In short. Yes, Rewardle has competition; as do the others in Ruwan (RXH.AX Founder and CEO) and Rewardle.
Wild Bill, you may be pleased to note I have now downloaded the MPS prospectus / announcements and will consider a small investment to hedge across the category. The team is indeed impressive, on paper (not as much early stage start up experience in my opinion), and the existing business looks v investable on it's own, but my initial concern on their new Rewards app is that the User Interface looks weak (visually) and it cross promotes competitors with the directory functionality so may not get merchant support (will need to rely on advertising and user x-referral). By comparison, Posse’s UX is beautiful and complex, Rewardles I see as attractive and simple.
Given the immaturity of the category, picking the exact recipe of success is always tricky (i.e. will simplicity or complexity win out? etc). I would absolutely do the same if beattheQ/Posse were listed and also I would def not invest into RXH if it didn't have some liquidity (that is, wasn't listed on an exchange). One thing I like about a listed company such as MPS and RXH, versus private is that if my expectations stop being met by the company — say as we turn to monetisation, then I can always sell and break-even or at a small loss. Hence, private company often trade as in the same case I need to write the entire investment down to $0.00.
I will definitely hold for now, particularly given the strong anecdotal evidence I am seeing supporting the stats being released by the company. Importantly, the majority of merchants I speak to are positive and more importantly are promoting the app to new customers adn I am keen to see the Air Asia, etc and Mint wireless integration. The number of new merchants I am "bumping into" is increasing and increasing. Not too long ago, I had not heard of Rewardle, now my gym has it, my hair dresser has it as well as approx 30% of the cafe’s I visit.
Another thing I really like about Rewardle is the strong merchant:user ratio (5,000:1,000,000), compared to Beat the Q/Posse (56,000:500,000) and especially vs Bucqi (BPS bartercard has 24,000 merchants and ~54,000 users). Point taken Marv about "active" users vs passive but from my conversations with the company I am fairly comfortable with their reporting methodologies. I actually think RXH is onto something that a lot of people keep missing. Unlike, the majority of competitors, Rewardle do not cross promote competitors in a directory or map view, which I think is part of the reason that they have such a good Merchant:User ratio (high number of Users!). Merchants promote it to customers.
I get comfort that Ruwan has a lot of start-up experience, rather than management. This gives me confidence compared to say MPS/Bucqi, which has a lot of big banker experience e.g. former MD of Paypal, but from experience in the start-up space the top end of town experience can (despite looking v impressive on paper). Bigger companies are more like freight ships that are on a course and have a fixed strategy but often struggle to change direction as quickly. From experience that gets bred into the mindsets of people from the big firms. So I actually think Rewardle will have a better ability to pivot successfully and adapt, which will be crucial given the extent of new entrants.
Anthill_commerce I too appreciate insights such as MM's latest post but I was surprised by the extent of negativity in his eight posts prior to the most recent. This hinted to me that their may be an undisclosed agenda, but I accept he is playing "good samaritan" and enjoys investing the time into analysing companies he has no "skin in the game" in (direct or indirect).
Anyway, Ruwan continues to execute on his strategy, with monetisation now his number one focus, as the network build has hit a point of critical mass so worth keeping the faith for now. The opportunity is big here and the preliminary results have exceeded expectations (user growth wise which is what they’ve been focused on). The recent placement book was at north of $12mil by close (only trying to raise $3mil). This is encouraging as it shows the investment community is starting to take notice of the the story. Has consolidated for some time since the raise and prevailing capital loss selling < 30 June so could be due for a run soon.
Kind Regards,
8's
RXH Price at posting:
27.5¢ Sentiment: Buy Disclosure: Held
(20min delay)