BarkBoxing Up the Right Tree

In this episode of Industry Focus: Consumer Goods, join host Emily Flippen and Motley Fool contributor Brian Feroldi as they talk about one of the newest pet plays on the market today: BarkBox. Can this pet subscription-box business break out of the confines faced by other subscription businesses? Feroldi and Flippen break down BarkBox's unit economics and more on today's episode.

To catch full episodes of all The Motley Fool's free podcasts, check out our podcast center. To get started investing, check out our quick-start guide to investing in stocks. A full transcript follows the video.

This video was recorded on Feb. 2, 2021.

Emily Flippen: Welcome to Industry Focus. Today is Tuesday, Feb. 2, and I'm your host, Emily Flippen. Today I am joined by Fool.com's best bigwood boss, boss of bulky bankroll buildup, Brian Feroldi. You got me there, Brian.

Brian Feroldi: Boy, that wasn't that hard, Emily. You went in there, it's like two to three times. I had to go, like, 20 times before I got Dylan.

Flippen: [laughs] I wasn't mentally prepared for the Bs. You are Brian Feroldi. But in my mind, you're always Feroldi. I don't know what it is about your last name that just stands out to me, so I think I was mentally prepared for the Fs and I got the Bs instead.

Feroldi: Well, it has to do with the name of the company that we're talking about today. For future episodes, think about the name of the company. How's that?

Flippen: That's good, I like that tip. The primer, I guess, the Ts for what company we're going to be talking about today. It is, in fact, one of the most widely requested topics for this consumer goods Industry Focus podcast, it is Barkbox. I think part of the reason why it's so requested is because I've spent so much time on Industry Focus talking about my enthusiasm for Chewy (CHWY -0.06%), which is an e-commerce site for pet goods. Barkbox plays in the same territory. They are subscription boxes for dogs, in case that wasn't obvious from the name, but it'll be fun to dig into it with you today, Brian. I appreciate you joining me.

Feroldi: The pet care market is a fascinating market for investors to look at, because there's a number of positive attributes about it. Animals are becoming more and more humanized each year, which means that people are increasingly willing to spend more and more dollars to keep their pets happy and healthy. In fact, in just the United States alone, the market for dog and dog products is almost $100 billion. That's absolutely huge and it just grows each and every year. More importantly, for investors, that spending is almost recession-proof. I mean, people look at their pet bills the way they look at their own food and utility bills, where no matter what's going on with the economy, people want to spend on their pets. That means if you can get a foothold in this market, there is money to be made.

Flippen: I have to agree with you. In fact, when people first started to ask me, "What are your thoughts on Barkbox?" I have to say, I've been a skeptic of any sort of subscription-based box service business. It's a hard business to make work, it has typically high levels of churn, low margins. It's not an industry that I have historically been interested in investing. The big issue I see with it is just how easy it is for people to cancel on what's really interesting, and we'll talk about this more as we get into the business, but as you mentioned, people really don't want to stop spending on their pet. It's one thing to say, "Hey, I don't want to get myself expensive clothes or food delivered to my house. But my dog, this innocent and member of my family, am I really going to stop spending on them?" I feel like people, and we see this in Barkbox's numbers, are just generally more likely to keep up spend on their pets even when times are tough. Out of all the subscription box businesses I've looked at, I do have to say Barkbox is probably the most compelling one I have seen.

Feroldi: I agree with you, I agree with you there. Like you, when I first looked at Blue Apron, my first thought was, "Oh, my gosh, this is a terrible business," and that company has just not done well at all for investors. It's just been a place to go to destroy capital, so I understand your hesitancy with looking at subscription products like this with a careful eye.

Flippen: Well, one thing to acknowledge before we start talking about the business is how this company is going public. I mentioned earlier there is a SPAC, so they're being brought public by a SPAC known as Northstar Acquisition Corp, the ticker S-T-I-C. They expect they'll be listed under the ticker, B-A-R-K, Bark, they managed to score that one, when they go public, which is not expected until the second quarter of this year, 2021. But once it is public, the initial deal itself is expected to have an enterprise value of around $1.6 billion. Investors in the SPAC are expected to own no more than 13% of the final business. If you actually look at the valuation that's inherent in this deal, we're looking at a business that's expected to have a market cap. Now, this will change as the value of SPAC changes, but somewhere around just under $3 billion. Barkbox will be a substantial business in terms of companies looking to go public, a multi-billion dollar business, but still relatively small, especially if you're comparing it to the likes of, say, the Chewy's of the world.

Feroldi: I see your point there, a $3 billion company is kind of in my sweet spot for investments, typically about that size. It's big enough to the point where it's got economics going forward, it might be profitable it probably has built or is building itself a competitive advantage. You could easily see that number multiplying many times over if the investment case is successful. I mean, you pointed out Chewy. For comparison, Chewy is a $42 billion company today. Barkbox at $3 billion is an order of magnitude smaller.

Flippen: Definitely. What I like about looking at Barkbox today is, as we walk through some of the numbers here, we actually have a lot of details about what the business is doing. We do have their S-4, so that merger form has been filed with the SEC. Unlike some of the other SPACs we talked about, in which the SEC filings haven't been registered yet. We do have some details here for Barkbox and when you just look at their investor presentation, I was a little bit skeptical having just read the investor presentation because I didn't get all the detailed numbers that I really wanted. But reading through the S-4 has answered some of those questions. I appreciate the fact as we've talked through Barkbox today, that we have more clarity on the fundamentals of the business that are extremely important when you're considering subscription-based businesses such as Barkbox. But without any further ado, maybe let's just talk a little bit about what Barkbox does, because I mentioned they are a subscription-based, kind of box service business, but they're actually growing their business to be much more than just one-trick pony, if you will. One-trick dog.

Feroldi: That's how they started out. This company started about eight years ago and the initial product was called Barkbox, which is just a monthly subscription where a bunch of dog focused goodies gets shipped to somebody's house every single month. That could be toys, could be treats, could be squishy animals that dog can rip apart and play with. The subscription starts at about $23 per month. I'm sure for a lot of people, that's an interesting enough price point to say, "Hey, I want to take care of my dog, I want them to be happy. This is a fun treat that comes in the mail for them." What I really like about this company's business, or at least its recent history, is that it started there, but it has added on several different product lines based on that from the beginning. That to me is a clear sign of optionality. If you look at their business today, they actually have five different products ready to generate revenue. There's their core Barkbox product. After that, they launched something called Super Chewer, which is really for dogs that really like to go crazy and chew a lot, so they sell more durable toys for them to rip into. They also have a product called Barkbright, which is dental care for dogs. There's Barkeats, which is meals and food for the dogs, and also Barkhomes, which is like bedding and sheets and that kind of thing for the dog. They've really done a good job about building out their business.

Flippen: When you look at where revenue comes from, BarkBox and Super Chewer, they are the majority of revenues. That's what's flowing a lot of the funnel, but I think the idea is that, look, we get you in at that lower $23 a month charge for the BarkBox subscription, and then as you enjoy our products, we send you little advertisements in your box and we say, "Hey, if you want more products like this, we actually have an entire other box that you also subscribed to, which we'll give you more tailored content for your dog." It's a really smart model. I think it allows them or will allow them to effectively monetize the most valuable members of their cohort, because the issue that we've seen with subscriber boxes in the past is that while there is a small subset of members that will stay subscribed for a very long period of time, you have to effectively monetize those, while also monetizing those less engaged to yours at a lower level, and that's really challenging if you don't have different tiers of service. I love the fact that they can target somebody with the, I said low, I don't think it's that low, but I guess most consumers do with the low entry-level $23 a month subscription for BarkBox and then up-sell those more valuable customers things like Bark Home and Bark Eats.

Feroldi: Yeah, that's a big part of the thesis for this company is that they've got now over 1.1 million active subscribers, and that number is growing pretty substantially with a huge jump last year. But a big part of the thesis here is we have these 1.1 million people, and as we layer in these additional services, that gives us new and better revenue opportunities from our existing pool of customers. Bark Eats, Bark Bright, Bark Home, all of those services were literally launched in 2019 and 2020, so they are brand new. It doesn't take that big of a leap imagination to think that this company could even get into the pet medicine market someday and open up a whole new revenue opportunity potentially down the road. It's really about growing their core base of BarkBox subscribers, and they've done a great job at that so far.

Flippen: What I think is really interesting is, when I first dug into BarkBox, I went through their investor presentation before I even knew that they had the S-4 issued in. I was immediately turned off about the number of estimated metrics they had in this investor presentation. They had a number of years of history that was telling a certain story, and then they have these 2021 estimated numbers that looked absolutely absurd. They looked ridiculous. I'm talking about jumping from subscriber growth of 7% to over 55%, seemingly overnight. Something about that to me just set off these little red flags in my head. You mentioned it right there that they have over 1.1 million active subscriptions. Well, I'll tell you what, that's an estimated number that they made when they issued this investor presentation, and between when they started to make this investor presentation, and when they filed their S-4. In their S-4, they are now saying they had over 1.5 million active subscriptions. That just shows you how quickly the number of subscribers are growing and that was as of the end of September 30th, 2020. Probably it has changed pretty dramatically just since that date alone as we head here into 2021. Absolutely amazing growth. I mentioned it was a red flag to me. It seems like as part of their SEC filings, they explain this growth away as the low cost of advertising throughout 2020. They really capitalized on it, spent a lot of money at a lower cost than they would have otherwise to acquire a bunch of new customers, and that's clearly showing up in the 1.5 million subscribers they now have.

Feroldi: Yeah, you can clearly see that COVID-19 was a huge boost to this company. For one, their products are available online and they are delivered right to your house. So, that alone is a big boost for the company too. I don't know about you, Emily, I know a whole bunch of people that didn't have a dog 12 months ago, and now they do because they figured, "Well, I'm home. I might as well finally get that dog." I know that there has been a huge demand in the growth and number of dogs that are in people's homes. The question that I have and I think just like you have is, how sustainable is that growth number? Was it a one-time step up? Will those customers stay around? Those are going to be questions that this company has to answer in the long term.

Flippen: They do hint at the fact that they expect for this trend to maybe pull back a little bit, maybe not to the historic level of 7% or so, but at least back from where it was over 50% over the past quarter. Part of that is if you go to their explanations in their S-4 notes, they mentioned that the customer acquisition cost they experienced typically is somewhere around $55-$60. Over the past period, the past few quarters in 2020, that fell closer into the high 30s which meant that they were able to more effectively use their revenue dollars to pull in new customers. They made it really clear that they expect for the price of Internet advertising to go back to normal post-pandemic, so they expect that. They pulled for the money to capitalize on those beneficial prices, which resulted in the acquisition of these new subscriptions at what they call a substantially lower cost. That cost management does expect to go back up. Now, just because the cost goes back up doesn't mean that their subscriber suddenly stopped coming, it just means that they need to effectively monetize those subscribers at a higher rate to be profitable on that acquisition spent.

Feroldi: Yeah, I think the numbers from 2020 are going to be skewed in many, many ways. To your point, it's hard to know how much faith to place in management's estimates for what they expect to happen next year or the year after that. Those are the questions that I have. Whether the gains that we saw in this company were a one-time step up or they're durable in time, that would just be something we have to learn as this company stays a public company.

Flippen: One of the aspects of their revenue model that I really like, we talked a little bit about the up-selling experience, but one thing that I didn't expect was partnerships and brand deals. Again, this is not something that I'm used to when I look at subscription boxes, but it seems like they have major retailers that are stocking their products, businesses like Target and Amazon. Then on top of that, they're setting up branding deals with businesses like Dunkin' Donuts, Dunkin' Brands, where they're shipping products that have their brands and their labels on it to essentially advertise to the subscribers, and they're making these products from scratch, their vertically integrated producer of these dog toys. That's super cool. Excuse my relaxed language there. That's super cool to me, because it's not something that I would have thought about reading into this S-1 or S-4, I should say. It's not something that I would have expected them to do, but it makes me realize that management is thinking about how to effectively monetize those users more ways than just saying, "Oh, we can have them subscribed to a more expensive box." They're really thinking, "We have a loyal, captivated, and engaged audience that's subscribed. How can we partner with other businesses to make even more money off them?"

Feroldi: Yeah, that's a big part of their strategy. I think that's one of the reasons that revenue growth really took off. To your point, they announced new partnerships with PetSmart, HomeGoods, CVS, Costco, Walmart, Target, to get their name out there and into those stores and that strategy does seem to be paying off. A question that I have is, will that strategy then lead those customers to perhaps subscribe because they're familiar with the BarkBox name or will those be just one-off sales here and there? I don't know the answer to that, but either way, the numbers clearly show that that strategy of the move from e-commerce only to in-stores is working.

Flippen: Well, I don't believe you're a dog owner, right, Brian?

Feroldi: I am not.

Flippen: Well, even though you're not a dog owner, I recognize it is maybe a silly question, but are you familiar with any other dog-based subscription brands other than BarkBox?

Feroldi: I'm not to know. We had a dog several years ago, but when we had my third kid, that was enough things we had to take care of in the household. But prior to that, I was not a subscriber to any dog-related services, are you?

Flippen: I am not. I am a cat owner. I am not opposed to, say, if BarkBox wanted to catch subscriptions. I'm not going to say, "I wouldn't subscribe to that." I do tend to spoil my cat a little bit more than I should. But it's interesting to me that one of the risks they highlighted in their S-4 was that they expected to have a lot of competition. It's funny because before reading into BarkBox, I was familiar with their product and I couldn't name a single competitor. Since we had so many people asking me about, what are your thoughts on BarkBox? I thought to myself, well, there's no way that it's better than Chewy. I immediately went to Chewy's website and decided to search up, what's the alternative product on Chewy? I was surprised to find that Chewy really doesn't offer anything competitive. They have boxes that you could have delivered as a one-time present for things like dog birthdays, or Christmas, anniversaries, dog Valentine's Day, but there is no way to subscribe to them despite the fact that Chewy gets a majority of its revenue from subscription-based recurring expenses. I think that that's really interesting, and I also think that name BarkBox, whether it'd be BarkBox, Super Chewer, or Bark Home, I think that has a lot of loyalty and a lot of value with their users than non-dog owners would be aware of.

Feroldi: I do, too. That's one of their big strategies is to have all of their products made exclusively for them under that Bark made brand name. One thing that they point out which should delight investors is because they're using their own brand name and having their products exclusively made for them. They actually have much better margins than some of their peers. Their gross margin is in the 65% range. No, I'm looking at the wrong number. Excuse me. It's in the 60% range, which is much higher than you would expect for a company like this or at least I would expect.

Flippen: Yeah, 60% gross margins. I think the 65%, you might have stolen from their revenue growth, which is their expected revenue growth as they head into fiscal year 2021. This is a very, very quickly growing business, obviously, immediately trying to monetize the new users that they've brought up and that's only made easier by the fact that 87% of their revenue is recurring revenue. Again, going back to the majority of the revenue being generated, not necessarily from brand deals, although that may grow in the future, but from this predictable stream of subscribers to different levels of boxes.

Feroldi: Yeah, that's a really attractive feature, and it does remind me of Chewy. I know that the March portion of Chewy's revenue is recurring in Asia, which automatically just gets shipped out to customers with 87% of BarkBox's revenue coming from recurring sources plus a high gross margin. That is an attractive combination.

Flippen: It is attractive. My inherent skepticism would immediately come to. Well, they might be high-end gross margins, but the amount of money they have to spend on advertising to just retain the customers that they bring in as well probably makes this an unprofitable business. But one of the metrics that they broke out, weirdly enough not in their investor presentation but in their S-4, was their subscriber churn. I want everybody who's listening to think to themselves about what they would expect a monthly subscriber churn to be for this sort of business if you had to make guesses in your head. Brian, I know you know the answer to this, but pretend you didn't. Did you have a guess for what subscriber churn would be before reading this number?

Feroldi: If I was to just guess off the top of my head, I would guess it's something like 10 or even maybe 20%, because I could see this thing being something that you would sign up for. You would get one or two and then you'd be like, OK, that's enough. I don't want to pay $20 to keep spoiling my dog. But the number, it was actually much better than I thought it was going to be.

Flippen: I had the exact same thought that you did. Every subscription box I've ever subscribed to, Stitch Fix, Blue Apron, whatever it may be, I stayed subscribed for one or two months to have the experience of it and then I canceled, which to me would probably make this a retention rate, or I should say, a churn rate of around, yeah, 15%-20% would be my guess. But as you mentioned Brian, it is much lower as of September 30th, 2020. Their monthly churn rate on average was 5.4% which, again, maybe it sounds high to people who are looking at SaaS companies with the dollar-based net retention rate of 130%. But for a consumer goods business that ships boxes on a recurring monthly basis with the lowest cost of $23 a month, this is actually really, really low to me. When you combine that with the average cost per box being $23 and the current customer acquisition cost right now of being just around $40, hey, the metrics here don't look nearly as bad as I expected them to be.

Feroldi: Yeah. Even now, 5% churn rate. That's monthly we're talking about, so make sure you keep that in mind.

Flippen: Of course.

Feroldi: For the course of a year, that means that 60% roughly of your customers are dropping off, which maybe is more in line what I would expect. That's one thing to look at on the bad side. On the positive side, again, going from the presentation, over 6.5 million people have been a Bark customer at some point, while only a fraction of them are active subscribers getting the product monthly. You do have to think that does give the company marketing opportunities to reengage those customers at different intervals, perhaps to come out with a quarterly subscription, or a holiday subscription, or something like that. While that churn rate on an annualized basis is pretty high, as long as the company can still access those customers that bought previously from them, that does give this company opportunities in the future.

Flippen: Exactly. One of the things that I like about that optionality is that it does seem like they're open to finding new ways to monetize these users. One of the complaints that I've had about Stitch Fix, and I've already ranted enough about Stitch Fix on Industry Focus, so I won't go down this rabbit hole too far, is that they haven't really deviated from their initial plan of boxes. Their way of expansion was just to buy new customers. We're not going to do just women, we'll do plus-size offerings. We'll do kids, we'll do men. Just finding new customers doesn't make their core product any better. In my opinion, you're just trying to expand your market without having any real strategy. The only thing they did was tried to create this direct-to-consumer site, which they haven't effectively transitioned for all the users that have churned through the Stitch Fix cycle. One of the things that I'll be watching here is that over six million subscribers, either current or previous subscribers who are already familiar with the BarkBox brand, have already spent the $40-$60 to acquire that customer at one point in time. What can they do in the future to reengage that person? It doesn't have to be a BarkBox monthly subscription, but I want that person engaging with the brand of BarkBox buying things even if it only is a one-off because that to me will show their ability to effectively monetize and become profitable sustainably at some point in the future.

Feroldi: Yeah. That's a really key point because one of the big opportunities that this company sees for itself is Bark Eats, which Bark Eats, as a reminder, is their pet food category. That is a space that is, I mean, crowded with competition when you think about how many big named companies make their own pet food from Pedigree, Dog Chow, Blue Buffalo, Iams, etc. For Bark Eats to be successful there, it's going to have to go into this market that's very crowded and compete effectively, and the only way that it can really do that is with its brand name. Will the name of Bark convince people to switch their dog food to Bark Eats from their current one? That's a question that I don't know the answer to, but it does give them an opportunity for growth if they can make it successful.

Flippen: There's a lot of opportunity there. I agree, it's a crowded space, but we've seen success. Freshpet is a good example of a human-grade fresh food business with their refrigerated products and pet stores that has really made a name for itself and created a really loyal following for pet parents everywhere, if you will, to pay up for their premium products, for their dogs especially. I think there's definitely a market for Bark Eats. When I look at the products that have been most successful for Chewy, their private label American Journey brand has been a major catalyst for growth for them. That's not quite a Freshpet level of quality food, but it is more premium quality food at a private label brand, and we're seeing an increased willingness. You mentioned it at the offset of the show, the market opportunity here. We're seeing an increased willingness from younger people, especially millennials as they come and they pick pets during this pandemic to spend a lot of money on premium products. Bark Eats needs to differentiate itself. When I first heard it, I thought this is a treat, but it's meals. They need to do a good job of reminding that six million people, you have dogs that were subscribed at one point. Hey, you can replace the American Journeys, you can replace the Freshpets with the Bark Eats option. If they're able to successfully do that, I think entirely on its own would open up a huge catalyst in revenue for growth. But again, it is a very challenging market to be in because everybody and their dog, pun intended, is playing in this space right now.

Feroldi: To your point, that is what management is banking on happening. As part of the SPAC presentation, they basically said, "Yeah, we're expecting 65% growth in fiscal year 2021, another 40% growth in 2022, and another 37% growth on top of that in fiscal '23." A big way that they are going to get there is with this Bark Eats category. Management is projecting that this new product category for them will be successful, so that will be something for investors to watch.

Flippen: When we head off here as we end this show, I'm curious. Brian, are you interested in buying STIC or Bark once it goes public? If so, why? If not, what's holding you back?

Feroldi: I'm not one to buy things just when they come public unless I see an extremely compelling reason for the company. I think that there is a lot to like about this business. I do like that 87% of their revenue is recurring. I do like that their brand is growing. I do like that they have a clear amount of optionality ahead. I do like the gross margins, and I do like the space that they compete in. I want to see them come public and really execute on this Bark Eats plan, because that is a big thesis for the company moving forward. I want to see a couple of quarters or at least momentum in that category because, again, it's a very, very crowded space. If they can prove that to me, I would happily buy the stock even at a higher price. But that's the way that I'm approaching this company. How about you, Emily?

Flippen: I'm actually not interested in buying shares today. It's a good business. I think at some point in the future I may change my tune on that. Part of it is because it's newly public. I agree with you, I like to let things set a little bit, see how management talks and their earnings cost, how they perform on their promises for investors. I also have the acknowledgment that there's a reason why they're going public now and there's a reason why they're taking the accelerated process of going public through SPAC, which is much quicker for them to get to market. It is clear that they got this huge boon, this one-time boon from the pandemic, and including how it impacts their marketing cost. I think they're trying to build excitement and value from what may be these one-time benefits without yet having proved if they can really retain the customers that they've acquired at a cheaper rate. For that reason, I'm a little bit inherently skeptical.

The reason why I was really comfortable jumping in with Chewy right after their IPO, but I'm not that comfortable jumping into BarkBox, is because of the profitability picture. One of the things that I really appreciated Chewy did in their S1 was they broke out a really clear description of their average value per user and their customer acquisitions cost. You could see a pretty clear picture about why they were spending so much on advertising and how that would incur profitability in cash generation in the future. I had a sense for, OK, you are being unprofitable on purpose. There's a clear path to profitability here. You could flip a switch overnight, turn off some of your growth, but be profitable. I don't see the same metrics right now with BarkBox. I think they could get there, again, especially if they're able to retain and improve their average revenue with the new cohort that they brought in. But right now, this is an unprofitable business. As of March 31st, 2020, lost over $30 million in net income on their bottom line, a lot of that going to advertising costs. For that reason, I'm going to probably sit this one out for at least a couple of quarters. But I will say I like this a lot more than I expected to when I first started to dig in.

Feroldi: Well, fair enough. They would just have to prove themselves that they are right and they will get Emily onboard eventually, I know it.

Flippen: For what it's worth, every company that I come on this show and I say they just need to prove themselves a little bit, I'm not buying in, they tend to prove themselves. I think I come from a level of inherent skepticism with all of my investments, and that does mean that I often miss out on jumping in very early on what's a great company. I get there eventually. I'll defend myself a little bit. I end up getting there eventually, but I typically have a higher cost basis from people who are maybe less risk-averse who do jump in right when they're going public, right when they're excited about a business. To each their own, everything works out in its own way. But for me personally, I'm going to sit this one out for the time being.

Feroldi: I'm very much right there with you. I like to take a wait-and-see approach. But if somebody came to me and said that they were interested in buying the SPAC today, I would say I completely understand why you are interested. There is a lot to like about this business, but I think, just for me and you, we just want to see a little bit more proof of work before we jump in.

Flippen: Definitely. Well, Brian, thank you so much for joining me, bringing your expertise about BarkBox to us today. Maybe the next stop for you is just getting a dog.

Feroldi: Yeah, no. Not so much. I absolutely love dogs. I love other people's dogs because then they get all the bills and all the headache and all the cleaning up, and I just get to pet them, which is all I really want.

Flippen: Well, I don't think my cat will like dogs anytime soon, so that's probably a nonstarter for me. But I will say, if BarkBox comes out with some sort of cat subscription, which I don't think is very likely, the name is BarkBox, but we'll see. If they're coming out, I will be the first one in line to give it a try. I think little ChaBao deserves that.

Feroldi: Are you saying I should start a company called MeowBox and get it out, and Emily Flippen will be a customer on day one? [laughs]

Flippen: I'll be your first subscriber, Brian.

Feroldi: Nice.

Flippen: Listeners, that does it for this episode of Industry Focus. If you have any questions or just want to reach out to say "Hi," you can always shoot us an email at [email protected] or tweet at us @MFIndustryFocus. As always, people on the program may own companies discussed on the show, and The Motley Fool may have formal recommendations for or against any stocks mentioned, so don't buy or sell anything based solely on what you hear. Thanks to Tim Sparks for his work behind the screen today. For Brian Feroldi, I'm Emily Flippen, thanks for listening and Fool on!