Letter from the CEO – February 22, 2018

By: Robert Grosshandler | February 22, 2018

There’s a lot to talk about.  We’ve had almost two months since we transitioned to Bitcoin back, we introduced a new Bitcoin-based member recruitment process offering 5 Now and 5 For Life, our next offering has progressed through the SEC, and our stock (OTCQB: RWRDP) is now DTC eligible, which means buying and selling on the OTC can commence.

Unfortunately, because we are public, sometimes I’m forced to communicate in generalities.  My apologies for that; I sometimes feel like I have the SEC sitting on my shoulder, waiting for a misstep.  But I always feel like I have our SEC lawyers on the other shoulder, trying to help me avoid a misstep.

The Bitcoin back transition

It’s going well.  Our cash gross profit (the number I think is most important, because it’s what we pay our bills with) is doing nicely.  We are gaining new members who are cryptocurious, or are already intimately familiar with cryptocurrencies.  Both are positive for our long term expansion.  And we still need to expand.  We’re not yet cash flow break even.

We’ve lived through some of the most amazing volatility ever seen in the Bitcoin market.  While it’s too soon to know for sure, I don’t think it affected us one way or the other.  As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, we are not trying to speculate on Bitcoin.  We’re hedging our position so that we reduce our exposure to price fluctuations.

Bitcoin-based new member recruitment

The best place to read about this is a post I made earlier this month.  It’s only been a couple of weeks, but this effort is paying off.  The KPIs we watch (Key Performance Indicators) are all up.  Those are all leading indicators; the real proof will come in about a month or three when we can see how these new members are shopping.  The early indicators here are positive, too.

Lowering the cost of customer acquisition and increasing the lifetime value of a customer are the Holy Grails of direct response businesses like iConsumer.  Transitioning to Bitcoin allows us to more strategically address our potential audiences as we seek to grow our customer base.  Once you’re a shareholder / customer, our goal is to delight you so that you buy more, buy more often, and stay a customer longer.

Our plan is to have our own token / coin, our own cryptocurrency.  Preliminarily we’re calling it REWARDScoin.  Our belief is that the transition to Bitcoin now will make the eventual transition to REWARDScoin even easier and less expensive.

Our next offering – financing the future

It was filed with the SEC in late January.  View it here.  They have twenty-seven days to comment on it.  If they’re satisfied we’ve done our part, they’ll qualify the filing.  If not, they’ll comment, and we’ll need to address their comments.  They’ve been very clear, concise, and supportive of our goals through our previous offerings.  I’m hopeful that we’ll be qualified by the end of the month.

That will give us the ability to have our members earn stock that we can issue and transfer.  50,000 members are waiting for that day.

The highlights of the offering include an increase in the offering price per share from our prior offering ($.09 per share to $.15 per share) and our discussion of our blockchain efforts.

We’re relying on this offering to raise the cash we need to build our membership.  The near-term goal is 250,000 members, which we project (that’s a forward-looking statement, no guarantees) will get us to cash flow break even.

Buying and selling our stock

It’s not easy yet, but we’re making progress.  I spend most of my time focused on this issue.  We’ve got an entire article on this.  Because we did this a brand new way, we’re all learning some of the unforeseen challenges.  Right now, the challenge is getting broker dealers (think stock brokers like TD Ameritrade) to want to deal with our stock.  We’re a penny stock.  There are lots of rules that these folks need to follow when dealing with penny stocks.  None of those rules make it easier for iConsumer.

On top of that, while we have lots of shareholders, and lots of shareholders in waiting, most of those shareholders are first-time investors with very small portfolios (think 100 shares of iConsumer stock).  Stock brokers don’t yet know what to do with that opportunity, so we’re helping them understand it.  But it takes time.

Fortunately, we have allies in this.  The OTC markets group is being very helpful.  Our large investors are going to bat for us, and a raft of other folks as well.  Part of our strategy is to create a groundswell of interest in iConsumer’s stock.  We’re asking our shareholders who do have brokerage accounts to bring it to the attention of their brokers.

Conclusion

Shop, tell friends, consider making a bid on our stock, save up to invest in our offering…and enjoy the ride.  When we started down this path, almost three years to the day, we had no idea it was going to take this long.  While the journey had some fun moments, the goal is within reach.  We’re finally changing the faces of Wall Street, giving the 99% a chance to really participate in our economy.

Thanks for taking the journey with us.

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13 Comments

David L Robinson Jr, February 22, 2018 at 2:31 pm

what are the current values of the stock?

    Robert Grosshandler, February 22, 2018 at 2:37 pm

    As we mention in the article, the last price the stock was sold at was $.09. Our offering that we’ve filed with the SEC shows that we intend to offer additional shares at $.15 per share. You can Google OTCQB: RWRDP to see what the market is saying about the price of our shares. As mentioned, we’ve just started being quoted, so that number is moving around a lot.

Joseph Pierson Cochran, February 22, 2018 at 2:34 pm

I do not agree with the transition to Bitcoin and especially your own cryptocurrency. The market is saturated and few retailers will even accept Bitcoin , the most well known currency. The new currency will be virtually worthless. Give us the cash back.

    Robert Grosshandler, February 22, 2018 at 2:43 pm

    Bitcoin as a currency is a poor choice, we agree. Obviously, we think we have something special to offer in our token. As to cash back, shop, earn the Bitcoin, and you can still get a check from us once you hit $25. That’s because we owed you cash at the time of our transition.

Cornell BRISCO, February 22, 2018 at 2:36 pm

I’ve been very interested in iconsumer I have been telling friends to join I have been also telling family members and assisting them with setting up an account I have been going over and Beyond to participate in the growth of a iconsumer I was wondering how do you become a part of the growth and see more interest with taking part in the growth

    Robert Grosshandler, February 22, 2018 at 2:48 pm

    Music to our ears. iConsumer was built on the belief that the ultimate loyalty program is ownership. The new referral program was designed to help reward you even more. That’s our 5 + 5 program. You earn $5 in Bitcoin for each member you recruit, and 5% of their earnings.

    If you want to get even more involved, consider buying our stock. Still not easy, but make a bid (Robinhood may work well for this). The stock ticker is OTCQB: RWRDP.

Colby, February 22, 2018 at 3:04 pm

If we still have cash back and there is less than 25 dollars after you send the check at the first of the month, what happens since there is no possible way to get to that 25 dollar threshold with the transition to bitcoin?

Alex, February 22, 2018 at 3:21 pm

I have to be honest and say I’m not happy with this company. I keep receiving these monthly emails which I now consider spam. I was given 150 shares of this company’s stock and they say it’s worth around $.09 a share, but the shares can’t be sold which makes them worthless. And people are supposed to use this company like a cashback site to make purchases so they can earn more worthless shares. At this point I’d need to be able to sell the shares I have to see that this company is legitimate before I were to invest anything. When I Google RWRDP, I see a value of zero.

    Robert Grosshandler, February 22, 2018 at 4:31 pm

    Thanks for airing your frustration. You’re not alone, I’ll join you in that frustration. Our goal when we set out three years ago was to give folks who had never had the opportunity to own equity in a startup that goes public that chance. So, we practically gave our stock away, to get folks a stake in the future that they may never have experienced before. To make it so that folks didn’t have to write a check to experience the ups and downs of this journey.

    We’re really proud of the progress we’ve made. And we’re not done. It has taken a lot longer to make our stock easily tradeable than we wanted. I know I’d like to see it actively trading. Doesn’t matter that we always said it was going to be hard. For our stakeholders, we always have said that the experience of the ride was as important as the destination, but it’d be nice for this portion of the ride to be over.

    We have never said what our stock was worth. We’ve only said what people have paid for it. The market establishes its worth.

    We spent an enormous sum of money to make sure that any one of our shareholders (except the co-founders) could legally sell our stock to anybody who wants to buy it. No waiting period, no restrictions. You don’t need our permission. Go sell your shares. What is still hard is finding a middleman to sell it for you. And that’s what we’re working on.

    Want to help, and think that just maybe it’s worth more than zero? Go make a bid at a penny, see if somebody wants to actually sell it to you for a penny.

    In keeping with our belief that the experience is part of the value we provide, we’ll continue to update folks, give or take once a month. If something exciting happens, it’ll be more often. It’s never supposed to be less often.

    As a cashback site, you earned cashback PLUS you earned our stock. It was never either or. Now, as a Bitcoin back site, you earn Bitcoin PLUS you earn our stock.

    When I get frustrated, I remind myself that it always takes longer than I want. Microsoft took about 9 years to get to the point where their stock was publicly traded. Google took several years. Go try to buy Uber stock. Darn hard to do. Many, many companies never make it as far as we have.

    Now, the challenge is to grow the business, so that when you Google RWRDP, you see lots of people vying to buy it, which will put smiles on all of our faces.

Jeff, February 22, 2018 at 3:40 pm

I’m fine with the transition to Bitcoin and I will be fine with the transition to your own cryptocurrency if it goes in that direction. My opinion, dump the name “REWARDScoin”. It won’t grab people, it won’t make people say, “yeah, I want some of that.” Instead, how about a play on the companies actual name. Something like iCon(s). Feel free to throw an extra thousand or two shares my way when you make the change. Other than that, keep up the good work. Thanks.

    Robert Grosshandler, February 22, 2018 at 4:39 pm

    We considered iCon. Sounds too much like I con. Thanks for the attaboy. It’s much appreciated.

oldporkchops, March 12, 2018 at 11:38 pm

Dear Robert,

Thank you for the hard work you and your team have put into getting the business from an idea to reality to the success it is today. I’ve been with iConsumer from the beginning and have directed the vast majority of my purchases via the site.

I am ready to sell a portion of my stock at the current asking price but would like to know how long it’ll take. Today’s volume was recorded to be 200 shares, but the price is an attractive $1.01. I guess I’ll have to wait till volume is around the number of stocks I own to be able to cash out?

Could you please help create an article on how we can sell our stock? I am clueless as to what the process involves? Do I need to create a brokerage account? Can I sell my stock if I have an account at Robinhood?

Thank you in advance for addressing my questions and please keep up the great work, Robert and team!

Sincerely,
oldporkchops

    Robert Grosshandler, March 13, 2018 at 8:38 am

    I love it when somebody asks for something we’ve already written about in a knowledge base article. It’s actually pretty easy to follow.

    And I hate it, because that means it was too hard to find.

    Two things. iConsumer is a group effort. Not just our team, but the 50,000 people who see the promise of a crowdfunded startup.

    Lastly, remember to look at both the bid and ask prices. Somebody (or more than one somebody) bought on the market at $1.01. The market makers are offering to buy at $.05 a share. You can set your brokerage account to be ready to buy, or be ready to sell, if the bid price is right, or the ask price is right.


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