Kyle Loucks, Founder of RollPros – Interview Series

As the cannabis industry expands into sales and revenue figures that once seemed impossible, the ancillary market for manufacturing technology and machines will grow alongside it. As this occurs, an increasing number of incredibly accomplished engineers and inventors with experience with some very prestigious companies are joining this industry sector. One such mechanical engineer who matches that description is Kyle Loucks, Founder of RollPros. Recently, the company reached the very impressive production milestone of 100 million joints created by its trademark Blackbird machine.

What subjects in particular did you study while obtaining your Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering at Washington State University, and did you ever envision then that you’d eventually use those lessons to create a cannabis pre-roll producing machine?

This is a funny one! I probably learned more in the basement I rented than I did in the classroom. In that basement I grew cannabis for the first time, learned to harvest and cure properly and finally I rolled so many freaking joints down there that Cheech would be proud. I can’t fully discount my academics as they did lay a foundation for me to build my engineering career upon, but I was born an engineer. Just ask my mom.

Prior to finding RollPros, what industries and fields of work were you an engineer for? Your professional background is quite diverse and includes companies from Hewlett-Packard to Georgia Pacific.

I worked for many different industries and they all taught me something invaluable to my future entrepreneurial goals. My first company was a small startup in the medical world. It taught me that even a small team can create big waves of change. At HP, I learned a lot about paper path engineering and how very difficult problems can be solved. Nothing is impossible! Then during my last tenure at Oculus (Meta), I learned that endless money and resources is almost a curse. It’s better to be nimble, fast and half broke!

What inspired you to create the first “purposefully collapsible and conformable bone fixation implant” with Acute Innovations, and how does that device assist both physicians/surgeons and patients alike?

This thing was great. It solved four problems at once and surgeons absolutely loved it. I think what inspired it was an endless search for novel technologies. At Acute, we were much more dedicated to finding true innovation rather than hitting a timeline. That freedom gave us time to explore all ideas.

What were some of your regular duties at Acute? It looks like you had quite a varied list of duties there.

As with any startup I wore a ton of hats. I would inspect incoming parts, machine prototypes, interview surgeons, testing in cadaver labs, develop marketing materials, yada yada, the list goes on forever. The most formidable duty was to create prototypes, then test and repeat. That iteration cycle was drilled into my being of how to create, break, and then fix. That is how you create a great product. Master the art of iteration!

Because it’s really innovative technology and because I myself use my Oculus headset every day for VR boxing workouts, what projects/concepts did you work on with Oculus, and what is the usefulness and appeal of those concepts?

I was working on the far future products that were based on their optical systems that were developed for AR or Augmented Reality. The end goal being put on a pair of glasses and your current world transforms. My favorite example was after putting on my prototype you could run a program where the Kool Aide man would burst through the wall in your living room and say, “Oh YEAH!”

What would you say led to the founding of RollPros? Given the breadth of industries you’ve previously worked in, why did you want to found a company and design a machine meant almost entirely for the cannabis industry? January 2017 was certainly a very advantageous time to start a cannabis machinery company.

I saw an emerging market and felt like I had a skill that could really make an impact in it. I loved rolling and smoking joints, and was really passionate about cannabis before founding RollPros. So this was where I finally got to roll (see what I did there?) everything into one. And the timing was right, of course!

From an engineering/manufacturing standpoint, how groundbreaking is the technology it utilizes when it comes to preroll production, and how does the machine stand out from its competitors?

The TruRoll Technology that we developed with the BlackBird is unlike anything else on the market. It utilizes a belt to roll the flower prior to wrapping it with paper. This allows our customers to run fresh, high quality flower and also adjust how tightly rolled it is, giving them so much more freedom to create great products. Cones were truly the shackles holding down all of the potential of the pre-roll category. The cone form factor and manufacturing method to make them ensured that pre-rolls were never going to be high quality. The Blackbird solves that problem with novel technology.

RollPros just celebrated a very momentous milestone, as the Blackbird machine has officially rolled an astonishing 100 million prerolls. In your own words, what is the importance of that accomplishment, and what does it represent?

It represents validation that we have had a positive impact on the cannabis community. In the early days of RollPros, both competitors and commentators could easily say our tech was a fad, or that it wasn’t scalable. But you can’t argue with 100 million joints. Clearly the consumers have spoken, and this is what they want!

Suppose a federal rescheduling of cannabis from Schedule I to Schedule III occurs. How do you see such a far-reaching reform impacting both RollPros and machinery such as the Blackbird machine?

For us, I don’t think rescheduling will have much of an impact. The big business will still stay out of the industry as long as it’s federally illegal. And as long as people are putting high quality flower into joints, we will be here. I don’t believe anything in politics is going to change that!

Thank you for joining us, Kyle! For more information on RollPros and its technology, please visit its website.