We were incorporated and began generating revenues in May 1998. Accordingly, we have only a limited operating history for you to consider in evaluating our business. As a new company, we face risks and uncertainties relating to our ability to successfully implement our business plan. You must consider the risks, expenses and uncertainties which can materially affect the business of an early stage company like ours. These risks include uncertainty whether we will be able to:
Although we have been profitable in the past, there is no assurance that we will continue to be profitable. We forecast our future expense levels based on our operating plans and our estimates of future revenues. We may find it necessary to accelerate expenditures relating to our sales and marketing efforts or otherwise increase our financial commitment to creating and maintaining brand awareness among travel companies and Internet users. If our revenues grow at a slower rate than we anticipate, or if our spending levels exceed our expectations or cannot be adjusted to reflect slower revenue growth, we may not generate sufficient revenues to sustain profitability. In this case, the value of your shares could be reduced.
Our quarterly operating results may fluctuate significantly in the future due to a variety of factors that could affect our revenues or our expenses in any particular quarter. You should not rely on quarter-to-quarter comparisons of our results of operations as an indication of future performance. Factors that may affect our quarterly results include:
- our ability to attract and retain key personnel;
- our ability to manage our anticipated growth and expansion;
- our ability to attract traffic to our website; and
- technical difficulties or system downtime affecting the Internet generally or the operation of our products and services specifically.
In addition, we plan to significantly increase our operating expenses to expand our sales and marketing, administration, maintenance and technical support and research and development groups. If revenues fall below our expectations in any quarter and we are unable to quickly reduce our spending in response, our operating results would be lower than expected and our stock price may fall.
We depend on two customers for a substantial part of our revenues.
In the nine months ended September 30, 2002, two customers accounted for 28% of our revenues. The loss of one customer or both customers may result in a significant decrease in our revenues and results of operations, which could have a material adverse effect on our business and the value of your shares.
Our business model is unproven and may not be adaptable to a changing market.
Our current revenue model depends on listing fees from travel companies using our website. If current customers decide not to continue listing their special offers with us and we are unable to replace them with new customers, our business may be adversely affected. To be successful, we must provide online marketing solutions that achieve broad market acceptance by travel companies. In addition, we must attract sufficient Internet users with attractive demographic characteristics to our website. It is possible that we will be required to further adapt our business model in response to additional changes in the online advertising market or if our current business model is not successful. If we are not able to anticipate changes in the online advertising market or if our business model is not successful, our business could be materially adversely affected, which could reduce the value of your shares.
We may not be able to obtain sufficient funds to grow our business and any additional financing may be on terms adverse to your interests.
We intend to continue to grow our business, and intend to fund our current operations and our anticipated growth from the cash flow generated from our operations and our retained earnings. However, these sources may not be sufficient to meet our needs. We may not be able to obtain additional financing on commercially reasonable terms, or at all.
If additional financing is not available when required or is not available on acceptable terms, we may be unable to fund our expansion, successfully promote our brand name, develop or enhance our products and services, take advantage of business opportunities or respond to competitive pressures, any of which could have a material adverse effect on our business and the value of your shares.
If we choose to raise additional funds through the issuance of equity securities, you may experience significant dilution of your ownership interest, and holders of the additional equity securities may have rights senior to those of the holders of our common stock. If we obtain additional financing by issuing debt securities, the terms of these securities could restrict or prevent us from paying dividends and could limit our flexibility in making business decisions.
Our business may be sensitive to recessions.
The demand for online marketing solutions may be linked to the level of economic activity and employment in the U.S. and abroad. Specifically, our business is dependent on the amount of travel by consumers and the spending of travel companies. The current recession has decreased consumer travel and caused travel companies to reduce or postpone their marketing spending generally, and their online marketing spending in particular. If the current economic downturn continues or worsens in the U.S. or abroad, our business and the value of your shares could be materially adversely affected.
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Our business may be sensitive to events affecting the travel industry in general.
The terrorist attacks on the United States in 2001 have had a short-term negative impact on the travel industry. We are not in a position to evaluate the net effect of these circumstances on our business. In the longer term, our business might be negatively affected by financial pressures on its customer industry. However, our business may also benefit if travel providers increase their efforts to promote special offers or other marketing programs. If the events result in a long-term negative impact on the travel industry, such impact could have a material adverse effect on our business and the value of your shares.
We cannot be sure that an active market for our shares will develop or be maintained in the future.
On August 28, 2002, our shares commenced trading on the OTC Bulletin Board. However, there has been only limited trading in the shares since that time, at widely varying prices, and the trading to date has not resulted in an active market for our shares. We cannot assure you that an active market for our shares will be established or maintained in the future. If such market is not established or maintained, stockholders will not be able to readily sell their shares.
We are controlled by a principal stockholder.
Ralph Bartel, who founded Travelzoo and who is our Chairman of the Board, Chief Executive Officer, President and Secretary, is our largest stockholder, holding approximately 72% of our outstanding shares with options to increase his percentage ownership to 75% on a fully-diluted basis, assuming all former stockholders of Travelzoo.com Corporation receive shares of Travelzoo Inc. Through his share ownership, he is in a position to control Travelzoo and to elect our entire board of directors.
Investors may face significant restrictions on the resale of our stock due to federal penny stock regulations.
If our shares trade at less than five dollars per share, since the shares are not listed on a recognized national exchange or on NASDAQ, our common stock may be deemed to be a “penny stock” under Rule 3a51-1 under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Compliance with the requirements governing penny stocks may make it more difficult for investors in our common stock to resell their shares to third parties or to otherwise dispose of them.
Section 15(g) of the Exchange Act, and Rule 15g-2 under the Exchange Act, require broker-dealers dealing in penny stocks to provide potential investors with a document disclosing the risks of penny stocks and to obtain a manually signed and dated written receipt of the document before effecting any transaction in a penny stock for the investor’s account. Moreover, Rule 15g-9 promulgated under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 requires broker-dealers in penny stocks to approve the account of any investor for transactions in such stocks before selling any penny stock to that investor. These requirements significantly increase the time necessary for a broker-dealer to sell a stock and limit the available purchasers for a stock.
We may face significant costs with respect to the delivery of paper copies of reports to our stockholders.
The Securities Exchange Act of 1934 requires us to provide paper copies of certain reports to our stockholders. If a significant number of our stockholders do not consent to electronic delivery of stockholder communications or revoke such consent, we may face significant costs related to the printing and mailing of such reports. These costs may drain our resources and may have a material adverse effect on our business and the value of our shares.
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Risks Related to Our Markets and Strategy
The Internet is not a proven marketing medium.
The future of our business is dependent on the ongoing acceptance by travel companies of the Internet as an effective marketing tool, and on the ongoing acceptance by consumers of the Internet as a source for valuable information on offers from travel companies. The online advertising market is new and rapidly evolving, and we do not yet know how effective online advertising is compared to traditional advertising methods. The adoption of online marketing by travel companies, particularly among those that have historically relied upon traditional advertising methods, requires the acceptance of a new way of conducting business, marketing and advertising. Many of our potential customers have little or no experience using the Internet as a marketing tool, and not all Internet users have experience using the Internet to look for travel offers. As a result, we cannot be sure that we will be able to effectively compete with traditional advertising methods. If we are unable to compete with traditional advertising methods, our business and results of operations and the value of your shares could be materially adversely affected.
We will only be able to execute our business model if use of the Internet grows.
If Internet usage does not continue to grow, our business could be adversely affected. Our business model anticipates continued growth in Internet usage. If Internet usage does not continue to grow, we may not be able to meet our business objectives, which could decrease the value of your shares. Internet usage may be inhibited by any of the following factors:
- the Internet infrastructure may not be able to support the demands placed on it, or its performance and reliability may decline as usage grows;
- websites may not be able to provide adequate security and authentication of confidential information contained in transmissions over the Internet; and
- the Internet industry may not be able to adequately respond to privacy concerns of potential users.
We may experience reduced visitor traffic, reduced revenue and harm to our reputation in the event of unexpected network interruptions caused by system failures.
Our servers and software must be able to accommodate a high volume of traffic. Any substantial increase in demands on our servers will require us to expand and adapt our network infrastructure. If we are unable to add additional software and hardware to accommodate increased demand, we could experience unanticipated system disruptions and slower response times. Any catastrophic failure at our co-location facility could prevent us from serving our web traffic for up to several days, and any failure of our Internet service provider may adversely affect our network’s performance. Our clients may become dissatisfied by any system failure that interrupts our ability to provide our products and services to them or results in slower response times. We do not maintain business interruption insurance. Any system failure, including network, software or hardware failure, that causes an interruption in the delivery of our products and services or a decrease in responsiveness of our services could result in reduced revenue and could materially adversely affect our reputation and brand.
We may not be able to develop awareness of our brand name.
We believe that continuing to build awareness of theTravelzoo brand name is critical to achieving widespread acceptance of our business. Brand recognition is a key differentiating factor among providers of online marketing solutions, and we believe it could become more important as competition in the online advertising industry increases. In order to maintain and build brand awareness, we must succeed in our marketing efforts, provide high quality services and increase the number of Internet users with favorable demographics usingTravelzoo. If we fail to successfully promote and maintain our brand, incur significant expenses in promoting our brand and fail to generate a corresponding increase in revenue as a result of our branding efforts, or encounter legal obstacles which prevent our continued use of our brand name, our business and the value of your shares could be materially adversely affected.
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We will not be able to attract travel companies or Internet users if we do not continually enhance and develop the content and features of our products and services.
To remain competitive, we must continually improve the responsiveness, functionality and features of our products and services. We may not succeed in developing features, functions, products or services that travel companies and Internet users find attractive. This could reduce the number of travel companies and Internet users using theTravelzoo website and materially adversely affect our business and the value of your shares.
We may lose business if we fail to keep pace with rapidly changing technologies and customer needs.
Our success is dependent on our ability to develop new and enhanced software, services and related products to meet rapidly evolving technological requirements for online marketing solutions. Our current technology may not meet the future technical requirements of travel companies. Trends that could have a critical impact on our success include:
- rapidly changing technology in online marketing;
- evolving industry standards, including both formal and de facto standards relating to online marketing;
- developments and changes relating to the Internet;
- competing products and services that offer increased functionality; and
- changes in travel company and Internet user requirements.
If we are unable to timely and successfully develop and introduce new products and enhancements to existing products in response to our industry’s changing technological requirements, our business and the value of your shares could be materially adversely affected.
Our business and growth will suffer if we are unable to hire and retain highly skilled personnel.
Our future success depends on our ability to attract, train, motivate and retain highly skilled employees. We may be unable to retain our skilled employees or attract, assimilate and retain other highly skilled employees in the future. We have from time to time in the past experienced, and we expect to continue to experience in the future, difficulty in hiring and retaining highly skilled employees with appropriate qualifications. If we are unable to hire and retain skilled personnel, our growth may be restricted, the quality of our products and services reduced and the value of your shares reduced.
We may not be able to effectively manage our expanding operations.
We have recently experienced a period of rapid growth. In order to execute our business plan, we must continue to grow significantly. As of September 30, 2002, we had 24 employees. We expect that the number of our employees will continue to increase for the foreseeable future. This growth has placed, and our anticipated future growth combined with the requirements we face as a public company will continue to place, a significant strain on our management, systems and resources. We expect that we will need to continue to improve our financial and managerial controls and reporting systems and procedures. We will also need to continue to expand and maintain close coordination among our technical, accounting, finance and sales and marketing organizations. We may not succeed in these efforts. Our inability to expand our operations in an efficient manner could cause our expenses to grow disproportionately to revenues, our revenues to decline or grow more slowly than expected and otherwise have a material adverse effect on our business and the value of your shares.
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Intense competition may adversely affect our ability to achieve or maintain market share and operate profitably.
We compete with large Internet portal sites, such as About.com, America Online, Lycos, MSN and Yahoo!, that offer listings or other advertising opportunities for travel companies. These companies have significantly greater financial, technical, marketing and other resources and larger client bases than we do. In addition, we compete with newspapers, magazines and other traditional media companies that provide online advertising opportunities. We expect to face additional competition as other established and emerging companies, including print media companies, enter the online advertising market.
We believe that there will be rapid business consolidation in the online advertising industry. Accordingly, new competitors may emerge and rapidly acquire significant market share. The development of competing technologies by market participants or the emergence of new industry standards may also adversely affect our competitive position. Competition could result in reduced margins on our services, loss of market share or less use of Travelzoo by travel companies and consumers. If we are not able to compete effectively with current or future competitors as a result of these and other factors, our business could be materially adversely affected.
Loss of any of our key management personnel could negatively impact our business.
Our future success depends to a significant extent on the continued service and coordination of our management team, particularly Ralph Bartel, our Chairman, President, Chief Executive Officer and Secretary. The loss or departure of any of our officers or key employees could materially adversely affect our ability to implement our business plan. We do not maintain key person life insurance for any member of our management team. In addition, we expect new members to join our management team in the future. These individuals will not previously have worked together and will be required to become integrated into our management team. If our key management personnel are not able to work together effectively or successfully, our business could be materially adversely affected.
We may not be able to access third party technology upon which we depend.
We use technology and software products from third parties including Microsoft. In light of the rapidly evolving nature of Internet technology, we may increasingly need to rely on technology from other vendors. Technology from our current or other vendors may not continue to be available to us on commercially reasonable terms, or at all. Our business will suffer if we are unable to access this technology, to gain access to additional products or to integrate new technology with our existing systems. This could cause delays in our development and introduction of new services and related products or enhancements of existing products until equivalent or replacement technology can be accessed, if available, or developed internally, if feasible. If we experience these delays, our business and the value of your shares could be materially adversely affected.
Risks Related to Legal Uncertainty
We may become subject to burdensome government regulations and legal uncertainties affecting the Internet which could adversely affect our business.
To date, governmental regulations have not materially restricted use of the Internet in our markets. However, the legal and regulatory environment that pertains to the Internet is uncertain and may change. Uncertainty and new regulations could increase our costs of doing business, prevent us from delivering our products and services over the Internet or slow the growth of the Internet. In addition to new laws and regulations being adopted, existing laws may be applied to the Internet. New and existing laws may cover issues which include:
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- copyright, trademark and patent infringement;
- characteristics and quality of products and services;
- sales and other taxes; and
- other claims based on the nature and content of Internet materials.
We may be unable to protect our registered trademark or other proprietary intellectual property rights.
Our success depends to a significant degree upon the protection of theTravelzoo brand name. We rely upon a combination of copyright, trade secret and trademark laws and non-disclosure and other contractual arrangements to protect our intellectual property rights. The steps we have taken to protect our proprietary rights, however, may not be adequate to deter misappropriation of proprietary information.
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office registered the trademark for “Travelzoo” on January 23, 2001. If we are unable to protect our rights in the mark, a key element of our strategy of promotingTravelzoo as a brand could be disrupted and our business could be adversely affected. We may not be able to detect unauthorized use of our proprietary information or take appropriate steps to enforce our intellectual property rights. In addition, the validity, enforceability and scope of protection of intellectual property in Internet-related industries is uncertain and still evolving. The laws of other countries in which we may market our services in the future are uncertain and may afford little or no effective protection of our intellectual property. The unauthorized reproduction or other misappropriation of our proprietary technology could enable third parties to benefit from our technology and brand name without paying us for them. If this were to occur, our business could be materially adversely affected.
We may face liability from intellectual property litigation that could be costly to prosecute or defend and distract management’s attention with no assurance of success.
We cannot be certain that our products, content and brand names do not or will not infringe valid patents, copyrights or other intellectual property rights held by third parties. While we have a trademark for “Travelzoo,” many companies in the industry have similar names including the word “travel”. We expect that infringement claims in our markets will increase in number as more participants enter the markets. We may be subject to legal proceedings and claims from time to time relating to the intellectual property of others in the ordinary course of our business. We may incur substantial expenses in defending against these third party infringement claims, regardless of their merit, and such claims could result in a significant diversion of the efforts of our management personnel. Successful infringement claims against us may result in monetary liability or a material disruption in the conduct of our business.
We may be liable as a result of information retrieved from or transmitted over the Internet.
We may be sued for defamation, negligence, copyright or trademark infringement or other legal claims relating to information that is published or made available on theTravelzoo website, in theTravelzoo Top 20 newsletter, in theWeekend.com newsletter and on the other sites linked to our website. These types of claims have been brought, sometimes successfully, against online services in the past. The fact that we distribute ourTravelzoo Top 20 newsletter and other information via e-mail may subject us to potential risks, such as liabilities or claims resulting from unsolicited e-mail or spamming, lost or misdirected messages, security breaches, illegal or fraudulent use of e-mail or interruptions or delays in e-mail service. In addition, we could incur significant costs in investigating and defending such claims, even if we ultimately are not liable. If any of these events occur, our business and the value of your shares could be materially adversely affected.
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Item 3. Quantitative and Qualitative Disclosures About Market Risk
Our accounts receivable are subject, in normal course of business, to collection risks. We regularly assess these risks and have established policies and business practices to protect against the adverse effects of collection risks. As a result, we do not anticipate any material losses in this area.
Item 4. Controls and Procedures
(a) Within the 90 days prior to the date of this report, we carried out an evaluation, under the supervision and with the participation of the Company’s management, including the Company’s President, Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer along with the Company’s Controller (Chief Accounting Officer), of the effectiveness of the design and operation of our disclosure controls and procedures pursuant to Exchange Act Rule 13a-14. Based upon that evaluation, the Company’s President, Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer along with the Company’s Controller (Chief Accounting Officer) concluded that our disclosure controls and procedures are effective in timely alerting them to material information relating to the Company (including its consolidated subsidiaries) required to be included in our periodic SEC filings.
(b) There have been no significant changes in our internal controls or in other factors that could significantly affect internal controls subsequent to the date we carried out this evaluation.
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PART II. OTHER INFORMATION
Item 6. �� Exhibits and Reports on Form 8-K
(a) The following exhibits are filed as part of this report
| Exhibit Number | | Description |
| 3.1 | | Certificate of Incorporation of Travelzoo Inc. (Incorporated by reference to our Pre-Effective Amendment No. 6 to our Registration Statement on Form S-4 (File No. 333-55026), filed February 14, 2002) |
| 3.2 | | By-laws of Travelzoo Inc. (Incorporated by reference to our Pre-Effective Amendment No. 6 to our Registration Statement on Form S-4 (File No. 333-55026), filed February 14, 2002) |
(b) Reports on Form 8-K
On August 19, 2002, Travelzoo filed a Current Report on Form 8-K under Item 5 announcing the completion of the merger with Travelzoo.com Corporation.
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SIGNATURES
Pursuant to the requirements of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, the registrant has duly caused this Report to be signed on its behalf by the undersigned thereunto duly authorized and each of the undersigned hereby certifies, pursuant to 18 U.S.C. §1350, as adopted pursuant to §906 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, to the best of his knowledge, that (1) this Report complies with the requirements of Section 13(a) or Section 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and (2) the information contained in this report fairly presents, in all material respects, the financial condition and results of operations of the registrant.
Date: October 28, 2002 | By: | /s/ RALPH BARTEL
| |
| | Ralph Bartel Chairman of the Board, Chief Executive Officer, and Chief Financial Officer | |
Date: October 28, 2002 | By: | /s/ LISA SU
| |
| | Lisa Su Controller (Chief Accounting Officer) | |
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CERTIFICATION
CERTIFICATION OF CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER AND CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER
PURSUANT TO SECTION 302 OF THE SARBANES-OXLEY ACT OF 2002
I, Ralph Bartel, certify that:
1. | I have reviewed this quarterly report on Form 10-Q of Travelzoo Inc; |
2. | Based on my knowledge, this quarterly report does not contain any untrue statement of a material fact or omit to state a material fact necessary to make the statements made, in light of the circumstances under which such statements were made, not misleading with respect to the period covered by this quarterly report; |
3. | Based on my knowledge, the financial statements, and other financial information included in this quarterly report, fairly represent in all material respects the financial condition, results of operations and cash flows of the registrant as of, and for, the periods presented in this quarterly report; |
4. | The registrant’s other certifying officer and I are responsible for establishing and maintaining disclosure controls and procedures (as defined in Exchange Act Rules 13a-14 and 15d-14) for the registrant and we have: |
| a. | designed such disclosure controls and procedures to ensure that material information relating to the registrant, including its consolidated subsidiaries, is made known to us by others within those entities, particularly during the period in which this quarterly report is being prepared; |
| b. | evaluated the effectiveness of the registrant's disclosure controls and procedures as of a date within 90 days prior to the filing date of this quarterly report (the “Evaluation Date”); and |
| c. | presented in this quarterly report our conclusions about the effectiveness of the disclosure controls and procedures based on our evaluation as of the Evaluation Date; |
5. | The registrant’s other certifying officer and I have disclosed, based on our most recent evaluation, to the registrant’s auditors and the audit committee of registrant’s board of directors (or persons performing the equivalent functions): |
| a. | presented in this quarterly report our conclusions about the effectiveness of the disclosure controls and procedures based on our evaluation as of the Evaluation Date; |
| b. | any fraud, whether or not material, that involves management or other employees who have a significant role in the registrant's internal controls; and |
6. | The registrant’s other certifying officer and I have indicated in this quarterly report whether or not there were significant changes in internal controls or in other factors that could significantly affect internal controls subsequent to the date of our most recent evaluation, including any corrective actions with regard to significant deficiencies and material weaknesses. |
Date: October 28, 2002 | By: | /s/ RALPH BARTEL
| |
| | Ralph Bartel Chairman of the Board, Chief Executive Officer, and Chief Financial Officer | |
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