You Ask, We Answer is a new series in which Equity Guru staff writers answer investment questions about any company on your radar. Send queries to www.twitter.com/equitydotguru with the hashtag #EGAnswers.
Question: I would like to know what you think about Peeks Social’s future. I had high hopes for them. Apps and company got crippled by bugs and payment issues which are now resolved. Still strongly believe in the concept and what is to come.
Answer: Sloshing around in the corporate materials of Peeks Social (PEEK.V) felt like watching pornography for the first time: simultaneously exhilarating and degrading.
This company is based on such deeply seductive psychology (everyone deserves to be famous) that it could actually succeed.
Social media has created a zombie-army of exhibitionists.
Every Facebook (FB. NASDAQ) account is a vanity-press autobiography. In this new world, all lives are worth documenting.
Peeks combines live streaming and social commerce into a single business model.
“We developed the world’s first end-to-end social commerce-enabled live streaming platform,” stated Mark Itwaru, former CEO and now Chairman of Peeks, “complete with integrated mobile wallet technology and full e-commerce capabilities.”
Here’s an overview:
Through Peeks, broadcasters are able to sell physical and digital goods to viewers via a personal interactive channel and partake in revenue sharing opportunities with brands, seamlessly, all without ever leaving the Peeks platform. Viewers can also utilize their mobile wallet to tip broadcasters with real cash rather than digital currency.”
The first “broadcaster” I encountered was a buxom blonde in a ponytail who lay on her back, stared languidly up at her cellphone and announced, “I’m not sure what I’m going to talk about today.”
Sixty seconds later she undid the top button on her shirt, revealing a little more cleavage.
She moistened her lips, opened her mouth, but no words came out.
I was invited to “leave a digital tip.”
Peeks Social – the stock – caught fire on October 19, 2016 when it announced a Platform Licensing Agreement with Personas.com.
The Agreement granted Personas a license to use Social Peeks platforms to “facilitate monetary transactions between users as well as between users and merchants.”
Peeks Social was to receive 30% of the gross revenue. New registrations on Peeks were averaging 6,000 per day, an increase of 4,000% from the beta launch.
Investors got excited.
In the following six weeks, the share price increased by 930% from .23 to $2.15.
Then the share price bled, drop by drop, all the way to .06.
“We had a monetization model in place from day one,” stated Itwaru, “We spent $19.3 million developing the technology behind the current and forthcoming live streaming.”
You can buy larger coin packages to get a better deal,” states Peeks, “The current rate is 60 – 100 impressions per coin but may vary with promotions. You can use the coins to tip Broadcasters or buying Impressions which are used for advertising your products (Offer Box) and your profile (Get Popular).”
On July 09, 2018, Peeks Social App reached an all-time high of $513,830 in monthly user deposits for June 2018 representing a 6% monthly increase over May 2018.
User sessions were 2 million for June 2018 representing a 3% increase over May 2018.
On Oct. 31, 2018 Peeks released selected quarterly highlights:
- The Peeks Social platform generated gross revenue of $2.1 million during Q2 2019, up from $1.3 million during Q2 2018;
- GAAP net loss increased to $1.6 million in Q2 2019 from $1.4 million in Q2 2018;
- User sessions were 6.50 million for the three months ended August 31, 2018, as compared to 4.63 million for the three months ended August 31, 2017
The quarterly highlights create a silhouette of a company that has gained serious traction (6.5 million user sessions), on a monetized site ($2.1 million revenue) in a money-losing venture ($1.6 million).
That last point is not a concern. Tech start-ups often take 5-8 years to reach profitability. If you’re gaining real-estate, you’re moving in the right direction.
Peeks Social does have a carnival freak-show appeal.
Here SAEScorpio (#guys #stonerchick #girls #ganjagoddess) pans a cell phone camera over her body while exhaling marijuana smoke.
If you put on headphones and crank the volume (it’s safe – she doesn’t speak), you can hear a man in the background complaining bitterly:
“You’re not going to be able to help me find Otto! Because you are going to be married on a completely different cellblock, bent over a sink. With soap and shit. Like a donut by the time I get out on parole. I can’t do this man!”
Make no mistake – this content is divine – and I’ll be upping the “user-session” count looking for more of it. The video has 635 views, 432 hearts and a 3-star rating.
The long agonising share-price slide has created many disgruntled shareholders who are now beaking-off on investor bullboards:
#PEEKSdeathApproaching: “Peeks is currently on life support and the chances of peeks coming off of it is extremely low the doctor says. Peeks is going on three 3 years now and has gained next to no traction. 85% of apps don’t make it past 3 yrs. Google it and you will see articles.”
“Looks like the average user spends less than 4 minutes on the site,” stated another bullboard participant, “People are checking it out but aren’t satisfied with what they find and thus leave.”
In summary, Peeks Social is a brilliant idea, well executed, based on valid psychological principals. The creators and the management team are hard-working and smart as fook.
But here’s the reality: The stock has already had it’s run. You can not recapture that excitement with more story-telling. It will take a massive spike in revenue, and that does not appear to be on the horizon.
Another concern is that Peeks Social is just so skanky.
The website & app smell like Czechoslovakian porn.
That’s not a problem if you’re a porn star. But it might be to @MoVernie – promoting The Bobby Orr Museum – with 21 views.
Silicon Valley angel investor Marc Andreessen said this about technology companies:
“It’s not Coke & Pepsi – and a bunch of others. It’s winner take all. Second prize is a set of steak knives. Third prize is you’re fired.”
Andreessen stole the line from American Playwright David Mamet – but never mind.
My instinct is that Peeks Social shareholders have invested in a set of steak knives.
Full Disclosure: Equity Guru has no commercial relationship with Peeks Social.