|
 Company
Profile:
www.seesmartled.com
Seesmart Technologies is a
manufacturer, distributor and marketer of lighting solutions the exclusively
utilize light emitting diodes (“LEDs”) as their light source. The company
has designed and developed an extensive product line and manufactures
products in both the United States and through several contract
manufacturers in Asia. The company’s products are specifically designed for
use in both retrofit and new construction applications by commercial,
industrial and government and residential customers. Seesmart products are
sold through an exclusive distribution network as well as through direct
sales channels.
 Kenneth
W. Ames III
Co-Founder, CEO, Director
Ken has been involved in LED
affiliated products since 2003, and founded Seesmart with Raymond Sjolseth
in July 2008. Ken brings over 28 years of executive operating experience to
Seesmart. He has a strong background in sales, marketing and distribution.
His many years of experience in retail markets are vital to the Company’s
sales channels and distribution operations.
Ken founded and owned Action
Copier Company, a remanufacturing company, which he grew to over $10 million
in annual revenue in 2 years, (1984-1986). After successfully selling the
company, Ken was a working partner with a high tech manufacturer and
importer of touch screen technology which grew from $350 million to $750
million in revenue during his 7 year involvement, (1993-2000). Ken
temporarily retired in 2000.
Ken has also consulted for
several technology companies on bringing their products into large
retailers.
Interview
conducted by: Lynn Fosse, Senior Editor, CEOCFO Magazine, Published – July
16, 2012
CEOCFO:
Mr. Ames, what is the vision at Seesmart?
Mr. Ames:
The vision is to become a leader in the development, manufacture and sale of
LED lighting products. We are at the leading edge of a lighting revolution
and we believe there is a tremendous opportunity to build a great company
that provides the lighting technology that will become pervasive throughout
the world over the next decade.
CEOCFO: What is the plan to get there?
Mr. Ames:
Education. The biggest challenge with LED technology today, is that we are
pioneering a very new technology. Acceptance today is still less than 1%.
When you are changing a technology that has been in place for 100 years,
change occurs slowly in the early stages. I think the biggest thing we see
at Seesmart is the need to educate the buyer. Oftentimes, we are not really
selling product as much as we are educating people so they can make a
decision on where their companies go as far as energy consumption. We are
more of an educator at this point rather than a salesperson because the
technology is so new.
CEOCFO: What does Seesmart actually do
day to day after the big vision?
Mr. Ames:
We manufacture and sell LED products. Although education is a big part of
the sales process, our exclusive dealer and distributor network is on the
street every day driving the adoption of LED technology. Our network a big
part of what makes Seesmart special. Selling LED lighting is a very
different process than traditional lighting. Traditional lighting sales as
we know it is basically order-taking. There isn’t a lot of selling because
the technology has been around for the last sixty or one hundred years. LED
lighting is very different. Therefore, we created a network of people that
exclusively sell our product and educate people on what we are doing
different from everybody else in the industry.
CEOCFO: What are you doing that is
different?
Mr. Ames:
We all have our own technologies and our own approach, but we are different
in the fact that we look at the space from a distribution standpoint. We
have an exclusive network of people who we have trained in the industry who
are exclusive to our products and our products only. They do not sell any
other lighting products, they sell our product only, and we deliver the same
message across all fifty-one of our exclusive distributors in the United
States. Similar to other technology revolutions, it starts in the government
and municipalities, then moves to commercial and industrial customers and
finally bleeds down to the consumer. This is why we concentrate primarily on
government, commercial and industrial customers. We do not believe that the
consumer market is ready for this technology yet because it is still too
pricey. You are burning the lights in your home three hours a day versus a
company that burns twelve to twenty-four, so the return on investment takes
a lot longer for the residential customer.
CEOCFO: Why should people be using LED?
Mr. Ames:
Immediate energy savings and significant environmental benefit. You can
achieve between 55 and 80% energy savings over florescent technology and 90%
over incandescent technology, which is a no-brainer. The biggest challenge
is helping customers understand the return on investment because you are
comparing a $1 product to a $50 product.
CEOCFO: Is there a point in the
discussion where the people understand the technology?
Mr. Ames:
A great deal of the Fortune-100 and 500 companies have full-time energy
managers and sustainability managers that totally understand the technology,
but it just comes down to budgeting, price, and acceptance. There is less
than one percent acceptance of this technology in the US at this point.
Three years ago, people would talk to you about this technology and were
fascinated. Today most people ask about LED when they go out to a bid but
whether they understand and are ready to evaluate lighting technology on an
ROI basis is totally different.
CEOCFO: Are there particular styles of
lighting that have easier acceptance, or is it across the board?
Mr. Ames:
Municipalities are making a push in outdoor lighting. Although we offer
great outdoor lighting, we concentrate on the indoor application because if
you look at an office building, there are 20,000 lights inside the building
and six lights outside the building. We look at what makes economic sense.
There is this big misconception of how the lighting industry should work.
Streetlights are on twelve hours at most and many buildings burn twenty-four
hours and there are several thousand more lights in the building than
outside. But when a city official does something for the city, nobody can
see the inside; they can only see what looks great on the outside. Sometimes
it comes down to politics. The companies that focus on green technology are
the real leaders in this industry.
CEOCFO: Do the technology always work
for them?
Mr. Ames:
You cannot really say it always does, because many times, it comes back down
to if the pricing model works. It depends on where you are located. In areas
that still have four, five and six cent kilowatt rates, the ROI can be long.
If you go to the Northeast, California, and areas with higher rates and
rising rates the ROI is often under two years. However, it’s not always
about ROI. It is also important to simply reduce consumption of energy for
environmental reasons.
CEOCFO: Your website shows that you have
worked with some recognizable organizations like Sloan Kettering in New
York. What is the size of a typical installation?
Mr. Ames:
It is all over the place. You can go from $5k or less for a small retail
store to multi-million dollar, multi-building projects. It really depends on
the philosophy of the customer that we are dealing with and what they want
to do to save energy.
CEOCFO: What is the competitive
scenario, and why should people be going with Seesmart?
Mr. Ames:
Number one is that we have a very large product line. Number two is that we
have been in this business for a long time, and we have a large, proven
installed base that has been using our products for as long as four years,
24 hours a day with some of the biggest companies in the world. We have a
great track record and a great breadth of product. We are educators and we
show people the difference with what they are currently using, what they can
be using, and what it means to them. We have literally hundreds if not
thousands of case studies that we have done on customers and energy savings.
We have a great portfolio of some very high-profile customers that love the
product and it works for them.
CEOCFO: Are you looking for investment,
people to join with Seesmart, or possible partnerships?
Mr. Ames:
We are always looking for opportunities that make sense.
CEOCFO: Where do you see Seesmart
Technologies in a year from now?
Mr.
Ames:
I see us completing another year of explosive growth and
continuing to build a position of leadership in the industry. We are also
working to expand our US-based manufacturing. We feel it is important to be
a leader in returning jobs to the U.S.
CEOCFO: Why should investors take a look
at Seesmart Technologies today?
Mr. Ames:
It is not only Seesmart, but I would recommend that people take a look at
anybody in the LED industry. With less than one percent acceptance of LED
technology, you are at the bottom of a hockey stick that is about to go
straight up, and if you understand anything about the lighting business,
there are thirty nine billion light sockets in the world. If you are doing
$150 million a year in the lighting industry, you are about two-tenths of 1%
of the market. The growth opportunity is enormous.. It is like everything
else, it has its challenges, but we are in a great bubble right now that is
going to last through the decade. It is not just Seesmart, there are other
companies that are doing the same thing. We are all doing the best we can to
not build anymore power plants, to cut the carbon footprint, and to do the
environment some good.
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