Green Lion cofounders Jeff Zuker (Questrom’10) (from left) and Mike Bologna (Questrom’10) presented the grand prize (and ginormous cheque) to Claudio Bettini (COM’23) and Marco Rosella (Questrom’22) for their proposed company JoinME, which helps marijuana users find a new smoking buddy.

Innovation

App That Helps Cannabis Users Find Smoking Buddies Wins Innovate@BU Start-Up Competition

JoinME took home $10,000 and free mentoring help from industry leaders

An app that helps marijuana users find a new friend to smoke with took home the top prize in last week’s seventh annual Cannabis Start-Up Competition. The popular event consists of student- and alum-led teams pitching their ideas, Shark Tank–style, to a panel of judges for a chance to win $10,000 and free consulting services from industry leaders.

This year’s winner was JoinME, the brainchild of Marco Rotella (Questrom’22) and Claudio Bettini (COM’23), who became friends a few years ago attending BU Italian Students Association meetings. They said the fact that they have lived all over (Rotella is currently getting his MBA at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, while Bettini works in New York City) and have had to make new friends with every move inspired their idea of finding a way to connect strangers with similar hobbies. In this case, the common thread for app users would be their love of cannabis.

“We are very proud of what we are doing, and hopefully with everybody’s help we are able to develop our idea even more,” Bettini said after accepting the award and the comically large cheque (think Publishers Clearing House ads). “We’ve put a lot of work into the app so far, and we’re happy it showed tonight,” Rotella added.

The competition, held at the Rajen Kilachand Center for Integrated Life Sciences & Engineering, is co-organized and sponsored by Green Lion Partners, a cannabis-industry business strategy firm founded by former BU classmates Jeff Zuker (Questrom’10) and Mike Bologna (Questrom’10). It’s open to BU student- or alumni-led ancillary cannabis start-ups, meaning those that don’t actually grow or sell marijuana. The contest comes as public support for legalizing marijuana continues to grow. On the same night as the competition (November 6), Ohio became the 24th state to legalize cannabis; last month, a Gallup poll found that 70 percent of Americans think cannabis should be legal, the highest approval rating yet. 

During his remarks, Zucker said the cannabis industry is built on the “backs of advocates, people fighting against the War on Drugs. So many people have gone to jail over this plant, yet there are these thriving businesses that are being built around it,” he noted. “I always want to [remind] everyone involved how important it is to be involved in advocacy, continue to work to end the War on Drugs, continue to end racially disproportionate enforcement around cannabis. It’s been great to have this platform, and that BU has been supportive of our vision for the industry.”

Siobhan Dullea (CAS’91), executive director of Innovate@BU, kicked off the night by saying that many BU students will eventually find themselves in careers that currently don’t exist, thanks to the rapid development of new technologies and industries. Innovate@BU exists, she said, to help them “form innovation skills and an entrepreneurial mindset so they can make a meaningful impact in their lives and in their communities.” 

The Cannabis Start-Up Competition, organizers noted, is a great place to do just this, as cannabis is one of the fastest growing industries in the United States and is expanding globally. “This competition is pretty cutting-edge,” Dullea said, adding that she believes this contest is the only one in the area of this size, and the longest running. 

Attendees also heard from previous competition winners Marion McNabb (SPH’16), president and cofounder of the Cannabis Center of Excellence, and Carl Palme (Questrom’12), founder and CEO of Boundless Robotics. 

After hearing from the speakers, members of each team had six minutes to pitch their idea, and judges had six minutes to ask questions. 

As part of their product research, the JoinME team found that preference for social marijuana consumption is on the rise, especially among younger individuals. “We have identified two main problems: cannabis consumers want and need partners,” Rotella said. “Social consumers have a much lower correlation with psychological side effects, such as social anxiety and agitation.” 

He explained that when users download the eventual JoinME app, they will fill out fields about their interests, favorite cannabis products, and the time they prefer to meet. Then the app will notify users that someone with a similar profile wants to get in touch.

To gain users, Rotella and Bettini plan to set up a university ambassador program and advertise in local smoke shops and dispensaries. They also plan to monetize their app by selling advertising and collecting and selling data.

As part of the requirements of the competition, the proposed companies taking part must include a plan to incorporate social equity into their businesses, a point judges quizzed finalists about during their presentations. “I think you guys had a great presentation and immediate application in terms of what you’re offering,” said Kim Napoli, one of the night’s three judges, right before the awards ceremony. Napoli is an industry consultant and advocate, a Massachusetts Cannabis Advisory board member, and chief diversity officer at Soulstar Holdings, LLC. “If I can make one point, it would be to ensure that those pieces of inclusivity and diversity happen, that you hire someone to be the prime accountability position for diversity inclusion within the app and within your company as well.” 

The other finalists were GreenCloud, which uses software to optimize operations, ensure compliance, promote sustainability, and maximize profitability for clients in the cannabis industry, developed by Eloise De Jarne (CAS’25); IPNPC, which employs machine learning to create a web-based tool to enable precise and quantitative predictions for in-field analysis of chemical component concentrations in dried hemp, created by Ziwei Huang (GRS’28), Zhe Huang (ENG’23), and Xingxin Gu; and Smoking.com, a cannabis delivery service that would operate similarly to Uber Eats, the brainchild of Ethan Davidman (Questrom’25) and Bradley Magram. 

“Competition is everyone’s problem,” Napoli said to all finalists before the winners were announced. “You’re trying tonight, you’re going to keep trying every day after this, you’re going to hustle, you’re going to win. And you’ll repeat that every day until you die.”