My team and I had spent a great deal of time and effort just to secure spots at the 2019 Consumer Electronics Show, one of the largest technology trade expos in the world, where we were excited to show off our latest innovations for the cannabis industry. Then, just as we were finishing the installation of our two booths, show management booted us from the exhibit hall. I was shocked! Everything we worked so hard for over the past couple of months looked like it was about to go up in smoke.

As the CEO and co-founder of CloudPay Technologies, I knew we had to be at CES to demonstrate our software and secure vending machine that were bound to be game changers for companies looking to dispense CBD products (which use a medicinal extract similar to marijuana's THC, except it doesn't leave a person "stoned") by solving payment issues, identification challenges, and long lines. While we were building our solutions, we also saw applications for any number of regulated products, including pharmaceuticals. So, yes, CBD is an industry we're focusing on, but our eyes are on a much broader horizon than just cannabis.

CBD's history is complex and often misunderstood, so here's a very brief and simplistic current-events update that will help you appreciate what unfolded at CES. In October 2018, the Farm Act passed the Senate. Farm subsidies don't usually intersect the cannabis debate, but this bill was different. Prior to the bill's passage, hemp was lumped in with marijuana and thus federally illegal. However, lawmakers agreed to loosen restrictions on hemp-derived products, essentially making CBD legal. The nuances are a bit more complicated, but these details are enough for the purposes of this saga.

Knowing that then-President Trump would sign the bill into law before the end of the year, we saw an opportunity to exhibit our secure dispensers at CES the following January. But we had a small window in which to secure space, so at the end of November (before the President even signed the bill), we called expo organizers and clarified how our technology works across multiple industries – including the soon-to-be-legal CBD trade. We explained how our kiosks and vending machines communicate with our software, how we've built mobile apps, etc. I even sent a video illustrating our technology.

Show management heard us out and confirmed that we were good to go. Seizing the opportunity to maximize our exposure, I snagged a pair of 200-square-foot booths – one in the Westgate Hotel and one in The Sands. Then we just had to arrange a million little details in less than a month. In short order we'd invested more than $50,000 to make sure everything was perfect.

Everyone and everything arrived in Las Vegas, and we started building our exhibits on Saturday – plenty of time before the show opened on Tuesday. Things went smoothly, and by early Sunday morning the crew was moving our machines into place. While we were in the middle of getting the big pieces situated, one of the floor managers walked by and saw the letters "CBD" prominently displayed on our vending machine. His eyes got so wide I thought they might fall out of his head. He didn't see us as visionaries, which was especially ironic since my co-founder standing next to me, Andrew Goei, is actually a CES award winner for innovation. Instead, he saw a bunch of street peddlers trying to distribute some ditch weed on his show floor.

I tried to kindly explain to him that we'd been over all this with our show rep, but he was having none of it. Soon show security was in our booth telling us we had to pack up by the end of the day. We sat there dumbfounded, trying to understand what had just taken place.

I immediately called our show rep to help sort things out. I re-emphasized that CBD was legal and argued that had we used any other pharmacy company to be our case study, it wouldn't have been a problem. Unfortunately, not even our rep had our back. Nothing we said gained any traction, and we were again told to hit the road. Not wanting to cause a bigger scene, we spent the afternoon dismantling both booths and left the exhibit halls.

Feeling that all hope was lost, I called up our investors and some prospects that were expecting to see us on the show floor. The calls didn't go well. One client communicated that he'd lost trust in us. Later that afternoon, after I had a chance to wrap my head around everything, I decided that I just couldn't take no for an answer and got to work seeing if I could remedy our situation. That evening I pled our case to anyone who might be able to make management rethink its decision. I also sent emails and made calls to everyone on the CES board that I could find, re-explaining how our technology was innovative and how its possibilities range far beyond the limited application we were being ostracized for. Any persuasive argument I could come up with, I used, but I didn't get anywhere. That night I went to bed exhausted and disappointed.

Somehow one of those pleas lit a blaze under somebody because the next morning I had an email from our account manager. Not only was show management apologizing for what happened and welcoming us back to the exhibit hall, but they were also offering to cover any costs accrued as a result of being pulled off the floor. I don't know if it's because someone got ahold of them on our behalf, if they realized how applicable our technology is, or if they just decided to do some research into the very legal CBD industry. But frankly, I didn't care. We were back in the game!

I called up the crew and told them to hightail it back to the show floor to dig one of our booths out of quarantine. At that point, we didn't have time to get both booths back up and running, so we just focused on the one in the Westgate Hotel. While the team got to work with help from CES, I called back my investors and prospects, shared the recent developments, and told them that I looked forward to seeing them during the show. Then I hustled back to the hall to help get that booth back together.

We spent all day furiously laying carpet, erecting the back wall, setting up monitors, and hauling our vending machine back in. We were still putting the finishing touches on the booth when the show opened, but at least we were there and ready to roll. A lot of drama had ensued over the past couple of days, but pressure and obstacles are no strangers for those of us who pursue innovation and venture into uncharted waters.