Overview
Jane is the brainchild of Soc Rosenfeld, a former Apache helicopter pilot who earned his MBA from MIT. When he returned from service, he saw that cannabis had potential benefits for concerns like PTSD, sleeplessness, and anxiety — and that the market needed a better way to connect customers with dispensaries. Partnering with his brother, they shared a vision that stemmed from personal experience readjusting to civilian life. "We want to help cannabis sellers go from brick and mortar to click and mortar," Rosenfeld said. Jane came to Substantial looking for a product team to help them go from a beta site to a finished, modern ordering system ready to serve their customers.
The challenge
The cannabis market was fragmented — thousands of dispensaries across the country, no single company controlling more than one percent of market share. Legalisation had removed the old challenges of where and how to get cannabis, but it created a new one: the paralysis of choice. With so many options, it was difficult for customers to discern differentiators or find the most convenient service. Jane came to Substantial as a beta product. The existing codebase needed comprehensive testing, challenges included location-aware search results and user authentication, and the product needed to get in front of real customers fast.
“We feel like the cannabis industry is a ripe candidate to prove this model. You have a very fragmented market — thousands and thousands of dispensaries across the country. Not a single company controls more than one percent of market share.”
What we did
We worked with the Jane team to align product goals with a streamlined approach to user flow, roadmapping the product from start to launch in under five months. Building a sustainable digital product requires clarity on market position and growth trajectory — and knowing when to stop adding features and ship. The vision: a digital platform to make legalised cannabis more accessible online by letting customers browse local dispensaries and learn about products before placing orders for pickup or delivery — delivering an enjoyable, educational experience that saves customers time and money.
Paired with the Jane team to define the essential experience for launch — stripping the product to its core, identifying the most important audience segment, and streamlining the ordering flow.
Designed for every side of the product: customers browsing and ordering, dispensary staff managing inventory through their existing Point of Sale systems, and Jane's own operations team.
Optimised the existing design and navigation, implemented a new real-time search function with location-aware results that let customers find products based on need and see live inventory.
Wrote high-level acceptance tests around user experience — evaluating new user registration, product reservation, and the end-to-end ordering flow. Addressed bugs while improving UX.
Collaborated closely with the Jane team throughout so they remained familiarised with the codebase, positioning them for independent development post-launch.
The results
Forbes recognition at launch
Forbes praised Jane's new online search engine as the only one in the market to provide real-time availability — beating competitors Weedmaps and Leafly in this capability.
Beta to launch in under 5 months
From roadmap to a shipped product serving real customers, with enough flexibility built in for future audience expansion as legalisation spread to new states.
250,000+ inventoried products
More than 2,400 dispensaries represented on the platform, with over 250,000 inventoried cannabis products — and room to grow as legalisation expanded.
Platform ready for market expansion
Post-launch, we mapped the product for feature development and expansion into new markets, giving Jane a sustainable growth roadmap beyond initial launch.