Jack Blaeser, CEO and Founder of Mosaic – Interview Series

In an industry as nascent and uncharted as cannabis, comprehensive and clear data on sales and business operations can make all the difference. Whether it’s comparing the environmental conditions of different strain grows and their success rates, total harvest weights across multiple cultivation cycles, or the specific product formats dispensary customers prefer most, there is immense value in collecting and analyzing operational data. As seed-to-sale and other industry software platforms evolve to incorporate AI and automated services, the importance of gathering and summarizing every available data point cannot be overstated.

To explore cannabis data technology and how AI-powered systems can help businesses harness the full potential of their data, mycannabis.com spoke with Jack Blaeser, CEO and Founder of Mosaic.

What were the most worthwhile courses you took as part of your MBA program from Boston College? How did those graduate-level lessons pay off throughout your career?

One of the most memorable courses I took was actually my last one. Since my company was paying, I decided to treat myself to a course that explored business in China and Japan, which included traveling to Beijing, Suzhou and Tokyo.

It was a fascinating experience seeing firsthand how business is conducted in different cultures. Everything from how relationships are established to how people communicate, negotiate and make decisions can be quite different. But what struck me most was how much we have in common. Despite the enormous cultural differences, people everywhere are motivated by many of the same things. They want to succeed, provide for their families, be respected and make a difference.

That experience reinforced something I’ve carried throughout my career. Business is ultimately about people, and understanding people is often more valuable than understanding the numbers.
Beyond that experience, I think the greatest benefit of my MBA was developing critical thinking skills. You learn to look at problems from different perspectives, challenge assumptions and make decisions when there isn’t necessarily a clear answer.

Interestingly, I think those skills are becoming even more valuable in the age of AI. We’re entering a world where information and even sophisticated analysis are increasingly available to everyone. The real differentiator isn’t necessarily knowing the answer anymore. It’s knowing what questions to ask, recognizing when an answer doesn’t make sense and having the judgment to determine what to do with the information.

That’s something I find myself drawing on almost every day.

Along with your MBA studies, what interested you so much about all that goes into successful entrepreneurship and business management?

I’ve always been fascinated by people and what makes organizations successful. Why can two companies have similar products, resources and opportunities, yet one becomes enormously successful while the other struggles?

I think a lot of it comes down to leadership, culture and what I call situational management. You can learn all the business theories in the world, but the real world has a way of throwing some pretty nasty curveballs at you. How you respond to those situations, particularly when things aren’t going according to plan, is what really tests your ability as a leader.

I sometimes compare it to baseball. Business school is like practicing in the batting cage. You learn the fundamentals and develop your swing. Your first job is like playing Little League. You start applying what you’ve learned in real situations. Becoming an entrepreneur? That’s stepping into the major leagues, where the pitching is a whole lot faster and nobody tells you what’s coming next.
And I think that’s what I enjoy most about entrepreneurship. You’re constantly learning, adapting and solving problems that you may never have encountered before.

I’ve been fortunate to experience businesses at very different stages, from helping build a startup into a $300 million business to working with multibillion-dollar organizations. One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned is that success isn’t just about having a great idea. It’s about building a culture where people are willing to challenge conventional thinking, solve problems and continuously find better ways of doing things.

Technology changes, markets change and business models change. But the importance of people, leadership and adaptability never really goes away.

When did you first envision the need for a platform such as Mosaic? What experiences with cannabis companies did you have prior to founding the platform?

My introduction to the cannabis industry was actually as an investor about ten years ago, during the early excitement around legalization. Like a lot of people, I saw an industry with tremendous growth potential.

I also experienced the other side of that excitement when the market came crashing down.

But what really caught my attention wasn’t just the volatility. It was how difficult we were making it for legitimate businesses to succeed.

Think about it. These are licensed, regulated businesses that have to compete with an illicit market that doesn’t pay taxes, doesn’t have the same compliance costs and doesn’t operate under the same restrictions. Meanwhile, legitimate operators face challenges like 280E taxation, limited banking and payment options, and a host of regulatory complexities.

And to make matters worse, many of the technology companies that serve virtually every other retail industry stayed on the sidelines because of cannabis’s federal legal status.

So these operators were effectively being asked to compete with one hand, or both, tied behind their backs.

I started looking at what successful retailers outside cannabis were doing to attract customers, build loyalty, improve their operations and grow sales. The contrast was pretty striking.

A company like Starbucks has built an incredible digital relationship with its customers. It knows their preferences, makes it easy to order and pay, rewards their loyalty and gives them reasons to keep coming back. Yet a cannabis dispensary, or for that matter many small retailers, often has to piece together five or six different technology solutions to accomplish a fraction of the same thing.

That’s really where the idea for Mosaic came from.

Why shouldn’t an independent retailer have access to the same sophisticated technology that a billion-dollar brand uses? And why shouldn’t they be able to get it at an affordable price?
We saw an opportunity to help level the playing field. Not just by giving cannabis operators better technology, but by helping them build stronger customer relationships, operate more efficiently and compete more effectively with the illicit market.

From a technological standpoint, what went into the platform’s design? What common factors and issues in the cannabis business were considered when creating Mosaic?

We actually started by looking outside the cannabis industry.

Rather than asking how we could build a better dispensary website, we asked what the world’s most successful consumer brands were doing to drive engagement, loyalty and growth, and how we could make those same capabilities available to smaller retailers.

Starbucks is a great example. They’ve done an incredible job creating a digital customer experience that connects ordering, payments, rewards, personalized offers and customer engagement. The customer sees one seamless experience, even though there’s a tremendous amount of technology working behind the scenes.

That’s the kind of experience we wanted to bring to cannabis retail.

We designed Mosaic as an integrated platform that brings together online ordering, branded mobile apps, in-store kiosks, loyalty, marketing, payments and now AI-powered shopping and customer engagement.

One of our biggest priorities was making these capabilities work together rather than forcing dispensaries to purchase and manage a collection of disconnected solutions.

For example, if a customer receives a personalized offer, that offer should be reflected in their shopping experience. Their loyalty points should be available whether they’re shopping online, through an app or in the store. And the retailer should have a unified understanding of that customer’s relationship with the business.

We also recognized that cannabis operators are under tremendous financial pressure. We didn’t want to introduce all this sophisticated technology and charge them more for it. Our goal was to provide significantly greater capabilities while actually helping them reduce their existing technology costs.

What’s been interesting is that we’ve started attracting interest from retailers outside cannabis because many of these same problems exist in general retail.

At its core, Mosaic is particularly well suited for physical retailers that depend on repeat customers. Whether you’re selling cannabis, specialty products or other consumer goods, the fundamentals are similar. You want to make shopping easier, understand your customers, build loyalty and give them reasons to return.

And now with AI, we’re able to take those capabilities to an entirely different level.

When you first start working with a dispensary, what are the most common issues with their online ordering system and logistics? Even with robust online ordering platforms and detailed menus, why are those issues so common at first?

One of the first things we often notice is that many dispensary websites look almost identical.

A retailer might have invested heavily in creating its brand, building its stores and developing relationships with customers, but when you visit its online menu, it looks pretty much like every other dispensary using the same provider.

That’s a missed opportunity because your digital experience is increasingly your storefront.

Another common issue is that the technology doesn’t work together particularly well. The point-of-sale system, online menu, loyalty program, marketing platform and payment system may all come from different companies.

Even when they’re integrated, there can be gaps. Product information or inventory may not always synchronize properly, promotions may behave differently online and in-store, or employees may need to maintain information in multiple systems. The industry has made progress on this, but it’s still a challenge.

Then there’s personalization, which I think is one of the biggest missed opportunities.

A dispensary may send a customer an email with a great offer, but when that customer visits the online store, the experience doesn’t recognize them or present that offer in a meaningful way. Or the customer has loyalty points but doesn’t see how those points can be applied until later in the purchase process.

Imagine if Amazon operated that way.

I also think many platforms were originally designed around the transaction rather than the customer relationship. They do a reasonable job letting someone browse a menu and place an order, but that’s only one part of the shopping experience.

The bigger opportunity is understanding what customers want, helping them discover products, making payment easy and creating a relationship that brings them back.
That’s the problem we’ve focused on solving with Mosaic. We want the technology to feel like one connected experience for both the customer and the retailer, rather than a collection of separate applications.

What type of sales data is Mosaic able to generate, and why are those figures and data so crucial to the success of a cannabis business?

I think one of the biggest opportunities in retail today is the amount of valuable information businesses already have but aren’t really using.

Traditionally, retailers have focused on sales reports. What sold, how much revenue was generated, which products are popular and what inventory is moving.

That’s important, but it only tells you what happened.

With Mosaic, we’re able to connect information across much more of the customer journey. That includes what customers browse online, what they search for, what they purchase in-store or through an app, how they respond to marketing campaigns, which rewards and offers they use and even the types of questions they’re asking our AI shopping assistant.

When you bring that information together, you start developing a much more complete understanding of customer behavior.

For example, there’s a big difference between knowing that a customer purchased a particular product and understanding what they were looking for before making that purchase, what alternatives they considered, and what might encourage them to return.

This is where AI is becoming really exciting.

We’ve already introduced an AI shopping assistant that allows customers to have natural conversations to discover products, ask questions, compare options and get recommendations based on their interests and the retailer’s available inventory.

We’re now building on that with AI-driven marketing and analytics capabilities that can help retailers identify customer segments, understand purchasing patterns, recognize opportunities to reengage customers and develop more relevant marketing campaigns.

Instead of a dispensary sending the same promotion to thousands of customers, imagine being able to understand which customers are likely to respond to a particular offer, which ones haven’t returned recently and which products are most relevant to their interests.

And it goes beyond marketing. That same intelligence can help with merchandising, inventory decisions, identifying demand trends and understanding what is actually driving profitable growth.

The real opportunity isn’t collecting more data. It’s turning that data into decisions and actions that help the business perform better.

I believe AI is going to make that kind of intelligence accessible to independent retailers in ways that simply weren’t practical or affordable before.

What are some examples of interesting sales and customer trends in certain markets that Mosaic has discovered? Why are those trends so telling about the greater popularity of those product formats?

One of the things I’ve learned is that you have to be careful about making broad assumptions about cannabis consumers. Different markets can behave quite differently, and even stores within the same market can have different customer preferences.

The traditional approach is to look at which product categories are selling the most. Flower, pre-rolls, vapes, edibles and other formats all have their own demand patterns, and those patterns can change based on demographics, price, convenience and whether customers are purchasing for medical or recreational purposes.

But I think the more interesting opportunity is understanding why customers are gravitating toward certain products.

For example, someone looking for convenience or a predictable experience may approach shopping very differently from someone interested in exploring flower varieties, terpene profiles or particular product characteristics.

With Mosaic, we’re looking at how AI can help retailers connect those dots.

Our AI shopping assistant gives customers the ability to explain what they’re looking for in their own words rather than having to navigate through dozens or hundreds of products and filters.

That creates a new opportunity to understand shopping intent. What are people asking about? Which products are they comparing? What questions come up repeatedly? Are customers having difficulty finding products that match their preferences?

When you combine those interactions with actual purchasing behavior, you can begin to identify trends that traditional sales reporting might miss.

Let’s say a retailer notices increased interest in lower-dose products, but customers aren’t necessarily purchasing them. Is that because the selection is limited, the products are hard to find or customers need more information? That’s a much more actionable insight than simply knowing sales of a particular category increased or decreased.

We’re building toward giving retailers that kind of intelligence.

I think we’ll increasingly see the industry move away from simply tracking which products are popular to understanding the motivations behind purchases. And those insights can be especially valuable in cannabis, where consumer education and product discovery are such important parts of the shopping experience.

From your experience and Mosaic’s data, why are dispensary loyalty programs so appealing for repeat and return business? How do those programs build rapport with customers better than any other strategy?

I think loyalty is often misunderstood.

A lot of retailers think of loyalty programs as simply giving customers points or discounts. Spend a hundred dollars, get ten dollars back. There’s nothing wrong with that, but that’s really just the beginning.

The best loyalty programs aren’t simply about rewarding transactions. They’re about building relationships.

Starbucks is again a good example. Customers don’t just use the app because they’re earning stars. They use it because it’s convenient, it remembers their preferences, makes ordering easy and creates an experience they enjoy.

That’s where I think cannabis retailers have an enormous opportunity.

Unlike some retail categories, dispensaries often have customers who return regularly. That creates a valuable opportunity to build a meaningful relationship over time.
If you understand what a customer likes, you can introduce them to relevant products, provide information that helps them make better decisions, recognize their loyalty and make every interaction more convenient.

And you can do that without constantly discounting your products.

That’s an important distinction because cannabis retailers are already facing tremendous margin pressure. You don’t necessarily want to train customers to only shop when there’s a sale.

A good loyalty strategy can reward engagement, encourage exploration, recognize your best customers and create personalized experiences that make people feel valued. What excites me about combining loyalty with AI is that personalization can become much more sophisticated.

Instead of every customer receiving essentially the same offers, retailers can develop a better understanding of what different customers value and engage with them accordingly.

Maybe one customer appreciates early access to new products. Another values educational information. Another responds to convenience or personalized rewards.

Ultimately, I believe the goal of loyalty shouldn’t be to make customers dependent on discounts. It should be to make them prefer doing business with you.

That’s a much more sustainable way to build a retail business.

What non-profit organizations are you involved with? Why do you find that work and those causes so meaningful?

One organization that’s particularly meaningful to me is the Freedom Educational Foundation, where I serve as an executive and board member.

The foundation works primarily in Ghana, helping young people from low-income and underserved communities gain access to educational opportunities they might otherwise never have.

We provide scholarships, student sponsorships, educational supplies, financial assistance and mentorship.

What I especially appreciate about the organization is that we don’t view education as simply paying someone’s school expenses. The objective is to give young people the opportunity, encouragement and support to develop their potential and ultimately become contributors and leaders in their communities.

Education can fundamentally change the trajectory of someone’s life, and that impact can extend to their family and future generations.

One of the things that strikes me is how relatively modest resources can make an enormous difference. Opportunities that we sometimes take for granted can be life-changing for a young person who simply hasn’t had access to them.

I’ve spent much of my professional career focused on entrepreneurship, building businesses and creating opportunities. In many ways, this work is an extension of those same beliefs. Talent and potential are everywhere. Opportunity isn’t.

If we can help create that opportunity through education, we’re making an investment that can continue paying dividends for generations. And personally, I find that incredibly rewarding. It’s a reminder that success isn’t just about what you accomplish professionally, but also about the opportunities you help create for others.

How do you envision Mosaic technology advancing in the future? What future sales and shopping trends do you think Mosaic will be first to pick up on?

I think we’re at the beginning of one of the biggest transformations in commerce we’ve seen since the internet and smartphones changed how people shop.
And AI is going to be at the center of it.

Today, most online shopping still works fundamentally the same way it did twenty years ago. You visit a website, search or browse through products, apply filters, add something to a cart and check out.

I believe that experience is going to change dramatically.

Instead of navigating through menus and filters, customers will increasingly interact with intelligent shopping assistants that understand what they’re trying to accomplish.

Imagine telling an AI assistant, “I’m looking for something similar to what I purchased last time, but I’d like to try something new and stay within my budget.”

The assistant could understand your preferences, review available inventory, explain relevant differences, identify promotions, apply loyalty rewards and help complete the purchase. That’s moving beyond traditional eCommerce into what we call agentic commerce, where AI doesn’t just answer questions. It helps customers take action.

We’ve already introduced conversational AI shopping capabilities into Mosaic, and we’re continuing to expand what those experiences can do. But I actually think the opportunity on the business side may be just as significant.

We’re developing AI-driven marketing and analytics capabilities that will help retailers understand their businesses and customers in ways that previously required dedicated teams of analysts and marketers.

Imagine a dispensary owner being able to ask, “Why were sales down last week?” or “Which customers are at risk of not returning?” or “What can I do to increase sales without giving away more margin?”

And instead of receiving a complicated report, they get useful insights and recommended actions.

Eventually, I envision AI agents that can help retailers carry out many of those activities, whether that’s creating personalized campaigns, optimizing merchandising, identifying inventory opportunities or helping manage customer engagement.

We’re also focused on payments, which I believe will become an increasingly important part of this evolution.

Through MosaicPay, we’re bringing more convenient, bank-backed payment capabilities, including credit-enabled funding, to an industry that has historically had limited options. When you connect shopping, payments, rewards and customer intelligence, you create opportunities for a much more seamless experience.

What’s especially interesting is that these capabilities aren’t unique to cannabis. We’re seeing opportunities to take the same technology into other retail markets and industries that have traditionally been underserved by sophisticated commerce and payment solutions. I’ve often said that one of the biggest advantages smaller companies have is their ability to innovate quickly. But historically, they haven’t had access to the technology or resources of the largest brands.

I think AI changes that equation.

A small independent retailer will increasingly be able to deliver the kind of personalized shopping experience, sophisticated marketing and business intelligence that once required millions of dollars in technology investments. That’s what we’re working toward with Mosaic.

And frankly, I think we’re only scratching the surface of what’s possible.

Thank you for joining us, Jack! For more information on Mosaic, please visit its website.