Introducing Singular: How Active's Modular Vape Platform Changes Everything ft. Alex Kwon

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Alex Kwon: It's this modularity that you have between engines, form factors, and then the ability to have people taste different things between a different suite of products that you're starting to have. And that's why it's so, so unique. Bryan Fields: What's up, guys? Welcome back to another episode of The Dime. I'm Bryan Fields, and with me as always is Kellen Finney. This week we've got a very special guest returning back to the pod, Alex Kwon. Alex, thanks for taking the time. How are you doing today? Alex Kwon: Great. It's great to see you guys again. Kellen Finney: Excited to have you here, Alex. How are you doing? Alex Kwon: Doing well. Grateful for a chance to talk to you both again. How are you doing, Bryan? Bryan Fields: Yeah, I'm stoked. We're going to dive into vape, we're going to dive into innovation, and we're going to dive into pushing the envelope forward. And I think my favorite aspect is the challenges that go behind the curtain, right? Everyone's going to see this big, beautiful release and how nice it all looks, and I think before that there's all these iterative changes, all these ups and downs, all these left-or-right decisions, and I don't think there's anybody better to break it all down for us than Alex. So before we get in, let's talk about Singular, the platform. Can you give us a high-level overview of what it is and why you're excited to bring it to market? Alex Kwon: Yeah, I appreciate you taking the time, guys. This has been, as we always talk about in the past, this space is a labor of love for us. We have some history here on this podcast, obviously with Kellen as well, and I think we're always thinking about how to advance the industry forward, advance the technology, but also our service to clients and overall the consumers accessing the market. We're super excited about the launch of Singular, not just for us as a company, but for the industry. The thing that has us most excited about it is that it's the first universal, modular vape platform, if you will. Its uniqueness comes in a multitude of ways, and how we built up to it goes back to different technology stacks, issues in the market we'd seen in the past, continuing to take feedback from clients, and seeing this huge rise of single-use disposables and realizing that's just not a sustainable future for the business or for consumers. On top of that, with all of our experience with oil and extraction — from high-cannabinoid distillates and diamonds, high-THC content, to more exotic, complex extracts like live resin, and then rosins that still have fats and waxes in them — we've seen how stability changes throughout the life of these vapor extracts when you heat and consume them, whether through a 510 cartridge platform or an all-in-one. What has us excited about Singular is that we feel like we have a platform that gives different choices of form factors, sizes, and engines, all properly tuned for the type of extract, in a sustainable format that also allows brands to hold their unique brand identity while getting the replenishment benefits of 510. There's a lot of technology packed into it, and by the time this launches, you'll see Singular in 500-plus doors across 12 to 14 different markets, with a lot more excellent brand partnerships coming online. This has been a multi-year project, and a lot of it kicked off from some of the stuff we talked about in the past. We're always leveling up — we have a huge pipeline of exciting add-ons coming, but we try not to alienate the past. We always want to learn iteratively and make sure it's something that's future-proof and builds on top of itself. Bryan Fields: One of my favorite aspects of talking to you is that it's always a thoughtful approach — understanding, okay, here are the problems we want to solve, and this isn't the end-all-be-all, it's just a stepping stone forward. So let's go back to how you brought all those components together for this new platform, because it's really unique and really difficult to achieve since there are so many different ways to go. Was there a singular challenge you were trying to solve early on, and then after getting customer feedback you layered on more, or did it start as something completely different? Alex Kwon: That's a really good question. I'm trying to go back to the impetus of it — what really sparked it. A lot of it comes from our own passion, right? What do I want? Why am I having this problem? You hear it from other people too — you can have the best oil in an excellent cartridge engine or an all-in-one, but it doesn't tune right, doesn't vaporize all the way through, or a customer gets a hot battery and floods the atomizer and it pops. There's all these things that happen. So we've always thought about how to eliminate user error and make it more accessible. At the time, all-in-ones were starting to take off. There are charts our team has around the historical dominance of 510, and then this big influx of all-in-ones. But if you really think about it, all-in-ones are a lot more low-tech — just a single voltage battery attached to a cartridge, trying to keep costs as low as possible. We've done a lot of work in stainless and ceramic, and as we've developed different composites and stack-ups for our post-list technology, those keep iterating — we're on something like 17 or 19 variations now, all tested with cannabis oil, understanding different nuances. It always comes back to: if I hand it to someone who's a true head, are they going to say, "Yeah, this is vaporizing the way I want, this is how the extract should taste"? That's part of our sensory analysis — is this something I'd have in my own pocket? From a tech and problem-solving perspective, we knew 510 was the tried-and-true engine, and when we first came into this industry, our category of business was about solving safety and cleanliness issues — heavy metals testing, raw material supply chain transparency. That was the first step for Active. Then all-in-ones came along, and we came in later, quote-unquote, because we felt like even if we built it right, it still wasn't the best use of all these lithium-ion batteries sitting everywhere. We had different tech around removable sleds, taking the shell out, and so on — and I'll come back to the idea that sometimes the right idea at the wrong time is the wrong idea. Pod systems were around too — you saw PAX, you saw Stiiizy blow up, you saw Rove do their thing, closed reusable systems — but pricing was more expensive back then due to raw material supply chains. As those supply chains matured, we got to add a lot more tech: smart chips, oil modulation, ways to make sure the extract operates the right way — without all the bells and whistles like screens and video games you see out there now, which is cool, but not necessarily useful. So the thought process was: how do we solve the sustainability issue around single-use batteries, get the tried-and-true performance out of 510 engines we've run for six or seven years and that have become the most reliable in the space based on market feedback, and maintain the flavor and reliability we're known for? It was about beautiful design too — not just some stick thing, but different form factors that let brands really own their identity, like what we did with the all-in-one brick for Select, which has been a great success for them, and some other all-in-ones through other large partners as well. So it was about taking the future, taking all the benefits we've seen in the past — battery technology, modulation, wattage dialing — and putting it into a platform with interchangeability between engines and form factors. It was marrying the reliability and success of 510 with the ease of use and form-factor success of all-in-ones, then asking how do we future-proof this so the layered technology doesn't require redoing the whole thing? Also important: how do you not alienate the past? You'll see in the market materials that there's a 510 adapter — I believe we're the first ones to ever do that. It releases the friction of change into a platform; you can still buy 510 and it's going to work just as well or better with a higher-tech battery, with tuned pods depending on the engine and capacity size. Hemp has gone to three, four, five milliliters; cannabis has gone from half a mil to one or two, and some people are pushing three — though depending on the extract type, that may not be stable through the life of the cart. Our platform, depending on the engine or battery structure, is built to handle that at different rates throughout the device's capacity life. Right now there's going to be a big sustainability issue with single-use all-in-ones, and I think this is a great solution that keeps the excitement of an all-in-one — sleek, discreet, different ergonomic form factors — while adding reusability and the ability to do collabs. There's a lot more tech embedded in the system that you'll see rolled out in Q1, Q2, and Q3 of next year. Kellen Finney: How much inspiration have you drawn from the tobacco space, in terms of e-juice? If you look at that space, 510 cartridges kind of only exist because the previous vaping technology in the e-juice space wasn't compatible with the product from an oil perspective — you don't see a lot of 510 threads in that space at all. It's either a disposable or a modular "mod," which is more of a hobbyist thing. In my mind, that's where this industry is going to diverge too — convenience of an all-in-one versus people wanting the hobby, the temperature control, all that user experience control. So do you look at the e-cigarette industry or other smokable spaces for inspiration, or do you put that aside and drive with your own vision? Alex Kwon: It's a mixture of both. Think about how e-juice went — big mod tanks where you put e-juice in, then 510 came along. 510 was just readily available, an easier build, reusable — kind of the razor-blade model — and these simple tubular batteries with two wires and a universal connector were everywhere, so it was saturation. For cannabis it was different because of the oil type. E-juice is a very easy viscosity to deal with — it's not a complex chemical formula, it's PG/VG and voila, clouds for days, put into cotton with a little mesh coil — that's ninety-nine percent of single-use disposable e-juice rigs. As bans and crackdowns happened around PMTA and regulatory issues, you saw them find other unique ways into the space. We always stay aware of what e-juice has done — we saw screens three or four years ago and wondered if people would really want that, and now everyone wants a screen, which is kind of silly from a cannabis-purist standpoint because it doesn't add a lot of value when people are competing on margin — the oil has to work first. So it's a marriage of understanding what consumers want, how they're trained from e-cigs, versus what cannabis users are accustomed to. We pay close attention to tobacco's technology, updates, and raw material supply because they have such bigger volume and can mature supply chains faster — that informs our component builds, battery chemistries from lithium-ion to nickel-based to capacitor styles, and different thermoplastics that nicotine companies wouldn't use but we would. But we're in a very different supply chain because we're not doing hundreds of millions of units like e-cig companies. So you have to know where the bridge is — is this a difference that makes a difference for cannabis, or one that doesn't? If tobacco's already figured something out and it's mature, let's use it and not reinvent the wheel. Kellen Finney: Yeah, tons of sense. It seems like this is a culmination of everything Active has done — all the experience, all the iterations, all the feedback from different customers. So how much additional feedback did you get from your bigger customers saying, "Here's what we're thinking, here are the problems we're solving, is this something that would help?" Because you're essentially telling customers you don't think all-in-ones are a long-term trend, and that can be a hard sell when a customer isn't sure it's the right move. Alex Kwon: Yes to all of that. It's a culmination of all the tech, because we also have to execute for clients around supply chain sustainability. We're at the center of the trade issues you see between us and overseas manufacturing, and it's been remarkable because we had the foresight two to three years ago to build a secondary supply chain and separate manufacturing in Indonesia — that was a big deal, because we know how much time that actually takes, and having it in place early meant we had a solution ready in case things didn't improve before they got worse. Beyond direct customer feedback, we also had to look around corners ourselves. I'm not the biggest fan of a lot of past pod systems — some haven't iterated in forever, some had ideas like Bluetooth or writing-on-vapor gimmicks that people don't actually use in practice. We've all run through these things ourselves, and it takes humility to step back and do a postmortem on what worked and what didn't, whether it went well or not — failing fast, failing forward, learning from mistakes and from wins. So in a sense, we built this by becoming our own customer: what does Active want to build for Active? Internally we jokingly called this project "Mr. Potato Head" three years ago because it was such a long project. We learned a lot about IP through the ITC, and studied what e-cig, tobacco, and pharma companies do. We asked, is the all-in-one trend really going to last with regulators and the news cycle? We didn't know, so we decided the future needed to be what we believe is the world's first modular vape platform — nobody had done it modularly before. People might call it "just another pod system," but it's not, because a typical pod system is closed, tied to one brand, with limited functionality and architecture that isn't conducive to different oil types — from distillate to super-runny live resin to different rosins and future creative formulations. Being able to offer a vessel where extractors and clients can choose the heating profile and engine that suits their oil, while giving brands modularity across engines and form factors so people can taste different things across a suite of products — that's what makes it unique. Everything is designed to work within a family of design too, so devices look and function cohesively rather than looking "fugly" if mismatched. We describe it as being "Singular compatible," analogous to USB-C compatible — we're not saying we're the only brand, we're the platform behind more brands having more options, more open access, because that's ultimately what consumers want: more choice and better access to good cannabis through vape. For manufacturers, it's about who we're enabling on the platform, how they replenish, and how the experience holds up, especially as MSOs or house-of-brands portfolios juggle multiple products and vendors — consolidating SKUs, having brand design continuity, and knowing the engine and oil type will perform as intended, all while getting a better value for the consumer. Kellen Finney: Just thinking back to what you said about opening up possibilities for people to iterate on — I hadn't considered how complicated and noisy it is for big MSOs managing many vendors and products, and how much simpler it is for consumers and companies alike to have one platform where everything works together. Alex Kwon: Right, it should be a huge SKU reduction for a lot of companies without sacrificing anything — if anything, you're gaining. That's the part we're excited about; it's the right idea at the right time. Nobody else has made different form factors, engines, or capacity sizes work together like this. From an engine perspective, we have the stainless one — the metal pod — the ceramic one, which we call our Pro Pod, and the postless pod, which we call our Air Pod, using surface-mounted technology directly on the heating element with different composites. All of that requires deep understanding of heating elements and oil saturation, and it wouldn't have made sense to invest that R&D into something built for a single-use, throwaway battery. Now that battery isn't just for one pod or our Singular systems — you can put a 510 on it too — which was important for solving the sustainability issue, and it opens the door to things like dosing and other features because it's a smarter battery, not a "dumb" one. Bryan Fields: How does the iterative process work — first design comes out, you test it, get feedback, test again — take us behind the curtain. How many times are you testing to make sure it works well with all the different elements, since it could work great with one but not another, and you want it to work perfectly across the board? Alex Kwon: We're graced with a lot of track record with stainless and ceramic engines — we're probably one of the largest procurers of ceramics and understand the formulation and thermal capacity involved, the resaturation rate and heating elasticity of those components. Because we already had that knowledge, it was about making sure those major engines worked across different capacity sizes. The harder iterative part is design — getting the whole library of designs to work and look right together while keeping consistent troubleshooting processes, because at the end of the day it's hardware and you're going to run into issues. One of Active's greatest calling cards is our ability to not just service issues but walk through whether it was a fulfillment error, a hardware error, or a formulation issue, and solve it — that iterative process only improves with every build, every version. It's been exhaustive, honestly, but that just means we're testing enough that things keep improving. We might not always be first to the party, but when we come, we want to come correct — that's part of our ethos of constant improvement. We were actually talking about launching this last year at MJBizCon, and we decided to wait and be more methodical, so that when version one goes out, we're already working on versions three, four, and five behind it. What I call "version one" is really more like version fifteen internally. Bryan Fields: What you just said about the product is the most important part — I think if you don't understand that, you've probably never created a product before, because it's so difficult to release one, and once you do, you see all its faults and want to keep iterating because you realize how great it can become. Alex Kwon: For sure. Clients — purchasing managers, extraction teams, finance folks — are great in their areas, but when they ask for a change, we have to think through whether that's a simple tweak or something that requires changing the entire architecture across a dozen models. Because we anticipate the kinds of changes people might ask for — airflow preferences, wanting more "eggy" hits or less — we build with that flexibility baked in from the start, understanding there are bands of preference we can float within. I don't think people fully understand how long product development actually takes. I'm often the biggest violator of this myself, pushing the team for something in three months that realistically takes eighteen. Normal product development cycles run eighteen to twenty-four months, and patent cycles run two to three years, so you have to be very thoughtful, especially given what's happened with some of our competitors in this space. You do a lot of testing and R&D, work with partners, validate, and then execute — and honestly the planning and testing phase is the hardest part. Bryan Fields: Is there a specific element you think might go unnoticed by most people right now, but that you think internally is the coolest thing — something that in six to twelve weeks people will look at and go, "I can't believe they did that"? Alex Kwon: We've already gotten some feedback that the 510 adapter is a bigger deal than people initially expect, because normally with a pod system you're locked into buying only that brand's pods — that's not true anymore, and that really releases a major friction point. There's another thing I really want to talk about but I'm holding my tongue on, because it's a game-changer in a sense — something that, coming from this space myself, is exactly what I'd want as a consumer, and I think Kellen would too. I'll just say all the layers of technology we're building, from the battery side to this thing I'm being cagey about, are the foundational pieces of where we're actually trying to go. If we can execute that properly with the right commercialization partners, I think it becomes the platform clients choose, because we want it to be as frictionless as possible to join while still preserving exclusivity around form factor, design, and brand ethos — and 510 is still invited to the party too, we're not closing that door. Bryan Fields: Love it. So we should leave it there, Alex. For our listeners who want to get in touch or try Singular, where can they find you? Alex Kwon: Active710.com, and Singular. You'll see it all over our Instagram, @Active710, and you'll start seeing it across different brand partners too — just look up Active Singular and you'll find it. Bryan Fields: Thanks for taking the time to walk us through all the cool stuff that's continuing to come. Appreciate you, guys. Alex Kwon: Thanks for your time.