Business Warrior Corp (BZWR)

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Tempe software firm expects growth after becoming publicly traded

By Hayley Ringle – Reporter, Phoenix Business Journal
Feb 14, 2020, 9:00am MST Updated Feb 20, 2020, 12:01pm MST
A Tempe small business software firm is now a publicly traded company after completing a reverse merger.

Business Warrior Corp., formerly known as Bluume LLC, completed its merger with Kading Cos., a New York-based holding company, on Wednesday.

Though traded over the counter, Business Warrior (OTC: KDNG) did well on its first official day of being publicly traded Wednesday, rising 310%. It started at 2.5 cents per share and rose to 8.2 cents at close, with over 2 million shares trading on the first day.

Rhett Doolittle, CEO and founder of Business Warrior, said the stock went higher than expected on its first day.

“It was a fun day yesterday,” Doolittle told the Business Journal. “I had a feeling it would jump up. Our phones are ringing off the hook.”

When the market closed Thursday, the stock was up 9.76% to 9 cents. Follow the stock here.

While the company is currently trading under the old KDNG symbol, the new company couldn’t confirm any possible ticker symbol changes until the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission approves it.

Business Warrior opted for the reverse merger after considering private equity, but company officials did not want to give up a majority chunk of the company, Doolittle said.

“We were profitable before we started the process to raise capital, but we wanted to scale the company so we started looking into a reverse merger,” said Doolittle, a serial entrepreneur. “It’s too early stage to do an IPO on Nasdaq or NYSE. This seemed like the right fit.”

Kading Cos. is a holding company with no operations or financials left. Business Warrior took over its public shell entity, he said.

Business Warrior is in the process of legally transferring its name from Bluume, which started in 2014. Before going public, the company closed on its first $1 million funding round from friends and family earlier this month.

The company is on pace to grow 500% this year. Doolittle said he couldn’t share revenue numbers because of SEC rules.

Business Warrior plans to use the new capital to launch major advertising campaigns, scale operations, expand the software development team and make key acquisitions.

The eight-employee Business Warrior is a small business software-as-a-service company. It takes publicly available data, puts it into a dashboard and simplifies the information to give the customer a "growth score."

“We have a passion for small businesses and helping small business owners grow their business,” said Doolittle, a Phoenix resident. “There’s a huge gap between what’s out there, and what business owners need to succeed. We want to help them and solve the problem to make it easier to run their business.”

Its 1,300 customers, with a majority in Arizona, are brick-and-mortar companies with one to five locations. Customers include veterinarians, restaurants and retail boutiques.

“We target owner operators that are overwhelmed and don’t know what to do online,” he said.

Business Warrior plans to hire about 40 people during the next 18 months, including software engineers, account managers, customer service reps, sales reps, a chief financial officer and a controller.

The company has some room to grow at its current 3,500-square-foot office off Rio Salado Parkway and Priest Drive, but is looking to move offices in the next five to six months in Tempe or Phoenix, Doolittle said. The brokerage firm Keyser is working with Business Warrior to find an expanded office space, he said.

Business Warrior is Doolittle’s third company he helped get off the ground.

The first company he co-founded, Phoenix-based Entrust Bankcard, grew 8,417% in three years, earning it a No. 18 ranking on Inc. Magazine’s 2011 list of the 500 fastest-growing companies in the U.S.

A portion of Entrust was sold and the rest merged into a new company, Mobisquad, in 2012, Doolittle said.

The remaining assets of Entrust and Mobisquad were sold to a group in 2014 in a transaction worth about $9 million. A portion of the company assets were sold in 2013 for $3 million to Harbortouch, an Allentown, Pennsylvania-based supplier of point-of-sales systems and payment processing services, he said.

Both Entrust Bankcard and Mobisquad were co-founded and led by CEO Nate Reis, who is now CEO and founder of Juuice, a Phoenix-based wireless power provider. Reis is not involved with Business Warrior.

https://www.bizjournals.com/phoenix/news/2020/02/14/tempe-software-firm-expects-growth-after-becoming.html