LEAFBUYER TECHNOLOGIES.

• Author: Peterson, Eric
• Position: TECH STARTUP

WHERE: GREENWOOD VILLAGE

WEB: WWW.LEAFBUYER.COM

FOUNDED: 2014

* INITIAL LIGHT BULB:

With respective backgrounds in television advertising and technology, Mark Breen and Kurt Rossner met through their wives before they started brainstorming a new venture together.

After Amendment 64 legalized recreational marijuana in Colorado in 2012, the pair decided to go into the cannabis space. "We were looking for industries with massive growth opportunities," says Breen, the company's VP of business development. "Neither of us use the product."

Rossner, now Leafbuyer's president and CEO, says the goal was a company with "a very scalable business model and a recurring revenue model."

The big question? Whether the company should be a supplier of "picks and shovels vs. the guys who do the mining," Rossner says. "We chose the picks and shovels."

The company has 25 employees and offices in Greenwood Village, Seattle and Los Angeles.

* IN A NUTSHELL:

"We've been called the "Priceline of pot,'" Rossner says."We're connecting consumers with dispensaries and product companies."

Leafbuyer allows users to peruse prices and specials at dispensaries before they buy. Consumers typically land on Leafbuyer via Google or another search engine, then peruse its database of dispensaries on its website or mobile app. "That allows people to look in a very hyperlocal setting," Rossner says. "They'll be able to compare offers."

Leafbuyer pulls prices directly from dispensaries' point-of-sale systems and allows users to post special deals in real time. "It works well with dispensaries, because this is a crop, Rossner says. "It's a plant. It has a shelf life."

Dispensaries sign up for subscriptions that typically run $500 to $600 a month in Denver, but vary by location.

"We're adding more products that complement this initial product," Breen says. Rolled out in late 2017, the first is a pay-per-use text-messaging technology that's already in use by a full 80 percent of Leafbuyer's customers. "That allows the dispensary to have constant communication with that customer."

Denver-based LivWell Enlightened Health has 14 dispensaries in Colorado and one in Oregon and uses Leafbuyer at all of them. "They're an...