Dab Tabs by Ilo Vapor™ Accurate Dosing Control
New Method for Accurate Dosage of THC and CBD Products Using Infused Ceramic Cells as Substrate.
By Andrew Shaw, Publisher of Treatingyourself.com
When we heard about this new product by ilo Vapor™ our interest was certainly piqued. One of the biggest challenges for healthcare applications of cannabis is dosage control. We reached out to Michael Lindars, Co-Founder and CEO of ilo Vapor™ the makers of DAB TABS, to get the inside scoop on this brand new product which has cracked the code on accurate THC & CBD dosing. Read the full interview transcript below.
Transcript of telephone interview;
TOPIC: DAB TABS BY ILO VAPOR – A DIVISION OF ICONIC VENTURES
PARTICIPANTS: MICHAEL LINDARS (ML) CO-FOUNDER & CEO, DAVE LOVERNIK (DL) OF ILOVAPOR
INTERVIEW BY: ANDREW SHAW (AS)
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AS [00:00:30] Hi guys. It’s Andrew from treating yourself how’s it going?
ML [00:00:34] Good.
AS [00:00:34] Good good. I’m glad to have you guys on a call today. Very exciting and talk about the new product and a bit about your company.
ML [00:00:42] I’m on it’s Michael – Dave will be joining us in a moment, he’s just running a few minutes late.
AS [00:00:46] No worries no worries. I had a chance to go through your press release and have a look at your product. Have a look at the sort of the product positioning in the marketplace and it’s really something special.
ML [00:00:59] We’re hoping so.
AS [00:01:01] I’m very much looking forward to diving in a little bit today and going a little bit deep on it where it’s rolling out what its future looks like and what your grand plans are. It’s certainly maybe you can tell me a little bit about my low vapor I guess it’s pronounced I-love-vapor right?
ML [00:01:19] It’s pronounced ‘eee-low’ (ILO) vapor.
AS [00:01:20] I was wondering if certainly some tongue in cheek there. I thought it was a pretty smart name.
ML [00:01:25] Actually it actually translates into the word pleasure.
AS [00:01:30] So back in 2016 it started…you guys are located out of Portland Oregon tell me a little bit about your company history, and how you guys got put together.
ML [00:01:41] So I have a design firm called Lucid where we do a lot of branding and packaging for the cannabis industry.
ML [00:01:55] But the core of the businesses in industrial design and I have been working with cannabis companies in this state since the onset of recreational and prior to the recreational market. And just because my background on industrial design, designing things, I just saw that there were problems with current cartridges in the market, so they were leaking. You know it was all based off of technology from Egypt right. So I had in passing I had some ideas for cartridge designs. And in passing one night I mentioned it one of the bigger substrate companies and he said that sounds kind of neat… And then literally a year later he comes to me as a bullet.. and well let’s start that company.. And we did some basic funding…
AS [00:02:54] Love it, like “the back of a napkin” kind of story.
ML [00:02:55] Yeah – So since then we have a patent that’s approved. That is it’s coming in it’s just a formality now. It’s technically patent approved for a cartridge that will be finishing up here but in a development of that new cartridge concept – you know these are dab tabs were born and that’s where we’re at at the moment.
AS [00:03:29] Well I mean I looked at the design you can see there’s some aesthetic intent here. I mean clearly your background in industrial design, product design, seems to be shining through. I mean like just the visuals of the DAB TABS or the DABLETS as you call them which is a fantastic name as well. I mean they of course you’re using hexagons as it as a sort of I guess a substrate format. And the color coordinated beauty of the thing and looks like a honeycomb. I mean I talk a little bit about these tabs. I mean they’re a ceramic object that has like some kind of a porous capability to hold THC and CBD compounds? Tell me how it works… It’s fascinating.
ML [00:04:12] You know most of it is proprietary but it is in fact in that sense… I want to say it’s a sponge but it is it’s porous and it’s ceramic. And it was a intert it holds oils rather tightly in place. You can keep it in your pocket and you can put him in your car. Put him on the dashboard of your car. They’re not going to leech out, they’re very stable and we can get live resin into them we can get rosin, shatter, distilliates in it – really just about any any type of concentrate or extract.
AS [00:04:55] It’s really quite fascinating and I must say ingenious. I mean part of the issue of course is people who you know I guess in what will soon be called the olden days when people used to smoke joints. I mean we’re talking about removing all the carcinogens and the burning compounds because of your delivery system is inert ceramic with resins or rosins or extracts which can be vaporized and I guess the more pure delivery system… Correct?
ML [00:05:20] That’s the goal.
AS [00:05:22] Brilliant. It really seems to be smart – another thing you seem to have cracked the code on is about controlled dosing perhaps you want to talk about your controlled dosing delivery system and why that’s important when it comes to medical cannabis consumers for example.
ML [00:05:40] I think one of the fears that people have with dabbling in general know the higher potency concentrates is it’s kind of an unknown world. The first other devices are a little bit more intense right?
AS [00:05:59] Blow torches and things that seem to me look a little bit foreboding right?
ML [00:06:04] Right. And then you have the material in the material sticking in it and it’s hard to separate into portions and then you don’t really know what those portions are it’s you know it’s just it’s literally a hot mess right?
AS [00:06:16] Yes.
ML [00:06:18] So our concept is that whenever you use a DAB TAB it is a very tuned amount that the consumer can trust to have every single time, over and over.
AS [00:06:35] And that matters. I mean for sure I agree that there is some there’s certainly some fear of people trying some of those extract based methods of medicating I guess you could say. Let me say then, in your delivery system, because it promises to be very dose accurate. I mean you’d think they’d be a lot of potential pharmaceutical applications. You mentioned you have a patent pending on this this particular process or delivery system that’s really outstanding I mean we’ve seen a lot of movement in the health space towards sort of you know cannabis normalization it went first before recreational. Right? But I think it’s fabulous – you’ve got this product now it looks like in limited availability right now in California Oregon Nevada and Maryland. Tell me about your plans for 2019 it looks like you’re opening up to a lot more states and it sounds like even Canada?
ML [00:07:23] Yeah. You know we’re in discussions with every state basically, you know looking for the best partners in those states. We’re currently working with very bad in East. They would give you a better idea of the clientele is great.
AS [00:07:44] Yeah. I’m just impressed that you guys are looking up at the great green north here in Canada which we’re located in Toronto of course, – watching all things from a Canadian perspective, not a lot of technologies necessarily are easy to move across the border. But this is a delivery system. I mean you can add the molecules up here right. So it’s a proud made in the USA product?.
ML [00:08:07] Yeah. So yes, we’re more in the picks and shovels business rather than a direct plant facing business.
AS [00:08:16] And it’s a it’s a good parallel. We’re seeing a lot of industry around sort of the fuzzy edges right. There’s the cannabis in the middle but there’s a ton of peripheral services tools products and technology being developed and this is one of the best examples I have seen of something that just fits a very distinct need. So kudos on a great product design and I think it should have a tremendous market application… Now. You guys got any plans of being public or any conversations like that happening. I mean that’s sort of the natural trend – you guys got that plan in mind?
ML [00:08:47] There have been discussions about it. I think the at this point the plan is to just finish about the product that we’re developing.
AS [00:08:59] Fantastic. Rolling it out one step at a time of course. Well we’re always covering stories like this tend to peak a lot of attention so I’m looking forward to seeing how that develops because that story looks like it’ll be ongoing with four states now where you’re starting to sell the technology, sell the delivery system, as a product now – is there like a special adapter you or someone needs for a vaporizer to fit a little hexagonal sort of dablets so that’s sort of the apparatus you sell along with this? Or how does one go ahead and try said DABLETS for example?
ML [00:09:31] So this is the great part here is that we had been we’ve been working on different technologies here for several years. We have a new product that will be coming out in July that we’re calling The DAB TAB GO. What that is is a cartridge kind of style 510 thread I don’t know what to call it really. It’s a unit that you will actually drop onto your 510 friend battery… And then you can put a regular DAB TAB and in it and vape on the go.
AS [00:10:08] Much a personal vaporizer pen specifically for the DAB TAB format. Right?
ML [00:10:13] So it’s like it’s like a cartridge it works just like a cartridge it works very quickly it’s very smooth very flavorful really really really vapey you know – in most cases when I personally tried to I don’t even realize that I’m getting anything and then there’s this huge cloud of smoke comes out so it is very very mellow.
AS [00:10:36] Interesting – so it doesn’t quite have the sort of that burn in the draw very much it’s smoothing out but it volume is big. So for somebody who was for example a heavy smoker or heavy cannabis smoker wouldn’t necessarily be let down by the fact that it’s a vaporizer. It’s still got a very full-some brief draw on it right. Right?.
ML [00:10:54] Yeah and then again that’s our goal. We we know our intent is to develop product that is truly vaporizing. So what we’re trying to get the material right to that boiling point and that’s when it releases such a substrate so that we’re avoiding burning or decarbonization …I think Dave was on the line there too…
MS [00:11:18] Hi guys. Sorry I was late.
AS [00:11:20] That’s OK. We were having a great conversation about this fabulous new product the DAB TABS or the DABLETS as they’re called – from ILO vapor, and I mean I’ve had a fascinating bit of exploration here about the delivery system, It as a market application. I’m specifically impressed by the product design in its hexagonal shape – this ‘ode to nature’ in the way it presents. I’m fascinated by the ceramic delivery because you know removing carcinogens from cannabis intake is a health step and also dose control as it relates to people who are using cannabis as a product…You guys have cracked the code I think – and I think this has some pretty big legs guys.
ML [00:12:38] Yeah those are certainly the attributes of the product that many of our customers and then consumers are telling us they like quite a bit.
AS [00:12:47] In terms of business volume, the natural questions is I see you guys are on sale in four states… What are some of the some of the volumes you guys are doing? Are you moving a lot of this? Is it being adopted really or relatively quickly?
DL [00:13:03] It is. We’re seeing faster than anticipated uptake. We worked closely with our initial distribution partners to sort of come up with reasonable estimates somewhat conservative for the initial rollout and we’ve been pleased that in most cases the uptake and sell through has been faster than they had anticipated.
AS [00:13:26] It’s good for business right there. I mean one of the questions I was speculating on is you guys have you had plans to go public now. Certainly it sounds like there may have been some talks there but I think this could have some really big impact. Not most maybe specifically because it’s a delivery system where you know it’s the technology and the molecules can be added in different territories so you can ship the technology to distribute the system to Canada for example and have Canadian LP’s is producing their own extracts and resins to put into this delivery system. Now I think on the dosing control aspect of this it’s got a tremendous amount of value. I mean as health gets more sort of centered in the cannabis market what are your thoughts in terms of early adopters in the pharma market. Do you have any takers so far are you in talks with anybody who might be like a big name that we know but that you might be able to talk about?
ML [00:14:17] Not that we can talk about but we’re in discussions with a number of companies and as you might imagine when you’re discussing with a public either multi-state operator or international operator those discussions come with a fairly thick NDA.
AS [00:14:34] Yeah. You really can’t blame me for trying right?
ML [00:14:38] Not as all. I think I’ll be a little disappointed if you hadn’t asked.
DL [00:14:44] I mean the talk of course is around the fact that you can put for instance 70 percent to 80 or 70 percent CBD product in these things, and the consumer can then depend on that dosage which should be the exact same every time they purchase it. Which is something that’s a little different than what’s out in the market right now.
AS [00:15:08] For certain, I mean like there’s been a lot of work starting in the clinical space… now people are going a little deeper now on that real heavy proper pharma science side of things looking at therapies for Alzheimer’s and PTSD and depression and anxiety and as the sort of the molecules become mapped properly I understand there’s quite a bit of dimension between different CBD compounds with THC, THCA. And as you mix them and match them differently they create potential ranges of therapy – but it only really works as science, if you can control the method of delivery, and the dosage and I think you guys… I think it’s that big. What I see so far you guys are really onto something. So it’s quite remarkable.
ML [00:16:08] You asked and mentioned arlier the ability for iconic, under our brand ILO vapor, to distribute products beyond the typical cannabis markets in the individual states of the United States. And that was a very specific decision that we made when we formed iconic back in 2016 is that we wanted it to be a what we call a canna-tech company. And I think a lot other people called companies in our genre the same thing, such that our customers would be the licensed cannabis and hemp operators, being in the United States or internationally – but we wanted our products to be available worldwide and we chose our current distribution model and the ability to supply, you know essentially if you want to use the cliche “The picks and shovels to the gold miners”. And so that was that was a purposeful decision, strategic decision, at the time. And so far I think you know as the market worldwide both for cannabis and CBD have expanded. It’s really just exploded in the lifetime of iconic ventures… And so we’re pretty happy with that decision and it’s dry enough customers that are coming to find us from all over the world. Which is a wonderful thing.
AS [00:17:32] And the world are liberalizing right… In this regard. So it’s a very good.
DL [00:17:37] And of course different countries are going at their own pace and some are taking different approaches, but in general yes we see an ongoing liberalisation and we think not just in the United States but worldwide the whole liberalisation and decriminalization has probably reached a tipping point. You know it’s unpredictable how fast that will come to its logical conclusion. But I think it’s an it’s a foregone conclusion. It’s just a question of timing now.
DL [00:18:11] Just to clarify when are using the iconic name, Iconic Ventures Inc. is the corporate name. We’re doing business as ILO vapor that would be ilovapor.com. That’s where our kind of our main email addresses and the product that is the most abundant at the moment with the DAB TABS and DABTABS.COM.
AS [00:18:44] Excellent so you’ve got both down the DAB TABS dot com property and the ILO vapor property. It’s clearly a vertical you guys are going into as Iconic Ventures it’s fantastic. Any kind of vertical business like this, it’s smart to separate your product from your operating company and the technology. But from what I can see you guys are doing everything right…It’s all indications point the yes here. I’m excited to see the product make its way up to Canada of course so we can get our hands on it and go and give it a whirl as they say. I think I think you guys are genuinely on to something I don’t know how else I can say it but I’m looking forward to seeing what you know sort of the audience reaction is to it. User feedback and reviews I mean this press release that just crossed our desk looks like your first sort of push to let the world know you’re coming out of the shadows in terms of you guys have been quietly developing this product and it looks like you’re ready for prime time. So how many units for example are you able to manufacturer like what could give you some sense of volume like we’re talking tens of thousands of these cells hundreds of thousands millions. I mean what’s your production capabilities?.
DL [00:19:42] Millions and millions.
AS [00:19:44] Right, Fantastic.
DL [00:19:47] Yeah currently production capacity is multimillions per month and with the ability to scale quickly beyond that hopefully sooner rather than later.
AS [00:19:57] Wow. So now it’s all about purchase orders and velocity right? Good for you guys. I mean I love what you’re doing. Certainly we’re gonna put together a nice big piece for you guys and let the world know as much as we can about you. And I want to. If you don’t mind let’s make most certainly stay in touch as your product starts to roll out.
AS [00:20:14] I see here coming out in 2019 you’re hitting the rest of the US where there is legal access or provided health access. I mean Michigan, Delaware, Rhode Island, Arizona, Colorado, Washington, Massachusetts, Florida. And like I said Canada so make sure you guys let us know direct when it’s up here. I can’t wait to get my hands on it and start spreading the word. Guys thanks very much the call today and also for the information – again so that’s ILO vapor dot com correct?.
ML [00:20:45] Right.
AS [00:21:07] I think you guys really got a great product here. If I haven’t been effusive enough yet in my praise – Let me say it again. There’s something really smart here. You guys are on to something. And I think I can’t wait to see what the story goes, its great.
DL [00:21:20] I appreciate it.
AS [00:21:21] No worries. Any other question or thoughts you want to share before we jump off here?
DL [00:21:23] Before we jump off yes – I’d just say that you know as far as our distribution just to give you a little more background on that – you can assume that we’re in any of the states where cannabis is either medically or recreationally legal that we’re not currently listed by us. You can assume we’re in discussions with manufacturers and processors and distributors in those states. We are in discussions with a couple of different companies in Canada both of which are anxious to have the product available ahead of and be ready for the October timeline when you know vaporizable products become legal in Canada. A lot of excitement building up north for that at least from our perspective and what we’re hearing.
AS [00:22:07] Oh yeah the first company that comes out with the press releases say they’ve secured the supply of this particular delivery system is gonna get a nice little bump on their stock right? So it’s all connected. And I think that’s why I was asking you guys the question so I’m certainly looking forward to hearing about that – I’d be surprised if a publicly traded company didn’t try and make you an offer really fast.. fly the jet up here and shake my hand when they hit it.
