As a public company, there are many, many rules surrounding the release of important information. Most of the rules are designed to make sure that any investor or potential investor gets information at the same time as every other person. They typically prohibit the person who has early knowledge from buying or selling our stock. The idea is to create a level playing field and reduce the opportunity for “insider trading”.

We love the concept of making sure the playing field is level, and have zero problems with it. Except. When I’m talking to prospective investors and they want to know “how are you doing?”. I need to be able to share the information I have to get the conversation started. But if they’re getting this inside information stops them from being able to trade our stock, they’re not happy.

My answer to that? Share the same information with everybody, as soon as is practical. That shortens the period in which the folks who possess this early knowledge can’t trade. The downside? Such information is often preliminary, and very much subject to change before it becomes final.

Our fourth quarter results are the current example. I’m very happy to be able to share that it appears (these numbers are very much subject to change) shopping generated 40%+ more cash in the fourth quarter of 2019 compared to the fourth quarter of 2018. What I call Cash Gross Profit.

The final numbers won’t be shared until our year end financial reporting comes out in April, 2020.

Cash Gross Profit

This is a number you won’t find in accounting manuals, but it’s the number I use to compare one period to the next, because “cash is king”. Using this number eliminates the non-cash effect of our stock rewards. It tells me how much cash we got from people shopping.

Analysis

We made a big change in August, 2019. We streamlined the rewards that our members got — we started rewarding and incentivizing with just our stock. In the past we’ve rewarded with a combination of stock, cash, and Bitcoin. Our belief was that simplification of the message would make so many things easier and clearer. The fact that this key number is up over 40% for the first full quarter where this was the case is immensely gratifying.

Combine that with the Amazon results (the reason people use Amazon via iConsumer can only be because they want iConsumer to succeed) and I think the story has become much more powerful.

Which is why I’m sharing it with prospective investors and current investors (like you).

As always, here’s my closing thought – Go Shop!