Hello to all of our investors and followers. What a year it’s been for PopCom. We’re excited to bring you more great news. We’re proud to announce that as of this month, PopCom has agreed to be listed on StartEngine Secondary. This agreement means that investors in PopCom may soon have the ability to trade their shares through StartEngine Secondary, one of the first markets in the US where non-accredited investors can publicly trade investments in private startups that have raised capital via Regulation Crowdfunding and Regulation A+.

What does this mean for investors in PopCom?

The planned listing will allow investors in any of our previous Regulation Crowdfunding offerings and our current Regulation A+ offering to buy, sell, or trade their PopCom shares. StartEngine Secondary is an alternative to waiting for a liquidity event, such as an acquisition or IPO, giving investors the option to trade available shares in a company with other investors.

When will PopCom’s shares start trading?

We must close our current Regulation A+ offering to enable trading. Therefore, we have added a new offering close date on our current offering: October 21, 2021. The earliest PopCom’s listing will go live on StartEngine Secondary is thus October 22, 2021, but there will likely be a short diligence period once our Reg A+ is formally closed.

What actions do investors need to take?
None. We’ll publish more information in the coming weeks as we approach the offering close. Keep a close eye on our updates.

What does this mean for people that have not yet invested in PopCom?

If you want to lock in your investment at the current offering’s price per share, you need to invest before October 21, 2021. After this close date, the price per share value is not static and may change.

A company which intends to apply to list its securities on the marketplace will be subject to certain requirements which it may or may not be able to satisfy in a timely manner. Even if a company is qualified to quote its securities on the market, there is no guarantee that a demand for these securities will exist. Even if a company does meet the requirements for listing its securities, we do not know the extent to which investor interest will lead to the development and maintenance of a liquid trading market. You should assume that you may not be able to liquidate your investment for some time or be able to pledge these shares as collateral.

To learn more, please read our offering circular (https://bit.ly/3059jVk), selected risks related to this offering ( https://bit.ly/2G4awoM) and the offering supplement (https://bit.ly/3n6kx8l).  This Reg A+ offering is made available through StartEngine Primary, LLC, member FINRA/SIPC. Like other investments on StartEngine, this investment is speculative, illiquid, and involves a high degree of risk, including the possible loss of your entire investment. In addition, as described in the Offering Circular, the Company retains the right to continue the offering beyond the Termination Date, in its sole discretion.

We have an exciting announcement that is critical information to both current and prospective investors that we are publishing on September 16, 2021 at 5PM EDT via YouTube. This announcement represents a major milestone for our company and due to the time-sensitive nature of the announcemement, we encourage all investors and followers to register for the announcement here: www.popcom.shop/sept16

A company which intends to apply to list its securities on the marketplace will be subject to certain requirements which it may or may not be able to satisfy in a timely manner. Even if a company is qualified to quote its securities on the market, there is no guarantee that a demand for these securities will exist. Even if a company does meet the requirements for listing its securities, we do not know the extent to which investor interest will lead to the development and maintenance of a liquid trading market. You should assume that you may not be able to liquidate your investment for some time or be able to pledge these shares as collateral.

To learn more, please read our offering circular (https://bit.ly/3059jVk), selected risks related to this offering ( https://bit.ly/2G4awoM) and the offering supplement (https://bit.ly/3n6kx8l).  This Reg A+ offering is made available through StartEngine Primary, LLC, member FINRA/SIPC. Like other investments on StartEngine, this investment is speculative, illiquid, and involves a high degree of risk, including the possible loss of your entire investment. In addition, as described in the Offering Circular, the Company retains the right to continue the offering beyond the Termination Date, in its sole discretion.

It has been an exciting summer for the PopCom team. We are continuing to test and improve our software, preparing for the launch of the first 10 machines, and navigating unexpected challenges as a result of COVID-19 related supply chain delays. 

HARDWARE UPDATE

The pandemic has affected global supply chains with material shortages and logistics constraints; this has affected many of our suppliers causing them to have depleted or idling material. Unfortunately, these supply issues have affected our production units, delaying the shipping timeline to the middle of Q3 2021 for the PopShop and Gallo machines.

The most critical material delays were our wire harnesses (custom cables), which were delayed 6 weeks and just arrived to our manufacturer last week. The manufacturer can now continue to build the final assembly and test the machines and we are aiming for a mid August delivery. These delays are out of our control, however they have affected our plans for launch events across the country.

To plan for future builds, our team has already started to procure components with longer than average lead times so we can avoid these excessive delays in upcoming builds. We will continue to review our critical components with our suppliers to stay on top of any changes to inventory levels and lead times.

Despite our shipment date being pushed from June to August, we have continued to push forward and plan for the launch of the PopShop in our flagship cities and continuing to onboard small and medium size companies for the PopShop Local program. We have two machines live today and we are working with the retailers in each launch city to increase awareness about the PopShops and drive more sales/traffic through hosting launch events. Below is a list of the brands and locations/cities that we will launch with this summer. The dates are to be announced based on when the manufacturing is completed. We are excited to have such strong brands and venues. We hope that you can all join us for the launch events in each city.

BRANDS AND CITIES FOR POPSHOP ANNOUNCED

We are excited to share the first brands and cities for the PopShop machines this summer. Dates TBD once the manufacturing is completed.

Total Machines Launching in August 2021:
1. Brew and Feed; Concord Mills; Concord, NC
2. Teas with Meaning; The Metreon; San Francisco, CA
3. Walker Beauty Retreat; Katy Mills; Houston, TX
4. Brow Dr.; Summit Mall; Akron, OH 
5. Destination to Your Nation; Atlanta Airport; Atlanta, GA
6. Flat Out of Heels; TBD; Nashville  
7. The Wellness Shop; Washington, D.C.
8. Flat Out of Heels, Hollywood & Highland (Los Angeles, CA)
9. Worth it Salon, Beverly Hills, CA
10. Ooredool; Landmark Mall; Doha, Qatar
11. Flat Out of Heels, Hawaii

Launching in Sep/Oct 2021: 3 machines
1. Tierra Goes Green; TBD
2. Cartooli; TBD
3. Essentials on the Geaux; TBD 
4.Drink Fresh Juice 

UPCOMING EVENTS

The team is also gearing up for our first in-person conference since February 2020. We will be speaking and having a booth at the Entrepreneurs & Angels Retreat in Austin, TX - August 26- 28. We have also secured our spot at the 2022 NRF 2022 - Retail Big Show in New York. Follow us on social media @PopComTech to stay updated.

We've got some great product updates to announce ahead of our PopShop Local launch just a few weeks away.

Platform UI & Scalability Revamp – RELEASE IMMINENT

We’re now in final UAT testing of our revamped Web, API and POS apps which were converted to the more modern Laravel framework. This was a significant effort but positions our platform for growth, flexibility, and stability. Our backend web app has a cleaner more modern UI and includes all of our current functionality. We plan to deploy this platform as soon as possible and test on our two live accounts prior to rollout of our next 20 machines in July.  During this code migration, we’ve also been able to squeeze in the following enhancements:

• Improvements to the Key Product Image functionality
• Improved Dashboard Menu
• Exports directly to Excel vs CSV
• Preview of how client’s logo will look on the POS
• Advertisement image and video preview improvements
• Improved search feature on nearly all pages
• Quick links for improved navigation
• Confirmation that our machines can accept digital wallet options 

PopShop Local Pilot - RELEASE IMMINENT

To pilot our first PopShop Local machines, we needed a way to associate product variants with a vendor in order to extract sales data for each vendor that shares the machine. We will use the new Product Identifier field as a quick way to do this – for example, Flatout product identifiers start with FL and Black Owned products start with BL. Sales exports can be sorted based on this preface for quick sales reporting from our backend. Meanwhile, we’ll continue to discuss and refine other PopShop Local features as we get some experience and feedback.

Adomni Integration - EARLY JULY 

We’ve developed a way to run programmatic advertisements on our machines using an integration with Adomni, an online OOH (Out of Home) ad exchange. Once this integration is finalized, machines that enable the integration will be able to generate passive revenue from ads displaying on the screen. These ad spots are bought wholesale on Adomni's exchance by major US advertisers (e.g. Coca-Cola, P&G, Amazon, Apple, etc) or sold directly by our team.

Ticket Purchase Implementation - MID/LATE JULY 

Another feature for our PopShop Local implementation, we’ve developed the ability to take a customer directly to a ticketing website (i.e. CityPass site) from the POS using iFrames. We’re using Commission Junction, an affiliate aggregator to generate the URL links and track sales. To fully test, we’ll need to develop additional POS screens to take customers to whatever ticket options are set up for the machine, as well as add that information in the backend web-admin. We can also track which links were clicked. 

Shopify/Website Shopping Cart Integration - EARLY/MID OCTOBER

Several customers have requested the ability to pull in their full Shopify product sets into the PopShop storefront so that their machine's visitors can browse both instant-fulfillment and shipped products. We're endeavoring to take this work up just after the PopShop Launch in July and are targetting an October release. 

We have some great news hot off the press! Our PopShop Local program has had a blockbuster month with leads increasing sharply and a very good cost-per-lead that will help us continue to grow our local program. 

For those that don’t want to read the whole update, the headlines are: 1) our paid campaigns have led to a ~400% increase in PopShop Local leads; and 2) we currently have $606,000 in Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) from qualified leads in our Local deal pipeline. 

Let’s hop into the full update!

PopShop Local: A Refresher

As a reminder, the PopShop Local program will see dozens of our newly manufactured machines sent across the country to top placements (venues, hotels, event centers, etc) which will feature the best brands from the local area. 

Metrics

The Local program will allow us to extract a much higher ARPM (Average Revenue Per Machine) because each machine will feature multiple brands, all of which are paying $500+ per month to house their products in our machines. Each brand will receive exceptionally detailed data on their brands performance and the customer metrics we promise all of our operators. This is just one example of the freedoms that our advanced platform affords our company. (And our customers!) 

One of the linchpins of this new sales strategy was the ability to get interest from small businesses for the machines. Thanks to our large press footprint and expansive network of investors, we were able to get a great head start on getting the word out about the program. However, we needed a sustained and trackable source for leads. Thus, we kicked off paid marketing qualified lead (MQL) campaigns on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. The results are in: and we’re very happy with the outcome.

Results

Our MQL campaigns kicked off in Apr 2021 and in the first month we were able to increase our monthly deals by about 400%. May has already surpassed April for the number of leads despite still having almost two weeks left in the month. We’re anticipating May will end with over 100 new deals, meaning we’ll have increased our pre-MQL-campaign monthly leads by 500%.

One of the main campaign KPIs we are tracking is Cost Per Lead (CPL). Traditionally our company has not spent money on MQL campaigns because we had enough organic leads via enterprise deals, accelerator programs, and our press footprint. With the introduction of the paid campaigns, it is critical for us to track how much each lead is costing us. We’re pleased to share that our CPL is currently at $28 across our campaigns. Here’s how that looks in terms of “startup metrics”:

Local Program CPL: $28

Lead Conversion Rate: 10%

= True PopShop Local Cost Per Acquisition (CAC): $280

Minimum Local Lifetime Value (LTV) at $500/month and 1 Year License: $6,000

= Paid Outreach Return on Ad Spend (ROAS): 21.42

In summary, we are getting about 21X return on the paid campaigns we are currently running taking into account the minimum LTV of each PopShop Local brand (license terms are annual hence the $6,000 minimum LTV) .

Sales Qualified Leads (SQLs) are leads that our sales team have deemed “qualified” and brought into our PopShop Local deal pipeline. The Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) opportunity for this pipeline currently stands at: $606,000. 

What’s Next

These are great results and it means there’s a lot of interest in the local program. Next up for our marketing and sales team is to build out geographic and commercial personas of our converting Local customers to build targetable audiences that are “high intent” and “highly qualified” so that we can increase our Lead Conversion Rate, introduce repeatable onboarding processes, and scale this program to 250 placements around the US. This would net us roughly $6,000,000 per year in SaaS fees with 4 brands per machine. With marginal improvement in the above metrics, we see a path to get there. 

Thanks for reading – hopefully you made it through the many acronyms that our marketing and sales team speak! The headline is the Local program is now graduating from an experimental sales program to a cornerstone growth strategy that takes into account (and indeed magnifies) our company’s unique juxtaposition of hardware and software. 

The Hubspot team traveled to the PopCom headquarters in Columbus, Ohio to meet the team, learn more about our sales process, and how using Hubspot has increased our productivity. WATCH THE VIDEO BELOW.

PopCom’s Productivity Skyrockets by Using the HubSpot CRM Platform for Its Application Process

               PopCom uses the HubSpot CRM platform to manage program applications, automate tasks and facilitate collaboration among teams to work more efficiently, better qualify leads, shorten time to close and lower its customer acquisition costs. PopCom CEO and entrepreneur Dawn Dickson-Akpoghene is also using the platform’s analytics to support the raising of additional investor funds. 

CLICK HERE TO WATCH

The International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences has announced that PopCom been recognized during this banner year for the 25th Annual Webby Awards. 

 PopCom is a Webby Honoree in Apps and Software: E-Commerce (Official Listing)

Earning the distinction of Webby Honoree, as recognized by the International Academy of Digital Arts & Sciences is a significant achievement—granted to only the top 20% of the nearly 13,500 projects entered in the 25th Annual Webby Awards. We are so excited to have our work honored among the best of the internet. 

We are excited to announce that our second PopShop machine, the fully re-engineered product that we will scale with, is now live in Stonebriar Centre in Frisco, Texas (outside of Dallas). The machine sells Flat Out of Heels and is independently owned and operated by PopCom customer Vision Tactus. If you are in the Dallas area please check out the machine, make a purchase, and post a picture (don't forget to tag us)! 

More PopShop machines are launching soon as a part of our PopShop Local program that was announced in March. The program seeks to convert unused spaces in hotels, airports and convention centers into contactless retail shops. This lease model program gives entrepreneurs and small retailers an opportunity to gain more exposure locally and the opportunity for national visibility. 

We are currently accepting new applications for the PopShop local program. Interested brands can apply online at www.PopCom.Shop/local.

We are excited to announce that PopCom is the recipient of the Angels Invest 2021 "Self-Service & Automation" Investment of the Year award!

On Thursday February 11, renowned businessman Kevin O'Leary, aka "Mr. Wonderful", sat down with PopCom's CEO & Founder Dawn Dickson to discuss her entrepreneurial journey, her experiences with investor bias and why she has turned to equity crowdfunding, and how her company PopCom is changing the future of retail. Click HERE to watch the replay.

PopCom CEO Dawn Dickson-Akpoghene is featured in the March issue of Entrepreneur Magazine, on newstands now. In the article, Dawn talks about problem solving in business and what led her to start PopCom. Pick up a copy today!

PopCom has raised over $3M in equity crowdfunding since 2019 and we now have over 4500 investors. We absolutely LOVE our investor family, they are so active and engaged. We have a private Facebook group where we send regular updates and chat, we send a monthly email update to all investors, and we host regular investor meet ups (now virtual). In 2019 we held four meet ups and over 500 investors attended, watch this video to hear some of our investors talk about what made them 'cut the check'. 

"This testimonial may not be representative of the experience of other customers and is no guarantee of future performance or success."

Offering Circular: https://bit.ly/3059jVk, Selected Risks: https://bit.ly/2G4awoM - Reg A+ offering available through StartEngine Primary, LLC.Just like every other offering on StartEngine, this investment is speculative, illiquid, and involves a high degree of risk, including the possible loss of your entire investment.

Greetings PopCom Investors, Supporters, and Fans: We are very excited to be able to share that PopCom has been featured in Forbes Magazine and Forbes.com! This is a monumental moment for our company; one that will see our story, our products, and our vision shared to the world on a scale that comes with a feature from the one of the world's most respected business publications. We don't want to completely spoil the surprise, so see below for the details!

Forbes Next 1000

You can catch us on Forbes' website in their newly released Next 1000 site, or in the current issue of Forbes' magazine. The Next 1000 issue is a special edition that covers America's small businesses, where PopCom found itself in the Super Achievers category. 

Link to the Feature

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Watch the Interview

Forbes also came by our office and did a great video that shares a bit of our story, our vision, and our products. It's a great watch, don't miss it!

Link to the Video

On Thursday February 11th at 9am PST, renowned businessman Kevin O'Leary, aka "Mr. Wonderful", is sitting down with PopCom's CEO & Founder Dawn Dickson to discuss her entrepreneurial journey, her experiences with investor bias and why she has turned to equity crowdfunding, and how her company PopCom is changing the future of retail. Click HERE to register to join us. 

 This investment is speculative, illiquid, and involves a high degree of risk, including the possible loss of your entire investment.

 Kevin O’Leary is a paid spokesperson for StartEngine. View the details here: https://www.startengine.com/17b 

Greetings PopCom investors, supporters, and fans! 2021 is off to a great start for the PopCom team, we recently completed our Q1 team retreat and have our KPIs and strategy set for the year. Thanks to your investments, we were able to hire four new team members in the last six months and they are making a real impact and the media is taking notice. Check out the recent features and stay tuned for some exciting announcements coming soon!

1. Top 11 Black-Owned Tech Companies to Invest in For 2021
   
2. Top Columbus Startups and Tech Companies to Watch in 2021 
3. The Midwest’s Top Female Founders to Watch in 2021 
4. The Best of 2020: TechOhio’s Top Ten Stories of the Year
5. These digital pop-up shops could be the future of contactless shopping — Future Blink

Happy New Year! We made it past 2020 and PopCom is starting 2021 on the right track. In November, we visited our new manufacturing partner in Connecticut to walk through the production schedule and demo the new robotic arm that we are using in all of the PopShops. Adding the robotic arm to the machine instead of our previous dispensing mechanism gives the PopShop much more flexibility on the types of products our customers can dispense and the capacity. Watch the video to see the robotic arm in action. 

PopCom unveils it's latest PopShop kiosk at the Polaris Mall in Columbus, Ohio with more to come in 2021

PopCom is pleased to deploy their patented PopShop digital pop-up shop at The Polaris Fashion Place in Columbus, Ohio. The sleek new age vending machine is located adjacent to Ann Taylor Loft and Black & White in the middle of Central Ohio’s premier shopping mall. The PopShop sells Flat Out of Heels, ultra stylish roll-up flats for women which have been worn by celebrities and socialites. PopCom is targeting hundreds of locations including hotels, malls, shopping centers, and airports for placement of the PopShops in 2021. Although previous Flat Out of Heels vending machines were successfully placed in locations such as the Atlanta Airport, Club LIV and Bayside Marketplace in Miami and the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas, the 2020 PopShops include cutting edge technology and advertising capabilities to improve the customer experience.

The Popshop digital pop-up shops are available to retailers nationwide to purchase in order to sell their own products/brands. Far less expensive than brick and mortar shops, retailers can maintain a brick-and-mortar presence using this contactless retail approach.

READ THE FULL STORY HERE

Our patented PopShop digital pop-up shop is a vending machine that retailers can use to sell, sample and deliver products. PopCom has more than one market ready product, you have all seen our patented PopShop digital pop-up shop, but have you seen our PopCom Kiosk? It is a standalone kiosk used for ordering, information, and lead generation.

Watch these videos as our CEO Dawn Dickson walks you through the user experience for both of PopCom's market ready products. 

PopShop Demo

PopCom Kiosk

PopCom CEO Dawn Dickson was interviewed by Kristina Hooper for Invesco QQQ about smart vending technology and the future of retail in the e-commerce age.  The story was featured on the homepage of CNN.com giving PopCom amazing global exposure. 

You can watch the full feature HERE. 

The PopCom team has been working on the design of the PopShop digital pop-up shop since 2017. We have developed several prototypes and conducted numerous tests on our mission to develop a vending machine that changes the way people see and think about automated retail. When we started this journey three years ago, our #1 goal was to think 'outside of the box' literally and figuratively. We simply did not want a box shaped machine, we wanted to create a design that is cool, unique, and high tech that demonstrates the ideal use case for our software. We filed for our design patent on the PopShop and it was awarded to us in September 2020.

U.S. PATENT #D896310

WHAT IS SO SPECIAL ABOUT THE POPSHOP?

Here are a few key points that makes the PopShop unique:

1. Sleek new design, inspired by the iPhone, we like to call it "the iPhone of vending machines"
2. The PopShop has two cameras installed on the exterior of the machine to collect anonymous customer data including age, gender, emotion and how the customer engages with the machine. To do this, the camera counts traffic passing by against daily sales to measure conversion rates.
3. The PopShop 15" point of sale (POS) machine to mirror the e-commerce shopping experience. The software can deliver targeted ads, messages and product suggestions to the customer in front of the machine.
4. The PopShop is equipped with a full 32" advertising screen to allow retailers to monetize their machines by selling advertisements in addition to selling products.
5. Digital product display. Unlike traditional vending machines, the PopShop does not display the products to the customer, they can view product images and information on the POS
6. The PopShop is completely cashless, it accepts all major credit cards (chip, swipe, and tap) - we have digital currency acceptance in our future plans, along with 'pay with face' and other biometric payments
7. The PopShop can be used with a pen, stylus, or gloves, making it truly 'contact-less'
8. Unlike traditional vending machines, the PopShop is powered by the PopCom software which allows the entire store, including inventory, to be managed remotely
9. The PopShop can accommodate various product sizes and packaging types due to our improved bin dispensing system.
10. The PopShop has wheels and castors which allows it to be easily moved and transported safely.

We are so excited to reach this important milestone!

Greetings to Our Followers & Investors on StartEngine!

We hope all of you are staying safe and healthy. Like the rest of the world, 2020 has been quite the year for PopCom. Our team is expanding, we have adjusted to the new world we live in post-pandemic, and we are focused on scaling. Since the pandemic we have made a few key changes in our business model:

1. We have moved our manufacturing supply chain from China to the U.S.
2. We are re-engineering the PopShop dispensing mechanism to be able to accommodate more products and packaging sizes
3. We have added new ‘contactless’ screens to our PopShop that can be used with gloves, pens or a stylus
4. We have introduced our new ‘Starter Program’ to give select retailers the opportunity to lease the PopShop in order to get to market faster

These necessary changes caused a delay in our product release however we are excited to be back on track with a December 11 delivery date for our new PopShop. We are focused on making 2021 our best year yet, and we are raising more capital to make that happen.

We have exciting news to share – our Regulation A+ equity crowdfunding campaign is live and we are now accepting investments in PopCom. As you are aware, we have been working to get qualified by the SEC to raise capital via a Regulation A+ offering (what’s that?) for some time now. While waiting for our qualification we open and closed yet another oversubscribed Reg CF campaign in May only 47 days after going live.  The process to get qualified was long and the due diligence was extensive (and expensive), however we are excited to now be qualified to raise up to $5 million to scale PopCom.

The minimum amount to invest is $250.25. As always, investment rounds are limited in amount and time so we invite you to take a look at our offering and invest today.

Although the timing is sensitive due to the COVID pandemic, we must continue to look towards the future and deliver our products to the market. While some industries are hurting, we believe that the retail market will continue to move towards self-service and contactless retail. Vending machines and convenience services are becoming more essential, and retailers are looking for more ways to deliver their products direct-to-consumer with less human friction. We are excited about what is to come.

We are raising capital to grow our operations, build our sales team, reach more customers, go into full production of the PopShop, and scale our age-gating and ID-verification product for regulated retail. Your investments will help us reach the next milestones to success. 

Our new offering is now live: https://startengine.com/popcom. 

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Offering Circular: https://bit.ly/3059jVk, Selected Risks: https://bit.ly/2G4awoM - Reg A+ offering available through StartEngine Primary, LLC. This investment is speculative, illiquid, and involves a high degree of risk, including the possible loss of your entire investment.