A Weekly Update from Rich McBride, CEO
September 7, 2000
I have gotten a stack of e-mails this week!
Sometimes the line is hard to define--between keeping stockholders informed, or being hit with remarks like:
"Things they talk about take so long to happen" or "They make so many mistakes! They should operate like a real company!"
If you look into timetables, and check the average time needed to develop, test, manufacture, and sell a product, you would change the statement:
"I can't believe they have done all this in a year and a half!"
I'm restricted from making statements about our stock, its price, and the future of the investment. However, I am the largest stockholder, and I can tell you this company has not scratched the surface of potential sales opportunities for all its product lines.
I believe that communication is a key ingredient for success. It now makes sense to me, why many CEOs shy away from any serious discourse with stockholders. Between the people who don't understand, and the people who have an agenda against the company, it becomes a twisted mess.
Back to retailing, and then, on to manufacturing:
When you are working with a major company, like JCPenney or Home Depot, it is a major accomplishment even to get in the door. We've been building SecureView units in GE and Phillips bulbs. We now have the tooling completed to build using our own parts. These are the "bulbs" you see in the ads and on the website. Retail-chain buyers want to see what the finished product looks and feels like...and be sure it looks and feels "right."
Manufacturing, the next big area of confusion:
Because the camera contains many parts and some are brand-new (never before made by or for anyone, like our new bulb parts), you build up production slowly. It's more expensive per-unit than a major run, but it's safer. Here is an example--the first cameras off the production line were sent out, and developed what I call a "click," or shift, in the electronics. They worked fine...but didn't sound solid when you handled the camera. We needed to "beef up" a part we had designed for the internal suspension system. This in turn required a modification in the tooling. Had we set up to run on K-Byte's assembly system, we would have been recalling 10,000 units. Instead, we had produced only a minimal amount.
More details will be released in the coming weeks, regarding both JCPenney and other major players. I can only say that we have a finished product; and that all the pre-selling and "show and tell" up to this point has paid off.
American Stock Exchange:
The status has not changed, and we are still in the review process.
A few odds & ends:
We made a mistake in reporting $1.9 million in the 2nd Quarter numbers. That will be corrected in a PR tomorrow [Sept. 8th].
We cannot give sales numbers out every week, or every day. The security business is not like our Marine Division--a major difference is that we have COMPETITION. Today's sales for SecureView were $237,600.00 [at 3:30pm EDT September 7th]. We will probably do about 900 unit sales total by the end of the day.
