Dominick Volpini, Vice President of Cloudious9, is ushering in the latest and greatest in sleek, consumer-friendly cannabis technology. The approachable entrepreneur is dedicated to revolutionizing the cannabis consumption experience for the better.
Cloudious9’s latest dual-use flower and concentrate vaporizer, the Hydrology9 NX, continues the company’s push toward technological greatness. In November, the Managing Editor of NisonCo PR, Marissa Smith, spoke with Volpini at the world’s largest cannabis conference, MJBizCon. Volpini spoke about special edition drops, the process of bringing this vape to market and teases Cloudious9’s next biggest innovations. Catch the interview and an infographic outlining the bundle’s best features below.
Marissa Smith: Tell me a little bit about this new Hydrology9 NX. Is this the dry herb and concentrate combo device?
Dominick Volpini: Yeah! So we came out with a newer version of our Hydrology9 NX, version 2.0. The Midnight Black is a special edition for the 2022 holiday season, and it’s a dry flower vaporizer and a concentrate vaporizer. It has swappable heating chambers you can swap in and out for any different material you want.
Marissa: There’s nothing like the Hydrology9 NX on the market right now because of the heating chamber interiors — most of the dual vapes on the market are all ceramic, right?
Dominick: Yeah. One of the reasons we developed this product is that no one has a dual-use cannabis vape that has dedicated, specific uses to the materials’ unique heating properties. Each time you put a chamber in, this device heats up to six individual temperature settings. The Hyrdrology9 NX has temperature parameters for smoking flower, and there are temperature settings for dabbing concentrates.
Marissa: What were some of your biggest hurdles when bringing the Hydrology9 NX to market?
Dominick: We were going through a bit of distribution change, so we brought this to market ourselves. One of the biggest hurdles was we didn’t launch it as we would typically launch a product and have it fully distributed into many retail stores. However, we’re working on getting it into numerous stores now.
Marissa: What made Cloudious9 change it up this time and handle your own distribution?
Dominick: It was a little more beneficial. We can work more directly with some key clients and MSOs, which will be a key demographic for us moving forward with some of our products coming into the market.
Marissa: Since you had an established base already, there’s not as much need to rely on outside help for the distribution side of things.
Dominick: Getting to know the other side of the clients is much better. Previously, we would have a distributor manage and handle that relationship, so it was more of a simple financial transaction. Now, we’re able to get a little bit closer to the customer — we’re able to do sales promotions and work with the different teams a little more in-depth. In a way, we provide a stickier solution for our customers. Additionally, we can tell them what else we’re doing more easily than relying on a third party that’s not as close to our products as we are.
Marissa: What’s your favorite marketing campaign Cloudious9 has done over the past two years? What worked well?
Dominick: It’s always been a cornerstone of our marketing to have an excellent PR firm that can get our products into the hands of a number of reviewers so we can get some organic earned media. Then, we combine those efforts with some paid media by amplifying unique products that don’t have advertising restrictions, like our grinder.
We’ll use traditional Instagram and Facebook ads. We’re allowed to bypass conventional ad restrictions and advertise on those platforms. Additionally, those ads perform well because we have a unique product. So we can get a higher conversion rate and then cross-sell people on the new products. We’re building a pretty robust pipeline of people via that method.
Marissa: Has it been challenging in terms of the supply chain, or do you do most of your production domestically?
Dominick: The supply chain has been an issue for us. Global supply chain interruptions impacted us at the beginning of the pandemic. We have our own factory overseas, and Richard, the founder, has a tremendous amount of experience in orchestrating successful supply chains, especially in China. So that’s been one of our key advantages: We have been much more nimble than most other companies. Our supply chain management is so robust that government agencies turned to us at the beginning of the pandemic to help secure some of their medical supplies. We were able to get many N-95 masks and PPE before anyone else was able to get them.
Marissa: What are the next major, exciting things on the Cloudious9 plate in 2023?
Dominick: So the biggest thing will be we have several new products. We have five new products that are actually in tooling, and they’re almost out! They will come out within the next quarter.
Marissa: Five is a crazy number! Can you give me any previews on what to expect?
Dominick: They’re all going to be very diverse and from various categories. They’re not going to be what anyone expects we will come out with. Some of them are minor products, but we have one really big one that we forecast will be a very unique item and will make a significant impact on the market. However, it’s in a category you wouldn’t expect from us.
Marissa: What is the target consumer for this particular new product?
Dominick: It would be a little on the cultivation side, but it’s only tangentially cultivation-based. It’s also designed for the end consumer. It’s a nice product that crosses both the professional and the consumer sides. So it’s this unique mix. We’re also excited because it doesn’t just apply to cannabis growers but to a broader outside market.
Marissa: I cannot wait to see what’s coming next — that sounds really cool!
Want to keep up with the latest from Cloudious9? Follow along on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.