MariGen

We have conducted field surveys and interviews to understand the behavior of marijuana consumers throughout the purchasing process. More than 80% of consumers followed the retailer’s guidance and suggestion when purchasing products. However, the guidance is subjective and mostly based on personal experience. This means the decision making during purchasing based on the trial and error of a small subset of users. A bad product selection process and a lack of knowledge of hundreds of products in the market means that almost every consumer has had a negative experience at some point. We conduct interviews with twelve medicinal marijuana users. We found that after the initial permit was issued, there was no further ‘expert’ advice given related to dosage, strain or recommended product type. Users with medical needs may take multiple doses during the day, but they still need to maintain the ability to function. An additional understanding of how they are genetically predisposed to handle a certain type of product will be particularly valuable to this user group. We created Marigen that serves as a platform that aims to enhance cannabis product satisfaction, and thereby demand, by aligning a customer’s genetic markers with their usage goals to create tailored product recommendations.