Necessity is the mother of invention, and thus an injury that caused Jason Reposa’s jaw to lock up is the inspiration behind his line of THC-infused seltzers that will launch in Massachusetts in January.
“The doctors couldn’t fix my jaw — it was inflamed, and it was stuck closed,” Reposa said. “They were injecting into my head to get my jaw to move, but I wasn’t making a ton of progress, so I tried cannabis.”
It had been about 20 years since the tech entrepreneur had used weed. He noted that it eased the pain and made him feel great. After a few weeks, he began to notice that his jaw was seriously improving.
Reposa tried edibles, but he found that smoking was the easiest and most effective format to help his jaw. Still, he didn’t want to feel like he had to hide it from his kids or be the guy who left the party to go outside to puff, so he began growing his own cannabis plants that were high in CBD but low in THC and then started to experiment with infusing THC and CBD into beverages.
“I started this as a hobby — the formulas came from my own experiences,” Reposa said.
He arrived at the sweet spot — 3 milligrams of THC and 2 milligrams of CBD — through testing the product on himself and his friends.
When it launches, Good Feels will have four flavors: grapefruit, raspberry apple, blood orange, and black cherry. The cannabis sodas have zero sugar and zero calories. They also offer a beverage enhancer, which Reposa describes as a more discrete, on-the-go product.
While Reposa started by growing his own cannabis, today the company purchases the distillate they use to make their beverages. They also source all their other ingredients domestically.
Sustainability is one of Good Feels’ core values, so their beverages are packaged in recyclable glass bottles and the company’s 2,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in Medway is carbon neutral and runs 100 percent on renewable energy. They also purchase carbon offsets.
“Any company that’s founded today should put sustainability first over profit,” said Reposa, who serves on a sustainability committee for the town of Medway. “There are a lot of companies that aren’t treating the environment the right way. We’re doing the best we can to live by the philosophy to do no harm.”
Reposa also believes in building a team that will stick with him. Starting wages are $20 an hour and include benefits. Anyone who is with Good Feels at the time it launches its products will receive options in the company.
“I’d rather give it to employees than to investors,” said Reposa, who self-funded the company with proceeds from the sale of his personal finance website MyBankTracker.com. “We have a living wage pledge that we adhere to.”
Reposa and his team are still experimenting with new formulas and different technologies that could make cannabis more accessible to people. To that end, they’re big on surveying people to determine what works and what doesn’t. The team tests their brand messaging through in-person interviews to ensure they’re communicating and connecting with people in the best possible way.
“Other companies take six months to a year to develop a brand strategy,” said Reposa, noting that he started experimenting with the formula for Good Feels beverages in 2020. “We’re building a brand in a couple of months. It’s like building an airplane while you’re flying it.”
For now, Reposa is focused on launching the brand in Massachusetts, but he’s already eyeing expansion into other states and has been approached by a few companies interested in licensing Good Feels.
“The brand resonates with a lot of people,” Reposa said. But he’s only interested in like-minded partners. “We do have a licensing model already, but it has to be the right fit — they have to believe in the same mantras that we have.”
