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Harper's Hemp Oil
Is RSHO. I do thank HempMeds for helping the kid out but they do not make RSHO and they no longer hold the exclusive distribution rights to it. RSHO is a Cannavest product who have given indication they plan to market it independently of HempMeds and MJNA (but perhaps with another label).
So this is good news for Harper but for MJNA investors, not so much.
Short Answer, We Don't Know
First, MJNA never produced CBD oil, their HempMeds subsidiary had a master distributorship agreement with Cannavest to sell the CBD oil CANV produced. As of last month that agreement broke down. CANV mentions this in their Q2/14 filings, MJNA has yet to comment on it.
LiveWire and MJNA formed a joint partnership in HempWire where LVVV would provide the "functional food" product and presumably MJNA (HempMeds) would provide the CBD oil and split profits on the joint products 50/50. LVVV's Q2/14 sales including proceeds of the HempWire partnership were about $180K.
Recently LVVV, who have some serious issues of their own, announced a partnership with a Chinese hemp company to develop hemp oil and CBD production. This sounds more like starting from closer to scratch than turning on the delivery spigot. But if LVVV and their new Chinese partner can deliver (not an insignificant question) there is much potential there.
Where does this leave MJNA? Again, we don't know for sure. What happens to the HempWire partnership if LVVV no longer needs MJNA for CBD oil? HempMeds contract with CANV is no more but HempMeds accounted for almost all of CANV's sales to date. It would seem logical that CANV will still sell CBD oil to HempMeds until CANV sets up it's own distribution network.
We don't know, in part because MJNA isn't talking about anything unfit for a press release and are (yet again) very late in filing their quarterlies. Hopefully more information is forthcoming and investors will be able to make more educated buying and selling decisions.
Easter Island?
Minor Correction
MyNyloxin is being run by a serial scam artist. Phil "the one man internet crime wave" Piccolo (use that as a search term) has an out sized personality and used to delight in being the face of what ever company he was running that year but there are only so many times you can get away with ripping people off before you end up with a Google friendly nickname making it harder for Phil to do what he does best, namely ripping people off. So now he works under assumed names and let's others hog the spot lights.
As far as the product, Nyloxin, I have no opinion. Nyloxin/Cobroxin have been on the market for four years and have gained little traction. The fact that NPHC resorted to a MLM distribution channel is in and of it's self not a good sign but neither is it particularly damming.
The fact that they partnered with a company who had run failed pyramid schemes (Text Cash network and True Cash Network) without performing even the basics of due diligence on their new partners ensures I will never invest my cash on their stock.
Just to be clear, I'm not bashing Nyloxin as a product. I am distrustful of MLM product testimonials but not nearly as distrustful as I am of hybrid MLM/Ponzi schemes to which any sort of a product is only window dressing for the larger cash transfer scheme.
A Gentle Word of Warning about MyNyloxin
"MyNyloxin" will not help Neutra Pharma, but it might just get it shut down:
http://behindmlm.com/companies/mynyloxin-review-cobra-venom-and-revenue-sharing/
Actually, I Think I'm Wrong
From the original Announcement of the HempWire Partnership:
I'm Not Saying you're Wrong
But every press release I read on the topic only mentions LVVV and not MJNA.
True, there is their HempWire partnership, which coupled LVVV's energy chew products with the CBD oil HempMeds was buying from Cannavest. Perhaps LVVV and MJNA are partnering up with the new Chinese supplier but isn't it just as possible that LVVV found their own (eventual) CBD source and no longer have any need for HempMeds/MJNA?
But if LVVV cuts MJNA out of the loop that pretty much trashed the HempWire partnership. Surely LVV wouldn't risk that, would they? Well according to LVVV's Q2/14 10Q (which they filed on time) HempWire was the largest source of increase in their product sales, bringing to quarterly total to $181,800. Compare that to the early April press release hallucinating a 1.1 million dollar initial purchase order.
I guess the $126,522 increase compared to Q2/13 is just sorta like a down payment on that initial order. That or HempWire (including Kannakick chew sales) are not living up to expectations.
There is no confirmation either way at this point so It's premature to say this is a good or a bad thing for MJNA. But it could go either way.
How Many Years? Who's Perspective?
If you had a six year old with chronic kidney disease would you consider it old news?
Be that as it may melamine isn't the issue, it was only illustrative. MJNA/HempMeds used to pin their pitch not on being the only supplier of CBS Rich Hemp Oil, but rather as being the best. Now MJNA/HempMeds is either paying more for CANV's RSHO or they are buying from other (hence lesser) suppliers.
Go ahead, play this as a positive. CANV canceling their contract with HempMeds is a GOOD thing for MJNA. Just like when the Red Dice partnership fell to crap, that was a GOOD thing too. Right?
No, this isn't an instance of a company run so poorly that they can not fulfill their contractual obligations and losing out on business opportunities they once felt were beneficial to their share holders and bottom line.
No, MJNA were just keeping themselves open to new possibilities to replace the agreements they had been touting to their shareholders. Yes, we told you one thing but for reasons we'd prefer not talk about we are going in another direction. Oh, and our 10Q is not late, it just isn't as early as reporting guidelines prefer.
The Author of that Article
probably isn't the the guy with his name on the page.
Here is "his" Kannaway article.
Here is "his" article about Sanki Global.
Notice any similarity? There are dozens more all cut from the same template so all he needs to do is change the company name. He's been coaching [Insert Company Name Here] reps for two years even with Kannaway being about six months old.
There is no reason to believe he even wrote this template. It's generic marketing babel targeted to reps for individual companies to 1: get them to give out an email address so they can 2: sell them an email harvesting website exactly like that one.
Welcome to the wonderful world of online MLM lead generation. The people willing to give up an email addy to a prefab replicated site like that one make wonderful victims of less than quality MLM opportunities.
Almost all scams are self selecting. You need a very smart trap to catch very smart people. Smart people (with some degree of background) will see through the copy/paste/replicate setup of websites like the one linked above and they want it that way. They don't want to waste time dealing with skeptics. Which is why that website is something only the greedy and gullible will fall for, that's who they're looking for.
Alexa's Site Rankings
are a three month moving average. When you look at the graph they're closer to 80K than they are 30k.
And the traffic from India, most likely purchased. For one thing Kannaway does not sell anything or even enroll affiliates outside the US and India is one of those countries with good enough internet access and cheap enough labor that you can pay someone with an Alexa toolbar to load websites from a list to inflate their rankings.
That's a Classic "Lead Gen" Blog
You'll notice that even though it's targeted at Kannaway reps all the text is generic. All he needs to do is change the names of the company and he has a new blog post. That's how he slipped up and forgot to edit "two years" to "six months." It's 100% an email address harvesting or "lead generation" effort.
Give him you email address and "Coach Daniel" will try to spam you into joining what ever MLM he's in, get you to buy an expensive product pack and in exchange, hell train you to set up your own lead gen blog to help you sign up people and get them to buy expensive product packs. You probably can pay him to teach you SEO as well.
21st century MLM in all it's splendor.
I ~Think~ Q2/14 should be Fine
compared to the same period from last year. But that isn't really saying much now is it?
It's the Q3/14 numbers that will show what kind of a bug splat Kannaway has become. Add that to the loss of the Cannavest contract and MJNA better have a few rabbits to pull out of their hats or they could look like a turkey before thanksgiving.
Let's Just Say it's a Gray Area
One example, Wisconsin:
http://www.hightimes.com/read/wis-gov-cbd-oil-bill-won%E2%80%99t-help-anyone
The Wisconsin law allows "CBD Oil" but only after it gains FDA approval.
I don't think anyone has been arrested for ultra low THC CBD oil and I certainly don't want that to happen. But we are talking about state and federal drug laws, you can not expect them to make rational sense.
In Fact there Is
an organized effort to get people to "like" and "share" posts on the main company page. The fact that the effort results in ~about~ 100 or 150 more likes than they were previously getting shows the over all enthusiasm level of the field force.
Approximately 5% of the people in the company are making any real money here and perhaps another 10% who are close to or a little better than breaking even. The remaining majority of the field force is either fresh meat or already looking for another company.
Several of the "middle management" level affiliates, people with their own downlines are cross recruiting for "Plan B" opportunities to their followers. Much like they pitched Kannaway to the same people back in March. It's considered poor etiquette to do such things publicly (you don't want your own upline finding out till after you've replaced your income) but it's an easy enough thing to get invited into private groups run by marketers.
So the 50 or so people who are still making money project a positive image and will throw anything they can think of against the wall trying to keep the gravy train rolling. But when each of those mid level people leave they take 15 or 20 more people with them. That's when you start seeing pictures of meetings (like the one on Kannaway's news page) where the president of the company and the other big wigs fly to anywhere they can get about 20 people to attend.
And this was a company that bragged about getting 30,000 members in their first 30 days.
Kannaway is Sinking
On July 15th after the departure of their previous social media manager they created a new private corporate facebook page. All active members were repeatedly encouraged to join it. To date it has 1,038 members and it's far from a hive of activity.
Last week they announce a new "powerline" promotion, it's basically the same promotional bonus scheme they used during their pre-launch "buzz phase." In making the announcement they referred several times to this being a way to reenlist former members.
This is a desperation move on their part. Only two types of people have any interest in powerlines, the greedy hyper promoters who will get about 95% of the bonus payout and the exact same gullible chumps who will pay $15 to join, buy a product pack and leave the company when they realize it's almost impossible to sell the products to anyone outside the comp plan.
Last week Kannaway introduced little foil packet single serving sized packages of their hemp salve product. For a brief flickering moment I thought they had done something right. It's hard to talk someone into buying a $50+ jar of salve without trying it for a while first and if the affiliates could offer a small stack of low priced samples they might make some real retail sales.
I laughed my butt off when I saw how much they were charging, $69 for ten small samples, seeing that the $50 jar is said to be a months supply it's FAR more expensive to buy the samples.
ZERO customer product value means almost no one outside of the company is buying products. Which means that almost all the affiliates are losing money. Which explains why the official company facebook page for their affiliates averages about a dozen comments a day.
The NFL is using Weed as a Bargaining Chip
to get HGH blood tests. Brown's receiver Josh Gordan was tested more that 70 times in the last year and only one cup of a two cup sample pissed out at the same time tested above the NFL limit which is less than one 10th the Olympic limit and he may be facing a full year out of the league.
If you averaged the parts per million of both cups from the same sample it falls bellow the 15 parts per million NFL limit. Again, he could be losing a full year of paychecks because of it.
CBD is still classified as a Schedule 1 substance by the DEA. I have no idea if the NFL considers it a banned substance but if I were a player I would not take that risk. The NFL will lighten up on weed in exchange for HGH testing.
KannaLife's research is still months to years away from preliminary human trials. MJNA will need to help finance their research for a good long while before there is even any hope for a return for the investors.
No, They are Not
MJNA owns almost 17% of KannaLife Sciences who have recently had a VERY preliminary discovery plan approved for investigating how cannabis might be used to help treat a concussion syndrome called Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy or "CTE."
The NFL is presumed to be interested in any treatment for CTE but as of now there is no relationship between MJNA and the NFL. And at this point any NFL player using medicinal cannabis is likely to draw a suspension from the league.
It should be pointed out these tests are at a very early stage and it could easily take years before there is any market ready treatment and this presumes the studies will prove the efficacy of KannaLife's approach.
http://www.medicalmarijuanainc.com/index.php/press/58-press-releases/2014-press-releases/510-medical-marijuana-inc-portfolio-company-kannalife-sciences-covered-by-international-press-for-signing-new-license-with-nih-to-develop-treatment-for-cte-using-medicinal-marijuana
The last Sentence is the Most Significant
No Need To
Just go to alibaba.com and you can import as much CBD oil as you care to. For a small additional fee your supplier will swear on a stack of bibles that the oil comes from "100% organic, non GMO hemp harvested by happy Keebler Elves and processed into oil by Willy Wanka's Umpaloopa's using state of the art non solvent extraction methods."
After all, it isn't like this is a regulated industry and if the stuff ever get's tested, you can blame the people you bought the crap from and start buying from someone else (on alibaba.com).
This was the original link you posted
and the one I was commenting on.
http://cannavest.com/portfolio/plus-cbd/
If they've updated the packaging to be more specific about the product contents, good on them.
I was only looking at the picture
in your previous link. The product label says "raw cbd," perhaps they're more clear elsewhere.
It may well be sourced from CANV, all we know for sure is that CANV believes HempMeds is selling products that compete with their's. Perhaps not this product but some product.
Perhaps, Perhaps Not.
I tend to agree with you that the "Raw" oil is CBDa in so far as the other two oils mention that they are decarboxylated (the term for converting CBDa to CBD for those wondering).
But CANV is going to get in trouble for calling the oil "Raw CBD," it isn't CBD, it's CBDa. Again, they are NOT the same thing.
This Might be Relevant
But late last month Kannaway reformulated their near $4 a piece taffy product "Kannakick" and one of the changes I took note of is that on the calls announcing the change they repeatedly mentioned it contained CBDa. Not like in addition to CBD but more like instead of.
In CANV's 10-Q in describing HempMed's breaches of contract they mention "including provisions regarding HempMeds distribution of competing products." Now, just a few days later we see a CBDa hemp oil product, not sourced from CANV being sold by HempMeds.
It is ~possible~ that the same non-CANV oil was being used weeks ago in the reformulated Kannaway product. This ~might~ have been (one of) the contractual breech(es) that got the HempMeds contract torn up.
Bait and Switch
CBDa is NOT CBD.
It has it's own benefits and effects but they are other and different from the CBD HempMeds has been flogging all this time.
This is where companies like MJNA are doing the public a disservice. The scientific understanding of any of the many (400+) cannabinoids is at a comparative infancy but that doesn't stop greedy and seedy companies from importing untested and unproven products and passing them off as miracle cures.
I for one can not wait for Cannabis to be fully legal on a federal level so legitimate companies doing responsible research can drive fly by night hucksters like MJNA from the marketplace.
It Might Be Less No Product
So much as HempMeds no longer holds the "Master Distributor" advantage they had in selling CANV's products. They still accounted for all or almost all sales of CANV products so it would be something of a sea change for CANV to just cut them (and all their sales) off cold.
What may be more likely is that HempMeds can still buy from CANV but probably closer to a cash and carry deal and not at the previous price point and at the same time either CANV or someone else they contract with will be actively competing with MJNA/HempMeds as a distribution channel for CANV's products.
One direct issue, HempMeds had previously held exclusive online rights to some of the products CANV produced (Cibaderm,Cibadex) which HempMeds then sold through affiliates. It ~looks~ like that affiliate network may well be afforded the opportunity to buy direct from CANV (or a subsidiary) cutting HempMeds/MJNA out of that loop.
No one (outside those two companies) knows for sure at this point but there are two points worth considering:
1: CANV is not immediately advantaged by refusing to sell product to HempMeds/MJNA until they can establish their own distribution chain.
2: MJNA/HempMeds no longer enjoy their previous advantage of being the sole (or near sole) distributors of CANV's products. They will have competition.
[Note: No Red Flags were twisted into Pom-Poms for this post.]
Here's a Question
How many shares of MJNA is owned by CANV? I mean MJNA owns enough CANV stock to significantly impact their balance sheet but is the converse also true?
I noticed something on today's 8-K:
Somewhat Presumptive Statement there.
An Item of Interest from that Press Release
I Don't Know for Sure But.,..
deafelephant wrote:
Another Pic from the Orlando Event
What ever camera was used to take that shot had a pretty good panorama function so 100 or so in attendance looks about right.
Add to this the info Doc K dug up recently:
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=104458560
Kannaway is no longer the exclusive hemp vape distributor for MJNA/HempMedsPx. Now this isn't bad news for MJNA's investors, after all they are no longer relying on a soon to be very dead MLM company to sell their products but the fact that Haenep Source is sharply under cutting Kannaway's CBD vape prices is very bad news for Kannaway's "Brand Ambassadors."
Thanks for the info Doc
This proves what some of us have been saying about the lack of viability of Kannaway as a product distribution channel.
The trademark application for HAENEP SOURCE:
http://trademarks.justia.com/862/82/haenep-86282590.html
It's Pining for the Fjords
There are many circumstantial pointers to Kannaway's lack of vitality. The over emphasis on "events" is but one of them, a clear symptom but it isn't the core problem.
They dropped to price of admission to the Orlando Event down to $20 but this doesn't include hotel, food or travel. Annual or semi annual MLM events are not uncommon. But conference room rah rah and pom pom sessions are par for the course. But Kannaway is doing these things monthly.
Again, a symptom but not the real problem which is, no product value. They had been recently running a "double up" bonus special in which for every three new brand ambassadors you could sign up AND sell a product pack to, your commissions on those three affiliate purchases would double from the normal rate. Two problems actually, it proves that the percentage of the product purchase price devoted to the MLM comp plan is, with other comp plan factors included more the the fair market price of the product alone and the bonus offer was not structured to encourage product package sales to non affiliates.
This has been the problem all along, “Opportunity Driven Demand.” Kevin Thompson is as pro MLM an attorney as you can find and his view on the topic is:
http://thompsonburton.com/mlmattorney/2012/10/15/front-loading-excessive-orders-upon-enrollment/
Yet that is what Kannaway has been doing all along and shows no signs of changing. They're trying to pay the affiliates to buy the products (because given the price points they are about the only ones who will). This is of arguable legality but what can't be argued is that the practice is unsustainable. Kannaway either needs to lower product prices and change their comp plan or they will die as a company and sooner than later.
The Trend Line Shows
Today's interest in Kannaway as measured by how frequently it is used as a search term in Google is less than one quarter of what it was at their peak. Perhaps you could be helpful in explaining how that is a positive statistic for the company.
Again, the key stats here will be HempMeds revenue numbers and if they continue to grow in Q3 and beyond. Neither of us know if they will and wont until the reports are filed.
I do know MLM however and if Kannaway were a publicly traded company I would not be buying shares.
Google Trends Doesn't Help your Argument
Unless you set the time scale back ten years before the company was launched as you did. The trend line for the last 12 months looks like this:
http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=kannaway&date=today%2012-m&cmpt=q
Lot's of "buzz" at launch then today's interest less than 1/4 of it's peak which is sorta what I've been saying.
Let's face it, we can argue this for months before conclusive evidence emerges. The Q2 HempMeds revenue numbers will be much higher than Q2 of 2013 because of kannaway, no argument there. The real question will be is will Q3 and Q4 numbers for this year build on the Q2 number or fall off from it.
I don't have a crystal ball but I've followed more than a few MLM launches in the last five years and the people behind Kannaway are majing the same moves/mistakes that some of the larger recent failures. Last year's MLM darling was Rippln and it died just in time for Kannaway to be born with a few names in common in their leadership. Compare the Google Trends for the two companies:
http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=kannaway%2C%20rippln&date=1%2F2013%2020m&cmpt=q
Rippln was "bigger" than I suspect Kannaway will ever be and it's now as dead as that parrot in the Monty Python sketch. Bad MLM's (which Kannaway is but one of many) die and usually die young.
It's not an uncommon SEO trick
for companies of a certain kind. They had page links with "Kannaway Scam" on their site before it officially went "live" and they nested some backlinks to disposable blogs to add some weight. They want to make sure that if anyone Googles "Kannaway Scam" (and they're sure people will) that their links are as high in the search results as possible.
It's sorta preemptive damage control for when you know ahead of time that your company will be reputationally challenged.
A Tale of Two Website Valuations
Daily Unique Visitors: 78,267
http://mcjonline.com/domain/kannaway.com
Daily Unique Visitors: 8,968
http://siteworthchecker.com/kannaway.com
Hmm, just a little discrepancy there. Find more website valuation/traffic monitoring sites and you will find just as many different ESTIMATIONS of those numbers.
The only people who know what the real numbers are are the people with access to Kannaway.com's cpannel, and those people will not share that info.
Using webstat sites as any form of proof is a little foolish.
Spin it any way you Like Doc
But public interest in Kannaway is falling through the floor. Website valuations are notoriously inaccurate in part because they place too much weight on alexa stats which are ridiculously easy to game.
If I'm buying a cheeseburger the only reason I'd use Google is to find an address. If I'm thinking of joining a MLM company the only reason I wouldn't Google them is if I were an idiot.
The MLM per se isn't the problem
The network marketing business model could have worked well here. Instead of the time and expense of a more traditional advertizing/consumer education effort to raise awareness and understanding of CBD related products, educating and incentivizing affiliates to get that word out for you could been a win-win situation.
But Kannaway fell into the trap of trying to pay out so much in hard to qualify for affiliate bonuses that there was no way they could bring their products to the consumer at anywhere near a fair price.
This has two primary effects. First, anyone learning about CBD from a Kannaway rep and who bothers to comparison shop will find products with a higher CBD content at lower prices if they don't purchase from Kannaway/HempMeds/MJNA. So Kannaway is indirectly advertizing for MJNA's competitors.
Second, because Kannaway is a losing proposition from a consumer purchase standpoint it is also inherently a losing proposition for the overwhelming majority of it's own affiliates. Doc K will quickly point out that Kannaway does not require it's affiliates to purchase expensive product packs but anyone examining their bonus structures, comp plan and social media will clearly see that they most strongly encourage their affiliates to do so. So with very little actual consumer retail purchasing you have a group of affiliates "investing in their business" in the form of upfront purchases discovering that unless they can recruit enough people to do likewise they will never recover that investment. This explains why if there are not already more Ex-Kannaway affiliates than currently active ones, there will be soon.
Kannaway's Google Trends line showing how frequently the word "Kannaway" is used as a search term in Google:
http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=kannaway&date=today%2012-m&cmpt=q
Why would they be?
If and when pot becomes legal on a federal level it isn't only going to be the tobacco companies but the agri giants like Monsanto and ADM who will become overnight competitors of MJNA. MJNA wont be a big enough bug splat on their windshields to bother hitting their wipers to clean off.
Yea, just one example of a soon to be ex-brand ambassador.
It is clearly illegal to pay people for recruiting in a MLM company (text book pyramid). So the way to get around that (kinda) is to place a major premium (bonus) on initial or first months product purchases by newly recruited affiliates. See, no sign up fee and all commissions are derived from product sales so it's like totally effing legal right?
Well not really but that isn't an argument to be made here. Kannaway has already changed "first order bonuses" from the bonus the recruiter makes from their downline's "first order" to the bonus they can get from everything they can talk their recruit into buying in the first 30 days. Note: This comp plan change was not made because enough product was already being sold.
Next they added the "Eight Weeks to Success" which established a new bonus system for product pack sales and recruitment in the first eight weeks of a new brand ambassador's membership. Note: This comp plan change was not made because enough product was already being sold.
The newest bonus promotion is the doubling of "first (months) order" bonuses for every three new affiliates you sign up and sell an expensive product pack to. Note: This comp plan change was not made because enough product was already being sold.
The person Det Robert was quoting was just one of the (VERY) many people who are waking up to the fact that Kannaway's products are massively over priced and no one other than the people (affiliates) buying into Kannaway's dream of easy money will ever buy the products.
This also explains why Kannaway is already a shrinking company. It's a shame because if they brought value to the market and didn't use a "earn by burning them" comp plan Kannaway could have sold a mega crap load more of HempMeds products than they are now.