Datacentrex, Inc. 10-K

ITEM 1. BUSINESS. Overview General As used herein, “we,” “us,” “our,” the “Company,” “Thumzup™,” means Thumzup™ Media Corporation unless otherwise indicated. Thumzup™ operates in a single business segment which is social media marketing. Thumzup™ has a mobile iPhone and Android applications called “Thumzup™” that connects brands and people who use and love these brands. For the advertiser, Thumzup™ incentivizes real people to become content creators and post authentic valuable posts on social media about the advertiser and its products. 6 OVERVIEW Thumzup Media Corporation (“Thumzup” or “Company”) was incorporated on October 27, 2020, under the laws of the State of Nevada, and its headquarters is located in Los Angeles. The Company’s primary business is software as a service provider dedicated to connecting businesses with consumers and allowing the business to incentivize consumers to post about their experience on social media. Thumzup mission is to democratize social media marketing by connecting advertisers with non-professional people, who can be paid for their posts about products and services they love through its technology which utilizes a proprietary mobile app (“App”). The App generates scalable word-of-mouth product posts and recommendations for advertisers on social media and is designed to connect advertisers with individuals who are willing to promote their products online. The Thumzup App enables users to select a brand they want to post about on social media. Once the Thumzup user selects the brand and takes a photo (using the App), the App will post the photo and a caption to the user’s social media account(s). As of the date of this filing, Instagram is the Company’s initial social media platform that is being used, due to its wide acceptance and its great functionality using photographs. The Company expects to add other social media platforms in the future. For the advertiser, the Thumzup system enables brands to get real people to promote products to their friends, rather than displaying banner ads that consumers now mostly ignore, or contracting with expensive professional influencers. The Company has recorded nominal revenues during the year ended December 31, 2023 and continues with the development of enhancements to its App and marketing efforts. The Company is an “emerging growth company” as that term is used in the Jumpstart our Business Startups Act of 2012, and as such, has elected to comply with certain reduced public company reporting requirements. Thumzup® Products and Services The Company operates in a single business segment which is social media marketing and advertising. The Thumzup® App works on both iPhone and Android mobile operating systems and connects brands and people who use and love these brands. For the Advertiser, Thumzup® incentivizes ordinary people to become paid content Creators and post authentic valuable posts on social media about the Advertiser and its products. The Company seeks to capitalize on nationwide-wide gig economy and business democratization trends. Immense value and opportunity have been created through the democratization of ride sharing, hospitality, finance and other industries. The Thumzup® tools are designed to facilitate this democratization trend for the consumer and the Advertiser within the online marketing and advertising space. The Company has built the technology to support an influencer and “gig” economy community around its Thumzup® App. This technology and community are designed to generate scalable authentic product posts and recommendations for advertisers on social media. It is designed to connect advertisers with individuals who are willing to tell their friends about the advertisers’ products online and offline. Social Media Marketing Software Technology The Thumzup® mobile App enables Creators, to select from brands advertising on the App and get paid to post about the advertiser on social media. Once the Thumzup® Creator selects the brand and takes a photo using the Thumzup® App, the Thumzup® App posts the photo and a caption to the Creator’s social media accounts. The advertiser then reviews and approves the post for payment and the Creator can cash out whenever they choose through popular digital payment systems. For the advertiser, the Thumzup® system enables brands to get real people to promote their products to their friends. In 2023, $148 billion was spent on digital display ads in the United States and while 43% of marketers consider display ads to be the least effective channel, 84% of marketers were still investing in them (1). We feel this demonstrates a significant need among advertisers for new methods of messaging to potential customers. We believe Thumzup’s ability to scale brand messages from the general population on social media could be part of addressing this substantial need in the market. (1) https://meetanshi.com/blog/display-advertising-statistics/) 7 A recent Nielsen report found 81% of consumers believe friends and family are the most reliable sources of information about products (2). According to a Emplifi article, 64% of millennials recommend a product at least once a month (3), and according to a 2019 Morning Consult survey, 86% of Gen Z and millennials would post content for monetary compensation (4). Further, according to a 2020 IZEA Insights Study, 67% of social media consumers aspire to be paid social media influencers (5). According to a 2023 Bankrate, 48% of social media users have impulsively purchased a product seen on social media (6). Lastly, 85% of Gen Z says social media impacts purchase decisions according to a 2023 Retail Dive Survey (7). The average American adult spent 7 hours and 58 minutes per day using digital media in 2020 according to a 2020 eMarketer Report (8). The amount of daily usage has increased significantly since 2019, again according to an eMarketer Report (8), , and the Company believes such usage will continue to accelerate. The Company empowers businesses that want to interact with these Creators and provides tools and data so they can increase consumer awareness and expand their customer bases. In the past decade, social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and TikTok have achieved mass worldwide consumer acceptance and created hundreds of billions of dollars in shareholder value. This worldwide viral growth demonstrates that compelling new social media platforms which present the right combination of experience and value, will attract Creators who will invest significant amounts of time on the platforms. For this reason, Thumzup recently announced its integration with X and TikTok into its proprietary platform (9). Thumzup’s launch on X Corp signifies a quantum leap in Thumzup’s mission to revolutionize advertising. By merging Thumzup’s innovative tools with X’s massive audience, the Company believes they can deliver strong opportunities for brands to scale their visibility and engagement at new levels. With over 1.5 billion monthly active users, TikTok’s explosive engagement metrics position it as a premier venue for impactful brand visibility and customer connection. These statistics illustrate TikTok’s effectiveness in brand discovery and user action, with 61% of users reporting discovering new brands and products, and 92% taking action such as sharing, commenting, following, or liking content. Once implemented, Thumzup’s integration with TikTok is poised to significantly broaden its addressable market, leveraging TikTok’s unparalleled reach and engagement to drive enhanced advertiser access (10), . Additionally, Thumzup announced the beta launch of its highly anticipated video capabilities, including integration with Instagram Reels 11), . The addition of the Company’s new video posting feature provides users with multiple ways to engage and share content, building upon its successful track record with single-photo posts. The Company is an early-stage entity building a new real-time platform which enables Advertisers to pay their customers and fans cash for their positive social media posts about their products and services, which in turn supports those people who earn money from various gig economy opportunities. The Company believes that acceptance of its App and subsequent revenue growth can be driven by empowering everyday people to make money by posting about brands and services that they already find enjoyable and attractive on social media. The Company believes that the Thumzup® App is a conduit for Advertisers to connect directly with consumers. The Company will need to secure enough advertisers to make the App an attractive platform for adoption and scalability, and to ensure that the platform is interesting enough for the Creators to return to on a regular basis. No assurance can be given that the Company will be able to achieve these results. (2) https://www.nielsen.com/news-center/2015/still-recommended-by-friends-and-relatives-the-most- authentic-advertising-according-to-consumers-the-most-trusted-on-brand-websites/ (3) https://emplifi.io/resources/blog/the-user-generated-content-stats-you-need-to-know?utm_source=pixlee.com (4) https://morningconsult.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/The-Influencer-Report-Engaging-Gen-Z-and-Millennials.pdf (5) https://www.cnn.com/business/newsfeeds/globenewswire/7812666.html (6) https://www.bankrate.com/personal-finance/social-media-survey/ (7) https://www.retaildive.com/news/generation-z-social-media-influence-shopping-behavior-purchases-tiktok- instagram/652576/ (8) https://www.emarketer.com/content/us-time-spent-with-media-2021-update (9) https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20241205736116/en/Thumzup-Plans-Integration-of-Proprietary-Advertising-Platform-with-TikTok-to-Significantly-Expand-Potential-Social-Media-Market-Reach & (10) https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20241211121196/en/Thumzup-Launches-on-X-Corp-Transforming-Social-Media-Advertising-Potential-with-Access-to-Over-535M-Active-Users (11) https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2024/11/12/2979217/0/en/Thumzup-Launches-Video-Capabilities-and-Integration-with-Instagram-Reels.html (12) https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2024/11/22/2986012/0/en/Thumzup-Achieves-202-Growth-in-Advertisers-on-Proprietary-Technology-Platform-Through-October-2024.html 8 The Industry - Social Media Marketing and Advertising The Company believes that it is developing a new form of social media marketing that does not currently exist, therefore existing descriptions of market size and penetration are not directly applicable. As Thumzup® matures, the Company believes there will be other competitors in this new market of paying non-professional advocates to tell their friends about products they love on social media at the point-of-sale. The closest existing market that is similar to Thumzup’s market is the rapidly growing subset of online advertising called “influencer marketing.” More than 75% of brands have a dedicated budget for influencer marketing according to a 2022 Harvard Business Review Study (9). As social media influencers become more plentiful and proven, advertising spending has increased in this space. According to Allied Research, the influencer marketing market generated $16.5 billion in 2022 and is estimated to reach $199.6 billion by 2032, exhibiting a CAGR of 28.6% from 2023 to 2032 (10). Influencer marketing is new but it is here to stay, Harvard Business Review did a study to prove this and stated “the strategy can in fact yield positive ROI (9). ” Most existing paid influencer marketing platforms were designed for professional and semi-professional online personalities. Some of these platforms have expanded to accommodate “micro-influencers” - people with 5,000 to 30,000 social media followers. In the Company’s opinion, none of these influencer platforms has entered the public consciousness and found mass adoption. The Company has designed Thumzup® “from the ground up” to make it easy for brands and service providers to activate people who are not professional influencers but who are passionate about the products, services, or establishments they enjoy or frequent and then are willing to relate those experiences to their friends and other social media followers. The Company has designed the Thumzup App and Advertiser dashboard with “Apple-style” simplicity and intuitive features to make participation by all individuals seamless with their existing use of social media. The Company’s first product-Thumzup® App The Company operates in a single business segment, which is social media marketing. The Company’s mobile iPhone and Android applications called “Thumzup ® ” connects brands, products, and services to the people who use and love these brands, products, and services. For Advertisers, Thumzup® activates real people to post real product reviews and testimonials on social media with the intention of enhancing brand awareness and reaching targeted consumers more directly and effectively while driving profitable traffic to the Advertisers’ products and services. The Company is building an influencer and gig economy community around the Thumzup® mobile App that will generate scalable authentic product posts and recommendations for Advertisers on social media and create a technology platform making person-to-person advertising easy, cost-effective, and scalable. The App and Advertiser dashboard are designed to connect Advertisers with individuals who are willing to promote their products and services online and offline. (9) https://hbr.org/2022/11/does-influencer-marketing-really-pay-off (10) https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/influencer-marketing-market-to-reach-199-6-billion-globally- by-2032-at-28-6-cagr-allied-market-research-301987451.html 9 Social Media Marketing Software Technology The Company’s Services The Thumzup® mobile App enables Creators to select from brands advertising on the App and get paid to post about the Advertiser on social media. Once the Thumzup® Creator selects the brand and takes a photo using the Thumzup® App, the Thumzup® App posts the photo and a caption to the Creator’s social media accounts. The Advertiser then reviews and approves the post for payment and the Creator can cash out whenever they choose through popular digital payment systems. For the Advertiser, the Thumzup® system enables brands to get the general public who are not professional influencers to promote their products and services to their friends, rather than display ads which marketers realize are less effective. With the Thumzup® App, the Company is targeting and signing up the general public and gig economy workers who like specific brands and present them with opportunities to be paid for posting about the brands on social media. The Company believes that its management team has the sales relationships, legal, and technology expertise for its current level of development. The Company will need to add additional staff to rapidly grow the business. All source code, development work, and intellectual property performed under independent development or employment contracts paid for by the Company are assigned to and owned by Thumzup®. Intellectual Property The Company owns the copyrights to the source code for the Thumzup® App on the iPhone iOS and Android operating mobile operating systems as used on the majority of mobile phone and tablet devices. The Company also owns the source code for the “backend” system that administrates the Thumzup® App, tracks payments and advertising campaigns. The Thumzup® thumb logo “ ” is a registered trademark owned by Thumzup® Media Corporation, Reg. No. 6,842,424, registered Sep. 13, 2022. On April 13, 2021, the Company filed a trademark application ser. No. 90642789 with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (“USPTO”) for the word mark THUMZUP, which was granted registration on June 21, 2022, resulting in reg. no. 6764158. Also on April 13, 2021, the Company filed a trademark application ser. No. 90642848 for the Thumzup® logo, featuring a stylized hand with an upwardly extended thumb. Meta Platforms, Inc. (which owns and operates Facebook and Instagram) initially filed opposition to the logo on June 30, 2022. Thumzup® agreed to not use the logo as a reaction to a post and Meta Platforms, Inc. subsequently withdrew their opposition on August 5, 2022 and it was dismissed without prejudice. Business Model Advertisers purchase an ad campaign on the Thumzup® advertiser dashboard website. Once the Advertiser approves a post for payment, the platform facilitates the payment to Creators’ a monetary amount per screened post which may range from $1.00 to $1,000.00. The Thumzup® platform enables the Advertiser to screen posts so that the Advertiser only pays for posts that are commercially valuable and rewards Creators for posts that have images and text that represent the Advertiser in a positive manner. Per Post Fee . Thumzup® Advertisers are charged a “Per Post Fee.” By way of illustration, an Advertiser that buys 100,000 posts from Thumzup®, to pay out $10 per post to Thumzup® Creators, would purchase the posts for $13.00 each or $1,300,000. The Creators in this illustration would receive a total of $1,000,000 and Thumzup® would retain $300,000 for its services. The Thumzup® platform would facilitate 100,000 posts for the Advertiser from Thumzup® Creators sharing with their friends about their endorsed products on social media. Value Proposition The Thumzup® App is designed to generate scalable social media authentic social media content for Advertisers. It is designed to connect Advertisers with individuals who are willing to authentically promote their products online. The Company envisions that many gig economy workers will be ideal candidates to become Creators posting on Thumzup®. Imagine a gig economy driver waiting for their next fare who takes a moment to post about the good experience they had at their lunch spot where they are waiting. Imagine a gig economy worker on a laptop at a coffee shop doing a graphic design project from a gig economy site who takes a moment to post about the coffee shop where they are working on Thumzup®. The Company believes that Thumzup® can readily provide extra income for this existing pool of gig economy workers. The Company believes these gig economy workers will be able to provide quality Thumzup® posts on social media for which Advertisers will be willing to pay. This past year, Thumzup announced it will soon offer payments in Bitcoin to its gig economy workforce through its recently launched Account Specialist Program (ASP) (1). This move reflects Thumzup’s commitment to innovative compensation solutions and its recognition of the growing demand for cryptocurrency payments among gig workers. Furthermore, the Company’s Board of Directors approved the purchase of up to $1 million in Bitcoin (2). The Thumzup® App can also facilitate digital word of mouth recommendations of products and services from people who do not need to make extra money doing gigs, who are in fact quite affluent. The Company believes that many people who are well off may also use the App to recommend products and services to their network of friends on social media, many of whom may also be affluent. (1) https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2024/11/19/2983475/0/en/Thumzup-to-Use-Bitcoin-for-Payments-to-Gig-Economy-Workers.html (2) https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2024/11/15/2981922/0/en/Thumzup-Board-of-Directors-Approves-Bitcoin-as-Treasury-Reserve-Asset.html 10 Key Metrics as of March 4, 2025 Thumzup has paid out on 28,082 approved posts to 1,592 Thumzup users regarding 746 advertisers since inception. Thumzup advertisers have grown by a 238% CAGR since March 4, 2024. Regulatory Compliance The Federal Trade Commission regulates and requires certain disclosures by social media influencers, specifying when disclosure is required, and how the disclosure should be presented. These rules are codified in the Code of Federal Regulations, 16 CFR Part 255. Specifically, the FTC requires that influencers disclose any financial, employment, personal, or family relationship with a brand. Influencers must disclose financial relationships and consideration paid including any money, discounted products or other benefits paid to the influencer. Creators on the Thumzup® platform are being paid to post about Thumzup® advertisers. Thumzup® puts #ad in each post made on its platform to disclose that the creator has been paid to make the post. The Company does not believe its compliance with existing FTC regulations will have a material effect on capital expenditures, earnings and competitive position of the Company and its subsidiaries, for the current fiscal year and any other material future period. Competition The Company has competitors in influencer marketing software companies as GRIN, #paid, CreatorIQ, Mavrck, Popular Pays, Tribe Dynamics, Aspire, Influenster, Traackr, and Skeepers. All of the above-named competitor influencer marketing software is focused on influencers who see themselves as professional influencers. To the best of the Company’s knowledge, these competitors are not building platforms designed to turn social media creators into micro-influencers in the manner that the Company seeks to accomplish. Rep is also an app that connects brands with influencers who are interesting in promoting brands. Rep’s app is different from Thumzup® because it is targeting people who consider themselves influencers. The Company does not currently know of another business that is seeking to build a community of everyday people and empowering them to post about brands that they love. 11 Nevertheless, the influencer marketing industry segments are rapidly evolving and competitive, and the Company expects competition to intensify in the future with the emergence of new technologies and market entrants. The Company’s competitors may enjoy competitive advantages, such as greater name recognition, longer operating histories, substantially greater market share, established marketing relationships with, and access to, large existing advertisers and user bases, and substantially greater financial, technical and other resources. These competitors may use these advantages to offer apps or other products similar to the Company’s at a lower price, develop different products to compete with the Company’s current solutions and respond more quickly and effectively than the Company does to new or changing opportunities, technologies, standards or client requirements particularly across different cities and geographical regions. Certain competitors could also use strong or dominant positions in one or more markets to gain competitive advantage against the Company in markets in which it operates in the future. The Company believes its ability to compete successfully for users, content, and advertising and other customers depends upon many factors both within and beyond the Company’s control, including: ● the popularity, usefulness, ease of use, performance and reliability of the Thumzup® App and services compared to those of competitors; ● the ability, in and of itself as well as in comparison to the ability of competitors, to develop new apps, other products and services and enhancements to then existing apps, products and services; ● the Company’s ad targeting and measurement capabilities, and those of its competitors; ● the size, composition and level of engagement of the Thumzup® App user communities relative to those of the Company’s competitors; ● the Company’s marketing and selling efforts, and those of its competitors; ● the pricing of the Thumzup® Apps and services relative to those of its competitors; ● the actual or perceived return the Company’s customers receive from the deployment of the Thumzup® Apps within the user communities relative to returns from the Company’s competitors; and ● the Company’s reputation and brand strength relative to its competitors. As of March 1, 2025, The Company has nine (9) full-time employees, as well as eighteen (18) marketing, sales, and operations independent contractors. The Company also utilizes the services of approximately eight (8) contract software developers. Seven (7) of these software developers are third-party contractors and are located outside the United States. Legal Proceedings From time to time, the Company may become involved in litigation or other legal proceedings. The Company is not currently a party to any litigation or legal proceedings. Regardless of outcome, litigation can have an adverse impact on the Company because of defense and settlement costs, diversion of management resources and other factors. Available Information: Thumzup™ is located at 11845 W. Olympic Blvd, Ste 1100W #13, Los Angeles, CA 90064. Our telephone number is (800) 403-6150 and our Internet website address is www.ThumzupMedia.com. We file or furnish electronically with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) annual reports on Form 10-K, quarterly reports on Form 10- Q, current reports on Form 8-K and amendments to those reports filed or furnished pursuant to Section 13(a) or 15(d) of the Exchange Act. We make copies of these reports available free of charge through our investor relations website as soon as reasonably practicable after we file or furnish them with the SEC. These reports are also accessible through the SEC website at www.sec.gov. Information contained on or accessible through our website www.thumzupmedia.com is not incorporated into, and does not form a part of, this Annual Report or any other report or document we file with the SEC, and any references to our websites are intended to be inactive textual references only. 12