How Leafly’s Feedback Loop Predicts the Next Big Thing in Cannabis ft. Yoko Miyashita

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Yoko Miyashita: You've got what's happening in the industry within each state kind of driving what is the output and what's being produced and grown. So it's that ability to have feet on the ground — a feedback loop. We've got retailers telling us what we need to talk about, we've got brands telling us what we need to talk about, and then we just get submissions: 'You guys are missing the point here — hey Leafly, you need to cover this, this is the new strain, why is that not in your database?' Bryan Fields: What's up guys, welcome back to another episode of The Dime. I'm Bryan Fields, with me as always is Kellen Finney. This week we've got a very special guest, Yoko Miyashita, CEO of Leafly. Yoko, thanks for taking the time — how are you doing today? Yoko Miyashita: I'm doing great, thank you. Thanks for having me on. Bryan Fields: Excited to have you here. Kellen, how are you doing? Kellen Finney: I'm doing really well, Bryan. Really excited to talk to Yoko and dive into Leafly — it was one of my favorite platforms forever, back in the early days when I had to figure out what a strain was. Really excited to dive into their company and all the cool things they're doing now. It's also nice to have a West Coaster on the podcast again. How are you doing, Bryan? Bryan Fields: That is true — I'm very excited to talk to Yoko. We've got a lot of topics to cover today, and I think it's important to note that it's possible to be physically located on the West Coast but have your heart — and maybe some family members — on the East Coast. So Yoko, if you had to choose: East Coast, West Coast, or 'left coast forever'? Yoko Miyashita: Don't apologize to me — we'll just edit that part out. Before we dive in, for our listeners unfamiliar with me, let me give a little background on myself and how I found my way to the cannabis space. I've been with the organization for five years. Prior to coming to Leafly, I'm actually a lawyer by training, and I think the secret of cannabis is really about understanding the opportunity in the space — understanding the regulatory structure, which is highly fragmented across fifty states. You have to figure out where and how you can move to actually drive and create opportunity. I spent about fifteen years in private practice and at a digital media company, and I originally came to Leafly as General Counsel in 2019. I was here in Seattle watching one of the first adult-use states come online, and I did a fair amount of public advocacy work over the course of my tenure as General Counsel. I thought, that's my next job, I have to be in this space — it's so interesting, the privilege and opportunity to help build an industry. It was a serendipitous moment: a cannabis media property, a brand so well respected, needed its first General Counsel, and it just fell out of the sky in my backyard. That was five years ago, and I took over as CEO in 2020, so it's been just over four years hanging out with this amazing team, really trying to help consumers navigate this interesting space. We think about all the opportunity and complexity wrapped up in this magical plant, and if we can help unlock that magic for consumers, that's where we create value — at the intersection of retailers, consumers, and brands. Bryan Fields: I'd assume when you first took the role you had a feeling of excitement — 'here's where I can add value, here's the low-hanging fruit.' Fast forward five years, is there one thing that surprised you most compared to where you originally thought it would be? Yoko Miyashita: I really like that this space is like nesting dolls — you open something up and yet another layer emerges, constantly peeling back the onion to find something new at each level. I root that in the magic and power of the plant, but what really blew my mind — putting my lawyer hat on for a second — is the innate understanding that as we try to change hearts and minds and defeat a hundred years of stigma, how we get there as a legal industry is through an emphasis on and respect for compliance. There are plenty of folks who feel we've gone overboard and that the cost of compliance is killing this industry — I understand that perspective — but it doesn't change our commitment to compliance and our need to evolve it to a place where it keeps consumers safe but also lets operators thrive and grow. Kellen Finney: Can you elaborate on some of the steps Leafly is taking to help your customers through this compliance journey, which can feel like a minefield? Yoko Miyashita: Our mission is rooted in education and information. What happened as a result of prohibition is that information got locked down — you suppress discovery, you suppress research, you suppress the ability to learn by shoving it under layers of prohibition. For us, it's about surfacing that education, starting from data and science to defeat stigma, and then particularizing the journey depending on where you are — are you at the outset with no idea what to do, are you slowly emerging and trying new form factors, or are you an expert who knows your cannabinoid profile and which terpenes work for you. It's about leveraging real-time education to help refine that journey of discovery. Kellen Finney: From a consumer standpoint, if I searched 'OG Kush in Maryland,' would I be general or specific? How does that work? Yoko Miyashita: We think about Leafly as meeting you where you are. You might know what an OG Kush strain is, or you might be further up the funnel wondering what THC even is. Given our fourteen years of publishing in this space, we capture a lot of that original search intent through SEO because we're a high-authority site — we've published a lot and delivered on our mission of educating consumers. Bryan Fields: How do you gather all that information and keep it clean and accurate as customer preferences and lingo evolve? Yoko Miyashita: Especially in the digital space, that's foundational, and it breaks up in different ways. At the very top of the funnel — news, learning content, basic articles about THC and CBD — we constantly refresh what we published years ago with new information. We used to cover a lot of the politics, but that's shifted because mainstream media picked it up — when I started, the New York Times didn't have a cannabis beat, and at its peak they had two full-time staffers on it. So we've shifted to covering what's unique within cannabis culture that mainstream outlets won't. Then there's data at the store level — menus — and further down at the product level. A lot of companies, including POS companies and e-commerce platforms, are trying to crack the nut of clean data, which is the foundation for giving consumers confidence that the product they're purchasing is the one they want. We don't have a UPC code equivalent — there's no uniformity. As an example, I'm a middle-aged cannabis consumer who found my way back to the plant through topicals. I'd buy a jar at my local store, go back two weeks later and it's gone, and then I'm online trying to figure out if the one I'm looking at has the same cannabinoids and texture as the one I had before. It's such a foundational e-commerce problem and we're still trying to solve it. Kellen Finney: It sounds like a lot of that starts with the interaction with a budtender. Are there specific projects your team is taking on to help educate budtenders and build a collaborative relationship with them around your data? Yoko Miyashita: I love that question, because yesterday was International Budtender Day, a holiday we've been celebrating for the last three years — I believe this was our third annual one. This is my favorite part of being out in market at consumer events and popups, because even if a consumer doesn't know who Leafly is, budtenders do. They understand the complexity and act as a guide. Some consumers just want a simple recommendation and will repeat-purchase it; others want to go deeper and go down rabbit holes. We think of the budtender as our partner in guiding that journey. But walking into a dispensary is still a high barrier for some — it can be intimidating, and you're expected to discuss personal health matters with a stranger. We think about how we can de-risk those interaction points, whether you're new to cannabis or a regular consumer who doesn't want to discuss certain health conditions at the counter in front of other people. Kellen Finney: How does your team decide which topics — cannabinoids, terpenes, etc. — are most relevant to create content around to meet the consumer where they are? Yoko Miyashita: It's hard, but we have fourteen years of experience and some amazing subject matter experts, both on staff and freelance, plus tentacles out in the market. Because of COVID, Leafly became a distributed workforce, and we learned that the plant is unique across all fifty states since products can't cross state lines — so what's happening in industry within each state drives output. We rely on a feedback loop: retailers telling us what to cover, brands telling us what to cover, and consumer submissions saying we're missing a new strain. Being digital also means we see search data — not flashy activations, but what's trending in Google search — so we can react accordingly. Bryan Fields: How does that then translate into brand partnerships? For example, if there's a spike in searches for sleep products in New York, does that turn into a partnership opportunity? Yoko Miyashita: One hundred percent. We saw a hot spot around carts in early summer, but some categories — flower, pre-rolls, concentrates, carts, edibles — have stayed consistently popular over time. But we also saw the emergence of drinks, and you can't talk about drinks without talking about hemp. My teenage kids are a good example — think California, the determinant of cultural trends — 'Cali sober' was huge at the start of this year. People started thinking maybe drinking isn't as good for them as they thought, but they still want something fun and social. I'm Asian, I can't process alcohol well, so a micro-dose cannabis or hemp product appeals to me. We saw huge engagement around content like weed cocktails you can make yourself or where to pick them up, and because of Leafly's authority, we can then go create content — like our top five weed drinks — that opens up placement opportunities for brands. Bryan Fields: So to make sure I understand — it's January, 'Cali sober' is trending, an article on the top five cannabis beverages goes up, and that creates five brand placement opportunities plus a valuable ad spot next to it for someone looking to buy a hemp beverage? Yoko Miyashita: Spot on. We've done that throughout the year with edibles for sleep, our drinks content, and more — blending conversations across THC and hemp, since there are different business models when working in a federally legal space versus not. I want to go one step further: how do we level the playing field and unify the plant, because it's the same thing at the end of the day. We need to align on the right amount of regulation to keep consumers safe while letting the legal market win. Kellen Finney: When your team creates this kind of content, do you try the products internally? How does that process work, especially with the added complexity of hemp versus cannabis crossing state lines? Yoko Miyashita: That's right — cannabis is more logistically challenging to test across state lines. I want to point to the amazing coverage from David Downs, our longtime cannabis reporter. When David writes something up, I know the level of fidelity he's exercised in assessing how well a product works. Our writers take turns aligning on how they're going to describe things, because consumers are trusting us to help make an important decision. We try to give as much information as possible — what others have said, social proof — so consumers know their range of variability and have realistic expectations. Kellen Finney: Do you see different search trends between newer adult-use states and medical states? Yoko Miyashita: Strain popularity varies a bit, but form factor preference has been remarkably consistent — people gravitate toward flower and intended consumption methods more than I expected given how many new form factors keep emerging. Bryan Fields: Any data that's surprised you? Yoko Miyashita: It's actually not product trends but consumer purchasing trends — people buy cannabis like regular CPG products. Deals, discounts, pickup time, consistent customer service — these are economic decisions made just like with any other e-commerce product, which is oddly unsexy but debunks the idea that we always need a totally unique lens for this plant. We should borrow from traditional retail channels where it makes sense and only innovate where cannabis is truly unique. Bryan Fields: That must be really valuable for new markets — can you elaborate on your partnership in New York? Yoko Miyashita: We were excited to recently launch a partnership in New York with NYCRA, the Cannabis Retailers Association. Four years ago there was so much excitement and ambition for New York to write some real wrongs through this plant, but we knew there were mistakes from other states we couldn't afford to repeat. We advocated early for things like letting licensed retailers sell online and offer delivery — if I'm competing with the illicit guy who delivers, I need to be on par digitally. That was really behind our push in New York. We're excited about the newly proposed advertising regulations there too, but we need to find the right balance so we're not regulating and over-complying operators out of existence. Bryan Fields: Since Leafly isn't plant-touching, was there pushback in New York about your involvement, or did they recognize the value you bring in channeling consumers from illicit to licensed stores? Yoko Miyashita: I'd like to think the understanding was there, though only with four years of hindsight do I think it truly was. There was concern at the outset about an 'Amazon' coming in to dominate the market, but we emphasized that we're non-plant-touching — we can't transfer title, we don't sell cannabis — but retailers need help connecting with consumers, and we're an integral part of that connection. Kellen Finney: Is there some sort of online enforcement actively targeting illicit cannabis-purchasing apps and platforms in New York, the way there's been padlocking of illicit physical stores? Yoko Miyashita: Not that I'm aware of — interesting business idea, though. I think the important thing is that legalization starts with education and awareness of where you can buy tested, licensed products. A lot of people still don't know there are licensed stores near them, or what 'licensed and tested' even means. And all of that is predicated on licensing enough stores to have sufficient supply, because ultimately people are driven by convenience — can a licensed option match the same convenience as the illicit guy who shows up at your door? On the padlock point — I laughed seeing reports of New York's success from padlocking unlicensed stores; all it apparently took was about a hundred dollars for a padlock, no arrest or prosecution needed, just visible proof to consumers that something isn't quite right with that store. Yoko Miyashita: Going back to the online policing question — here's one of the industry's great oxymorons: as a licensed, non-plant-touching company, I can't really educate people about cannabis on any Meta platform without risking my account being shut down, yet I get spam messages every day on Instagram trying to sell me weed with photos of nugs. It's absurd, and I don't know how we solve that beyond going after every gatekeeper on the internet. Bryan Fields: Have you ever tried to get a hold of someone at Meta about that? Yoko Miyashita: Not yet — hey Mark Zuckerberg, if you're listening. Massive organizations like that, you never know which reviewer or moderator flagged your account or why. We're actually way better off than plant-touching businesses since we're a consumer marketplace and technology company, not selling anything directly. I heard just last week there was a massive roundup of accounts getting locked out of Instagram. Bryan Fields: Switching to hemp versus cannabis — same plant, small characteristic differences, but handled completely differently. How does your team handle that incoming information and disseminate it accurately to users? Yoko Miyashita: Hemp isn't new to us — hemp brands have been part of our platform as long as I've been here, going back to 2019 and the CBD boom, then Delta-8 and other alternative cannabinoids. What's changed over the last eighteen months is the ability to emulate THC effects through Delta-9 hemp derivatives, especially in edibles and drinks. The consumer journey looks qualitatively different depending on where you live — in a licensed state you know where your dispensary or delivery service is, but in a state like Texas with no real medical program, that experience is completely different, and yet the product and its risks may be qualitatively similar despite very different quality and compliance standards. Right now we're looking at how to better connect consumers in those markets with retailers and hemp brands that can serve them safely. Kellen Finney: Is that about investing in hemp/THC-style education so people in states like Texas understand it? Yoko Miyashita: A hundred percent. Every hemp DTC brand today spends a lot of effort explaining why their product can show up on your doorstep, and consumers are understandably confused about why that's different from a dispensary product. I buy from both — certain hemp drinks I can't get at my licensed store get mailed to me in a plain box, while I have to drive to pick up my carts locally. I have a law degree that helps me understand why, but most consumers don't, and that's an opportunity for a neutral source — not the brand itself — to explain it. Bryan Fields: What's the dynamic when a dispensary is paying to operate compliantly in a state, but consumers in that same state can buy a nearly identical hemp beverage online and have it shipped directly? Does Leafly have a stance on how it supports dispensaries in that scenario? Yoko Miyashita: Retailers and brands sustain this platform, and we respect the tough conditions they operate under — most operators aren't even profitable given compliance costs, while hemp providers don't carry that same cost. At the same time, we're not fulfilling our consumer mission unless we help them understand their options and the differences. We'll make mistakes on both sides, and we hear from retailers and brands when something feels unfair, and we adjust. Ultimately our job is to give consumers the information to discern and choose for themselves. Bryan Fields: Should dispensaries just be allowed to sell hemp beverages too, the same way they sell shirts or chapstick? Yoko Miyashita: That's a legal question I actually discussed at a Cannabis Alliance town hall here in Washington State, where I sit on their equity and justice committee. In Washington, licensed retailers currently cannot sell hemp-derived products, and there's a movement asking how retailers can compete if they can't carry those products on their shelves. That's exactly the energy we should redirect toward building fair regulatory rules of the road instead of using them to attack each other — otherwise we risk re-criminalizing the plant and undoing decades of advocacy. Bryan Fields: That was perfectly said — unfortunate we can't always internalize it and act accordingly. Yoko Miyashita: We've seen major established licensed brands introduce hemp-based lines over the last six months, which is an acknowledgment of that reality. Brand building requires trust and consistency, and it's incredibly inefficient to build a brand from scratch in every single state under the current licensed structure. Hemp lets brands achieve the efficiencies of scale needed to become profitable while meeting consumers where they are. Bryan Fields: Switching gears — what don't we know about Leafly? Yoko Miyashita: It's been a tough couple of years for us, tied to what's happened in the industry broadly — capital inflows have dropped, and our existence, like every operator's, is tied to money in this space. But sitting here reflecting, I feel genuine cause for optimism. I'm deeply inspired by the people here who remain committed to helping consumers discover cannabis, and by the companies that have survived some of the hardest times by betting on this industry. With more states potentially legalizing and two presidential candidates who've committed to shifts in federal cannabis policy, we're going to need to re-explain all of this to a wave of new consumers, and we want to be part of that education effort. Bryan Fields: Dream smoking session, three people dead or alive? Yoko Miyashita: Rasputin, Gandhi... and ask me another question, I want to come back to the third. Bryan Fields: What question do you wish more people asked you? Yoko Miyashita: On behalf of Leafly, I wish people asked more about why Leafly is necessary for this space — because answering that opens up the history of this plant: the cultural, historical, and medicinal foundations, the hundred-year war to suppress it, and the journey of legalizing and reintroducing it. Without appreciating that history, you can't understand why it's so hard for a retailer, a brand, or a consumer, and why a company like Leafly is necessary to help solve those challenges. Personally, I've said before that I admire former PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi, particularly how she led a major soda company through the transition brought on by the war on sugar — carrying a brand and an organization through a real mindset shift. We're in the business of changing hearts and minds too, and I want to learn how to inspire people through that kind of transformation. Bryan Fields: Prediction time — with Leafly's unique position as a marketplace, what emerging consumer trend do you foresee shifting minds? Yoko Miyashita: Changing the law is a critical part of changing stigma. Just before 4/20 this spring I was in Germany right as they went legal in a limited way starting in April — it'll be slow and messy, but think about the significance of Germany going legal and what dominoes that tips internationally. We'll get there when all fifty states have legal access and there's international acknowledgment that we should get this plant into the hands of the people who can use it safely. It's a hearts-and-minds game, paired with education at every step of the journey. Kellen Finney: I'll take a similar approach, but I'd point to hemp beverages — most people who consume something mind-altering do it through a beverage or something they eat, and hemp has found a way to deliver Delta-9 THC to any consumer in any state, right to their doorstep. That gives people on the fence about legalization a safe way to try it at home, which will ultimately help prove that this isn't the 'devil's lettuce' it was made out to be for a hundred years. Bryan Fields: My prediction is personalization — the moment we get first-person data so I can get products tailored for creativity, sleep, exercise, or relaxation, with a known and repeatable outcome, that will be a game changer. I think Leafly has a tremendous first-person data advantage given its status in the industry, and I'm excited to see how personalization unfolds. Yoko Miyashita: I appreciate that, Bryan — that's spot on. Trust and education really depend on the information we get back from this community, and the willingness of the people who sustain Leafly to share their experiences, which becomes the foundation for building personalization engines we can keep iterating on. Bryan Fields: Yoko, for our listeners who want to get in touch or learn more, where can they find you? Yoko Miyashita: First and foremost, leafly.com — download our app on both the Google Play Store and the App Store. I'm also active on LinkedIn and on X. Send me a message, I'd love to hear from you. Bryan Fields: Thanks for taking the time, this was a lot of fun.