Overview

No real highlights this month, more normal progress.  The small victory was hearing from FINRA that they are actively reviewing our submission.

This update is basically the same as last month’s.  Nothing stupendous to report, just putting one foot in front of the other, making sure we’re ready for the holiday crush.

Marketing – Member Growth

48,808 Members!

This looks a lot like last month’s update.  We continue to be very cautious in our marketing expenditures, which directly translates into slower member growth. Given that our capital raise fell short of our goal, we’re saving our marketing money for when our ticker symbol is issued.

We’re continuing to refine our member acquisition targeting, so that the members we do attract are more likely to be profitable, sooner.

The best recruitment comes from our members.  You have the opportunity to help the company you own become bigger, better, more profitable, and more valuable.  As we’re able to demonstrate our enterprise value better (think ticker symbol), we expect to get even better at recruitment.

Revenue & Gross Profit

I repeat my mantra – I believe the best number to watch for iConsumer is our cash gross profit (also sometimes called cash gross margin).  Since we don’t publish quarterly financial results, I’m not going to be too specific.  The next financials you’ll see from us are our audited year end numbers.  We continue to work on improving our numbers, both on a per member basis, and in the total number of members who are generating gross profit for us.

 

We continue to say that the magic number of members is about 250,000.  At that point, our cash gross profit should exceed our costs of operation, which means we’ll have a positive cash flow (also called nirvana).  Our lawyers also want me to say “that’s a forward looking statement, and it may very well be wrong”.

I use the term cash gross profit to highlight the difference between that number and our accounting rules dictated “gross profit”.  Our gross profit (as shown in our financial reports) includes the cost of the equity (shares of stock) that our members receive for joining, shopping, and referring.  Because that cost is a “non-cash” expense, it distorts our financial reports.  To understand our ability to pay our bills, we need to focus on cash, and ignore the amount of stock we issue.

There are reasons to understand the affect of our stock issuances on financial health, but focusing on cash at this stage of our growth is vital.

Financing & Regulatory Compliance

FINRA – the road to a ticker symbol

Our broker dealer submitted our documentation (now grown to 10,000 pages) to FINRA last month.  About three weeks after that, FINRA informed us that they were reviewing the submission.  This road has been far slower than we ever expected.  FINRA can take as much time as they like (even forever, truly – they’re not required to response) to review our submission.  But, just maybe, we’ll hear something good later this month.

To recap.  FINRA is the regulator that, when happy, will issue our ticker symbol.  Once we have that ticker symbol, we intend to be quoted on the OTC QB market.  With that, you’ll be able to type our symbol into Google and learn the price at which people are offering to buy and sell our stock.

The first thing to understand is that just because we have a symbol, there may not be anybody who wants to buy our stock.  And even if they do, there are still going to be some hurdles for shareholders to overcome to make it easily possible, not just possible.  As we get closer to that day, we’ll have more to say.

When we hear something, you may be able to hear my shouts of joy from miles and miles away.  Yes, I wrote that last month too, but it still holds.

Financing

Nothing new on this front.  Until we raise additional capital, we’re going slow.

SEC Filings

No new filings this month so far.

As always, you can see our latest SEC filings here.

Member’s Stock Issuance Delay Continues

Until we have an open, qualified offering, we can’t actually issue and transfer our members’ stock.  Please see this article for more on that.

We’re working to have an open, qualified offering as soon after FINRA has issued us a ticker symbol as is possible.  Once the symbol is issued, we’ll submit a new offering to SEC.  They’ll need to qualify it, and at that point, we’ll be able to issue and transfer stock.  We believe that the SEC process will take less than a month, but there are no guarantees.

Bright and Shiny Objects – the Bitcoin / Blockchain / ICO revolution

We’re seeing an amazing amount of interest in the rise of the Blockchain and associated capital raising strategies.  It’s hard to miss the noise surrounding Bitcoin.  But that’s just the surface.

Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency, the most prominent of many  Blockchain is the most prominent underlying technology that makes cryptocurrencies possible.  On top that, companies are issuing their own tokens / coins in Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs).  This entire arena is very, very new, and really, really confusing.

We’re watching and learning about all of this.  It has application to our business.

I’m wondering if you have an interest in learning more about this space.  Leave us a comment if you are interested.