During the next few months I plan to research VG for the purpose of determining when or if to make a longterm personal investment. I will share what I learn.
My Background: Telecommunications hardware design engineer for Nortel, Cisco and NEC circa late 80s and early 90s. Leading strategy consultant partner and key member of tech/telecom, financial services and private equity practices for ten years. Last 4 years independent private investor.
Biases: Investments are primarily MBO funds and direct venture capital. Public company investments are pre-profit, value oriented, long only, usually with leverage and focused. Love companies that are out of favor with the "market" (examples are RIM post its IPO and Continental after 9/11). I Have little interest in "analysts" other than to gain basic knowledge, non-factbased opinions, or repetition of readily-available public information.
Conflicts: I am a limited partner of Bain Capital which holds 2,943,196 shares of VG. Three accounts I directly manage for my children have collectively about 1,500 shares of VG.
Please post to any or all of the following questions.
Which financial analysts have the best research on industry and VG?
What market research houses have the best information on VOIP industry?
Which legal or patent consulting firms have the best insight into current VG situation?
Can anyone come across data on the root cause of VG customer defections (ideally over time)?
Is there existing analysis of VG customer acquisition cost (especially fixed and variable components)?
Is there data on the cost of acquiring customers internally (sales and marketing) versus acquiring customers though the buyout of a competitor?
Where can I find data on churn rates and ideally propensity of VG customers to recommend the service (net promoter score)?
Can anyone come across data on the root cause of VG customer defections (ideally over time)?
The following is based on my personal assessment:
The data travels through the same wires as the web which is inherently unreliable, unpredictable, etc.
Hence every customers may experience different symptoms depending on their particular setup. Drop calls seem fairly common.
Vonage piggy backs on ISPs so a down (or crummy) ISP means a down telephone as well. ISPs and Vonage blame each other leaving the customer stranded without any recourse.
Variations in the customer install base hardware devices is a nightmare for tech support. This gets worse whenever Vonage releases a "new and better" router.
No 1 reason for defection: reliability, poor tech support.
During the next few months I plan to research VG for the purpose of determining when or if to make a longterm personal investment. I will share what I learn.
My Background: Telecommunications hardware design engineer for Nortel, Cisco and NEC circa late 80s and early 90s. Leading strategy consultant partner and key member of tech/telecom, financial services and private equity practices for ten years. Last 4 years independent private investor.
Biases: Investments are primarily MBO funds and direct venture capital. Public company investments are pre-profit, value oriented, long only, usually with leverage and focused. Love companies that are out of favor with the "market" (examples are RIM post its IPO and Continental after 9/11). I Have little interest in "analysts" other than to gain basic knowledge, non-factbased opinions, or repetition of readily-available public information.
Conflicts: I am a limited partner of Bain Capital which holds 2,943,196 shares of VG. Three accounts I directly manage for my children have collectively about 1,500 shares of VG.
Please post to any or all of the following questions.
Which financial analysts have the best research on industry and VG?
What market research houses have the best information on VOIP industry?
Which legal or patent consulting firms have the best insight into current VG situation?
Can anyone come across data on the root cause of VG customer defections (ideally over time)?
Is there existing analysis of VG customer acquisition cost (especially fixed and variable components)?
Is there data on the cost of acquiring customers internally (sales and marketing) versus acquiring customers though the buyout of a competitor?
Where can I find data on churn rates and ideally propensity of VG customers to recommend the service (net promoter score)?
Thank you.
Hang on... you claim to be a limited partner of Bain Capital, yet you're posting on a public message board to gather investment research? This smells more than a little fishy to me, especially since the answer to at least two of your questions could be found by looking through Vonage's earnings reports (http://ir.vonage.com/results.cfm).
preqtecfin wrote:
During the next few months I plan to research VG for the purpose of determining when or if to make a longterm personal investment. I will share what I learn.
My Background: Telecommunications hardware design engineer for Nortel, Cisco and NEC circa late 80s and early 90s. Leading strategy consultant partner and key member of tech/telecom, financial services and private equity practices for ten years. Last 4 years independent private investor.
Biases: Investments are primarily MBO funds and direct venture capital. Public company investments are pre-profit, value oriented, long only, usually with leverage and focused. Love companies that are out of favor with the "market" (examples are RIM post its IPO and Continental after 9/11). I Have little interest in "analysts" other than to gain basic knowledge, non-factbased opinions, or repetition of readily-available public information.
Conflicts: I am a limited partner of Bain Capital which holds 2,943,196 shares of VG. Three accounts I directly manage for my children have collectively about 1,500 shares of VG.
Please post to any or all of the following questions.
Which financial analysts have the best research on industry and VG?
What market research houses have the best information on VOIP industry?
Which legal or patent consulting firms have the best insight into current VG situation?
Can anyone come across data on the root cause of VG customer defections (ideally over time)?
Is there existing analysis of VG customer acquisition cost (especially fixed and variable components)?
Is there data on the cost of acquiring customers internally (sales and marketing) versus acquiring customers though the buyout of a competitor?
Where can I find data on churn rates and ideally propensity of VG customers to recommend the service (net promoter score)?
Thank you.
Hang on... you claim to be a limited partner of Bain Capital, yet you're posting on a public message board to gather investment research? This smells more than a little fishy to me, especially since the answer to at least two of your questions could be found by looking through Vonage's earnings reports (http://ir.vonage.com/results.cfm).
I was thinking the exact same thing and then I re-read his message. He's "LIMITED" PARTNER. That means he holds shares in the partnership. That does not mean he actively works for or with Bain. He's just an investor in the partnership. Limited partner shares are usually sold in blocks of $10K.
Sounds like someone who's just trying to pump up their resume to have some real credibility.
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