The Telescope Investing Podcast

At the start of December, we began the research for the 2022 Telescope Investing model portfolio. Our apologies to long-term listeners of the show, but we're afraid to say that this will not be launching. As we enter 2022, we have something rather important to announce. Last year, we had the pleasure of having Simon Erickson, Founder and CEO of 7investing, join us on the podcast. We have both been paid members of 7investing since early 2021, and we quickly noticed the similarities in Simon's approach of investing in disruptive innovation and our own approach of investing in megatrends. It's one of our best episodes, and we recommend a listen if you haven't already caught the conversation. Well, the exciting news is that Luke has joined 7investing as a lead advisor! He will continue his investing journey with the fantastic team of investment analysts led by Simon Erickson. Along with each of the other lead advisors, Luke will present his best stock idea each month, along with deep-dive team discussions, advisor updates, and more. 7investing is a paid subscription service so you'll have to join to hear Luke's stock recommendations, but you'll be able to listen to him for free on the 7investing podcast from time to time - he loves the sound of his own voice too much to stay off the airwaves! We hope you'll all check out the 7investing service, and consider following Luke there. Telescope Investing listeners can currently get the first month for free by using the coupon code 'Telescope' - you can subscribe here! Albert will, of course, continue to invest. He's going to take a step back from the stock market analysis required to produce a weekly investing podcast and will focus on his other lifelong passion of food and nutrition. Having recently earned a degree in the field, he's looking forward to applying his knowledge in the business world! We would both like to thank all of our listeners and subscribers - we certainly wouldn't have made it as far as 72 episodes without you. We're truly honored that you took the time to listen to us ramble on each week, and we hope at least some of it was useful! The Telescope Investing website and past episodes of the podcasts will remain available online, and there may be the occasional future post. However, for now, Telescope Investing will mostly be on hold, at least until Luke retires again! You can catch our final conversation in episode #72, and to quote one of our favorite authors, "So long, and thanks for all the fish!" ----- If you enjoyed this episode, you can read more at https://telescopeinvesting.com Or you can contact the hosts: 7LukeHallard AlbertTelescope

The time has come for the year-end review of our model portfolio, a collection of 15 stocks that we selected in January as our core investments for 2021. The last quarter of the year has been a torrid time for growth stocks and our model portfolio. As growth investors, you get somewhat accustomed to volatility but this year has been especially turbulent as investor sentiment swung back and forth due to a series of world events. This was the year to be an index investor as the S&P steadily climbed and ended the year up almost 30%. At the end of Q3, only 8 of the 15 stocks were showing positive returns but as we near the end of the final quarter, only 4 are showing positive returns and the portfolio as a whole is showing a negative return. While the model portfolio has underperformed in its year of inception, as long-term investors, we are prepared to give it time as the investment thesis for most of the stocks remains intact. In today's episode, we look at each of the stocks and discuss some of the key stories. The following companies are mentioned in this episode: SHOP MELI SE SQ GH EDIT ISRG TDOC CRWD NET TWLO FVRR DIS MGNI DOCU ----- If you enjoyed this episode, please consider subscribing at https://telescopeinvesting.com/subscribe/ Or you can contact the hosts: LukeTelescope AlbertTelescope

Happy holiday wishes to all of our listeners and subscribers! This week, we're kicking back from the serious stock analysis and just having a bit of Christmas fun as we look back at some of the highs and lows of 2021. We reflect on our favourite moments on the pod, some of the smartest (and daftest!) things we've said, and chat about our favourite episodes and guest interviews. We also hazard making a couple of wild predictions for 2022! It's been a great year for Telescope Investing, in no small part due to the listener support and questions we've had along the way. Thanks so much for being part of the journey!! Companies mentioned in the discussion include APPL, AFRM, CURI, KHOFT, TWTR. ----- If you enjoy this episode, please consider subscribing at https://telescopeinvesting.com/subscribe and following the hosts: @LukeTelescope @AlbertTelescope

This week we're taking a look at Airbnb, a well-known travel company that's strongly positioned to benefit from the potential surge in international travel as the pandemic begins to ease and the world reopens. Companies mentioned in the discussion include ABNB, BKNG, EXPE, MAR, HLT. ----- If you enjoy this episode, please consider subscribing at https://telescopeinvesting.com/subscribe and following the hosts: @LukeTelescope @AlbertTelescope

This week we give consideration to the structure of our model portfolio for next year. These are the companies we believe will achieve market-beating returns in 2022 and beyond. In this portfolio structure episode, we consider the megatrends that are likely to shape the world around us for the years ahead and decide what proportion of the portfolio to devote to each of them. We're on track for a woeful performance in 2021, along with the recent declines in all growth stocks, but we remain confident that in the long-term, the high-quality growth stocks in our model portfolio, and also in our own real-money investment portfolios, will prevail. Post recording note that we completely forgot to discuss renewable energy on the pod! This megatrend is getting one extra slot, for a total of fifteen. Companies mentioned in the discussion include AMZN, BYND, DIS, DOCU, EDIT, FB, FVRR, GOOG, ISRG, MELI, MGNI, MTTR, NVDA, SE, SHOP, SQ, TDOC, TSLA, TTD, U. ----- If you enjoy this episode, please consider subscribing at https://telescopeinvesting.com/subscribe and following the hosts: @LukeTelescope @AlbertTelescope

Disney, a powerhouse in the entertainment industry, is known the world over. However, the coronavirus pandemic over the last two years has proven to be a difficult time for the company, with most theme parks and cruise lines shut down or running at reduced capacity, and theatrical releases hobbled by national lockdowns. The reduction in live sports has also impacted Disney's ESPN service. The silver lining has been the success of their Disney+ streaming service, driven by the increased demand for home entertainment. The value of Disney's IP is unmatched in its breadth and depth. As well as its own stable of beloved characters, the acquisitions of Pixar, Marvel, Lucasfilm, and 21st Century Fox have brought even more lucrative franchises under its wing. Disney is able to leverage this IP across all its businesses: theme parks, theatrical releases, home entertainment, toys, and consumer products; each building on each other to satisfy their legions of fans. However, competitors are not standing still and are spending heavily to both create and acquire their own franchises. Companies mentioned in the discussion include DIS, AMZN, NFLX, CMCSA, NTDOY ----- If you enjoy this episode, please consider subscribing at https://telescopeinvesting.com/subscribe and following the hosts: @LukeTelescope @AlbertTelescope

This week we had the pleasure of connecting with healthtech expert investor Richard Chu (@richard_chu97). Richard shares his thoughts on the healthtech sector, his key investments in this area including GoodRx, Doximity, and OptimizeRx, and also how he saw the writing on the wall for Teladoc Health and exited early, avoiding the share price slump that has hurt our own returns this year! You can read more about Richard at his substack (https://richardchu97.substack.com/), and through Luca Capital (https://www.lucacap.com/), parent company of Saga Partners where Richard is a lead research analyst. Companies mentioned in the discussion include TDOC, GDRX, DOCS, OPRX, ZM, AAPL. ----- If you enjoy this episode, please consider subscribing at https://telescopeinvesting.com/subscribe/ and following the hosts: @LukeTelescope @AlbertTelescope

In the pod this week, we field some of the fantastic questions we've received recently from our listeners. We give our take on panic selling, investing during high inflation, using leverage, choosing between investment options and having diversification within your investment portfolio. And one of us takes the next step in their investing journey! Even God Couldn't Beat Dollar-Cost Averaging by Nick Magguilli ----- If you enjoyed this episode, please consider subscribing at https://telescopeinvesting.com/subscribe/ Or you can contact the hosts: LukeTelescope AlbertTelescope

Marqeta's mission is to be the global standard for modern card issuing. They enable other companies to develop, launch and operate card products, by providing the underlying technology that powers many of the new innovations in the payment space, including digital payments, buy-now-pay-later (BNPL), digital wallets, and just-in-time (JIT) funding (automatically funding an account in real-time during the transaction process). Their platform gives their customers full control to build a card that's right for them and their end-users, allowing them to offer card products in a fraction of the time compared to legacy solutions. Marqeta was the first company to create an open API for issuing physical prepaid, debit and credit cards as well as digital cards, but competition is on the horizon from larger players such as Stripe and Adyen. Global money movement is estimated to total $74 trillion in 2021 consisting of 4 trillion individual payment transactions. In 2020, Marqeta processed $60B, 70% of revenues, creating significant customer concentration risk. This relationship will be up for renewal in 2024. The company are on track to achieving a total processing volume of over $100B this year, representing a CAGR of >250% over six years. Higher net losses of $69M in 2021 were driven by share-based compensation resulting from the IPO and are non-recurring. The company has $1.5B cash and very low debt, and will be able to sustain the business for many years while revenues grow. Companies mentioned in the discussion include Marqeta, Square, DoorDash, PayPal, Stripe, MasterCard, Visa, Google. ----- If you enjoyed this episode, please consider subscribing at https://telescopeinvesting.com/subscribe/ Or you can contact the hosts: LukeTelescope AlbertTelescope

On this week's pod, we deep dive Digital Turbine, a mobile ad-tech innovator specialising in targeted app installation and programmatic advertising to mobile devices. Digital Turbine invented the market for app installation and have a patent on 'single-tap' app installation to Android devices, but the business model is controversial, and the company have been accused of pushing 'bloatware'. Revenues are multiplying at triple-digit rates year over year as the company rides the wave of the 5G rollout cycle and continually increasing usage of mobile devices, but do they have what it takes to be an ad-tech winner in the long-term? Albert and Luke arrive at different conclusions by the end of this in-depth discussion. Companies mentioned in the discussion include Magnite, The Trade Desk, Integral Ad Science, and DoubleVerify. ----- If you enjoyed this episode, please consider subscribing at https://telescopeinvesting.com/subscribe/ Or you can contact the hosts: LukeTelescope AlbertTelescope

It's not something that's usually covered in quarterly earnings reports, but company culture can have a big impact on employees, customers, business performance, and the company's stock price. This week on the pod, we're joined by Renee Conklin, founder of RCHR Consulting, to talk about company culture - how to assess it, its impacts on business results, and what companies can do to attract and retain talent. Also, we chat about famous CEOs, the Great Resignation and driving tractors! Websites such as Glassdoor can give prospective employees and investors a view on the workplace culture but there are issues over the validity of the reviews and potential manipulation of ratings. Glassdoor is a starting point, but the information should be checked against other review sites and information sources. Workplace culture can have a significant impact on the stock performance of a company. The stock performance of the Fortune 100 best companies to work (Aug 2021) outperformed the broader index of the Russell 3000 by 16.5% in 2020 and had a cumulative return of 1,709% since 1998 compared to 526% for the index. Following the upheaval of the pandemic, we are in the midst of the Great Resignation, where employees are quitting in record numbers. It's currently a workers' market and there are many different reasons contributing to this trend. Renee Conklin is the founder of RCHR Consulting based in Hong Kong, which works with small-to-medium businesses to optimise their HR practices, and also with individuals to help them achieve their career goals. Renee can also be found on LinkedIn. Companies mentioned in the discussion include Netflix. ----- If you enjoyed this episode, please consider subscribing at https://telescopeinvesting.com/subscribe/ Or you can contact the hosts: LukeTelescope AlbertTelescope

This week we were delighted to connect with Simon Erickson, founder and CEO of 7investing, to chat about a topic that underpins both the 7investing and Telescope Investing strategy - investing in disruptive innovation. Simon shares his thoughts on finding and evaluating disruptive companies, why larger companies find disruptive innovation difficult, playing offence and defence in your portfolio, plus we chat about hype vs fundamentals, craft beer, and being neighbours with Morgan Housel! If you're a growth investor, this episode is pure gold - highly recommended listening for all Telescope subscribers! The following companies are mentioned in this episode: TSLA GH U DDD SSYS ----- If you enjoyed this episode, please consider subscribing at https://telescopeinvesting.com/subscribe/ Or you can contact the hosts: LukeTelescope AlbertTelescope

At Telescope Investing we focus on publicly-listed stocks, but investing in private companies is another option for investors seeking higher returns, and this is becoming increasingly accessible to retail investors through crowdfunding services. On this week's pod, we're joined by award-winning entrepreneur and founder Prantik Mazumdar, to get his insights on private equity and venture capital investing. Prantik brings his extensive experience working with local enterprises in Singapore and as a business owner to the world of angel investing and venture capital. In a wide-ranging discussion, we talk about the key trends in the SE Asian startup scene, the qualities he looks for in private equity investments, and the personal and financial rewards of investing in sustainability. For companies at such an early stage of their life, there is a heightened emphasis on leadership. One of the key principles is founder-problem fit - the key question of whether founders are not just good founders, but have suitable skills and experience for the problem they are trying address? What are the dynamics within the founding team, do they have complementary skills and aligned values? Does the underlying equity structure give all the partners the right incentives, and are they able to attract key personnel to achieve their vision for the company? How large is the problem set the company is trying to solve and what is the total addressable space they are targeting? Is there a strong product-market fit to drive revenue and customer growth? Do they fulfil the "3Rs" to scale quickly - the ability to Raise capital, Race for growth and Remove competition? Less than 10% of private companies have a good exit, and it is important to understand the risks and diversify your investments accordingly. Give yourself time to understand the businesses and to build conviction. With climate change becoming an increasing focus for many governments, investing in sustainability can be a force for good and a force for growth as new companies emerge in areas such as ed-tech, alternative meat and clean energy. These nascent industries are not just good for the planet but may offer high investment returns and are seeing huge interest from venture capital. Some of the companies mentioned in the discussion are Byju's, Float Foods, Eat Just, Stripe, UiPath, Apeel, and of course SpaceX. ----- If you enjoyed this episode, please consider subscribing at https://telescopeinvesting.com/subscribe/ Or you can contact the hosts: LukeTelescope AlbertTelescope

It's time for the Q3 review of our model portfolio, a collection of 15 stocks that we selected in January as our core investments for 2021. Following a nice recovery in Q2, the model portfolio was steadily making gains during the third quarter, but on the 22nd Sep the market started trending downwards and growth stocks were hit harder than the general market, and the model portfolio lost 15.1% in value by the end of the quarter while the S&P lost only 6.1%. Only eight out of the 15 stocks are showing positive returns from the inception of the portfolio in Jan, with just six of those beating the S&P. However in most cases, this underperformance is not a result of the company failing to execute, and was driven by macro-economic factors impacting the value of future cash flows, which growth stocks are far more dependent on than more mature companies. In today's episode, we dig into some of the key stories and updates for each stock in the portfolio. The following companies are mentioned in this episode: CRWD CURI DIS DOCU EDIT FVRR FUBO GH IAS ISRG MELI MGNI MTTR NET NNOX ROKU SE SHOP SQ TDOC TWLO UPWK ----- If you enjoyed this episode, please consider subscribing at https://telescopeinvesting.com/subscribe/ Or you can contact the hosts: LukeTelescope AlbertTelescope

The Telescope Investing strategy is to ‘buy & hold' - we seek to buy good companies and hold them for the long-term - but that doesn't mean we never sell. This week on the pod we revisit our thoughts on when it might be the right time to sell a stock. You might want to sell for a personal reason: You need to raise cash It's become too big a position in your portfolio The company's mission no longer aligns with your personal values You've found a better investment opportunity You're no longer interested in tracking the company Or there might simply be a fundamental reason why a company is no longer right for your portfolio: Broken investment thesis or worsening financials Increasing competition or commoditisation of the product Change in the business model Fraud! Mis-management We also consider this framework for our own portfolios and do a shallow-dive on Beyond Meat (BYND), a plant-based meat producer that we're both considering exiting, to see whether it's time to moo've our money to another stock. The following companies are mentioned in this episode: BYND ----- If you enjoyed this episode, please consider subscribing at https://telescopeinvesting.com/subscribe/ Or you can contact the hosts: LukeTelescope AlbertTelescope

We focus on stock investing at Telescope Investing, and a big part of that is psychology - having the right investing mindset and managing your emotions, as the markets, as they tend to do, take unexpected turns. Personal finance is as much personal as it is financial, and how we feel about money is influenced by the experiences we've lived and the stories we tell ourselves. These stories can have both positive and negative impacts on our financial decisions, but we can rewrite those stories and change our attitudes towards wealth. In this week's pod, we talk to Ronald Wong about the importance of financial wellbeing and how our true net worth is more than our bank balances. Ronald is an executive coach and founder of theLibrary&, based in Hong Kong. He works with executives on being better leaders, navigating change, and developing their teams. He is especially interested in mindset, decision-making, teams and systems and the ‘dark arts' of behavioural finance and investing. He draws inspiration from his family, yoga, architecture, and design, and in the Stoic principles of leading a purposeful life. ----- If you enjoyed this episode, please consider subscribing at https://telescopeinvesting.com/subscribe/ Or you can contact the hosts: LukeTelescope AlbertTelescope

In this week's pod, we dip into the mailbag to answer some listener questions on high valuation companies and diversification across asset classes. We also goggle at the madness of NFTs, and talk about when it's the right vs wrong time to sell. The following companies are mentioned in this episode: TSLA, SFIX, BYND, NLFX, SHOP ----- If you enjoyed this episode, please consider subscribing at https://telescopeinvesting.com/subscribe/ Or you can contact the hosts: LukeTelescope AlbertTelescope

Matterport ($MTTR) is the world's leading spatial data company specializing in digitizing physical spaces. They make it easy to create digital models of the real world and to share those spaces anywhere. Virtual tours of homes are common on sites such as Zillow and Airbnb, but Matterport are also seeing increased take-up for use cases such as remote insurance assessments, warehouse and factory monitoring and optimization, virtual tourism, and construction Founded in 2011, and SPAC'd in July 2021, currently trades at a market cap of $4.3B. Has over $600M cash. Not currently profitable and made a loss of $11.6M in 2020 52% of $29M Q2 revenues were from subscriptions - a SaaS-like high-margin business that is the main growth driver The company estimates a TAM of $240B. The justification for this is flimsy, but there is significant optionality, with many yet to be identified use cases as the ‘metaverse' becomes more established. If Matterport become the standard for spatial data capture, this estimate may in fact prove to be conservative Working with over 50 platform partners to build solutions on top of Matterport spatial data, expanding their use cases beyond real estate into automation, construction, retail and other industries The following companies are mentioned in this episode: MTTR, ZG, ABNB, FB ----- If you enjoyed this episode, please consider subscribing at https://telescopeinvesting.com/subscribe/ Or you can contact the hosts: LukeTelescope AlbertTelescope

Unless you've needed surgery in the past few years, Intuitive Surgical may not be a familiar name, but they're the global leader in robotic surgery, and a pioneer in the field since 1995. Robotic surgery has been steadily improving over the last two decades and is becoming the gold standard for some types of surgeries. Adu Subramanian recently published a thorough deep dive into Intuitive Surgical on his substack, covering its history, business, and competitive advantages. This week, we sit down with Adu to talk about his extensive research in this exciting growth area and what he thinks is in store for Intuitive and the robotic surgery space. The following companies are mentioned in this episode: ISRG, ABNB, SYK. ----- If you enjoyed this episode you can subscribe to Telescope Investing at https://telescopeinvesting.com/subscribe/ Or you can contact the hosts at LukeTelescope AlbertTelescope

Cloud communications, also known as Communications Platform as a Service (or CPaaS) allows businesses to communicate with their customers using channels such as voice, email, SMS, and instant messaging. This week we sit down with industry expert, Paul Ruppert, to discuss his insights on this complex market, and hear a few anecdotes from his 20-year career in C-level roles with leading global CPaaS providers including Syniverse, mBlox (Sinch), Infobip, SAP, and Route Mobile. We also discuss Twilio's recent acquisitions of Segment and Zipwhip, and how these are helping Twilio build out its impressive omnichannel communications capability. If you're a leader of an innovative technology company looking for insight on expanding internationally or looking to move to the next level by scaling up, Paul is available for a no-obligation conversation at pruppert@gpvltd.com or via www.globalpointview.com. ----- If you enjoyed this episode you can subscribe to Telescope Investing at https://telescopeinvesting.com/subscribe/ Or you can contact the hosts at LukeTelescope AlbertTelescope

We started the Telescope Investing podcast exactly one year ago with no expectations, and along the way, we've connected with some awesome people and learnt a lot. This week, we're joined by a few friends who have been with us on our podcasting journey, to celebrate our first year of the pod. Don't expect much on investing wisdom, just fun and laughs as we kick back and talk about ourselves and our reflections on a year of doing the pod. And competitive as always, we face-off in a quiz at the end to see which of us really knows more about stocks! A free dinner is on the line so the steaks are not high, more medium. We'd like to thank Duniya, Ramesh and Matt for taking the time to join us, and for all support they have given us over the past year. And a big thanks to our growing base of subscribers too. Here's to many more years of looking through the Telescope! ----- If you enjoyed this episode, please consider subscribing at https://telescopeinvesting.com/subscribe/ Or you can contact the hosts: LukeTelescope AlbertTelescope

The use of digital payments is expanding across the globe, but the transition to a digital financial system is still in its early stages. Fintech companies are receiving heavy investment, as agile companies find new ways to innovate in the payment space. In this week's pod, we're delighted to be joined by Jonathan Rowland, founder and executive chairman of Mode, to give us an inside view on the rise of digital wallets, and the convergence of Open Banking and cryptocurrency in retail. Jonathan shares his expert insight on recent developments such as buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) following Square's high-profile acquisition of Afterpay. We also get side-tracked onto the future of remote work! Mode is a fintech and digital payments company, combining the best of payments, investment, loyalty, and digital assets. Mode is headquartered in the UK, and listed on the LSE and US OTCQB market. The following companies are mentioned in this episode: MODE, SQ. ----- If you enjoyed this episode, please consider subscribing at https://telescopeinvesting.com/subscribe/ Or you can contact the hosts: LukeTelescope AlbertTelescope

Back in episode #12 of the podcast, we talked about investing for your children. At some point, your children will leave the nest and take control of their own finances, and we believe that financial education early in life is a big advantage in navigating the world of money and investing! This week on the podcast, we're joined by our good friend, Duniya, to talk about how parents can prepare their children to manage their finances responsibly and successfully. Brian Feroldi slide deck: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1YV3mou5FQDkfBgtu3eACMtSye3xadrtDlu_URBTA2JA/edit?usp=sharing https://www.moneyhelper.org.uk/en/family-and-care/talk-money/how-to-talk-to-your-children-about-money https://www.gohenry.com/uk/ ----- If you enjoyed this episode, please consider subscribing at https://telescopeinvesting.com/subscribe/ Or you can contact the hosts: LukeTelescope AlbertTelescope

This week, we deep dive another stock in our 2021 model portfolio, CrowdStrike. It seems that hacking is constantly in the news with disturbing reports of spyware infiltrating our devices and ransomware attacks against government agencies, corporations, and public services. CrowdStrike aims to protect these systems from hackers with an advanced cybersecurity platform powered by artificial intelligence and modern security foundations. According to Gartner, the worldwide cybersecurity market is predicted to reach $150B this year. While this is a huge market, it is dwarfed by the estimated $6T of economic damage to be caused by cybercrime in 2021, and this figure is expected to grow 15% per year to reach $10.5T by 2025. CrowdStrike is a leading provider of endpoint security. Endpoints include personal computers, servers, mobiles, tablets and IoT devices, all potentially vulnerable to hackers attempting to access corporate and government systems. There were an estimated 31B connected devices in 2020 and this is expected to grow to 75B by 2025. CrowdStrike was founded in 2011 by former McAfee executives, George Kurtz and Dimitri Alperovitch. Its Falcon cybersecurity platform is cloud-native, designed and built for the cloud to provide modern endpoint protection and threat intelligence. This SaaS business model allows them to scale quickly and cost-effectively with near-limitless capacity. The power of CrowdStrike's platform comes from their 'Threat Graph' breach prevention engine. It collects data from the entire CrowdStrike customer base and uses artificial intelligence, behavioural analytics, and human experts to predict where the next major threat will appear. It has, in effect, crowdsourced threat detection and prevention with a powerful network effect where each additional customer makes the platform stronger for all customers. CrowdStrike's services are packaged into modules and customers can just pay for the modules they require to get started, adding others as their businesses grow and their requirements increase. This 'land and expand' growth strategy has resulted in a DBNER of over 120% for several years running. The number of customers using 4 or more modules has grown from 27% in FY2018 to 61% in FY2021. As of 30 Apr 2021, they have 11,420 subscription customers, a YoY increase of 83%. CrowdStrike have partnered with Amazon Web Services (AWS), IBM, Google Cloud, and many players in the cybersecurity space. CrowdStrike is the recommended endpoint protection for AWS which has been instrumental in the adoption of CrowdStrike by small to midsize businesses. Cybersecurity is an inherently risky business, and breaches can damage a company's reputation and customer perception. As a sign of confidence in their platform and capabilities, CrowdStrike offers a warranty with their Falcon Complete subscription level to cover $1M of incident response expenses for breaches suffered by a customer under their watch. The company has been growing quickly for a number of years with a total revenue CAGR from FY2017 to FY2021 of 102%. Growth rates are slowing as the company gains market share but remains high, with a 70% YoY increase reported in the latest quarter. The gross margin has been improving quickly, rising from 57% in FY2018 to 77% in the latest quarter. With a market cap of $60B and a P/S ratio of just under 60, the company has a valuation to reflect its high rate of growth. The following companies are mentioned in this episode: CRWD, ZS, MSFT, AMZN, S ----- If you enjoyed this episode, please consider subscribing at https://telescopeinvesting.com/subscribe/ Or you can contact the hosts: LukeTelescope AlbertTelescope

Bad advice is all around us, financial or otherwise, and it is sometimes difficult to separate the good advice from the bad. We asked our listeners about the bad financial advice they've heard or seen, and in the pod this week, we discuss some of the doozies we received. Some anecdotes are relatively trivial, but some are more serious with potentially ruinous consequences. We look at them from both sides and see if there is anything we can learn from them. We also have a couple of gambling stories because that's just fun! ----- If you enjoyed this episode, please consider subscribing at https://telescopeinvesting.com/subscribe/ Or you can contact the hosts: LukeTelescope AlbertTelescope

An early pioneer in advertising, John Wanamaker once said, “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is, I don't know which half.” In today's world of digital and programmatic advertising, content is created at a rapid and growing pace, driven in large part by the exponential growth of social media and video, adding new dimensions to trust in the marketing world. Advertisers are increasingly focused on brand reputation and they want to ensure that their ads appear in contexts that match their values, and also that they're seen by eyeballs and not algorithms! On this week's pod, we deep-dive another potential hypergrowth stock, Integral Ad Science (IAS), one of the emerging leaders in ad viewability, ad fraud, and ad safety and suitability. Founded in 2009 and IPO'd on 30 June 2021 at a valuation of $3.3B. Insider ownership is low at 1%, and a 70% controlling interest is still held post IPO by Vista Equity Partners, a US private equity investment firm who have other investments in the ad-tech space. Based on a March 2021 analysis by Frost & Sullivan, the global market opportunity for ad verification solutions is $9.5 billion (growing at a 16.2% CAGR), and the global market for ad measurement and effectiveness solutions is $6.3 billion (growing at a 20.5% CAGR). eMarketer estimates that the global non-search digital advertising market surpassed $180 billion in 2020, and will grow to over $270 billion by 2023. Marketers are increasingly aware of wasted media spend related to ad fraud (for example, when ads are served to bots or non-human traffic instead of real people) or viewability issues (for example, when ads are served but cannot be viewed by a person). Juniper Research estimates advertisers will lose approximately $100 billion in annual ad spend to ad fraud in 2024, an increase from approximately $42 billion in 2019. Powered by artificial intelligence, IAS's solutions identify non-human traffic by automatically detecting new threats and uncommon patterns, however, there is justified scepticism by experts around the effectiveness of IAS's technology, although these claims apply equally to their competitors - and to some extent, digital marketing companies have few options if they want to protect, or at least to be seen to protect, their customers' ad investment. With over 2,000 customers, IAS are one of the more dominant providers in their market. Between 2018 and 2020, their average revenue per customer for their top 100 customers has grown at a CAGR of 22%. In 2020, Twitter announced new partnership agreements with Integral Ad Science and a competitor, DoubleVerify, to provide advertisers with increased assurance around the placement of ads on a Twitter timeline, safeguarding against potential brand association with controversial content. IAS's total revenue for 2020 was $241M a modest increase of 12.7% YoY. Dollar-based net retention rate reduced from 112% to 108%, but this may be a consequence of deferred advertising spend during H1 2020 due to the pandemic. IAS are operating at the intersection of a number of trends in the ad industry: programmatic ads, connected TV, social media, ad safety, consumer privacy and the localisation of global brands. IAS is an early-stage investment opportunity with significant growth potential however, investments of this type come with significant inherent risks. The following companies are mentioned in this episode: IAS, MGNI, TTD, DV, TWTR ----- If you enjoyed this episode, please consider subscribing at https://telescopeinvesting.com/subscribe/ Or you can contact the hosts: LukeTelescope AlbertTelescope

It's time for the half-year review of our model portfolio, a collection of 15 stocks that we selected in January as our core investments for 2021. The sell-off in growth stocks earlier this year made for grim reading at the end of Q1, but many of these stocks have rebounded - ten of the stocks in the model portfolio are now up from our start date, with nine of them beating the market (S&P 500). Unfortunately, a couple of big losers are dragging down the overall return. While it's probably too early to declare that “growth is back!”, our portfolio performance at the end of Q2 is much closer to the benchmark of the S&P 500 index. In today's episode, we dig into some of the key stories and updates from the portfolio. Shopify (SHOP) are showing their developers some love by forgoing commissions on the first $1 million of revenue, every year. Investors were not impressed with the news at first, but it appears that they have come around to Tobi Lutke and his team's vision, and the stock is back to near all-time highs. Shopify are "arming the rebels" against the Amazonian Empire and this move is just the latest in their customer-centric growth strategy. MercadoLibre (MELI) and Sea (SE) showed amazing growth in their respective businesses in their Q1 earnings releases, but the performance of their stock are markedly different. There's been talk about Sea and MercadoLibre battling it out for their share in the Latin American e-commerce market, but at only around 5% market penetration, we think there's is plenty of growth to capture, with room for both companies to prosper. Teladoc Health's (TDOC) share price has not recovered and it's the worst performer in the portfolio to date! Much of this is due to lacklustre customer growth projections for the coming year, with almost zero growth expected. What the market might not be fully accounting for is the forecast increase in revenues per customer, as customers with long-term health conditions form a lasting relationship with Teladoc. The biggest winner in the portfolio was Cloudflare (NET), a leader in edge computing. Edge computing brings online resources closer to the customer, lowering response times and improving customer experience. In the most recent quarter, Cloudflare announced a partnership with Nvidia to bring its AI tools to the edge. The removal of third-party cookies from web browsers is playing havoc with online advertising businesses. However, Google delaying their plans gave programmatic ad companies like The Trade Desk (TTD) and our model portfolio pick, Magnite (MGNI) a reprieve as they work on replacement technologies for targeted ads. Investors are still cautious about the impacts of these changes, but in the long term, the removal of third-party cookies may help supply-side platforms (SSP) like Magnite as they have direct access to first-party data. Interim results from a clinical trial from Intellia Therapeutics (NTLA) showed strong evidence that CRISPR-based therapies can work inside the body and gave a boost to all other CRISPR companies including our model portfolio pick, Editas Medicine (EDIT). The following companies are mentioned in this episode: SHOP, MELI, SE, TDOC, AMZN, NET, FSLY, MGNI, EDIT, NTLA, SQ, ISRG, GH, CRWD, TWLO, DOCU, FVRR, DIS, NVDA ----- If you enjoyed this episode, please consider subscribing at https://telescopeinvesting.com/subscribe/ Or you can contact the hosts: LukeTelescope AlbertTelescope

The world is moving to the “anywhere economy” where workers have the option to do anything from anywhere, and a key capability enabling this megatrend is the use of digital agreements and e-signatures. This week, we deep dive into DocuSign. Already the global leader in e-signatures, DocuSign are expanding their capabilities to support the entire life cycle of a digital agreement with their 'Agreement Cloud' suite of services. The digital transaction management market is currently estimated to be worth $50B, and DocuSign has 70% of the e-signature market. Research has shown that on average $36 is saved per agreement just from using e-signatures. Digital signatures are more secure and are easier to prove authenticity. Digital documents are easier to store, organise, search and analyse. Customers who see the benefits of having their agreements signed and managed digitally are unlikely to go back to paper. And with over 350 integrations with other systems, such as Microsoft, Google and Salesforce, customers can more easily integrate DocuSign into their existing processes and workflows. With their 'Agreement Cloud', DocuSign aims to support the entire lifecycle of digital agreements, from preparation to signing, execution and ongoing management. Strategic acquisitions have bolstered their capabilities in each of the stages. The acquisition of Seal Software in 2020 brought in the use of AI to analyse digital contracts; LiveOak in 2020 brought in online notarization, a service they released earlier this year; DocuSign also acquired Clause in 2021, with the aim of enhancing digital contracts into “living documents” with interactivity and digital functionality. DocuSign has grown its paying customers from 54,000 in 2012 to 892,000 by the end of 2020, representing a CAGR of 42%. They now have over one million paying customers with over one billion users in over 180 countries. Customers come from a wide range of sectors, from financial services and real estate to life science and government, with over 90% of Fortune 500 companies using DocuSign. Competitors in the e-signature space such as Adobe Sign and HelloSign (owned by DropBox) have largely stayed out of the market of contract lifecycle management. Adobe in particular has stated they do not want to be the system of record for documents. DocuSign is betting that businesses see value in having an ecosystem for digital agreements. The company has grown from a $4.4B market cap to $54B in just over three years, suggesting that they're on the right track. CEO, Dan Springer estimates that the company is still less than 10% penetrated in its market. Their Q1 revenues for this year reached $469M, 7.6% higher than their own estimates just a few months ago, indicating higher demand for their products than even they expected. Full-year revenues are expected to reach $2B this year. GAAP gross margin increased 75% in the same period last year to 78%, while the dollar-based net retention rate (DBNRR) was 125%, demonstrating the value they are adding for existing customers. DocuSign raised $690M through a sale of convertible senior notes earlier this year, strengthening its cash position to $876M. The following companies are mentioned in this episode: DOCU, ADBE, DBX ----- If you enjoyed this episode, please consider subscribing at https://telescopeinvesting.com/subscribe/ Or you can contact the hosts: LukeTelescope AlbertTelescope

On this week's pod, we discuss the megatrend of an ageing population and some of the investing opportunities (and risks) this trend creates in society. The average human life expectancy has increased by 10 years since 2000 to almost 73 - modern medical technology, pharmaceuticals, and standards of care mean we're all living longer healthier lives. At the same time, birth rates are declining. If these trends continue, most countries are projected to have shrinking populations by the end of the century, with some countries expecting their populations to halve by 2100! A longer life expectancy is great for the individual but may mean that younger generations will have to contribute more to support older ones, or that people will have to work longer and retire later. Key challenges such as funding for healthcare and social care for the elderly need to be tackled by governments, supported by private industry It's a fact of life that we are more susceptible to ailments as we get older. A healthy lifestyle can only reduce the chances of serious illnesses, not eliminate them completely. Preventative and proactive healthcare solutions can help to mitigate the conditions that occur more frequently in later years, such as diabetes, heart disease and cancer. Companies such as Teladoc, Alphabet and Apple are delivering technology to assist with health monitoring, and enable preventative healthcare A larger retired population will increase the demand for cost-effective and also luxury travel and entertainment. Those leading longer and healthier lives will want to enjoy themselves in their golden years, and this will create a greater need for social hubs and activities for retirees Calico, a ‘moonshot' subsidiary of Alphabet, are a research lab with the goal of combating ageing and associated diseases. They're partnering with other research labs and companies to deliver healthcare solutions, and in 2020 announced a drug for treating solid tumours Alphabet also has Verily Life Sciences (formerly Google Life Sciences), a research organisation devoted to the study of life sciences with the aim of digitising healthcare with research programs in digital surgery, pathology and immunology The following companies are mentioned in this episode: GOOG, TDOC, AAPL, ISRG ----- If you enjoyed this episode, please consider subscribing at https://telescopeinvesting.com/subscribe/ Or you can contact the hosts: LukeTelescope AlbertTelescope

Just over a year ago, when the coronavirus pandemic was beginning, we both started investing journals, to capture our thoughts about life, and the investment opportunities presented by the rapidly changing environment. Initially, our diaries were intended to stop us from making rash investment decisions during a time of mass panic and high uncertainty, but these personal reflections have since evolved into the Telescope Investing podcast! In this week's pod, we revisit some of our journal entries from that period of wild volatility and uncertainty. We saw early signs of the types of businesses that would benefit from stay-at-home orders, and we make some predictions and some investments based on our forecasts of how the business landscape would be impacted. It's now one year later, so how did we do? The following companies are mentioned in this episode: NFLX, SHOP, ZS, TRIP, ZG, MELI, DIS, SQ, DOCU, ZM, BYND, TDOC, FB, TSLA, GOOG ----- If you enjoyed this episode, please consider subscribing at https://telescopeinvesting.com/subscribe/ Or you can contact the hosts: LukeTelescope AlbertTelescope

On this week's pod, we take a look at another hypergrowth investment opportunity, the US pet insurance company, Trupanion. Trupanion is North America's largest publicly traded provider of pet insurance. It has focused exclusively on pets during its two-decade operating history, and currently insures over 940,000 cats and dogs in the United States, Canada, Australia, and Puerto Rico (an increase of 37% YoY). Pet ownership has grown significantly during the pandemic, many households have bought or adopted a pet to help them get through the social isolation of lockdown. In the US 23 million households acquired a pet between March 2020 and May 2021, and today 67% of American households own at least one kind of pet The North American pet insurance market was worth $1.9B in 2020 and is expected to grow to $3.8B by 2027. However, today less than 2% of North America's 200 million dogs and cats have pet insurance, creating a large growth opportunity Trupanion were recently rated as the #2 US pet insurer, just behind Healthy Paws. They have a 4.4 / 5 score on trustpilot, and their customers are strong advocates for the company - an interesting contrast to their insuretech competitor, Lemonade, who score a woeful 2.6! However Trupanion are one of the more expensive pet insurance offerings, and a price-sensitive consumer may find that other insurers offer better value In Q1 2021, Trupanion's monthly average revenue per pet was $62.97. Costs per pet currently exceed revenue by around $1, primarily driven by high subscription acquisition costs. The ‘lifetime value per pet' insured by Trupanion is $634, however over $270 is spent acquiring a pet, so a customer needs to be retained for three years before Trupanion realises a return on the high acquisition cost! 2021 Q1 results showed revenue of $155M, an increase of 39% YoY. Average monthly retention was 98.73% compared to 98.59% in the prior-year period, and the average pet's life with Trupanion increased to 79 months, up from 71 months in the prior 12-month period. The company recognise that they still have opportunities to improve the retention of pets that drop out after one year The company's financial position is strong with cash and assets of over $500M. The net loss for Q1 2021 was $12.4M, compared to a net loss of $1.1M in the same period last year. This was primarily driven by increased stock-based compensation expenses and a one-time performance grant to all employees that totalled $4.3M The following companies are mentioned in this episode: TRUP, LMND ----- If you enjoyed this episode, please consider subscribing at https://telescopeinvesting.com/subscribe/ Or you can contact the hosts: LukeTelescope AlbertTelescope

It's an unwritten rule that at some point every finance podcast needs to release an episode on the power of compound interest. Well this week, it's Telescope Investing's turn! "Money makes money. And the money that money makes, makes money" - Benjamin Franklin Successful investing really just boils down to just two things - picking good quality companies and holding them for a long-time. Time is the operative word in that statement, it takes decades for the exponential growth of compound interest to show its true power. It's a rare investor that has a lifetime in the market, but over the very, very long run, compound interest can deliver staggering returns. Warren Buffett is the greatest living example of this. Over 99% of Warren's net worth of ~$110B was accumulated after the age of 52, and one of the reasons he's among the most successful investors of all time is that he started so early (buying his first stock when he was 11 years old) and has been investing for almost 80 years Berkshire Hathaway shares have grown on average 20% per year compounded since 1965. That doesn't sound particularly exciting until you realise this means doubling your money every three and a half years. If you can do that for 80 years, you'll end up with nearly eight million times the amount of money you started with Developing a savings habit and investing is one of the best things you can do for your future self, and one of the most common things we hear is that people wish they had started earlier. We both started investing in our twenties, but we wish that had been in our teens when we had summer jobs! You can jump-start this by investing for your children (or nieces and nephews). A small amount of money invested each year, compounded over 20 years, can give them a sizable base from which to build It's said that “the first million is the hardest”, but even harder is the first $100K, and harder still is the first $10K. Investing at the beginning is hard because living expenses make up a large part of your income, and there may be little if anything left over to invest. As your investments grow, your passive income increases, and your living expenses as a percentage of your income drops. The goal of financial independence is for your passive income to cover your living expenses, at which point you've basically achieved financial freedom. You can do this by either increasing your passive income or reducing your living expenses, or ideally both! Fees and taxes on your investments can have a material impact on your returns, and this is magnified in the long run as those fees also compound! Passive index funds typically charge less than a 0.25% fee (some Vanguard funds are as low as 0.03%), compared to actively managed funds which are generally over 1% and can be as much as 2% annually plus a 20% charge on any profits made. This really adds up in the long-term, and it's especially galling when you realise that most active fund managers actually underperform the market! We're nearly twenty years into our own investing careers. If you haven't begun your own journey yet, the most important takeaway from today's pod is to just get started. The best time to start investing might have been twenty years ago, but the second-best time is today! The following companies are mentioned in this episode: BRKB, AAPL ----- If you enjoyed this episode, please consider subscribing at https://telescopeinvesting.com/subscribe/ Or you can contact the hosts: LukeTelescope AlbertTelescope

Square was founded in 2009, when glass-blower Jim McKelvey found he was unable to complete a sale because he couldn't accept credit cards. He discussed the problem with his friend Jack Dorsey, and they co-founded Square, initially selling a cost-effective mobile phone accessory that allowed small businesses to accept credit card payments. This has since expanded to over 30 products and services for both sellers and consumers. Square is one of our model portfolio stocks, and in this week's pod we deep dive into the company and discuss recent developments for this fast-growing player in the e-payments space. What started with a dongle for a mobile device to allow sellers to accept credit cards has since expanded to a range of point-of-sale (POS) systems and seller services. Square have also launched tailored products and services for specific businesses, for example the Square Kitchen Display System (KDS) recently launched as a standalone product worldwide to help restaurants manage and fulfil orders more efficiently The use of electronic payments has been increasing for many years and was accelerated by the pandemic. Digital wallets are now the most popular form of payment globally. The Square Cash App introduced in 2013 is one of the most popular digital wallets in the US, with 36M monthly active users at the end of last year, a jump from 24M at the end of 2019 Square started offering Bitcoin trading in its Cash App in 2018 and the company has increased its stake in crypto by buying $170M of Bitcoin, representing 5% of its cash reserves. They saw over 1M users buy Bitcoin for the first time in January of this year, and their revenue from Bitcoin trading surged to $3.5B in Q1. This may be a cause for concern if crypto sees increasing regulation, restrictions, or volatility Square acquired the music streaming service, Tidal, earlier this year. Tidal's once distinguishing feature of high-quality lossless audio are now available on other music streaming services, but the relationships with the artists may be the key differentiator. Could Square and Tidal become the "Shopify for music artists"? Another recent acquisition was Credit Karma Tax, a free tax filing tool that Square plans to integrate into its Cash App, further enhancing the Square payment ecosystem. Square payment processing is currently integrated with TurboTax from Intuit to simplify the tax filing for sellers. The acquisition of Credit Karma Tax may suggest a bigger move into the tax filing business, perhaps competing with Intuit instead? Square officially became a bank earlier this year. Previously, Square offered financial products such as small business loans via a partnership with Celtic Bank. They are now able to offer these products directly, and have recently announced they will launch checking and savings accounts, competing with incumbents such as JP Morgan and Wells Fargo The following companies are mentioned in this episode: SQ, INTU, SHOP, MELI, SE, GOOG, APPL, PYPL ----- If you enjoyed this episode, please consider subscribing at https://telescopeinvesting.com/subscribe/ Or you can contact the hosts: LukeTelescope AlbertTelescope

Have you become numb from seeing wave after wave of red days in your portfolio? Are you unsure whether it's the right time to buy or to sell as you're buffeted by the market? Then maybe it's time for some stock therapy! After a fantastic start to the year, our model portfolio has turned south, along with the majority of high-growth stocks as investors run to the 'safe haven' of value stocks. In this week's pod, we talk about what's happened to growth stocks in the last few months, the possible reasons why, and more importantly what we can do about it. Long-time listeners will already know the answer, but it feels good to get it all out! (apologies for Luke's fairly terrible audio quality on today's Pod, a rather silly technology error that was overlooked, we'll have to write a checklist for future recording sessions!) ----- If you enjoyed this episode, please consider subscribing at https://telescopeinvesting.com/subscribe/ Or you can contact the hosts: LukeTelescope AlbertTelescope

Unity Software is best known for its game engine, which was used for over 50% of all video games in 2020. But Unity is also used to create over 60% of all VR/AR applications, and is starting to expand into other industries such as automotive, architecture, manufacturing, film, and retail. It's not just about Pokemon Go! In this week's pod, we take a deep dive into Unity, and have a fantastic discussion with Karle Kane, the founder of Rainfall Games. Unity is one of the largest development platforms for gaming and was used to create over 50% of video games across 20 platforms in 2020. It is even more dominant in mobile gaming where 71% of the top 1,000 mobile games in 2020 used Unity. 93 of the top 100 game studios by revenue are Unity customers, and on average there were 2.7B people each month who consumed content created with Unity in 2020. Unity estimates their addressable market in gaming at $12B growing to $16B by 2025 Over 60% of all VR/AR experiences are created with Unity, and this platform was used to create 90% of all Microsoft HoloLens and Samsung Gear VR experiences. AR/VR is seeing increased adoption, not just in gaming but also in other industries including healthcare, manufacturing, architecture and design and the VR/AR market is projected to grow by 63% per year through 2025. Unity estimates their current opportunity in VR/AR at $17B They have three main business segments: Create Solutions, a subscription-based business providing access to Unity's development tools; Operate Solutions, a usage-based business helping game developers to run and monetise their games; and Strategic Partnerships, where tech partners such as Apple, Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony pay Unity to support their hardware and software. These three segments contributed 30%, 61% and 9% of revenue respectively in 2020, with Operate Solutions growing the fastest Unity acquired Applifier and launched their in-game advertising network in 2014, and this is now one of the world's largest mobile ad networks serving 23B ads per month. Unity does not break-out advertising revenue from their Operate Solutions segment, but the whole segment had revenues of $471M in 2020, an increase of 61% from the previous year. However, recent changes in iOS to prevent app tracking is estimated to reduce revenues by $30M in 2021, which represents 3% of total revenue Total revenue for 2020 was $772M, an increase of 43% from the previous year. Existing customers are buying more each year, with DBNERs of 138%, 133% and 124% for 2020, 2019 and 2018 respectively. The business is reinvesting in growth and has not shown a consistent profit as yet, having just become free cashflow positive in Q4 2020. They ended 2020 with $1.3B in cash with a further $480M in marketable securities and zero debt Unity currently has a market cap of $23B with a P/S ratio of 24. Despite the huge 50% drop from its all-time high in January, the stock remains relatively expensive and will need to maintain continued high revenue growth to justify the valuation The following companies are mentioned in this episode: U, VUZI, AAPL, FB ----- If you enjoyed this episode, please consider subscribing at https://telescopeinvesting.com/subscribe/ Or you can contact the hosts: LukeTelescope AlbertTelescope

At Telescope Investing, we believe that individual investors have an advantage over the professionals - they don't have to answer to anyone but themselves, and can more easily invest for the long-term without the need to 'beat their benchmark' every quarter or year. Thinking long-term helps minimise excessive trading, which often results in lower returns, whether it's from trading fees, buy-sell spreads, high short-term capital gains taxes, or more likely missed gains. In this week's pod, we answer some listener questions on portfolio management and talk about how we approach starting, adding, trimming and sometimes exiting a position. ----- If you enjoyed this episode, please consider subscribing at https://telescopeinvesting.com/subscribe/ Or you can contact the hosts: LukeTelescope AlbertTelescope

Communication is a core function of almost every app, from ordering a pizza, hailing a ride, to booking a doctor's appointment. This week, we deep dive into one of the leading providers of this core functionality, Twilio. Twilio is one of the stocks in our model portfolio for 2021 and we discuss why we think it is a strong company with room to grow. Also, Luke muses on his dreams of a space economy. Twilio is the world's leading cloud communication platform, allowing other companies to embed multiple communication channels into their web, desktop, and mobile applications. They have grown revenues 10x in five years as digital transformation trends gather pace and were accelerated by the pandemic. Twilio estimates that their total addressable market is valued at $79B Its communications-platform-as-a-service business (CPaaS) is a scalable 'land & expand' business model, where marketing is targeted at developers and product managers. This strategy is clearly working as their customer count has increased 350% in three years to reach 221,000 by the end of 2020. Twilio's dollar-based net expansion rate (DBNER) has averaged around 140% each quarter in that time, meaning that customers are spending more on Twilio's products and services over time Twilio has a strong focus on developers, providing them with all the tools to use Twilio's services, and running an annual conference called Signal, where the company showcases its products and runs workshops to help developers get the most out of them. Over 10 million developers use Twilio services, generating network effects through a huge pool of developer expertise. The CEO, Jeff Lawson, has published a book titled “Ask Your Developer: How to Harness the Power of Software Developers and Win in the 21st Century” Twilio Flex is their fully-programmable contact centre platform, which includes features such as intelligent call routing and AI-powered chatbots. Flex came about from feedback from customers, who were building their own contact centre solutions using Twilio's communication service. Flex now has 600 customers and its revenue in 2020 increased 184% from the previous year. Twilio completed its acquisition of Segment last year, a leading customer data platform (CDP) that allows customers to see a single unified view of all their customer interactions, and improve customer experience by tailoring communications to their usage patterns and preferences. As well as addressing the estimated $17B CDP market, Segment is a key part of Twilio's plans to become the world's leading customer engagement platform However, Twilio is not profitable yet as it reinvests heavily in growing its business, and with a market cap of $66B and a P/S ratio of 31, it has a rich valuation, higher than it has been historically. And the competition is heating up, not just from tech giants such as Microsoft and Cisco, but also from smaller pure plays such as Bandwidth and MessageBird. MessageBird, in particular, has a strong presence in Europe and Asia and may impact Twilio's international growth, which currently only accounts for 27% of its revenues The following companies are mentioned in this episode: BAND, FB, MessageBird, MSFT, TWLO, UBER ----- If you enjoyed this episode, please consider subscribing at https://telescopeinvesting.com/subscribe/ Or you can contact the hosts: LukeTelescope AlbertTelescope

We get some fantastic stock suggestions from our listeners and one that has popped up several times is a gaming company called Gravity. Gaming is not a sector we follow closely, so we're pleased to have Zippy Capital (@zippy_capital) on this week's podcast to share his insights about this fast-growing publisher of mobile games. Gravity is a South Korean gaming company, and are publishers of games based on the Ragnarok franchise, which is extremely popular in South East Asia. Zippy Capital publishes his analysis on Gravity and other investing topics on his substack and at Seeking Alpha. Gravity works with developers such as Dream Square, Tencent and Bytedance to develop games in exchange for distribution rights in the China market, while Gravity retains distribution rights in all other markets. The Ragnarok franchise has transcended its comic book roots and is part of South East Asia popular culture, with live concerts based around the games selling out in minutes. Gravity has had hit games in Ragnarok: Eternal Love and Ragnarok: Origin, with more on the way, and have recently announced a partnership with the NBA to launch an NBA based game in South East Asia. With a market cap of just under $1B and trading at 9x trailing EV/EBITDA, the potential upside is large given the increasing popularity of mobile games all over the world and especially in South East Asia, but mobile games have a relatively short shelf life and competition in this sector is very high. The following companies are mentioned in this episode: Sea Limited (SE), Teladoc Health (TDOC), Tencent Holdings (TCEHY), Activision (ATVI), Take-Two Interactive (TTWO). ----- If you enjoyed this episode, please consider subscribing to the Telescope Investing website at https://telescopeinvesting.com/subscribe/ Or you can contact the hosts Luke & Albert at https://twitter.com/LukeTelescope https://twitter.com/AlbertTelescope

It can be exciting to invest in new innovations and it's easy to get carried away with the next big thing. Gartner hype cycles illustrate the typical pattern of new innovation over time, from inception to the peak of inflated expectations, down into the trough of disillusionment, and hopefully up the slope of the enlightenment to the plateau of productivity as the innovation matures. In this week's pod, we take a look at a few recent hype cycles and talk about some of the innovations that impact our own investments - past, present and future. Many technologies related to connected vehicles have gone over the peak of inflated expectations and are beginning to mature. According to Gartner, electric vehicles and autonomous vehicles are just starting to realise their potential and have a long way to go. However, don't expect to jump in your flying car any time soon The Internet of Things is mostly at the peak of inflated expectations. There's a lot of hype but will we see real applications that fulfil the promise of a fully connected world of devices? The use of wearables and digital twins of the person could revolutionize health promotion and disease prevention, but do we really need a kitchen tap connected to the internet? Digital advertising has powered much of the online experience, from social media to video streaming, and the space is evolving quickly. Companies are working to balance the need for privacy and the ability to show targeted ads. However, seeing connected TV advertising near the peak of maximum hype with an estimated 5-10 years to maturity gives us pause on a particular stock in our model portfolio. We are seeing similar changes in digital marketing as the world increasingly moves towards a digital future, but we are surprised to see mobile wallet marketing sliding into the trough of disillusionment. The use of digital payments is growing at a rapid pace, and we're starting to see new ways it can affect consumer behaviour. Imagine if the money in your digital wallet expired and you had to use it or lose it? It's easy to get caught up in the hype, and one place where we have done that ourselves is in the sector of 3D printing. We invested during the time of maximum hype, and have seen the value of our investments get decimated as reality set in. We finally sold out after years of broken promises, however, Gartner believes 3D printing in manufacturing operations is starting to progress towards maturity and productivity. Did we exit our 3D printing stocks too early? The following companies are mentioned in this episode: Facebook (FB), Apple (AAPL), Alphabet (GOOGL), Snap (SNAP), Vuzix (VUZI), Unity (U), CrowdStrike (CRWD), Cloudflare (NET), Fastly (FSLY), Tesla (TSLA), Teladoc Health (TDOC), Magnite (MGNI), The Trade Desk (TTD), IZEA Worldwide (IZEA), 3D Systems (DDD), Stratasys (SYS), ExOne (XONE) ----- If you enjoyed this episode, please consider subscribing to the Telescope Investing website at https://telescopeinvesting.com/subscribe/ Or you can contact the hosts Luke & Albert at https://twitter.com/LukeTelescope https://twitter.com/AlbertTelescope

It's been a rocky start of the year for the stock market, especially for growth stocks. Back in January, we picked a portfolio of 15 stocks covering eight megatrends as our core stock investments for 2021. In this week's episode, we check in with the model portfolio and see how our picks have performed in the first quarter, but more importantly, how the businesses have fared and whether or not the investment theses have changed. The portfolio performance is shared more fully at https://telescopeinvesting.com/podcast-33-model-portfolio-q1-review/. ----- If you enjoyed this episode, please consider subscribing to the Telescope Investing website at https://telescopeinvesting.com/subscribe/ Or you can contact the hosts Luke & Albert at https://twitter.com/LukeTelescope https://twitter.com/AlbertTelescope

This week we take a deep-dive into another potential hypergrowth stock-pick, Nano-X. This was a fun episode to record, and we both changed our minds twice about whether it was a smart buy or just tantamount to setting our money on fire, during the episode research! Nano-X Imaging promises to make medical imaging more accessible and more affordable for everyone. They have developed a new type of X-ray technology that is smaller, lighter and less expensive to manufacture and operate, and an innovative pay-per-scan business model. However, with no earnings, no sales and as yet, no regulatory approval, is this revolutionary technology too good to be true? Two-thirds of the world's population does not have easy access to medical imaging. With its new energy-efficient X-ray technology and innovative pay-per-scan business model, Nano-X is hoping to make this potentially life-saving service available to urgent care centres, outpatient clinics and rural areas all over the globe Using a semiconductor-based digital X-ray source, Nano-X has developed an X-ray tube that is less expensive to manufacture, smaller, lighter, and able to work at room temperatures, removing the need for large and expensive cooling components. The Nanox.ARC is a medical imaging device using their new X-ray technology and is estimated to cost $10K-15K, compared to $1M-3M for traditional X-ray machines They are innovating with an MSaaS (medical screening as a service) business model, where machines are provided for free or at low cost, and revenue is received per scan. Scans are estimated to cost $40 each on average (compared to $300 for a traditional X-ray), of which Nano-X receives $14 and the remainder is kept by the service provider. Contracts with minimum scan volumes result in a reliable recurring revenue stream Nano-X has contracts to deliver 5,150 Nanox.ARC systems with 9 service providers in 13 countries, and agreements (no obligation) with USARAD and SK Telecom to deliver a further 3,000 and 2,500 units respectively. They aim to deliver 1,000 units in the first quarter of 2022, and a total of 15,000 units by 2024, which would result in a minimum annual revenue of $400M The Nanox.ARC machines will be connected to the Nanox.CLOUD, an online service that allows scans to be shared with specialists across the world in near realtime. This is standard practice in many developed countries, but this may be extremely beneficial for regions that do not have this capability and do not have local radiologists A 510(k) application for a single-source imaging device was submitted to the FDA in January of 2020 and a decision is expected soon. A 501(k) clearance allows a device to be marketed as safe and effective and is equivalent to an existing legally marketed device. Even with FDA clearance, there are many challenges to overcome to bring the product to market Nano-X demonstrated the technology in a live stream at the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) meeting in Nov 2020. However, there remains debate over whether or not the technology is real. Will Nano-X disrupt the global medical imaging industry or go down in flames as the next Theranos? ----- If you enjoyed this episode, please consider subscribing to the Telescope Investing website at https://telescopeinvesting.com/subscribe/ Or you can contact the hosts Luke & Albert at https://twitter.com/LukeTelescope https://twitter.com/AlbertTelescope

This week, we do a deep-dive into another stock in our model portfolio for 2021, Teladoc Health, a leader in telehealth and digital therapeutics. Teladoc's mission is to create a virtual healthcare system to improve care and cut the cost of healthcare for all. They have grown revenues rapidly over the last three years, boosted in part by the global pandemic, but do they have what it takes to fend off the increasing competition chasing them from the rear? Many conditions do not require an in-person visit to a physician and can be held remotely, offering convenience, time-savings, safety, often at a lower cost. On average, a patient can see a physician within 10 minutes of their first enquiry. Teladoc started with general wellness and has expanded its range of services to include dermatology, nutrition and mental health Healthcare is a $9T market globally, with $3.6T in the US. It is estimated that $250B of healthcare spending could be virtualised in the US alone, with the market expected to grow 22.4% per year until at least 2028. Teladoc's revenue is currently less than 0.5% of the projected US market Teladoc Health is the largest telehealth provider in the US and has started expanding internationally with operations in the UK, France, Australia, Canada, Spain, Portugal, Hungary, China, Chile and Brazil. It has over 50,000 clinicians in its network globally, and its services are accessible from over 130 countries and are available in more than 40 languages. Teladoc ended 2020 with 51.8M paid US members after adding 15M in 2020 Teladoc's merger with Livongo Health last year brought remote monitoring and digital therapeutics into their suite of services, using connected devices and artificial intelligence to help patients manage their chronic conditions better. As well as cross-selling services, the synergy of telehealth and remote monitoring may be a game-changer for preventative medicine At the end of 2020, Livongo had 600,000 chronic care enrolments, which is a fraction of the 31M people in the US with diabetes, and the 147M living with one or more chronic conditions. They started with diabetes and have expanded their capabilities to include hypertension, prediabetes, weight management and behavioural health However, competition is increasing both from traditional healthcare companies plus tech giants such as Amazon and Google. Platforms like Zoom and Twilio have HIPAA-compliant video conferencing which can be used to provide telehealth services. Teladoc is the current leader with agreements with 40% of Fortune 500 companies, but they cannot rest on their laurels in this rapidly innovating space ----- If you enjoyed this episode, please consider subscribing to the Telescope Investing website at https://telescopeinvesting.com/subscribe/ Or you can contact the hosts Luke & Albert at https://twitter.com/LukeTelescope https://twitter.com/AlbertTelescope

When investing in individual stocks, it helps if the companies that you choose align with your interests and your values. This week, Luke and Albert talk about some of the businesses that they prefer not to invest in, and the reasons why. With interest rates of up to 5,000%, it's hard to argue that payday lenders are not exploitative, and more recently, 'buy now, pay later' businesses are emerging to lead consumers to live beyond their means It's clear from what they wear that Luke and Albert know nothing about fashion. In an industry where consumer trends can change quickly, not knowing what's in and what's out can lead to bad investing decisions We all like food, but the restaurant business is tough with low barriers to entry, high levels of competition, low margins and shifting consumer preferences. The industry is facing new challenges from national lockdowns and having to rapidly adapt to food delivery as the norm 'Middleman' businesses - estate agents, travel agents, recruitment agents, and their like - are being squeezed from both sides. Consumers are getting smarter, and companies are using technology to reach their customers directly The best-performing stocks of the last century were tobacco stocks and it's not even close. $1 invested in the tobacco sector in 1900 would be worth over $6M today. Even with returns like these, many investors stay away due to their distaste for businesses that actively kill their customers ----- If you enjoyed this episode, please consider subscribing to the Telescope Investing website at https://telescopeinvesting.com/subscribe/ Or you can contact the hosts Luke & Albert at https://twitter.com/LukeTelescope https://twitter.com/AlbertTelescope

This week, we begin our search for hypergrowth stocks, smallcap and microcap companies with the potential of delivering 10X returns or higher. We set out some thoughts on the criteria we'll use in this search, and deep-dive a new player in the megatrend of streaming entertainment, CuriosityStream, as a potential hypergrowth stock. CuriosityStream is an online video streaming service specialising in factual content, covering subjects across science, history, technology, nature, society and lifestyle. They own most of their content and have over 3,000 titles. Their aim is to expand this to 12,000 titles over the next 5 years Founded by industry veteran John Hendricks, the founder and former CEO of Discovery Communications, the parent company of the Discovery Channel, Animal Planet and the Learning Channel. Hendricks has packed the management team with experience in the entertainment and media industry The company has multiple revenue streams from direct subscriptions, bundled subscription, program sales, ads, and corporate partnerships. They are also targeting the corporate social responsibility programming market worth an estimated $20B annually Producing factual content costs a fraction of the cost of a drama, about 10% on average. Is also more easily translated to other languages, more likely to play well in multiple markets, and typically has a much longer lifespan than other types of programming. This has allowed CuriosityStream to keep their subscription fees low, at $3/month or $20/year They're unlikely to be the primary streaming TV service for any household, but may be a secondary niche service that many households will choose, especially those with children given the educational content and learning opportunities. The low subscription fee keeps it affordable, and this is borne out by the fact that most of the subscribers choose the annual plan As of the end of Q3 2020, they had over 13 million subscribers in 175 countries with a low churn rate of 2.6%. The number of subscribers is a 108% increase year-over-year, and they expect their subscriber count to reach 80M by 2023 The video streaming market is projected to reach $71B in 2021 and grow to $108B by 2025, with user penetration growing from 12.9% to 18.2%. CuriosityStream revenue for 2020 is projected to be $40M, with revenue guidance of $390M in 2025 Revenue growth in 2019 was 93.6% and the projected revenue growth is 119% for the full year in 2020 and 83% for 2021. The business is not yet profitable but is expected to become free cash flow positive by 2024 The tremendous growth, low market cap, and early penetration of their total addressable market makes CuriosityStream a strong candidate for a Telescope Investing hypergrowth stock. Take a listen to today's episode to hear whether we picked it for our own portfolios. ----- If you enjoyed this episode, please consider subscribing to the Telescope Investing website at https://telescopeinvesting.com/subscribe/ Or you can contact the hosts Luke & Albert at https://twitter.com/LukeTelescope https://twitter.com/AlbertTelescope

With mobile devices, connected homes, connected vehicles, the internet of things, and 5G networks, our demand for data is growing rapidly year-over-year, requiring ever-increasing speed, reliability and security. In this week's Pod, we put two fast-growing content delivery networks, Cloudflare and Fastly, head-to-head to decide which one is the better investment right now. Cloudflare and Fastly are both leading the evolution of edge computing, bringing not only data but processing closer to the end-users. Having computing resources at the edge improves latency and speeds, enabling new applications such as connected autonomous vehicles and cloud gaming. Cloudflare has over 200 points of presence (PoPs) in over 100 countries, putting 99% of the connected population within 100ms of the edge. While Fastly has 60 PoPs in 26 countries with their ultra-high-performance technology. The total addressable market is estimated to reach $117B by 2025, as both companies expand out of their content delivery origins into edge computing and network security. With annual revenues of $300M-$400M, there's a lot of runway for both companies to continue to grow. Both Cloudflare and Fastly have rich valuations, but Cloudflare is currently priced significantly higher. Does Cloudflare's business performance justify this difference or is Fastly a relative bargain? ----- If you enjoyed this episode, please consider subscribing to the Telescope Investing website at https://telescopeinvesting.com/subscribe/ Or you can contact the hosts Luke & Albert at https://twitter.com/LukeTelescope https://twitter.com/AlbertTelescope For useful further reading see: https://softwarestackinvesting.com/fastly-fsly-q1-2020-earnings-results-review/ https://hhhypergrowth.com/flare-ups/

In response to a listener question, this week we discuss investing in Hong Kong and Asia. Albert shares his approach to finding and researching local stocks as a non-native speaker, and highlights some of the key megatrends that driving his Asia investments. We also review a number of Hong Kong and China companies, as Luke begins to plan his own investments in the region. The Hong Kong stock market is one of the most active in the world, with an average daily trading volume over half that of the New York Stock Exchange, providing an active and liquid market with a vibrant IPO scene China is the second-largest economy after the US and continues to grow quickly, and their 5-Year Plans may give clues on future growth areas In some areas, China is ahead of the west with wider adoption of technologies such as electric vehicles, renewable energy and electronic payments Megatrend investing is as applicable in Hong Kong and China as it is anywhere else. Regional trends sometimes become global trends, and it helps to keep an eye on what's happening around the globe Investors have an advantage in their home market as they will often hear of promising local companies before global investors, and may be able to get a head start and invest early ----- If you enjoyed this episode, please consider subscribing to the Telescope Investing website at https://telescopeinvesting.com/subscribe/ Or you can contact the hosts Luke & Albert at https://twitter.com/LukeTelescope https://twitter.com/AlbertTelescope References: This week Luke read RESET: How to Restart Your Life and Get F.U. Money by David Sawyer

This week, we take a step back and look at how we manage our own stock portfolios, distilling out the principles that have allowed us to achieve market-beating returns over the long-term. We believe it boils down to three primary skills - your ability to manage your temperament, your ability to manage your portfolio as a whole, and finally your ability to choose good quality companies. Managing yourself Avoid emotional investing and acting on impulse, whether it's from greed or fear. Have a plan and respond to market conditions accordingly Be humble and realise you can't know everything when it comes to an investment. Collaborate and share your thinking, and be open to challenge. Don't get too proud of yourself over your winners, or too despondent over your losers - learn and move on Invest in a way that allows you to sleep at night and have peace of mind. The point of investing is to be free of money worries, not to be the cause of them Managing your portfolio The key to balancing risk and reward is how you allocate your portfolio across different asset classes, different sectors and different stocks Diversify your stocks across different sectors, market caps and where possible, geographical revenues, and yet don't have so many stocks that your portfolio starts to resemble an index A particular investment is not suitable for everyone. Structure your portfolio based on your financial goals and your appetite for risk, not someone else's Managing your stocks Do your own due diligence! Understand what you're investing in, and build conviction in the companies that you own. You're investing in companies not trading in tickers Invest in the companies whose mission you love and want to support with your investment $. It's easier to stay the course when your portfolio is aligned with your values and interests Use a framework to assess companies and businesses objectively, so that you can maximise your chances of identifying the winners of the future ----- If you enjoyed this episode, please consider subscribing to the Telescope Investing website at https://telescopeinvesting.com/subscribe/ Or you can contact the hosts Luke & Albert at https://twitter.com/LukeTelescope https://twitter.com/AlbertTelescope References: We really like AdventuresinFI's framework for considering whether you should sell an investment, available at: https://adventuresinfi.substack.com/p/on-discipline-and-process

Superbowl Sunday has some of the most coveted ad spaces in the business, with 30-second slots commanding over $5M each. But what if advertisers could target their spend, and viewers at home could see different adverts depending on their interests? In this week's episode, Luke & Albert talk about programmatic advertising, and deep dive into a fast-growing player in this space, Magnite. The loss of live sports during the pandemic has accelerated cord-cutting and the move from linear TV to connected TV, which is driving the adoption of programmatic advertising, as ad-supported services complement subscription services It's not just connected TV that can benefit from programmatic advertising - desktop, mobile, podcasts, and potentially video games, virtual reality and augmented reality could offer ad-supported models for consumers to receive free content in exchange for receiving adverts tailored to their interests Magnite is the world's largest independent supply-side platform (SSP) for programmatic advertising, which holds auctions for ad space in real-time, allowing publishers to maximise their ad revenue, advertisers to reach their target audience, and consumers to see more relevant ads Publishers and advertisers are increasingly turning to independent platforms to avoid conflicts of interest with the ad platform itself. Walled gardens such as Google and Amazon often have their own products and services to promote Working with the leading demand-side programmatic ad platform, The Trade Desk, Magnite will adopt Unified Id 2.0 to allow targeted ads in exchange for free content, bypassing the need for 3rd-party cookies, and protecting user privacy In 2020, CTV accounted for 29% of TV viewing in the US but only captured 3% of the total TV ad budget. With CTV viewing increasing and linear TV decreasing, this gap is not likely to hold for long, and the recent acquisition of SpotX enhances Magnite's presence in the connected TV advertising market, especially in live sports and live news ----- If you enjoyed this episode, please consider subscribing to the Telescope Investing website at https://telescopeinvesting.com/subscribe/ Or you can contact the hosts Luke & Albert at https://twitter.com/LukeTelescope https://twitter.com/AlbertTelescope

Short-selling and options trading have been in the news over the past few weeks, with stories of everyday investors making fortunes, but what do these terms mean, and should we be doing this ourselves? In this week's episode, Luke and Albert talk about some alternative investments, and the potential calamitous damage they could pose to the life savings of an unprepared investor. They also have a chat about investing outside your home country, to access potential higher growth opportunities. Are penny stocks a way to get rich by investing in small companies destined for bigger things, or are they a trap for your hard-earned investment dollars? Trading on margin allows you to invest more money than you have to achieve higher returns, but it also means you can lose more too - potentially everything Shorting a stock allows you to make money from a stock price going down, but you might get painfully squeezed if your bet goes wrong and the stock goes up instead With Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies reaching new highs over the past few months, should they form a part of your investment portfolio? Trading in options is another way to use leverage to supercharge your investment gains or to manage volatility, but unless you know your puts from your calls, they can just as easily wreck your returns ----- If you enjoyed this episode, please consider subscribing to the Telescope Investing website at https://telescopeinvesting.com/subscribe/ Or you can contact the hosts Luke & Albert at https://twitter.com/LukeTelescope https://twitter.com/AlbertTelescope

This week, Luke and Albert complete their model portfolio for 2021 with the final eight stocks, announcing their picks for the megatrends of biotech, digital transformation, flexible workforce and multichannel marketing. The model portfolio contains the stocks that they will be invested in over the coming year, so it's time to put the chips on the line! Biotechs like Editas are starting to realise the promise of Crispr gene editing, delivering revolutionary new therapies. While simpler cancer screening from Guardant Health may offer early detection and better patient outcomes Many companies are undergoing a digital transformation, and they're increasingly partnering with Crowdstrike to protect themselves against hackers; with Cloudflare to provide increasing quantities of content and data to their users more quickly; and with Twilio to automate their communication with customers as they scale-up Doing business and making deals is just easier with e-signatures from DocuSign, but that's just the beginning of their contract management capabilities. And freelancers can find potential employers on Fiverr as people seek a more flexible work-life balance and increasingly work from home Digital advertising is set to grow across many channels, from the desktop and mobile to apps and connected TV. Magnite is the world's largest sell-side platform for buying and selling this digital advertising space The guys also goggle at the madness of the Gamestop drama going down at r/wallstreetbets. ----- If you enjoyed this episode, please consider subscribing to the Telescope Investing website at https://telescopeinvesting.com/subscribe/ Or you can contact the hosts Luke & Albert at https://twitter.com/LukeTelescope https://twitter.com/AlbertTelescope

In this week's episode, Luke and Albert reveal the first half of their model portfolio for 2021, covering the megatrends of e-commerce, fintech, medtech and entertainment. They also answer a listener question about one of the best problems to have as an investor - what to do when one of your stocks grows to become an oversized position within your portfolio! ----- If you enjoyed this episode, please consider subscribing to the Telescope Investing website at https://telescopeinvesting.com/subscribe/ Or you can contact the hosts Luke & Albert at https://twitter.com/LukeTelescope https://twitter.com/AlbertTelescope