Cuetip Founder Keith Domingo on Cannabis Profitability and AI Costs – Cannabis & Tech Today
CANNABIS & TECH TODAY · BUSINESS & TECHNOLOGY
Keith Domingo discusses the operating data, regulatory pressures, and AI expenses that shape cannabis business decisions.
Key Points
- Cuetip founder Keith Domingo argues that clearer visibility into costs can help cannabis operators assess profitability while they still have time to adjust.
- He sees usage-based AI expenses as part of a tool’s business case, alongside the work it helps a team accomplish.
- Domingo identifies tax rules, tracking requirements, and access to capital as areas where he believes policy changes could improve operating conditions.
In This Article
The cannabis industry has no shortage of optimism. It also has no shortage of onerous regulations, rising operating costs, and bold promises about artificial intelligence. Cannabis entrepreneur and Cuetip founder Keith Domingo believes the industry can navigate all three, but only by making better decisions grounded in data instead of speculation.
After a career spanning Oracle, Activision, eHarmony, mergers and acquisitions, and finance, Domingo founded Cuetip, a software platform built to help cannabis operators understand costs, improve profitability, and avoid expensive mistakes.
Before we ever hit record, Domingo and I spent time talking on a rooftop overlooking the Pacific in Santa Monica, passing the conversation between California’s cannabis culture and its business future. His cultivar of choice is Tropicana Cookies, but our discussion quickly moved beyond favorite flower to science, economics, and policies. Later we sat down over Zoom to discuss AI’s hidden costs, the regulations he believes deserve another look, and why cannabis’ next era will belong to operators who know their numbers.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
Regulation and Cash Flow
Cannabis & Tech Today: Which regulations create the most friction in cannabis today?
Keith Domingo: Cannabis operators want to market the way normal products are allowed to be marketed. I see the Budweiser commercials, I see billboards for alcohol. Cannabis does not have that same freedom. How many people have died in the history of humankind and cannabis? As far as I know, zero. And I’m not advocating that anyone grow moldy cannabis, it does create health problems if you have allergies, but it’s not going to kill you. I think some of these regulations came because of an overabundance of caution because everyone wanted to get it right. But then it started ballooning into all these additional regulations. In agriculture, they track cattle and vegetables because if there’s an e.coli outbreak, they want to know which batch it came from. But if no one’s dying and no one’s really getting seriously sick, what’s the point of seed to sale regulation?
AI Costs and Practical Uses
C&T Today: Everyone is talking about what AI can do. Far fewer people are talking about what AI costs. What are people missing about the economics of AI?
Domingo: So traditionally AI is on a subscription basis where you pay every month or you pay for a yearly subscription. But now they have introduced tokenization of the workflow. Imagine if to search on Google, you had to pay $5 a search. Companies have already been getting burnt by this [tokenization model] and AI costs have skyrocketed. Last year, leaders at Salesforce believed that AI technology was powerful enough to replace 50% of their 9,000 customer support team. So they started laying people off. And this proved to be a costly mistake because once you fire people, hiring them back will be more expensive. Now [Salesforce] has lost trust with their customer base and they’ve reversed. So now a lot of companies are finding out the hard way that AI is not the panacea they thought it would be.
C&T Today: What is a problem in cannabis that AI is well-suited to solve, and what still requires people?
Domingo: If you actually have a developer, AI will make that developer more efficient. But here’s the catch: they have to have experience. If they don’t have experience, it’s not going to work because how do you know the code is wrong if you don’t have experience? AI is good if it solves a fundamental problem. It’s good for developing, it’s good for something that’s algorithmic. But when there’s more complexity, that’s where AI kind of breaks down. I think because AI is flashy, it’s something very new that people are experiencing, that also makes sense why there’s a lot of over promise. You still need people who are equipped with their jobs. What we’re doing at Cuetip is we’re using AI only if it helps the customer or the team. if it doesn’t benefit the customer or team but saves money, I’m not interested in it.
“If you have an experienced developer, AI will make that developer more efficient.”
Keith Domingo, founder of Cuetip
Data Behind Business Decisions
C&T Today: Without giving away the secret sauce, what problem is Cuetip solving in cannabis?
Domingo: Our main mission is to save operators from making bad cannabis decisions. Our first data provides visibility into the cost of cannabis. Our second app manages your costs when the costs are coming in, when the cash is coming in, what type of things you need to change to make your numbers profitable for the year. When I first started, many farmers were just throwing seeds into the ground and then growing it and then realizing later, I spent too much on cost and I assumed I was going to get this price, and they couldn’t sell this amount of volume. So if you don’t know anything about business and you’re a good grower, these tools will help you tremendously because you’ll get a hold of your cost of your revenue.
C&T Today: Five years from now, what do you hope people say Cuetip has changed in the cannabis industry?
Domingo: I’m hoping they will say Cuetip transformed the industry and helped the growers take off the training wheels on how to operate a successful company. Growers and other operators will understand more about their cost structure and how to create true profitability. I see a lot of exporting taking place. Scientific research is going to be amazing with cannabis, and there’s going to be a lot of diseases and illnesses that use cannabis to help reduce the ailments or to make them go away completely. There’s going to be several successful cannabis organizations on the stock market. I looked at the primaries yesterday and it seemed all the people that won were favorable to cannabis. That’s the one thing they had in common. Regardless of party, I expect the next president to fully legalize cannabis.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who is Keith Domingo?
Keith Domingo is the founder of Cuetip, a software platform for cannabis operators. His technology career included work at Oracle and Activision.
What does Cuetip aim to help operators understand?
Domingo describes applications focused on visibility into cannabis costs and profitability, with the aim of helping operators make decisions while they still have time to adjust the business.
Why does Domingo emphasize AI expenses?
He argues that usage-based charges can change the economics of a workflow and should be considered alongside the benefit a tool provides to the customer or team.
Which AI applications does Domingo consider useful?
He points to development and work governed by algorithms or rules, while emphasizing the contribution of experienced people when a task becomes more complex.
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Featured image: business analytics stock photograph by Antoni Shkraba / Pexels.
