PSQ Holdings Inc

Greetings and welcome to the Public Square second quarter 2023 earnings conference call and webcast. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Ashley DeSimone with ICR, who will host the question and answer session after the prepared remarks. Thank you. You may begin.

Thank you, Operator. Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to Public Square's second quarter and first half 2023 earnings conference call. Hosting today's call are Michael Seifert, founder, chairman, and CEO, and Brad Searle, the financial officer of Public Square. The information discussed today is qualified in its entirety by the 8 containing earnings release and the amended 8 containing full second quarter financial statements that we filed with the SEC today. and which may be accessed on the SEC's website and Public Square's website. Today's call is also being webcast, and a replay will be posted to Public Square's IR website. Please note that statements made during this call, including financial projections or other statements that are not historical in nature, may constitute forward-looking statements. Such statements are made on the basis of the company's views and assumptions regarding future events and business performance at the time they're made. and we do not undertake any obligation to update these statements. Forward-looking statements are subject to risks, which could cause the company's actual results to differ from its historical results and forecasts, including those risks set forth in Public Square's filings with the SEC. You should refer to and carefully consider those for more information. This cautionary statement applies to all forward-looking statements made during the call. Do not place undue reliance on any forward-looking statements. I will now open the call to Michael Seifert. Michael, please go ahead.

Thank you, Ashley. And thank you to everyone for joining us live on this Wednesday morning for our first earnings call as a public company. This has been an incredible journey for us, to say the least. And the last six months particularly have been especially exciting as our business has grown tremendously. And we've experienced some significant milestones as of late. We just successfully completed our de-SPAC transaction. And we continue to hear more and more stories every day from our consumer members and businesses alike saying that Public Square has changed their lives and their businesses for the better. And before we get into anything else, I just want to pause for a second there and say that that is what drives me, and it's what drives our team. The testimonies that we get to hear every single day from communities around this country of businesses and consumers saying that Public Square has helped shift the power structures of society back toward we the people in their communities, that is the most rewarding part of this entire journey, and it is always our guiding light and what drives us forward. To get into some of the specifics, to give you a brief snapshot to the last six months for us, regarding some of these major milestones, we entered into a business combination agreement with Columbia Acquisition Corporation on February 27th of this year, 2023. We then initially filed our S4 on April 6th, which was declared effective by the SEC on June 30th. We then closed the business combination on July 19th, and our first full day of trading on the New York Stock Exchange took place on July 20th. We are thrilled with the results of the going public process. And we look forward to continuing our journey as a publicly listed company, a company by the people, for the people, and now owned by we, the people. And real quick, many companies view going public as a sort of exit or a finish line of sorts. And we see it as actually quite the opposite. For us, going public is the starting line, a milestone early on in our journey that allows us to invite our community to own this mission and grow it with us. We're excited about the democratization of the capital markets, and we want to be a company owned by the very people that use it day in and day out. And we're so grateful for how our consumers and businesses have grown this platform. We at Public Square are the nation's largest marketplace of patriotic businesses and consumers the nation has ever seen, and we're seeking to change this nation for the better through the power of commerce. And ultimately, we're so grateful for all those that are on the journey with us. We're just getting started. I'm going to back up and take you through our business. momentarily in more depth but first let's review the metrics at a high level because they're truly impressive and something that we as a team are very proud of revenue we saw first half 2023 consolidated revenues of nine hundred and eight thousand dollars an increase of one thousand one hundred and forty percent from the first half of last year specifically we saw revenues in the three months ended june 30th of 530 000 and with second quarter revenue reflecting a 40 increase from the first quarter which was driven largely by enhanced advertising functionality on our core platform at publicsq.com or on the app, and an increased business base. Our consumer members as of July 31st have grown 271% from December 31st, 2022. So in seven months, our consumer members have grown 271% to over 1.43 million consumer members, compared to roughly 385,000 at the end of 2022. And as a reminder, if you're not familiar with our business, when we say consumer members, these are not just hits to our website. These are people that are actually creating accounts and engaging in this marketplace with us. Additionally, the increase from roughly 556,000 consumer members as of March 31st to 1.2 million members as of June 30th accounted for a 115% increase quarter over quarter. The increase in consumer members is primarily driven by increased exposure. We've had many media opportunities that we've seized and have enjoyed the opportunity to tell our story publicly, and that's really generated growth for us. But also driven by enhanced app performance and the significant growth of our outreach program, which I'll address here momentarily. We've also experienced significant growth of average daily unique sessions, which refers to the average number of unique IP addresses accessing the app.publicsq platform on mobile and desktop devices in a single day. And also, if you're not familiar with our business, that's an important differentiation from just hit to publicsq.com because when we say average daily unique sessions, we are talking specifically about toward AppDot, the actual platform, once you hit join or log in. Since tracking this data in mid-January 2022, the average daily unique sessions have grown over 400%. And actually, excuse me, since tracking this data in mid-January of 2023, this year, so about seven months, Since tracking this data in mid-January 2023, the average daily unique sessions have grown over 400% to an average of 453,225 per day for the month of July 2023, compared to an average of 89,843 unique sessions per day in January of 2023. We had over 65,000 business vendors with us as of July 31st, a 98% increase from December 31st, 2023. Excuse me, 2022. And our outreach program has grown to over 600 influencers and ambassadors with a combined social media following of over 60 million in the aggregate. This is important because this is one of the core components of our growth, our outreach program. These are our super consumers. These are the folks that have said, I love this platform and I want to help it grow. So these people are knocking on doors of businesses around the country, inviting folks to the experience. These are our influencers that are partnering with us to share this movement of the patriotic economy with the people that trust and follow them. This is an incredibly important point to highlight. The fact that this continues to grow is a sign for us that our broader trust-based community is growing. And with that, the consumers are telling other consumers, the businesses are telling other businesses. And that's something that we're obviously proud of and want to continue to foster and cultivate. Our cash and cash equivalence balance as of July 31st, 2023 was $32.6 million. And the EveryLife launch for us was extraordinary, something we're very excited about. And for context, EveryLife is our first D2C product offering. It's a direct-to-consumer brand. That is in a baby care industry, diapers and wipes. And the reason we started this brand is because over the last year, we've gathered quite a bit of insight from our consumer base about what they're actually looking for. What are the products that matter most to them? And where do they desire values aligned alternatives in the market that they can actually shop with and know with blessed assurance that they're not funding causes antithetical to their own worldview? we learned that one of the most sought after product categories was diapers and wipes. And unfortunately, there was not a values aligned diapers and wipes brand out in the market. So we decided to create one. So Every Life is the first and only pro-life, pro-family diaper company that gives back to mothers and fathers and babies in need. And it's been a thrill to watch this launch during the first 19 operating days. of our business. It launched on July 13th. So the first 19 operating days from July 13th through July 31st, EveryLife generated over 4,300 total orders, roughly 60% of which were actually monthly auto-renewed subscriptions. So just to back up, the EveryLife launch for us was exactly what we hoped to see. It was a great opportunity to get this product in the hands of our consumers. It's a wholly owned subsidiary of Public Square, a PSQ holding. And during the first 19 operating days of its existence, from July 13th through the end of July, EveryLife generated over 4,300 total orders, roughly 60% of which were monthly auto-renewed subscriptions. And these orders created total estimated revenues of about $300,000. Maybe even more importantly, this proved the model for our future expansion of our product offerings. This is core to our business model. The marketplace itself creates insight about what our consumers are looking for. Those insights create market opportunities because we can go and fill the holes in the market and provide greater solution coverage for our consumers. Those solutions provide an increase of revenue to our overall company, and the flywheel, we believe, will continue to spin. I also want to comment on the pace of talent applications we've received at Public Square because there are a lot of questions out there in the market more broadly about talent and how's it going for different companies acquiring new talent. And for us, we're so enthusiastic about the quality of expertise seeking a home here at Public Square. We're hiring the best of the best, and I am so humbled by the quality of applicants we're seeing from tech and commerce behemoths like Amazon, Yelp, Target, Google. Just like there's a strong desire shared by millions of consumers to shop at companies that respect their values, there is also a strong desire from prospective employees seeking like-minded, mission-aligned companies that respect their values and will celebrate their worldview and know with blessed assurance that their employer is a safe place where they can work and thrive and innovate in their lane. Those types of folks have found a home at Public Square, and we are very eager to consider more of them into the future. Finally, our revenues grew faster than our total costs and expenses, which is an important point, especially considering the significant one-time expenses related to going public, which took place in the first half of 2023, which were outsized compared to future quarters. So a little bit more about our business. Public Square is America's marketplace at the center of what we call the patriotic parallel economy. According to a recent survey by 5W Public Relations, over 70% of consumers actively factor in the values that a company espouses before shopping with them. Problem is, if you're one of the estimated over 100 million American adults who have a more conservative or traditional worldview, there are very few major companies that are speaking to you today or even trying to market to you. In an era of increased globalization, ESG and DEI dominated corporate environments and major companies appearing more and more like progressive political organizations, We at Public Square choose to embrace excellence, meritocracy, a love for country, and the values found inscribed in the Constitution. And while it can seem as if so many companies today are celebrating what is wrong, we seek to empower patriotic Americans to discover and support values aligned small businesses from a wide variety of industries that make our community special and our nation strong. We created this economic engine and platform where business owners can prosper and where consumers who love their country and the values protected by the Constitution can thrive without sacrificing their values and without fear of cancellation. These consumers can now vote their values with their wallets, not just at the ballot box, and they do so through us because we provide authentic, high-quality alternatives to the major brands that help them feel as though there's trust in the middle of every transaction. The demand to shop one's values is enormous in the current political and socioeconomic climate, and this climate has also created a market with incredible spending power. In fact, to be more specific, utilizing numerous sources of election and consumer data, we see our TAM, our total available market in the United States, has over 100 million consumers. And while our company attracts a far wider audience than simply the politically interested, meaning we have fans that join the Public Square platform that aren't even really interested in politics at all. They come from country music or action, sports, pop culture, but they love the values that are found that are principles that guide our experiences. And they love the satisfaction that comes with supporting a family-owned and operated small business with a story to tell. But even if we were to simply be a political marketplace, if you just took the GDP represented by Republican voters from 2020, you'd have over $7 trillion, making red America, for lack of a better phrase, the third largest economy in the world by GDP. Our opportunity, simply put, is to provide the consumers comprising this enormous TAM with a one-stop shopping experience that does not force them to compromise their convictions and values, but instead celebrates them. This is not only a liberating movement for our consumers and businesses, it's also a highly lucrative one with multiple revenue streams that allow us to monetize this economic engine in a significant fashion. Even more of a little bit of a backstory, taking you a little more high level. The formal idea of Public Square first came to me in January of 2021 after witnessing a decade of companies turning against me and my family's values. I wanted to create a digital marketplace that would revolve around like-minded community and a love for the values that have made this country special. I'm a believer that boycotts aren't enough. We have to be able to actually shift our spending power towards something positive rather than just away from something negative. And it's important to note that that's always been the heart behind Public Square. We want to be a company that is known more for what we're for rather than what we're against. And after sharing the idea with a few people and close friends in our community, we knew we were on to something special. And thankfully, many others agreed as just two and a half years later from that original idea, we have over 1.4 million fully registered and active consumer members on our platform and over 65,000 business vendors. This is where we're at today, but the momentum is just getting started. We are well on our way to scaling this business to becoming an economic engine that can power the patriotic parallel economy. So to talk a little bit more about our business model, as some on the call may be less familiar with what we do and the various ways we monetize this economic engine. At Public Square, we have created an economic ecosystem with multiple paths for revenues, and the first of those is digital advertising. This is the revenue stream that has been in flight the longest for us, and we've seen tremendous growth in this area. Businesses, simply put, join our platform for free, but if they'd like to increase their exposure to our audience, they can actually pay us fees to do so. So business does not have to pay to sign up, but if we'd like to increase their exposure, they can pay us fees to do so. Currently those fees range anywhere from $50 a month to $15,000 a month, depending on their desired level of exposure and promotion. So for example, we have roughly a thousand clothing companies on the platform, but the highest displayed companies are often paid advertisers. And this has overall been a very cost effective and worthwhile endeavor for these businesses to as evidenced by the fact that we've actually been able to raise our prices every three months on average, and yet the number of total advertisers month over month continues to grow substantially. Businesses are often paying less with us for better exposure than they get with the competitors, and it's why they keep coming back. And a quick pause here to note that for a business, the number one desire is hot leads. Businesses want to know, where can I find leads that have the highest likelihood of converting? And there's no better way to attract and convert those leads then with trust implemented in the heart of that transaction. If consumers feel like they can put purpose behind their purchases and shop with a business that they can feel proud to support, then that has a higher likelihood of conversion, and we've seen that represented in our advertising metrics. We've noticed strong retention amongst our advertisers, and we're grateful for these partnerships. Please note that while our Q2 revenue was $530,000 from advertising, all of these partnerships were sold through a small team of actual sales associates. And now with the capital raised from this transaction, we have the opportunity to expand our sales team and automate more of our lower priced advertising opportunities so that businesses can actually create and customize their own advertising journey on our platform. And that frees up our sales team to focus more on larger level partnerships. That's something we're very excited about. Our second revenue stream comes from the opportunity to create products that fill the voids that currently exist in this market. The insight we gained from tracking the most searched for items on our app are extremely valuable in that endeavor. We're able to determine the products and services that consumer members have expressed high demand for but cannot currently be purchased from a business that respects or shares their values. This creates an opportunity for us to build businesses and satisfy the needs of our consumer members in a greater measure. And I'm not the CEO of each of these businesses. We hire great teams that come in and they execute on the mission and deliverables of that business, their specific OKRs and KPIs, Every Life is a great example of that, but we're all a part of this broader public square tribe, and that creates a real sense of unity amongst the broader staff, even while we're executing on different deliverables and goals across the entire Holdings company. We recently put this plan in action with the launch of our Every Life brand. As I mentioned, the nation's first diaper brand that is dedicated to supporting every innocent life. Many major baby care brands in the United States, a market, by the way, that in the United States alone represented more than $7 billion in aggregate product sales in 2022. These companies have vocally or financially supported abortion, alienating many of the conservative or religious moms who are having babies en masse. Every Life is the solution to that problem as a high-quality baby care brand with a positive story to tell that focuses on providing high-performing diapers and wipes for every little miracle. And on July 13th of this year, we announced the launch of this wholly owned subsidiary and its first direct-to-consumer, or D2C, product offering. From the 13th through the 31st of July, EveryLife estimated revenues of around $300,000. And the most successful marketing channel, by far, was the Public Square platform, which heavily validated our thesis. Meaning... We had influencers share about EveryLife. We had opportunities to get ambassadors involved in sharing with EveryLife. We posted on social media and generated content in these different environments. And yes, nothing was more successful at growing that brand than the Public Square platform, which was free for EveryLife to access and to promote, which is a very strong differentiator for our market's ability to achieve unique success in the world of D2C and in the world of two-sided marketplaces. We are encouraged by the success of our launch, and we look forward to sharing additional updates in the future. And perhaps most importantly, we believe that EveryLife, again, provides proof of concept for the true potential of this platform. And I'm happy to share, finally, that we are continuing to evaluate other near-term opportunities in the D2C product space, either by creating these wholly owned subsidiaries or by acquiring these entities. And finally, the third revenue stream here is e-commerce. We have plans to begin monetizing our e-commerce functionality in time for the Christmas shopping season by bringing transactions through or on our platform in-house. Many of you have asked about evolving the app to a platform where you can shop for products like you do on Amazon. And we are working exactly toward that. Like some of the ubiquitous multi-billion dollar companies out there, this is where consumers have one shopping cart but multiple vendors. This scenario is our highest priority from the development perspective. And when we roll this out this fall, we intend to take a transaction fee that we believe will be very competitive compared to other e-commerce sites on each sale made through the e-commerce platform. This is a great opportunity for businesses to have another channel through which they can sell their products directly, and it will also benefit consumers because it will make the experience even more seamless from a transaction perspective. All three of these revenue streams I just mentioned, again, digital advertising, our own product line, and e-commerce, show significant opportunity and we believe they have the potential to generate rather substantial revenues. We're greatly excited to continue down all these paths concurrently as we scale our business and platform. Finally, I just want to end with a story. We heard from a business recently that shared a testimony that I think was sort of a bellwether for the overall broader business community. There was a pet bakery in Alabama that makes pet treats and pet food and And they were an incredible family-owned, operated small business that was doing their best in what can be a tough small business economy. And yet, they found out about Public Square. They came to it. At the time that they signed up with a free profile, they had average monthly visitors to their website of about 60. That increased to over 1,500 a month, and their sales were actually up over 1,000% after joining the Public Square platform. And by the way, they initially joined back in April and we heard the story in July and they said, we noticed it right away when we joined and it has not slowed down since. This is the power of the public square movement. When I first heard a story of a business experience, significant profit increases through a free profile on our platform. It was in October of 2021 in San Diego, California. We were just kicking the tires on our soft launch marketplace and a hair studio reached out and said, Hey, I just want to let you know, This platform is 5X our traffic into our hair studio over the course of the last month. And I remember sitting back in my chair and thinking, if that's all we ever did, if that's all we ever did was for that one story, all of this would be worthwhile. And I'm so grateful that we have heard thousands of testimonies since just like that one. So we've got the long game in mind. We're excited about the future of our company. We are looking forward to this being a multi-decade play to continue pushing the message of Public Square Forward and the lucrative revenue streams of Public Square Forward, and we're grateful for all those that are on the journey with us. So before we go to questions, I'm going to hand it over to our CFO, Brad Searle, to introduce himself and discuss a few housekeeping topics. Without further ado, Brad.