UserTesting Stock: Using AI for Customer Market Research

Final month, we wrote about TaskUs inventory (TASK), which affords a approach to spend money on just a little mild human slavery digital offshoring companies. However the firm depends closely on a Philippines-based workforce to energy its software-as-a–service (SaaS) mannequin. There are references to synthetic intelligence and automation applied sciences, however low-cost or crowdsourced labor isn’t precisely what we need to spend money on. We lined TaskUS on the request of considered one of our sharp-eyed readers who additionally helps help our crew of very actual human MBAs. One other reader lately tipped us off about UserTesting inventory (USER). It’s one other SaaS tech firm that additionally compresses two phrases collectively to kind its identify. However that’s the place the similarity ends.

About UserTesting Inventory

Based manner again in 2007, San Francisco-based UserTesting had raised greater than $150 million in funding earlier than it had an IPO final November and added one other $140 million. Similar to it says on the tin: UserTesting conducts consumer testing on something below the Silicon Valley solar, utilizing its Human Perception Platform. The 30,000-foot view is that the corporate makes use of video to file prospects interacting with a product, service, model, app, or no matter. It makes use of AI to not solely assist seize and course of the video but additionally analyze it at scale. Some precise human analytic brains are additionally within the combine.

Again to the fundamentals about UserTesting inventory: It hasn’t escaped the whirlpool that has sucked worth out of public corporations this yr, particularly within the tech sector. Its market cap has plummeted by almost 60%, dropping beneath $1 billion, as of early June. Usually, we keep away from investing in any firm beneath that threshold, however UserTesting has some fascinating issues happening.

First, the corporate is considerably rising revenues. In 2021, it had income of $147.4 million, up 44% from the yr earlier than at $102.2 million. Second, it derives greater than 90% of its income from yearly subscriptions, billing for its non-cancelable companies upfront. That’s very a lot in contrast to TaskUs. Third, market analysis is a giant market itself, with Statista claiming a complete addressable market of greater than $75 billion. Bonus: UserTesting went public via a standard IPO slightly than yet one more dodgy merger with a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC).

Earlier than we dive additional into the financials, let’s attempt to perceive a bit extra about what UserTesting does and the way it does what it does utilizing AI. 

What Does UserTesting Do?

Merely put, UserTesting is digitizing buyer market analysis. Its platform captures “extremely contextualized buyer views from focused audiences who’ve opted in to share their ideas” – presumably for some kind of compensation – about digital or real-world experiences or some mixture thereof. This video-based expertise permits UserTesting customers to file and analyze “human indicators” from these Customer Experience Narratives (CxNs) exterior of the verbal suggestions, together with issues like intonation and tone of voice, facial expressions, physique language, visuals, and behaviors. The corporate has certified a community of 600,000 contributors and might normally ship insights inside a day.

How Does UserTesting Use AI?

That kind of on-demand buyer market analysis suggests a reasonably excessive diploma of automation is baked into the platform. Certainly, UserTesting claims that its in depth video archive – augmented with viewers profiles, questions, and job knowledge – has enabled it to prepare dinner up a number of proprietary machine-learning fashions for viewers concentrating on and distribution, in addition to for analyzing content material and producing insights. 

Listed here are just a few methods the platform makes use of AI:

• Pure Language Processing analyzes transcribed audio to determine constructive and detrimental sentiment, determine reactions comparable to confusion, in addition to to search out questions and their solutions in a CxN.
• Audio-based fashions price the standard of a CxN utilizing quantity, tone, inflection, and different components. 
• Demographic- and behavior-based fashions preserve contributors optimally engaged.
• Different fashions can determine intent in a CxN and even “acknowledge indicators of engagement inside a CxN, together with pleasure and pleasure in addition to frustration and disengagement.”

Looks like the final AI mannequin may very well be helpful for constructing a video courting app, if this entire buyer market analysis factor doesn’t work out. And, like several good AI algorithm, the system will get higher over time. As an illustration, the platform makes use of voice knowledge to determine a contributor’s temper adjustments throughout a CxN, after which makes use of that info to coach a “clickstream algorithm” to acknowledge how these temper adjustments are mirrored in cursor actions and clicks. The insights assist enhance the platform’s capability to acknowledge conduct and regulate in an effort to interact higher with contributors. 

UserTesting Use Instances

UserTesting claims it has greater than 2,300 prospects, together with greater than half of the world’s high 100 most respected manufacturers, in accordance with Forbes. These organizations use the platform to do issues like enhance their prospects’ shopping and buying experiences; vet market alternatives and perceive product-market match; sanity examine advertising and marketing campaigns; take a look at new designs and prototypes; and simply typically perceive find out how to assist prospects attain a brand new state of shopping for bliss. 

So, how does this translate to return on investment (ROI) for a typical buyer? Take the instance of BRP (DOOO), which manufactures a line of well-known weekend boy toys like Ski-Doo watercraft and Can-Am ATVs. BRP had employed Adobe to fully redesign and construct a brand new digital framework (ie, web site, app, electronic mail) for purchasers to work together with its manufacturers, beginning with Can-Am. UserTesting offered buyer market analysis in close to real-time on what labored and didn’t utilizing a community of contributors consisting of riders, lovers, and potential Can-Am patrons. The consequence? A 30% improve in conversion charges throughout the merchandise portfolio.

How Does UserTesting Make Cash?

As we famous earlier, UserTesting makes almost all of its cash from prospects like Adobe/BRP on annually recurring revenue (ARR) subscriptions for its platform companies, which implies the corporate has a really constant approach to measure and predict its ongoing income stream. For instance, greater than 300 prospects account for no less than $100,000 ARR every – up from 190 on the finish of 2020. As well as, net-dollar retention price – the proportion of subscription revenues it retains from present prospects – has averaged 116%. Meaning present prospects are renewing and increasing their contracts yearly. It additionally added some new prospects final yr, together with British Airways, Canada Publish, DocuSign, HP, and Volvo, amongst others.

In the meantime, lower than 10% of income relies on skilled companies, comparable to analysis research, coaching companies, and technique workshops. 

Ought to You Purchase UserTesting Inventory?

To date, there’s rather a lot to love about UserTesting, starting with its ARR enterprise mannequin. The reliability is obvious within the firm’s 2022 steerage of income between $197 billion and $201 billion. That’s a reasonably tight projection. In Q1-2022, the corporate continued its present trajectory with whole income of almost $46 million, a rise of 47% in comparison with final yr. Subscription income accounted for almost 95% of all income at $43.2 million.

We additionally like that UserTesting boasted a gross revenue of about 75% final yr. We’ve been utilizing gross revenue as a approach to measure tech corporations within the present bear market, slightly than simply income progress. It merely implies that UserTesting solely spends about 25% of its income on bills instantly associated to the services and products they promote. That implies that the software program is doing a variety of the heavy lifting, as you’ll anticipate from an organization primarily based on a SaaS enterprise mannequin. When it comes to its subscription enterprise, there are three most important bills: paying its contributor community, working its platform, and paying its staff who instantly help the enterprise. 

Now, that doesn’t imply UserTesting is worthwhile. In actual fact, the corporate misplaced greater than $50 million final yr. It does inform us that the core enterprise is sustainable, however different prices like gross sales and advertising and marketing have almost tripled whereas R&D has doubled. Over time, a mature, well-run firm will be capable to trim the fats (administrative prices additionally doubled) and switch a revenue. Within the meantime, develop and develop quick.

One other plus: No single buyer accounted for greater than 10% of whole income over no less than the final couple of years. One draw back: Greater than 80% of income is concentrated in the USA, although the corporate is making an attempt to broaden abroad, with outposts in Scotland and Singapore. 

Conclusion

We like UserTesting, nevertheless it’s nearly too small to discover a place in our portfolio and the worth proposition appears to lack sturdiness. Does the corporate create sufficient financial worth for his or her prospects that the providing shall be resilient throughout instances of economics turmoil? Like many tech corporations, UserTesting inventory is buying and selling fairly cheaply primarily based on a easy valuation ratio (present market cap/annualized income primarily based on the latest quarter) of lower than 5. Something over 40 is usually too wealthy for our blood. 

But when we have an interest on this theme of digitized buyer market analysis – and, frankly, that in itself is up for debate – is UserTesting one of the best in present? Amongst its opponents is a giant knowledge startup referred to as Qualtrics (XM) that we lined years in the past after they have been nonetheless a startup. Right now, the publicly traded agency has a market cap of about $8.5 billion on $1 billion in income. It appears to play in an identical sandbox as UserTesting, however with a platform that extends past buyer experiences to staff and extra. However as our final date will inform you, greater doesn’t all the time imply higher. We’ll comply with up with a deep dive on Qualtrics within the close to future.

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