Ton Strategy Co (TONX) 2021 Q2 法說會逐字稿

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  • Operator

  • Good afternoon, and welcome to the Second Quarter 2021 Financial Results Conference Call for Verb Technology Company, Inc. (Operator Instructions) Please be advised the call is being recorded at the company's request. On our call today are Rory J. Cutaia, CEO; and Jeff Clayborne, CFO.

  • Before we begin, I'd like to remind everyone that statements made during this conference call will include forward-looking statements under the safe harbor provision of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, which involves risks and uncertainties that can cause actual results to differ materially. Forward-looking statements speak only as of the date they are made, except as required by law, as the underlying facts and circumstances may change. Verb Technology Company disclaims any obligation to update these forward-looking statements as well as those contained in the company's current and subsequent filings with the SEC.

  • I would now like to turn the call over to Rory J. Cutaia, CEO. Rory?

  • Rory J. Cutaia - Founder, Chairman, President, CEO & Secretary

  • Thank you, and thanks to everyone for joining us today for our second quarter 2021 financial results and business update conference call and a special welcome to all the new shareholders who joined the VERB family since our last earnings call in May. In fact, from what I've seen, it appears we now have somewhere in the range of 25,000 shareholders, which is up dramatically from about 4,000 last year. However, some experts are telling me that the 25,000 number may be low as the total number doesn't show up in recent NOBO reports. And it could be as high as 100,000 total VERB shareholders or more. And for a company our size, that's an extraordinary number.

  • But I honestly expect the base to grow well beyond that, especially as the world continues to embrace the convergence of video, and I mean all video content and e-commerce. Most of the world is now online. And so the entire planet will be online with unlimited, affordable, high-speed mobile access through 5G technologies everywhere and all the time. And what are they doing online? They're watching videos. They're creating and sending videos. And they're shopping.

  • Look, I think we're pretty smart, but it doesn't take a genius to see that those things will converge. Of course, they will. It's inevitable. Think about some of these data points. More and more people are cutting the cable TV cord and watching content online. Millennials are not even buying TVs. They're consuming video content on their mobile devices. Why do you think you're seeing Apple developing their own content for online consumption? Amazon Prime, Netflix, Disney+ and HBO Max are now distributing the latest studio films online at the same time they're putting them in theaters. Heck, even Salesforce is now getting into the content creation game. But no, it's not interactive, clickable content.

  • We're just way ahead of the big incumbents who've gotten very comfortable enjoying the massive growth they've achieved, and they're afraid to venture in anything new that might impact the status quo. That's our opportunity. And when you do watch something on TV, what's in your hand? Your mobile device. And what are you doing? You're shopping. When you record a show or a movie and the commercials come on, what are you doing? You're hitting the fast forward button.

  • So if you're a sponsor of that content or an advertiser trying to promote and sell your products and services and you're relying on the Nielsen ratings or some of the rating service to know if you're getting an ROI on that spend, well, Let me share a secret with you. You're not. Why? Well, it comes down to a growing sentiment that I've been talking about for a long time. People want to buy. They want to shop. But they don't want to be sold. Let them click in the video to get more information about your product or service. Let them click and download that brochure. We'll give them a click to buy now button in the video and let them purchase that product they see featured in that video.

  • Play to that impulse buy propensity that Jeff Bezos mastered. He conditioned the whole world to embrace the convenience of one click buying, eliminating friction from the sales process. Our technology delivers that capability right in the videos, whether they're videos you record on your phone to share through e-mail, text or post online or live broadcast, live stream video events or shows anyone can host using our verbLIVE platform.

  • This is the convergence of video and shopability that I've been talking about for years. The market is still in its earliest stage, but now it's accelerating, especially over the past year. People are now seeing it. The investment community is now getting it. That's why our shareholder base is exploding.

  • By the way, so is our user base. We're now at almost 3 million downloads of our apps, I think about 2.8 million. And the sponsors and advertisers begin to realize that this technology is available, VERB technology that allows them to know in real time how many people are actually watching in that moment, who's watching, what did they click on, what did they buy, what did they spend, so they can actually measure that ROI, truly measure it. That's when the money behind those sponsors and advertisers will demand that content creators adopt this technology. That's when anybody selling anything will adopt this technology.

  • And every user of this technology of our applications becomes an extension of our marketing team because simply by using our technology, by creating videos, adding the clickable buttons, making them shoppable and sharing those videos with scores of others, they unknowingly become VERB volunteer salespeople, introducing our technology in the best possible way to more and more potential subscribers who receive those videos, who click on the screen and say, "Hey, okay, this is sick. This is cool. I want this. Where did they get this sales tool?"

  • And if you think that, that tipping point is not coming, then you're not paying attention to the rapid changes in the world around you. Live stream shopping in China has exploded. In fact, exploded is probably an understatement. With more than 500 million people in China purchasing products last year through live stream shopping, it's a tsunami, and it's washing over the planet.

  • And we're right there leading this new paradigm in the Western world because, one, we saw this coming years ago. We were way in front of it and began developing the technology before almost everyone. And two, our technology is better. Our verbLIVE Attribution feature is simply amazing, increasing the total addressable market for live stream selling exponentially to everyone with a contact list.

  • We're so far ahead, we've integrated our proprietary technology to the platforms of major players: Salesforce, cool updates coming there; Microsoft through our new verbMAIL add-on for Outlook users, 1 billion of them according to Microsoft; and then almost equal number of Google Gmail users as we introduce verbMAIL for Gmail this year, so we can make this technology this income-generating capability available to everyone.

  • And when I talk about everyone, I mean from the entire sales teams of some of the largest sales-based organizations in the world to that new start-up, that new entrepreneur or even that family business hoping to level the playing field as they try to figure out how to compete with that big box store that just opened in their neighborhood and to that single dad or mom trying to generate that all-important second or third income they need for their family just to get through these crazy difficult times, pandemics, new variants, the fires, the floods, the earthquakes, all disrupting our economies and the ability of average everyday people to earn an income.

  • It's a challenging new world that we need to navigate together. But as rapidly as the world is changing, VERB is ahead of it. All those hyper growth initiatives I told you we were working on, well, as many of you already know, we've been delivering the goods. In just the past 3 months, we delivered verbLIVE with our new Attribution feature. We delivered verbMAIL, our integration with Microsoft Outlook. We delivered Pulse, our initial foray into the AI and business intelligence-driven sales enablement. And we've launched the beta of our newest platform we've codenamed Marketplace with about 40 retailers that we believe will not only change online shopping as you know it, but it will be a new very profitable distribution outlet for all of our existing clients.

  • In addition to all the new ones, we will draw from other online destinations as well as from traditional brick-and-mortar businesses. Our growth strategies around this are extremely well developed and currently underway, and while I'd love to share them with you, we're going to keep them under wraps for now as we're not going to educate any more would-be competitors whose business strategy seems to be let's just try to do whatever VERB does. Well, good luck with that. We continue to attract new customers who want to be with a company that sets the standard for sales enablement, not the one that who doesn't even know how to spell it.

  • For those of you who don't know what these products are, let me provide a quick overview. verbMAIL was developed pursuant to a partnership we have with Microsoft. verbMAIL is an Outlook add-on you can download from the Microsoft online store right now. It places a cool verbMAIL icon right in your Microsoft Outlook toolbar. Click it, and you can create an interactive video with buy-it-now buttons, among many other clickable icons. And then it automatically places that interactive video right in an e-mail for you that you could send out right through Outlook. You also get a detailed report showing your engagement metrics and analytics. So you're not guessing if your outreach was effective.

  • Microsoft says there's 1 billion Outlook users, all of whom can now turn their favorite contact tool into their favorite sales tool. The current release of verbMAIL is free to help accelerate adoption and awareness. It gives users a taste of how fun and effective interactive video e-mails can be. But it gets better. With the upcoming follow-on releases, we'll introduce paid subscription-based pricing for powerful business features specifically aimed at sales professionals.

  • Let's talk about one of these features. When you send your verbMAIL interactive video through Outlook, the moment your customer or prospect watches that video, you'll get a pop-up message on your computer or mobile device notifying you. So some of you are saying right now, "Wait, wait. Don't you already have that feature in verbCRM?" Yes. The answer is yes.

  • But here's where we go next level. That pop-up message in Outlook not only tells you that your video is being watched by your prospect. But in this version, what's coming? It's also going to give you the option to click on that pop-up message and decide if you want your prospect to know, while your prospect -- while he or she is watching that video, that you're online and available right then to talk if they'd like to.

  • Now check this out. If you select that option, a message then pops up on the screen of your prospect while they're watching your video, letting them know you're available in that moment. And if they want to chat with you, they can click on that message. And then it's going to launch a 2-way interactive verbLIVE video session, a Zoom-like session, except with VERB's proprietary interactive e-commerce capability right there and then while their interest level is piqued. And for those who want to connect right then but don't want to be on camera, they can choose to launch a real -- a live real-time chat. We expect this feature to be available for verbMAIL users this year.

  • Let's talk about live streaming. verbLIVE is the best live stream shopping platform on the planet. verbLIVE gives everyone the ability to sell anything from anywhere by broadcasting their own QVC-style show right from their mobile device or their computer. And while they're broadcasting live, they can add clickable, shoppable icons right in the video that show up on the screens of all viewers all over the world for instant friction-free buying capability. And we just made it even better with our new Attribution feature.

  • Here's how it works. Anyone with a contact list can go into verbLIVE, check out the upcoming live stream shopping events. And by the way, this is super, super hot right now in the direct sales space. They can go into the app and select an event, and the app will generate a special invite for you that you could then share with your entire contact list. You can even post it on social media. So when anyone you shared it with attends that live stream event and purchases something or becomes a member, you get the commission. You get the credit. That's right. You did nothing more than invite your contacts to someone else's verbLIVE event and you generated income for yourself.

  • So with Attribution, we just increased the total addressable market for verbLIVE exponentially as anyone with a contact list can generate an income without having to be in front of the camera hosting their own event. This is -- come on. This is game changing. The Attribution feature is VERB's proprietary technology. We designed it, and we developed it. And now it's in verbLIVE and being offered as an upgrade for an additional monthly fee as we speak. We think Attribution might be one of the biggest value creation opportunities for our shareholders going into the second half of this year and into 2022 and beyond.

  • All right. Let's talk about Pulse. Pulse is our newest sales enablement feature. It's like a sales coach in your pocket, tracking your interactions with your prospects, and I mean all of them, could be hundreds or thousands of them, and telling you what to do next to close that sale. It's another groundbreaking hyper growth product, and we've delivered all these products in just the past 3 months.

  • We began launching paying clients on verbLIVE with attribution. I'm talking about large multinational clients at the end of June and the beginning of July. So look for that revenue to begin being recognized on our P&L in third or fourth quarter of this year. And look, I know you want it now. You wanted to see it now in our Q2 report. I get it. Believe me, I get it. I wanted it in Q2 of last year. Trust me, I'm one of the largest shareholders in this thing and with my own money in it, and no one is pushing harder and faster to grow this thing. But now the table is set. The technology is real. It's now being used by the sales teams of giant enterprises around the world with more and more coming on every week.

  • Just in the past few weeks, I'm seeing reports of tens of thousands of verbLIVE events being held all over the world. And based on the results they're getting, the only question now is how big does this get, how fast and how big can we grow this. And for those of you who know us, you know we dream big. We think big. We like big, okay? Yes. And bigger is definitely better. It's truly, truly an exciting time to be part of VERB.

  • Here's a couple of comments from the management and CEOs of some of the companies using verbLIVE with Attribution. One said, and I quote, "Without a doubt, it's the biggest and best tool we have ever released for the field." Okay? Another boost to the success they were having with it and share some of the detailed metrics they would see with it, they said this. 60%, okay, 6-0, 60% of the people attending their verbLIVE events were purchasing product during the verbLIVE stream. Talk about validation. These comments are coming from the CEOs and senior executives of billion-dollar global e-commerce companies guys.

  • So let me give you -- let me give you some high-level second quarter numbers, and then Jeff will provide more of the details from our Q2 filing for the period ending June 30, which at the rate things are moving now, it seems like June 30 was a lifetime ago. But first, let me do something I typically never do, okay? I want to provide some perspective on our full year 2021 revenue expectations. And yes, these are the forward-looking statements we warn you about.

  • So we're halfway through the year. We're halfway through the third quarter reporting period. So I feel confident in saying that we believe we will see impressive SaaS revenue growth this year over last year as much as more -- 30%, okay, 30% with one caveat -- actually, a few caveats. That 30% growth rate does not -- again, let me repeat, the 30% growth rate does not include any of the revenue that we expect to generate from verbLIVE with Attribution, none of the revenue we expect to generate from verbMAIL, none of the revenue we expect to generate from Pulse, none of the revenue we expect to generate from any of the things that we've talked about in this call and none of the revenue we might generate from some of the accretive acquisitions we're currently working on, the details of which we'll share once we get further along in those processes.

  • That 30% growth is based solely on the amazing momentum we've built from our existing SaaS business over the past 2 years. Think about that. All those revenue catalysts we talked about that have just come online and more to come this year and into next are not, I repeat, not in that 30% growth rate.

  • Okay. So here's some Q2 data points. Total SaaS recurring revenue, it's a component of our total digital revenue, was $1.6 million. That's up 10% over last quarter, up 26% over the same period last year. SaaS recurring revenue as a percentage of total digital revenue was 88% compared with 76% for the same period last year and up over the 81% we reported in Q1 2021. Total digital revenue was $1.8 million, an increase of 8% over the same period last year.

  • Total combined revenue of $2.4 million represents the 10% growth in our SaaS recurring revenue over last quarter and 26% over last year and a reduction in revenue from the legacy printing and fulfillment side of the business of approximately $400,000 since last year as that component of our business, as most of you probably know, is driven by our client in-person conferences and sales events, which were essentially nonexistent due to the continuing effects of COVID. Obviously, that has had little to no effect on our current SaaS recurring revenue subscription business, which is really what we focus on anyway. I'd also note that our SaaS recurring subscription revenue continues to grow, especially among large enterprise, notwithstanding the impact COVID has had on many other businesses.

  • As I mentioned earlier in the call, total user downloads now stand at $2.8 million. That's up more than 75% over the $1.6 million we reported in the same period last year and up from approximately $2 million as recently as May 13, 2021, which we shared in our Q1 earnings call. That's a 40% increase in just the past 90 days.

  • A couple of other interesting data points. Cash totaled $6.4 million as of June 30, 2021, compared with $1.8 million on December 30, 2020. But since then, given the fairly meaningful increase in share price and trading volume we've enjoyed recently, we've added approximately $2 million to our balance sheet through the recent cash exercises of outstanding warrants by investors, including -- actually, reducing warrant overhang and reducing our reliance on outside finances. In addition, the increased share price permitted us to force the conversion of all the outstanding preferred shares, which has allowed us to create a nice, clean cap table, all common now.

  • And finally, as we approach the end of this year, we will shift -- we're going to shift from the heavy increases in expenses that are associated with all the research and development from -- that we've had with all the products we just talked about. So we're going to go from research and development mode to deployment and monetization mode. Accordingly, we can expect overall reductions in our cash burn as we implement our plan to get to cash flow positive. Jeff is going to talk a little bit more about that.

  • So I'd like to turn the call over to Jeff Clayborne, our Chief Financial Officer, for a more detailed review of our financial results. Jeff?

  • Jeffrey R. Clayborne - CFO & Treasurer

  • Thank you, Rory, and good afternoon, everyone. I'd like to review our financial performance as reported in our Form 10-Q filed today, August 16, for the quarterly period ended June 30, 2021. I may reiterate and provide more color around some of the data points already shared with you. The following represents the company's results of operations for Q2 2021 versus Q2 2020.

  • Total SaaS recurring revenue, a component of total digital revenue, was $1.6 million, up 26% from the same period last year and up 10% over Q1 2021. SaaS recurring revenue as a percentage of total digital revenue was 88% compared with 76% for the same period last year and up over the 81% we reported in Q1 2021. Total digital revenue of approximately $1.8 million was up 8% over the same period last year, and while it appears to be in line with Q1 2021, it actually represents an increase in our subscription-based SaaS recurring revenue of 26% over last year and a reduction in non-SaaS digital revenue.

  • Total combined revenue of approximately $2.4 million consists of a $1.6 million in recurring SaaS revenue I just referenced, which is up 26%, plus our non-SaaS digital revenue and the nondigital revenue stream that, as Rory stated, was slightly off due to clients not hosting in-person conferences and conventions.

  • We added 12 new client contracts with a guaranteed base value of $715,000 with expected annual recurring revenue of $405,000. However, those numbers do not include the expanded revenue we expect to recognize from existing clients who have recently launched and those that are about to launch verbLIVE with Attribution, which should add no less than an additional $1 million conservatively in annual recurring revenue.

  • Research and development expenses were $3.2 million compared with $1.6 million for the same period last year, with the increase attributed to the development of verbLIVE, VERB's new Attribution feature, product enhancements to verbCRM, the Microsoft Outlook integration and the forthcoming new Marketplace platform, among other as-of-yet unannounced features and products.

  • As Rory mentioned, we made a strategic decision to increase our product development spend to bring these groundbreaking products to market sooner in order to maintain and even enhance our market-leading position. And this fall, as we move from the increased research and development spend we've had over the past 18 months to the delivery and monetization phase, we implemented plans to reduce our quarterly cash burn and reduce our reliance on outside capital.

  • General and administrative expenses were $6.5 million compared with $4 million for the same period last year, with the increase attributed to professional services of $1.1 million, additional labor of $929,000 to support growth and 287,000 of marketing and promotional expenses.

  • Now let me share the financial results for 6 months ended June 30, 2021. Total SaaS recurring revenue, a component of total digital revenue, was $3.1 million, up 31% year-over-year. SaaS recurring revenue as a percentage of total digital revenue, which remains our focus, jumped to 85% compared with 74% for the same period last year. Total digital revenue of approximately $3.6 million was up 15% year-over-year.

  • Research and development expenses were $6.1 million compared with $2.9 million for the same period last year, with the increase attributed to development of verbLIVE, VERB's new Attribution feature, product enhancements to verbCRM, the Microsoft Outlook integration and the forthcoming new Marketplace platform, among other as-of-yet unannounced features and products.

  • General and administrative expenses were $13.9 million compared with $7.5 million for the same period last year, with the increase attributed to noncash stock compensation expense, labor-related costs to support growth, professional services, marketing expenses as well as expenses related to SoloFire operations following the acquisition.

  • As of June 30, 2021, cash totaled $6.4 million. Total assets were $36.4 million. Total liabilities were $22.9 million. And total stockholders' equity was $13.5 million. As we mentioned, subsequent to the end of the quarter, the company converted all the remaining 1,706 preferred shares into shares of the company's common stock. As a result, there are no more shares of preferred stock outstanding. As of today, there are 67,520,919 shares of common stock issued and outstanding. Of the total number of common shares issued and outstanding, approximately 6.1 million shares or approximately 9% are owned or controlled by management and the Board members.

  • I'd now like to turn the call back over to the operator for Q&A. Operator?

  • Operator

  • We will now begin the question-and-answer session. (Operator Instructions) And the first question comes from Brian Kinstlinger with Alliance Global Partners.

  • Brian David Kinstlinger - Head of TMT Research, MD & Senior Technology Analyst

  • Let's start with Microsoft Outlook. I'd love to hear how you're progressing on getting inducted into the Microsoft co-sell program. And then while it's only been a short period, can you highlight the early adoption numbers? And what do you get for a free version? Is it just e-mail with video capabilities but no other options? It's a bunch in one.

  • Rory J. Cutaia - Founder, Chairman, President, CEO & Secretary

  • Okay. So first, the free version of MAIL gives you really great e-commerce capabilities, where you can not only create a video or import a video. You may already have a video on your computer you want to use, and you could add those interactive buttons to it. You could add the shoppable, buy-it-now buttons on it and send that out through Outlook. So it's pretty full featured for a free version.

  • Now the features that are coming, the ones that I talked about earlier in the call, well, those features really take it to an entirely new level. And that's really for sales professionals. But this is for anybody really trying to promote or sell anything, but the other cool thing about it and the reason we made it free is because it's also for people who just want to communicate with friends and family and send out interactive video e-mails, inviting people to a party or an event or those kinds of things or delivering a document or a contract.

  • It's really a pretty terrific program. And the response that we've gotten from it so far has been pretty amazing. So we've got -- let's say, it's been out now for, I guess, about a month. And it looks like we've got somewhere around 1,000 people on it. There's thousands and thousands of videos that are being created on the platform. And we haven't really promoted it yet at all.

  • So those initiatives, the promotion of it is really not going to begin until really the end of this month as we've brought on a whole new team of people that we've added to our sales and marketing department. And we'll be focused on very specifically this initiative, both the free version, promoting that because, look, the more and more people that use it, as I said in my call, everyone that sends out an interactive e-mail is creating a new potential prospect for us that will be -- that's going to want the same thing.

  • So we want to get as many people doing that as possible. But this new group is going to really -- has got some great strategies. These are people with proven track records of having built this kind of thing and also having worked with Microsoft on these kind of things. So we're pretty excited about where that's going to go.

  • In terms of our -- where we are with getting into the Microsoft co-sell program, which we remain extremely optimistic about, I don't know if we want to spend too much time explaining what that is actually, but it's a program where Microsoft actually helps market and promote the product globally. And it's a big deal. What does it mean in terms of revenue generation for us if we get into the program? I couldn't even begin to quantify it, but it's probably game changing for us.

  • So we have a very clear path now as to what Microsoft wants us to do, and we are in the process of implementing those things. So that's much further along, I think, from where we were, Brian, when you asked me about this a couple of months ago. So I can't really say more than that.

  • Brian David Kinstlinger - Head of TMT Research, MD & Senior Technology Analyst

  • Yes. Yes. How long -- with what they've asked you to do. Is it 3 months of work? Is it 6 months of work? Is it pretty quick and then it takes them some time to figure it out? I'm just -- take us through kind of timing with 4 months to go in the year.

  • Rory J. Cutaia - Founder, Chairman, President, CEO & Secretary

  • Some of the initial steps will probably take us into the end of September. And then from September, I'm hopeful that we're not looking at more than a few months, maybe a couple of months. But I don't know and I don't want any people to make investment decisions based on that. But I -- look, it's certainly going to happen -- let me take that back. Nothing in this world is certain, okay? I believe that we're going to get this done before the end of the year. But again, I don't have complete control over it. But I feel very confident about it.

  • Brian David Kinstlinger - Head of TMT Research, MD & Senior Technology Analyst

  • Great. And then similar line of questioning in terms of verbLIVE. How many enterprises you have signed up? And how many paying users do you have and then split between salesmen versus paid by the enterprise?

  • Rory J. Cutaia - Founder, Chairman, President, CEO & Secretary

  • Gosh, I think we've got somewhere north of 600,000 people on live now, thereabouts, on a global basis. I'm not sure I could tell you specifically how many of those are paying themselves for that. I would say that the vast majority of those subscriptions are being paid by their employers. We've seen -- yes.

  • Brian David Kinstlinger - Head of TMT Research, MD & Senior Technology Analyst

  • I was going to ask you how penetrated is that 600,000 into the enterprises. I mean do they have 3 million possible field reps? Do they have 6 million? Do they have -- are you well penetrated? Take me through what that capacity could look like.

  • Rory J. Cutaia - Founder, Chairman, President, CEO & Secretary

  • Yes. The penetration rates -- because it's really so new, the penetration rates are pretty low. So we've got huge, huge upside as we continue to -- well, as they continue to use it, promote it internally, we're helping them with that. But the weekly growth numbers, the videos that are being created, I don't know, the verbLIVE streams, it's already exceeded our expectations internally. I think I've mentioned previously in the call that we've seen tens of thousands of verbLIVE stream events just over the past couple of weeks.

  • But what's really kind of the bigger deal about it is not so much that they're hosting the events, which, of course, we're thrilled about because that brings more people onto it, but the kind of results that they are reporting internally. The sales results that they're getting are really -- just really very, very impressive. And I think that I mentioned some of the quotes from some of these executives and CEOs of these companies. They're pretty -- jaw-dropping for them is one of the other things that I've heard. They were not expecting those kind of results. It's that good.

  • It's super engaging. People are enjoying it. It's social. It's fun. People somehow feel compelled to make a purchase when they're on there. It's hard to explain. And it's one of the reasons, I think, that this is going to be such a big deal not just for VERB but I mean for social selling and online selling e-commerce globally.

  • Brian David Kinstlinger - Head of TMT Research, MD & Senior Technology Analyst

  • And then is it too early to tell us how Attribution has impacted the maybe weekly sign-ups? And is Attribution an upcharge? Or now does it come standard in the product?

  • Rory J. Cutaia - Founder, Chairman, President, CEO & Secretary

  • It's an upcharge. We've added it to all the new verbLIVE accounts that are being sold. And it's safe to say that Attribution has been really a big deal in terms of the draw and the reason that people want to get on live as quickly as possible because as I explained it, not everyone wants to be in front of the camera doing a verbLIVE event. But if you, as a sales rep, can refer all of your contacts to that other rep that's really great in front of the camera, you're still going to get paid. Well, that means that now you want to get on there and use it. So that's really driving adoption rates, and it's certainly driving our pipeline for companies coming in and asking for it.

  • Brian David Kinstlinger - Head of TMT Research, MD & Senior Technology Analyst

  • I have 2 more questions. The first one is, is there a timing of when you expect VERB Marketplace? And then there was a tweet out from a very high-end sports retailer. Should we look at those tweets potentially as retailers who are participating in the early soft launch of the VERB Marketplace?

  • Rory J. Cutaia - Founder, Chairman, President, CEO & Secretary

  • I don't know specifically what tweet you're referring to, Brian. And we've been really cautious about the information that we've shared about that.

  • Brian David Kinstlinger - Head of TMT Research, MD & Senior Technology Analyst

  • I was careful to say the name.

  • Rory J. Cutaia - Founder, Chairman, President, CEO & Secretary

  • Yes. It's been really, really minimal. And we want to keep it that way until we launch it on the global platform with our CDN network and a lot of other things that we haven't really talked about yet and what this means. So I really don't want to comment on that stuff because I really don't know what it is. But Marketplace, again, it's a codename. So we've been using it internally. It's probably not what's going to be called when it's launched. Marketplace, it's a big deal, Brian, really. And as we move through the balance of the year and we begin sharing a lot of information about it, people will understand that.

  • Brian David Kinstlinger - Head of TMT Research, MD & Senior Technology Analyst

  • Can you comment though on -- do you expect it to be launched fully by the end of the year? Or is that maybe too aggressive?

  • Rory J. Cutaia - Founder, Chairman, President, CEO & Secretary

  • No. No. We are super aggressive, as you know. And yes, I am anticipating that it will be launched by the end of the year.

  • Brian David Kinstlinger - Head of TMT Research, MD & Senior Technology Analyst

  • Great. Last question I've got is Salesforce had an announcement about releasing, I think, Salesforce+. It sounds -- in my early days in dealing and talking with you, with VERB, clearly, you were talking with Microsoft. You were talking with Salesforce. You were talking with a variety of CRM companies. And this particular product sounded very similar to some of the things that your technology does. Could you just talk about your relationship with Salesforce and if you're partnering with them in any way, shape or form right now? And maybe any comments would be helpful.

  • Rory J. Cutaia - Founder, Chairman, President, CEO & Secretary

  • So yes, we have an existing partnership with Salesforce. They were one of the first large companies to embrace the technology. They have our first version of it now in the Salesforce Store. It's -- I think I alluded to that in the call earlier where there's a big, big upgrade coming to that in the near term.

  • And I also alluded to that new Salesforce service that they come out with where they're now producing content, video content on a variety of different topics related to sales. And I think that's fantastic. I really do. It's not shoppable. It's not interactive content. It's not anything like that.

  • And sure, would I like to talk to them about making some of that content interactive even if it's taking polls and things like that in those videos that they're producing? Yes, absolutely. Am I going to try and do that? Yes, you better believe it. But our business is not going to revolve around that. Clearly, it just shows that people are beginning to embrace this content of video being everything. It's -- I said last year it's table stakes. It's more than table stakes now. It's really all encompassing. And so our technology, of course, takes us to the next level.

  • Brian David Kinstlinger - Head of TMT Research, MD & Senior Technology Analyst

  • Great. Actually, I'm going to do one numbers question for Jeff. Jeff, with the conversion, can you just tell us how many common shares you now have outstanding as of today?

  • Rory J. Cutaia - Founder, Chairman, President, CEO & Secretary

  • I think it was in his report a couple of seconds ago.

  • Jeffrey R. Clayborne - CFO & Treasurer

  • Yes. It's 67,520,919, Brian.

  • Rory J. Cutaia - Founder, Chairman, President, CEO & Secretary

  • Yes. 67 million.

  • Operator

  • (Operator Instructions) The next question comes from Ed Woo with Ascendiant Capital.

  • Edward Moon Woo - Director of Research and Senior Research Analyst of Internet & Digital Media

  • As you mentioned on the call that video commerce is just booming, have you noticed any change in the competition, whether more people are trying to come into the space that you guys have the first mover advantage on?

  • Rory J. Cutaia - Founder, Chairman, President, CEO & Secretary

  • So Ed, I'm seeing companies come into this space. I haven't seen it accelerate greater than, I think, the last time you and I may have spoken about this stuff. My feeling on this is please, please bring it on, bring as many people into the space as possible because this market is so gigantic. I mean it's almost difficult to quantify. It's gigantic.

  • And what we're doing and what we're talking about here with our technology is changing the consumer buying habits, retailers' selling habits, the things that people are used to. And as people see it, as they experience what this technology can do and what it does and the results that they're getting, people embrace it. Honestly, they're all over it.

  • So what that means for us as we look to grow this thing is all we need to do is create greater and greater awareness. So if we could leverage the marketing spend to create that awareness, of all the other companies coming into the space, then I think that's how we win because we don't need to own 100% of the market. I mean it's silly actually, right? But even a small percentage of this market is a multibillion-dollar enterprise for us. So I'm really hoping that we see more companies come into it.

  • I will comment on some of the technology that I have seen. I don't know if there's anything out there, at least from what I've seen, that compares with our technology where you could place these interactive buttons right in the live stream, right in the video itself. As a host, you can move it around, take it on, turn it off. The other technology that I've been seeing, which again, I'm not disparaging anybody or anything, they create a frame. They put the interactive icons on the bottom and along the side, and it's really hard to change it midstream.

  • If you get comments from people watching, they want to see a particular product, well, it's really hard to switch on the fly, where with our technology -- for example, Market America, shop.com is a client using the technology. They've got -- and then I think this is super instructive about how cool this technology is. They've got tens of thousands of products in a variety of different categories. And when one of their reps gets on a verbLIVE event to host a verbLIVE event, they have the ability to choose from any of those products in real time by a few clicks. They can bring that product up, bring an image of it up, bring it on the screen and have it ready for clickable, shoppable checkout.

  • Reaching that kind of database of products in real time, I don't think anybody has that, at least not that I'm aware of. So this is a product and a technology that's ready for the largest enterprise on the planet, the largest retailers, whatever they -- whoever wants to jump in here and use it, and it's globally scalable now as we've already proven. So yes, I guess I went on a bit about competition. I just feel like not too concerned about that.

  • Edward Moon Woo - Director of Research and Senior Research Analyst of Internet & Digital Media

  • Well, great. My next question is on VERB Marketplace. Is your plan still to have a very big formal announcement and launch event for it? Or do you think it will be a more temperate release?

  • Rory J. Cutaia - Founder, Chairman, President, CEO & Secretary

  • No, we're planning a pretty big launch event around that, absolutely.

  • Operator

  • This concludes our question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Rory for any closing remarks.

  • Rory J. Cutaia - Founder, Chairman, President, CEO & Secretary

  • Okay. Thank you. Thank you all for tuning in here today and listening to what we've got going on here at VERB. It is really kind of a crazy exciting time. But there's a couple of things that I didn't cover earlier in the call that I'd like to just touch on right now.

  • So first, we have continued to build on our ESG program, and we're working closely with NASDAQ to be a model for ESG compliance and initiatives for all NASDAQ-listed microcap companies, something that we're really proud of working with NASDAQ. And our work through Verb for Humanity is an extension of those initiatives and a reflection of our socially conscious culture here at VERB, something else that we're pretty proud of.

  • And last but certainly not least is our big Newport Beach event coming up this fall, something that we're calling verbLIT, the VERB leading interactive technology symposium where we're going to be showcasing our latest products using cutting-edge technology where you'll not only see how the products work but you're also going to meet the people behind the technology and the products and learn who uses them and why and the results that they're getting. We're also going to give you a sneak peek at what's coming from VERB, and it's going to be broadcast all over the world with clickable, interactive capabilities through verbLIVE. The date is going to be sometime at the end of September or beginning of October. We're still hoping that it's going to be also an in-person event here at our Newport Beach offices, obviously, subject to what's coming down the road here with COVID and the restrictions associated with that.

  • So for our investors out there, watch your e-mails for invitations and watch social media for the date and more information. Look, if you're someone who likes watching the Apple product launches twice a year, then you're really, really going to love verbLIT. If you're a shareholder, you're going to be very proud. If you're not, you're going to want to be. Until then, look, thank you. Goodbye. We've got to get back to work.

  • Operator

  • The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.