Loretta Mayer
Analyst · Craig-Hallum. Please go ahead
Thank you, Tom. I really appreciate it. And before I begin with my comments, I would ask all of us on the phone to take a moment and think about all the people and animals that have been displaced in the State of California with these treacherous fires. We’re working as closely in California as we are. Many of these people are friends. So, let me move into some of the -- add some more color to these numbers. In our virtual conference call, we covered a lot of ground. I think the most important piece in that call is seeing how the company’s overall profile is beginning to sack not only not only in the pest management industry, but in the industry of safety, food safety and many of our verticals. And so, we’ve used our website and I would encourage all of you to go to senestech.com and take a look at that website. And I think you’ll see how different it is from the way it used to be. For the first part of that website, it allows us to dig into where we’re going in our markets. On our home page you can actually see how our product is used and how it’s placed, how it integrates into a pest management program, we’ve added videos. These are things we’ve learned from our customers, videos. How do you actually put it out, how do you screw the takes on to the trees, what does it look like. But I think the most important thing our marketing team has done is on every single page there is a call to action. If you want to know more about the product, you can just tap touch more, learn more. But at the top and bottom of every sheet, I think the most important call to action is order now. And because our product goes out to pest management professionals through distributors, we are beginning to work closer and closer with our distributors. So, when you hit order now, you will go directly to our product page with that distributor. And if you’re looking for a pest management professional, you can hit that button Find a PMP. So, what we’re doing here is we’re capturing the interest of people online without having multiple 100 calls and emails to info@senestech.com. I think another aspect of this month is that it is really pivotal because of solid growth. And what I mean by that is we are receiving orders, more and more orders, but when you dig into this, we are now starting to see re-orders. And anyone who has ever been in sales knows it’s not the first order, it’s the second order that will ensure your stable growth and that’s what SenesTech is, yes. We are an innovative new product. We are something that adds to any PMP’s protocol. We relieve the ease of lethality for people who are working around schools or are animal welfare groups, but we move solid and slowly into our markets. And our experience with our customers and these sales provide this incredibly solid foundation for our future. What do I mean by that? What I mean is when we all began this process; we did not have a roadmap that was experience-based. Our timing was not evidence-based. Let me give you some idea of that. One of the major things that we accomplished in this quarter was the removal of the Restricted Use Product from our label. The EPA removed that. So, what that means is that our product is being used. We have enough experience. There have been no major problems with it. Clearly does not require the particular in-depth use of paper work and licensing. And so, with that removed, it allows many other people to use the product. Some who won’t use it because they have a policy against using RUP products and others because they have internal people who will be putting out their products that are licensed, but not RUP certified. So, once that occur, now in timing you would say, boom. Okay, that occurs. When it happens, all the labels have to change and all of the manufacturing lines, all of the materials, our website. They have to change to lift the RUP restriction. And the RUP restriction is approved, the label is approved in every state, but the actual RUP lifting is also approved in every state. This is going very rapidly for us. We are looking at a total of two weeks to six weeks to completion from the time we put it out. Does it mean we can take pre-orders for the product and that is what we’re doing? I would like to talk a little bit about some of those market segments and the demands for certain features and benefits of our product. We have segmented now based on the data we have collected, the product we’ve sold, the experience we’ve had, the major markets ranking them as to must-have, would be good to have, would be nice to have and ordering our resources into those markets. So, let’s take a look at a couple, and I know many people tend to ask me about those gains. We don’t mention specific customers because many of them are going to put out their own press on this and they are driving it. We’re happy to quote their press. And some of them want to be a leader in their particular market segment, municipalities. We have talked about New York City, Chicago, Washington DC and we continue to make in-roads and make those second sale. The one that we mentioned in Washington DC, I can tell you the budget has been approved, that’s public knowledge. Line item for pest management is in the budget. The use of ContraPest is also in that budget and that purchase order has been approved. And now the bidding between the distributors will be ongoing. So, you can see that it would be naïve to say on the day the budget was approved we will ship the next day. What we’re doing here now with all of this experience is we’re able to accurately predict when that product will be deployed and we integrate with our manufacturing teams. We’re just in time manufacturer. Also we have had further neighborhood expansions with other municipalities that is continuing to grow. California of course is probably the most spectacular because they have groups such as Poison Free Malibu, 16 County who do not want to use lethal. The other piece in these market segments is working very closely with strategic pest managers. I want to take just a moment to spotlight Pestmaster. I’ve been working side by side with their CEO, Jeff Van Diepen. And we are combining our strengths. Pestmaster has a GSA contracting expertise and ability. So, when you combine that with our early work with the U.S. Army and the Island of Oahu and then we are working with another very large armed forces location, Jeff and I together can then go to the armed forces Integrated Pest Management Board as a team, this is where that partnership is quite useful. He has already integrated the ContraPest into his GSA. We have ContraPest experience. Together we can go and expand our market into the military and government contracts. We continue to build on the future of our non-lethal approach. And this probably spotlighted the most in our market segment which include zoos, animal research facilities and animal sanctuaries. As of this past week, we are now working with the total of nine zoos, four research facilities -- I’m sorry, four sanctuaries and two research facilities. What this does is this allows our technical team who are deploying out there, and they probably should get hazard pay because putting a ContraPest box out in a pin where there is a black bear is a little off putting, but these people are extremely dedicated. And so, as they do that, zoos have an association. And within that association, they can share their experiences and expand the market through these deployments and this is what we’re seeing. That’s exactly the same for animal research facilities. Food safety -- food security that is a growing customer demand in this industry and there are many people who want to solve their rodent problem, adding fertility control indeed provides a sustainable knockdown with no rebound, but they have certain locations have zero tolerance. And what that means is that at the ice cream cone factory, they would very much like to have ContraPest around the perimeter of their building where they knockdown those pests or inside that facility where the ice cream cones are made and packaged. They need a lethal approach. They don’t want poison; there are alternatives, snap traps, et cetera. And I want to thank our investors who care so much about this company to put me in touch with a global company that is top of the line with this type of lethal approach that is non-poisonous. So again, it’s coming into play with the partners that are emerging from these enormous meetings such as the NPMA. As we keep moving forward building in those market segments, we have a parallel strategy of continuing to approve our regulatory position. Obviously the RUP removal, designation was very large, the EPA approving our new delivery system for the EVO Express. Back a while; we reduced our toxic exposure from a category 3 to a category 1. We’ll be looking to move that to the category that includes water. And in the progression as people begin to use this, talk about it, go to our website, they’re starting to embrace the concept. Yes, this is an alternative that we should be looking at. We are also working with the addition of mice to our label. We have the data set, formulation change to a non-liquid delivery and full outdoor use to accommodate our island ecologies where we need to drop that product by a helicopter. While these financial results reflect our penetration into the pest management professional community, I would like to suggest that more relevant to our future growth is the increasing voice of the customer and the community. We communicate now more and more with animal welfare groups, with transit authorities, with municipalities. We are expanding in food production. And these are very large food producers that are having serious problems with sanitation and the controlling of diseases such as salmonella. So, we’re learning. They’re coming back to us and saying, well, you know you’re right. I use lots of this product over time. When we put the product out such as in one of our major California cities, there isn’t a need to put it out in the same way you would put out a lethal product. And we lead with different boxes and control bait again. If you haven’t taken a look at our bait, it’s a liquid; you can see it on the website. It is primarily fat and sweet and that is not only attractive to the animals, but it also provides that feed forward. We’re currently involved with a large group, which is beginning to look at the positioning of a sustainable pest management solution in the development of lead buildings and plan it from the alternatives. With those groups it allows us to work with another market segment in structural which includes contractors and building from the ground up and we’ll be working in Chicago this week. I think expanding our sales effort through our corporate accounts and focusing on these directions and listening to that voice of our customer, we’re really starting to build the knowledge of ContraPest, a desire for ContraPest and our call to action is do it now. I think that it’s going to be an incredible 2019. I am also looking forward to Q4 of 2018. And with that, Robert, I’d like to turn this over for any questions that our investors may have.