MarkeAlpha vs. Tegus

Tegus is very well suited for equity analysts (buy or sell-side) that are looking to get a better understanding of the business fundamentals for a company under coverage. I am a generalist, so I have a good understanding of what the financials of a company. Using my analysis, I can form a general investment thesis. However, being a generalist, I generally lack a good understanding of the nuances of a given company/industry. Therefore, I have used Tegus to locate experts to help me identify where the financial analysis may be different at a given company because of a specific nuance to the company and/or industry in which it operates. Tegus is less appropriate as the foundation for an investment thesis. While speaking to experts is good, all candidates are generally biased in some way. For example, current employees generally don't bad mouth their own company, while employees of peer companies are more willing. Therefore, I do not feel that Tegus experts are good to base an investment thesis off of, but more to provide additional color to what I am seeing in the financials of a company.

Incentivized

• Tegus provides access to a number of high-quality industry experts. I have done a number of expert calls in various industries and from various areas within similar industries and I feel that they have been able to locate experts that are knowledgeable in the relevant area that I am looking into.
• Tegus has a large library of expert transcripts to choose from. The library of transcripts is really useful, as it can save a lot of time when trying to learn about a given company and/or industry. The library prevents me from having to schedule as many expert calls, so this ultimately saves me a lot of time. Also, I feel the library is not weighted to one particular area (i.e., tech) but is very evenly split.
• Tegus is very efficient when finding candidates to interview. When locating particular candidates, Tegus will allow me to send them screening questions which helps to gauge how relevant and expert's knowledge is to my search. Also, Tegus will send me old transcripts of the potential experts which helps me to identify their bias or level of expertise beforehand. This is a time-saver as it helps to screen out candidates who may not be as helpful to my search.

Incentivized

• Tegus could aggregate the transcripts a little differently where users can search by industry and/or sub-industry. Currently, searches are only done by company. However, if I am new to an industry, I may not know other companies in the industry. By allowing me to search by industry/sub-industry, I could identify those companies and read expert transcripts that could ultimately relate to the company that I am researching,
• Tegus could provide a regular e-mail (i.e. daily or weekly) that would alert me to new transcripts either by company or by industry. This could help me stay on top of the companies that I follow without having to go to the website each time. Main benefit to user is having a deeper understanding of the companies I am researching as well as time saved from having to go back to the website.
• Tegus could make sure candidate responses to screening questions are a little more detailed. Screening questions are nice in general, as they help identify a potential candidates fit with the user's search. However, some candidates do not provide a lot of information to the screening questions. Thus, Tegus could encourage candidates to have to provide a certain number of sentences to screening questions to help the user get a better understanding of the candidates knowledge.

Incentivized

I have used competing expert network firms like GLG, Guidepoint and Silverlight. GLG has a very good network of experts, which may be on par or better than Tegus. However, GLG did not have a transcript library to search through and they were very expensive. The lack of a transcript library is a big deal to me, as it results in having to schedule multiple calls, which takes up a lot of time. Guidepoint was slightly lower cost and had a good candidate pool. From memory, the pool of candidates was not as good as GLG, but good enough for how I used the service. Similarly, though, there was not a library of expert transcripts. Silverlight is the Ryanair/Spirit Airlines/Greyhound of expert networks...they will get you expert calls but the whole process is terrible. Pool of candidates is not good. They will nickel and dime you to no end. Website is difficult to use. Not worth using at all!

Incentivized

• Tegus ultimately has helped me increase my hit rate on ideas that I have published on. By helping me get a better understanding of a Company's fundamentals or relevant industry fundamentals, Tegus helps me make better investment decisions.
• Tegus has increased the number of investment ideas that I generate. Given my main responsibility is to generate investment ideas, I am focused on making my research process as efficient as possible. In so doing, Tegus has increased the efficiency of my process by making the expert transcript library available. This is a key reason that I use Tegus.
• Tegus has helped me to broaden my knowledge base more efficiently. By having transcripts where a subject company is mentioned but not the main focus of the interview, I learn how my subject company will impact other industries or where the company is also relevant. This helps to broaden my knowledge base outside of the standard focus for a given company.

Incentivized