HelloMD is a cannabis-orientated health and wellness digital medical platform that connects patients with medical professionals. Founder and CEO Mark Hadfield discusses how his platform has a cost and convenience advantage; HelloMD services are online and this private and secure interaction helps more reticent patients overcome the stigma associated with cannabis. HelloMD also works with licensed producers to make cannabis products available to consumers; the medical platform offers a full e-commerce experience to its California customers, including one-hour deliver. HelloMD is one of the few digital medical platforms that has scaled across states and countries, and is now available to Canadian patients. In additional to its revenue streams which include product sales and delivery, HelloMD also produces cannabis health content in the form of videos, interviews, and posts, which assists in patient referrals.
Transcript:
James West: Hey, welcome now. My guest joining me from San Francisco via Skype is Mark Hadfield, CEO of HelloMD. Mark, welcome.
Mark Hadfield: Thank you, James. Thank you for having me.
James West: Sure, you bet. Mark, let’s start with an overview: what is the business of HelloMD?
Mark Hadfield: Sure. Well, HelloMD was founded about four years ago in California by myself, with a focus on health and wellness cannabis consumers. Our initial service was a tie service where we connect patients and doctors over video link, much like this Skype link. And but then over the four years we evolved into a full demand-side platform, so what we do is, we seek to answer all the questions that cannabis consumers have. You know, which includes beginning with consultation with a doctor or medical professional, but then product advice, advice on all sort of things. It’s just a confusing landscape for many new consumers to come into, so the company has involved into a B2B and a B2C demand-side platform, and we have about 100,000 patients that we’ve connected with doctors, and we have a growing community of about 250,000 people on the platform.
James West: Okay, so are those patients currently all in the US?
Mark Hadfield: Well, actually, over the four years we’ve also expanded the territory. So we started in California, we opened in Canada recently with B2B offerings, and then we’ve expanded our service offering to include e-commerce cannabis sales and delivery to California. And then nationwide CBD sales throughout all 50 states in America, which we obviously see as a massive, growing market.
James West: I see. So is –
Mark Hadfield: So we’re one of the few tech platforms that has scaled across borders, state borders and national borders, and because we don’t touch the plant, of course we’re able to do that. So that’s something a lot of cannabis companies struggle with, is geographic scale.
James West: Okay. So is your focus exclusively cannabis oriented?
Mark Hadfield: Well, it’s health and wellnes