners and people that we work with on a day to day basis our staff our contractors.
[12:40] SPEAKER_01: Even our partners at LPs I feel like they were hit very hard with COVID-19 restrictions regulations and things like that these gardens they still need to produce medication and it's putting a lot more undo both financial stress and just sort of you know personnel staffing issues on hold for a lot of people you know we worked with our partners and tried to make sure that.
[13:02] SPEAKER_01: You know we were part of a solution on there and rather than another stress or for them.
[13:07] SPEAKER_01: But as our businesses and online medical cannabis sales platform we have been very very lucky that anybody that works with us is able to work from home.
[13:17] SPEAKER_01: We don't have to have them come into the office or anything like that our office is absolutely empty now other than Christmas trees and winter tires that we let everybody store.
[13:29] SPEAKER_00: So what do you do as you start to see think open up again like will you continue to have your team more dispersed and remote or do you hope to bring everybody back together because that's also a challenge now I think a lot of entrepreneurs are faced with okay how what is our go forward plan now that we've been working remotely for so such a long time.
[13:50] SPEAKER_01: I mean for sure I miss people I miss our people and of course I want to be with our people and it's things open up absolutely will make time to be together we can schedule times where you know we can come together and have meetings and things like that but we're seeing a lot of productivity and just sort of everybody that works with us is happier working from home it's not that they're unhappy in the office or you know just the productivity is higher because people can get up and it's not that we're not happy with the office or you know just the productivity is higher because people can get up and we are happy with this and that's not the end of the day.
[14:20] SPEAKER_01: They're not up from their desk and they can go pet their dog for a minute if they're if they're stressed out or if you know they have a lot going on whereas in the office you know you're sitting there with other people and you're in a you know it's a confined space and your whole mood is nice and light in my house like I've got you know my pets here got my kids here and I think that you know as a community a business people and entrepreneurs and you know employers and staff I think it's really humanized a lot of us as well.
[14:48] SPEAKER_01: maybe not for you or maybe for you, but when I have meetings and you're having a very
[14:54] SPEAKER_01: serious professional meeting with a partner or something like that and you hear baby crying
[14:58] SPEAKER_01: in the background or someone's running in for a kiss goodbye before school, that's something
[15:03] SPEAKER_01: that I really, I'm grateful to see and I really appreciate that.
[15:06] SPEAKER_01: It's the humanization of all of our partners and people that we do business on the daily
[15:11] SPEAKER_01: and it's something I really love.
[15:13] SPEAKER_01: I love to see somebody's dog barking at the Amazon guy or...
[15:17] SPEAKER_00: Totally, it kind of levels the playing field for everybody, doesn't it?
[15:22] SPEAKER_01: It's nice to know that you're doing business with human beings rather than, you know, such
[15:26] SPEAKER_01: as some faceless, nameless entity out there with a corporate ID.
[15:30] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, for sure.
[15:32] SPEAKER_00: Well, one of the things that I wanted to touch upon before we wrap things up is that
[15:37] SPEAKER_00: you've also had experience expanding into the US and thought that there could be some
[15:45] SPEAKER_00: good lessons or maybe insights you could share for our listeners that way, you know,
[15:50] SPEAKER_00: those that are maybe looking to go to those markets south of the border as part of their
[15:56] SPEAKER_00: growth plans.
[15:57] SPEAKER_00: So, can you maybe walk us through a bit about what that experience has been like for you?
[16:03] SPEAKER_01: For sure.
[16:04] SPEAKER_01: Doing business in the US is, at the end of the day, business is sort of when you're down
[16:10] SPEAKER_01: to the hard numbers of business, business is business and business people are shrewd
[16:14] SPEAKER_01: and we do shrewd business and it's...
[16:17] SPEAKER_01: But the culture in the United States, we think of them as our neighbors and we're the
[16:21] SPEAKER_01: same, we're all the same, we're very different than they are and that's okay and I don't
[16:24] SPEAKER_01: mean that as in a negative way at all.
[16:27] SPEAKER_01: Just the way people operate in the business world in the United States is a little bit different
[16:31] SPEAKER_01: from the way it is in Canada.
[16:33] SPEAKER_01: So, you know, temper your expectations about that and make sure that you're ready to do
[16:38] SPEAKER_01: shrewd business with partners down there.
[16:40] SPEAKER_01: I really had a great time working in the US.
[16:44] SPEAKER_01: I learned an enormous amount down there.
[16:47] SPEAKER_01: The United States cannabis market is absolutely crazy.
[16:51] SPEAKER_01: It's not like anything going on here in Canada.
[16:54] SPEAKER_01: The Canadian cannabis market is very Canadian.
[16:57] SPEAKER_01: The US cannabis market is very American.
[17:01] SPEAKER_01: Canadian as much as we like to think we're wild and crazy and do all these new and innovative
[17:07] SPEAKER_01: exciting things.
[17:08] SPEAKER_01: Canadians are very by the book people and we kind of do the ABC.
[17:13] SPEAKER_01: We're in the US and the cannabis market.
[17:15] SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's very wild last and that's super normal for it to be that way.
[17:20] SPEAKER_01: They still store their cash and facilities like because they're worried about banking
[17:25] SPEAKER_01: and then, you know, a lot of these things are just absolutely wild because the staff are
[17:30] SPEAKER_01: worried about raids and things like this in states that aren't necessarily, you know,
[17:35] SPEAKER_01: it's the wild west still down there and it's exciting.
[17:38] SPEAKER_01: It's exciting, but you know, when you're traveling abroad to do that type of work, you know,
[17:43] SPEAKER_01: there are risks that you're accepting as a Canadian as well, right?
[17:46] SPEAKER_01: So, I think it's really exciting.
[17:49] SPEAKER_01: I think there's a ton of lessons to be learned down there.
[17:51] SPEAKER_01: It is a huge, huge, huge, huge market and here in Canada, if you think you're a fish of any sort
[17:58] SPEAKER_01: down there, people have no idea who you are, what you're doing or what's going on.
[18:02] SPEAKER_01: So, make sure you check your ego when you're doing business in the United States as well.
[18:07] SPEAKER_01: And there's a lot of really, really good passionate people down there doing some really,
[18:13] SPEAKER_01: really amazing things and prepare yourself to be wild because there are some fantastic people
[18:19] SPEAKER_01: down there who've been working at this for a very, very long time with a government that's not
[18:23] SPEAKER_01: nearly as accepting a cannabis as we are here in Canada.
[18:27] SPEAKER_01: So, it's exciting.
[18:29] SPEAKER_01: It's a little bit dangerous at times.
[18:32] SPEAKER_01: But it's totally worth it.
[18:34] SPEAKER_01: If you've got it in you to make a go for it, make the plan and take the plunge for sure.
[18:42] SPEAKER_00: Well, I mean, this is such a unique industry and different than, then, you know, I think a lot
[18:48] SPEAKER_00: of those traditional business dreams. I'm wondering, what advice would you give to a Canadian entrepreneur
[18:55] SPEAKER_00: who's like, you know, I'm really thinking I'd like to go into the cannabis industry, the
[19:01] SPEAKER_00: medical cannabis industry, what would be some of the things that you would say they need to be
[19:06] SPEAKER_00: prepared for and maybe what are those skills that you need to have or traits that you need to have
[19:13] SPEAKER_00: to be successful?
[19:15] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I would say have patience.
[19:19] SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
[19:20] SPEAKER_01: It's going to take a long time.
[19:22] SPEAKER_01: The red tape to travel through the regulatory processes in medical or rec
[19:29] SPEAKER_01: are very, very difficult and they take time.
[19:34] SPEAKER_01: You've got to be in for a long haul.
[19:36] SPEAKER_01: This is not a quick rich scheme.
[19:39] SPEAKER_01: Like, it just doesn't happen that you have to put in the work, you have to put in the time.
[19:44] SPEAKER_01: Maybe at the, you know, sort of maybe five years ago, you'd be able to get in and out of cannabis
[19:49] SPEAKER_01: a little bit quicker. Not so much now. It's a long haul and it's a long-term business and it's
[19:58] SPEAKER_01: self and with health Canada that gets through that time. Don't give up. It's absolutely worth it.
[20:06] SPEAKER_01: There's going to be a lot of meetings that you have that are completely pointless and a lot of
[20:10] SPEAKER_01: people that are trying to leverage what you have and what you built to try and leap-prog themselves
[20:16] SPEAKER_01: ahead. Help those that you can help but be aware of people that are leveraging you, your business
[20:23] SPEAKER_01: or your time and experience for nothing. You work very hard to get where you are and make sure
[20:30] SPEAKER_01: you're charging a premium for that to people that should be paying. You're worth it.
[20:35] SPEAKER_01: You got to make sure that you know you're worth it.
[20:38] SPEAKER_00: Well, that's great advice. That's great advice. So if someone wants to learn a little bit more
[20:43] SPEAKER_00: about patient's choice or connect with you, how do we find you online? Where would be the best
[20:49] SPEAKER_01: places to do that? Yeah, you can get us at patient-choice.com. That's our online website. We're there.
[20:58] SPEAKER_01: It's very, very easy to use. It's very Spartan and we've kept it that way on purpose. We understand
[21:03] SPEAKER_01: that there's people out there that just we don't want them overwhelmed with a shopping experience
[21:08] SPEAKER_01: of you know a hundred million things out there and they're scrolling and scrolling and scrolling.
[21:13] SPEAKER_01: We're making a very fought out experience so that when people come to this site,
[21:18] SPEAKER_01: they're not just buried in another 10,000 gummy bears. Just no good.
[21:25] SPEAKER_00: I said, I don't like gummy bears. Well, Joel, it's been so interesting to chat with you. Is there
[21:32] SPEAKER_00: anything else that you would like to to share with our listeners before we say goodbye today?
[21:38] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, for sure. And it's not related to my business. But if you see something that needs to be
[21:42] SPEAKER_01: changed and you think you can change it, you need to stand up and do it. You need to stand up and
[21:47] SPEAKER_01: act out because if it's not you, who's going to do it, you've got to be the one. So stand up,
[21:52] SPEAKER_00: get out there and go get it. You know what? I can't think of a better way to end the show. So thank
[21:58] SPEAKER_00: you so much for those inspiring words and for sharing your knowledge about you know an industry
[22:05] SPEAKER_00: that we're still learning, how to navigate and it sounds like there's still a lot of work to be
[22:09] SPEAKER_00: done but really enjoy chatting with you and best of luck to you as you go forward. Thank you very
[22:15] SPEAKER_01: much. Thank you, Bonnie. I really appreciate your kind words. We're grateful for you guys out there
[22:19] SPEAKER_01: and that's all you entrepreneurs out there. You've got this just keep taking 80 bitty tiny steps,
[22:26] SPEAKER_00: one baby step at a time. One step at a time. All right, Joel. Have a great day. Thanks so much.
[22:32] SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
