Resonate Blends, Inc. (OTCQB:KOAN), a Wellness Lifestyle cannabis holding company (“Resonate” or “the Company”), today provided a corporate update covering its recently filed Q3 2021 financial report and the advancement of overall operations. A letter to shareholders from Resonate’s Chairman and CEO, Geoff Selzer, follows:
Dear Shareholders,
As we are entering the final months of a productive and busy 2021, we are delighted with the progress we have made during the year for the company and the launch of our first consumer brand, Koan. We started this company with the premises that value-added brands are the future of the cannabis industry and that the wellness lifestyle market would be one of the primary growth drivers of the industry, both in California and nationally. We are more confident of those ideas than ever, and we are optimistic that 2022 will be a very exciting year in terms of sales, product development, and growth through potential acquisitions and multi-state expansion.
We could not be more pleased with our award “Best New Brand of 2021” from the Luxury Meets Cannabis Conference (“LMCC”) held recently in New York City. We see this as a tremendous validation of the unique qualities of our proprietary and patent-pending Cordials, and also an indicator of the industry’s trajectory. In addition, our invitation to be a selected brand of the innovative, unique Joy Reserve Cannabis Showcase in the exclusive Westfield Centre in San Francisco, is further indication that the normalization of Cannabis is imminent and requires the leadership of disciplined, innovative, and responsibly-marketed products that instill consumer confidence. Our increasing cohort of select dispensary partners are very interested in our marketing and communication strategies as a key value of partnering with us.
We continue to make headway with our strategic objectives to position our company for long-term growth. We are laying the groundwork to scale with key sales channels now operational, including our recently launched Direct-to-Consumer sales platform.
Working closely with industry-leading sales, marketing, and logistics partners for our flagship Koan Cordials product line, we have built a multi-channel distribution strategy. Following our launch into the retail chain and the opening of our e-commerce sales platform, we are turning our focus to three critical areas - education, targeted marketing, and controlling the sales process.
We took an ambitious approach to our original dispensary rollout and were met with a high amount of interest in our product, reflected by the roughly 80 dispensaries who requested sample kits. While the reception was very positive, we found reluctance for the dispensaries to acquire new brands particularly with the advent of the Delta variant of COVID. While the recent threat of a potential COVID-related retail lockdown in California slowed our progress on the dispensary front, we expect to gain momentum in the retail market as it starts to open up again by revisiting each of these dispensaries. Many of those initial dispensary requests have been followed up by commitments to buy once they begin bringing new brands into the stores.
We believe the careful nurturing of our brand is one of our most important responsibilities as managers of Resonate Blends. Since nobody knows our product better than we do, we made the decision to bring the sales process in-house versus having an external salesforce. We are confident this move will have an immediate positive impact on revenues and allow our team to better control the narrative within the retail network in California.
We will soon be offering several packaging variations for our Cordials based on dispensary and consumer feedback. In addition to our Cordial 3-pack, we will soon have a single-packaged Cordial, and a multi-blends sampler SKU. Having these options encourages the consumer to try more blends and will allow us to do more sampling and upselling promotions. We are also designing a multi-dose bottle which will be more cost-effective for those who use our blends daily. Together, these new packaging configurations should help accelerate our sales revenue by providing consumers convenient options. We also expect to introduce two new formulations and other unique product lines that will showcase our focus on continual product development and brand innovation within our family of Koan products.
While we expect to ramp up our retail footprint in the quarters ahead, we did make several key entry points to dispensaries. To that end, we recently announced nine (9) new California One Plant dispensaries and are working closely with them to co-market the Cordials across their vast network. The collaboration and communication with the One Plant team is deep and we will be exploring creative and unique marketing efforts at two of their flagship stores. As I mentioned earlier, we just launched with The Joy Reserve dispensary, which is focused on bringing a better understanding of the many benefits of cannabis and how to safely pick quality products such as the Koan Cordials. This unique showcase will be used to educate consumers about plant-based wellness with an open browsing floor, free consultations and workshops. We feel this setup is ideal to introduce consumers to our Cordials and are excited to participate in this groundbreaking approach.
We have been approached by both retailers and manufacturers to open new legal states outside of California. Discussions are currently underway in one state in the Northeast where one of our key partners already has operational capacity. Scalability is now possible outside California, but we want to strategically execute on new expansion based on appropriate funding and partner availability in new states.
Our products are built around the idea of “Mastering the Art of Experience”, reflecting our focus on innovation – however we are also committed on building a solid foundation of distribution, communication, and education, as we work to normalize cannabis as part of a healthy and engaged lifestyle. We are finding the education of cannabis, as it relates to wellness, and the benefits and uses of our six unique blends of Cordials to be the most effective drivers of our outreach – once consumers understand the uses and benefits, the acceptance is locked in. We are completing a cannabis confidence course developed by our renowned international formulator and educator, Colleen Quinn. This course should provide a wider acceptance of our Cordials and open new opportunities with retailers throughout the state. We will also offer this education series as a white label to dispensaries throughout California.
Marketing and branding are core components of our targeted customer acquisition strategy. We have invested significantly to our overall marketing efforts, including cannabis conferences, social media outreach, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), and marketing events with our dispensary partners. We recently consolidated our digital marketing to the Flower Agency, a full digital marketing agency that assists lifestyle, wellness and cannabis brands with customer acquisition, awareness and re-engagement. Importantly, our patent-pending Koan Cordials, the world’s first cannabis-infused cordial, are starting to gain national recognition from cannabis industry leaders. We expect to see a significant uptick in press and other media mentions in the coming months.
As mentioned above, we are very encouraged with our Koan Cordials winning the show’s Gold Leaf Award for Best New Brand at the invitation-only LMCC. The Gold Leaf Awards honor those visionary crossover brands, retailers, and founders that are going above and beyond both in and outside of the cannabis space — across beauty, skincare, food/beverage, and everyday wellness sectors. The interest since this award announcement for potential acquisitions and new state expansion has been extremely gratifying.
With an established statewide infrastructure in California for manufacturing, distribution and sales, we are well-equipped to make progress with our go-forward focus on revenue generation. We are uniquely positioned to be a positive disruptive force in the wellness/lifestyle segment of the industry built on a growing body of proprietary IP, and we firmly believe that value-added brands are the future of the Cannabis industry. Over the long-term, we believe that cannabis, as a part of the wellness lifestyle, will become the largest segment in the burgeoning industry and we plan to be one of the leaders in this segment.
We look forward to providing further updates and insight into our operational progress in the near term.
Stay safe, stay healthy.
Sincerely,
Geoff Selzer
Chairman & Chief Executive Officer
About Resonate Blends, Inc. (OTCQB:KOAN)
Resonate Blends is a Calabasas, CA-based portfolio of Cannabis Wellness and Lifestyle brands. The company created the Resonate System—a comprehensive system of interconnected experience targets to personalize consumers’ relationship with Cannabis through its products. Koan Cordials, the world’s first Cannabis Cordial and Resonate’s flagship product line, was awarded the prestigious Gold Leaf Award for “Best New Brand”. To learn more, please visit www.resonateblends.com.
Safe Harbor Provision:
This release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. Examples of forward-looking statements include, among others, statements we make regarding guidance relating to net income; anticipated customer onboardings; and expected operating results, such as revenue growth and earnings. All forward-looking statements are inherently uncertain as they are based on current expectations and assumptions concerning future events or future performance of the Company. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which are only predictions and speak only as of the date hereof. In evaluating such statements, prospective investors should review carefully various risks and uncertainties identified in this release and matters set out in the Company's SEC filings. These risks and uncertainties could cause the Company's actual results to differ materially from those indicated in the forward-looking statements.
View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20211122006645/en/
We continue to make headway with our strategic objectives to position our company for long-term growth. We are laying the groundwork to scale with key sales channels now operational, including our recently launched Direct-to-Consumer sales platform
Contacts
Corporate Contact
David Thielen
Chief Investment Officer/Director
Resonate Blends, Inc.
david@resonateblends.com
571-888-0009
Investor Relations
Brooks Hamilton
Senior Vice President
MZ Group - MZ North America
949-546-6326
KOAN@mzgroup.us