Company Overview

The purpose of this page is to provide new employees with the highlights of our history, current employees, and product offerings. Tips for new employees are provided in a separate post; the company vision, mission, and values can be found in the first section of the Employee Handbook.

History

Simplifya was founded in March 2016 by Marion Mariathasan and several attorneys at Vicente Sederberg: Brian Vicente, Christian Sederberg, Steve Fox (RIP), Josh Kappel, and Jordan Wellington. Our timeline:

2016

  • September 2016. After several months of working on the app with Ceylon Solutions, an offshore development shop owned by Marion, the decision is made to begin staffing. In addition to Marion, the “OG staffers” were John Morgan, Mark Mendes, Tim Hartin, Shannon Kaygi, Emily Gordon, and Rick Matsumoto. We shared a suite on Sherman Street with Wurk, the payroll services company that specializes in the cannabis industry.
  • November 2016. Our first content release is of audit content for Colorado and a month later Frosted Leaf becomes our first client.

2017

  • January 2017. We release audit content for our first local jurisdiction, Commerce City. Denver, Pueblo, Aurora, and Colorado Springs follow soon after.
  • February 2017. Our Android tablet app is released. We do this to meet the needs of a subset of our clients who use Android tablets as a cheaper alternative to iOS devices.
  • June 2017. The Simplifya Tools app (tools.simplifya.com) goes live. This will become the backbone of RA import capabilities, but the first feature is not an import – it’s actually an enhanced question export. The Question Import feature would be released in October 2017.
  • July 2017. We give users the ability to conduct an audit from within their browser. Previously, the act of conducting an audit could only be done on the tablet apps.
  • December 2017. Though work had begun on California, we end the year with regulatory coverage of just one state.

2018

  • January 2018. We release the first version of our document storage feature and brand it Smart Cabinet.
  • February 2018. Shortly after opening a satellite office in Sherman Oaks, we release audit content for California. It’s actually three releases in one because of California’s three-headed governance system. This was also the month we pulled our Android mobile app out of the Google store. The array of Android-based operating systems and screen resolutions meant the overhead of maintaining the app outweighed its limited usage by our clients.
  • April 2018. Working with Los Angeles retailer Buds & Roses, we release our first set of SOP Templates.
  • June 2018. We release the first version of our Packaging & Labeling Checklists.
  • July 2018. Our iOS app is made compatible with iPhones – it was previously only for iPads.
  • December 2018. With the additions of California, Nevada, Oregon, Massachusetts, Michigan, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Oklahoma, we end the year with regulatory coverage of 10 states.

2019

  • February 2019. In our continuing pursuit of multi-state operators, we launch coverage of Florida. By the end of spring, we’ve added Arizona, Illinois, and North Dakota.
  • June 2019. Working with CannGen Insurance Services, we develop the proof-of-concept for a cannabis license verification app that would become Simplifya Verified.
  • July 2019. Based on feedback that our generic SOP package is actually too generic, we make the difficult decision to migrate to operation-specific packages that are custom to each state.
  • August 2019. Simplifya Verified goes into beta release, adding license data for most of the country and Canada.
  • December 2019. With the additions of Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, Illinois, Missouri, New York, and North Dakota, we end the year with regulatory coverage of 17 states.

2020

  • January 2020. We raise prices and begin moving to 12-month contracts.
  • February 2020. Simplifya Verified is moved to a more robust database platform as the use case shifts from license lookups to monthly reporting, and product feedback shifts from CannGen to Hub International.
  • March 2020. The COVID-19 pandemic sweeps the country and forces Colorado into a strict quarantine. Cannabis businesses get the “essential” tag, but many struggle and close anyway. The cannabis industry, like many others, goes into cost-cutting mode and Simplifya is forced into its first and only round of layoffs.
  • September 2020. Hub International, one of the world’s largest insurance brokers, becomes the first Simplifya Verified client. Hub is also the first client not in or exclusively serving the cannabis industry.
  • December 2020. With the additions of Virginia, New Jersey, and Washington, we end the year with regulatory coverage of 20 states. Simplifya Verified has license data for 36 states plus DC, Australia, Canada, and Puerto Rico.

2021

  • March 2021. The parent company, Simplifya Holdings, completes its conversion from an LLC to a C Corp, setting itself up for future M&A activity. Simplifya, LLC is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Simplifya Holdings, Inc.
  • August 2021. An idea to provide cannabis-based regulatory profiles by state goes into beta as RegPro. Vicente Sederberg is engaged to develop the initial content and the Regulatory Affairs team is tapped to maintain it going forward.
  • November 2021. After more than 18 months of optional attendance due to the pandemic, we decide it would be best to stop paying rent and move to a 100% remote work model.
  • December 2021. With the additions of Delaware, Utah and West Virginia, we end the year with regulatory coverage of 23 states. Simplifya Verified has license data for 37 states plus DC, Australia, Canada, and Puerto Rico.

2022

  • January 2022. RegPro comes out of beta and is officially launched as Simplifya Market Guide. Burns & Levinson, CohnReznick, and Hub International agree to be content partners for guidance in lending, taxes, and insurance, respectively. Shield Banking is signed as the first SMG client and, as a consulting firm with many clients in the banking industry, the first reseller.
  • August 2022. After about 18 months, we make the difficult decision to dissolve Tendr. Frustratingly, the pilot with Akerna never produced a viable beta client and the idea of merging Tendr with Hypur never got past the initial vetting stage.
  • December 2022. With the additions of Connecticut, Maine, Minnesota, New Mexico, and Vermont, we end the year with regulatory coverage of 28 states. Simplifya Verified has license data for 39 states plus DC, Australia, Canada, and Puerto Rico.

2023

  • March 2023. Through a single sign-on integration, Shield Banking agrees to give all of its banks access to SMG. At the time, the deal included 32 banks.
  • April 2023. Designed to lower insurance premiums and Simplifya subscriptions for licensed operators, the Risk Mitigation Alliance is launched in collaboration with CannGen Insurance, SafeHerb, and Hub International.
  • October 2023. Our compliance platform finally gets a name, Simplifya Protect, and we finally begin working on RegFinder in earnest.
  • December 2023. With the additions of Rhode Island, South Dakota, and Texas, we end the year with regulatory coverage of 31 states. Simplifya Verified has cannabis license data for 40 states plus DC, Australia, Canada, and Puerto Rico. And it now has hemp license data for all 50 states plus Puerto Rico.

2024

  • January 2024. In collaboration with Shield Banking, we implement the Hemp Overview section in Market Guide.
  • May 2024. RegFinder goes into production as a module within Protect.
  • July 2024. We sign First Citizens Bank to a multi-product licensing agreement. FCB is a top 20 US financial institution with over $200 billion in assets.
  • December 2024. Rather than state a number, marketing shifts to copy that says coverage for “all legal states” across all of our products.

2025

  • July 2025. First Citizens Bank admits they “jumped the gun” on cannabis and cancels its contract. But in even bigger news Silverleaf Capital Group declares Simplifya to be in default. The board recognizes it as a thinly-veiled hostile takeover attempt and counters by having Marion resign and furloughing the rest of the employees.
  • August 2025. A trio of investors defeats the hostile takeover by paying off the debt to Silverleaf and agreeing to fund the company going forward. Marion is reinstated and the furlough is terminated.
  • September 2025. Hub International, the largest Verified client to date, cancels its contract.

2026

  • February 2026. Shield Banking, the largest Market Guide client to date, cancels its contract.

Employees

Simplifya currently has 9 employees. Current employee demographics are shown in the slides below.

Product Offering

Simplifya currently has five software applications:

  • Protect. Simplifya Protect is our original product and now includes four modules for audits, SOPs (and P&L Checklists), document storage (Smart Cabinet), and license tracking. Protect is a SaaS application (Software as a Service) hosted on AWS. The mobile version of Protect is an iOS app (iPad and iPhone) built specifically for conducting audits in the field. Its main benefit is that you can complete an audit without internet access and it syncs with the web app when it detects internet access.
  • Tools. The Tools app was purpose-built to import regulatory content into Protect and RegFinder. It is used only by Simplifya Admin users to load audit content, P&L checklists, SOP templates, Smart Cabinet, citations, and definitions.
  • Verified. Simplifya Verified is another SaaS application built on a third-party database platform (Tadabase). It was built collaboratively with feedback from insurance companies and launched with Hub International specifically to verify cannabis licenses. Later, an in-house version of the app was built to manage hemp licenses. The plan is to merge cannabis and hemp licenses, and then sunset the app that was built on Tadabase.
  • Market Guide. Simplifya Market Guide is an information product built on WordPress. It is a 50-state compendium of market data and regulatory highlights designed to help decision-makers at ancillary service providers such as banks and credit unions, investment companies, insurance companies, law firms, etc.
  • RegFinder. Simplifya RegFinder is another SaaS application hosted on AWS. It’s a search engine sitting on top of a database of cannabis and hemp regulations (and statutes, amendments, and bulletins).

Regulatory Content

Simplifya Protect includes four content types: Audit Content, Packaging & Labeling Checklists, SOP Templates, and Smart Cabinet.

  • Audit Content. Fundamentally, “audit content” means that we have taken the cannabis regulations that apply to licensed operators and transformed them into a series of yes-or-no questions that they can use to perform self-audits. Audit content also includes assignable action items that help users know what to do in cases of non-compliance, remediation reports to track the resolution of action items, and linked citations that allow users to review the specific regulations behind individual questions.
  • P&L Checklists. One of the more tedious challenges that licensed operators face is compliant packaging and labeling. The rules for packaging and labeling are exacting and it can take several days to check a large inventory. Our P&L checklists make it easier for users to ensure they are tending to all of the details. In the Simplifya app, checklists are technically SOP templates that have been written as checklists rather than procedural tasks.
  • SOP Templates. The templates we create for standard operating procedures are among the best in the industry, in our humble opinion! In addition to a high level of regulatory expertise, our SOP writers are required to have several years of front-line industry experience. The team is certified in a wide range of areas from Food Safety to Good Manufacturing Practices. The result is SOP templates that are both exactly what regulators want to see and what licensed operators can put to immediate use.
  • Smart Cabinet. “Smart Cabinet” is the name of our document storage feature. Licensed operators are required to keep dozens of business-critical documents on hand for regulators. They range from ownership records to marijuana testing reports to fire inspections and a lot more. Smart Cabinet helps our clients know which documents to retain for what length of time and provides an organized filing system for easy retrieval.