Investors Beware, VIQ Solutions is Your Court Reporting Coal Mine Canary

Going to try to appeal to the big money crowd today.

You’re wasting your time and energy on trying to do away with us. I’ll concede that you could win on that front. Money means power. But it would be a Pyrrhic victory.

Look no further than famous digital court recording company, VIQ Solutions.

VIQ Solutions loves digital court recording.

“Yeah, so what, Chris?”

It’s a money pit.

VIQ Solutions posts a September 2023 quarterly loss of $4 million.

It misses its targets by incredible amounts.

VIQ Solutions earnings per share missed expectations by 135%

As I see it, if there are any investors that don’t directly benefit from the private equity model of buying, holding, and selling companies, they’re going to get burned by digital pretty bad. It’s basically going to become a jobs program propped up by your money. I guess it could be worth it if you edge us out and get to raise prices on courts and attorneys in typical oligopoly fashion. It’s worked so far on the American public, and lawyers and insurance companies seem happy to let it be done to them too.

Of course, this also means that, in my view, whoever Leonard Green sells Veritext to is a sucker with a lot of money. I don’t know what checkboxes people look at to decide whether they will spend the money. But I’m going to assume that with the horribly fractured and sometimes fabricated information in, around, and about this field, it would be easy to trick people with a lot of money or the handlers they trust with investing the money using those checkboxes. If it looks good on paper, who cares about everything else, right?

But the real world doesn’t care about your papers. You have an example right in front of you of what digital court recording can do to your wallet. Do the logical thing, walk away, and leave all the big box holding companies of today to flail. It’ll let the real winners come up, and you can buy into those a lot cheaper.

At this point in history, the money being poured on digital is all that’s propping it up. Take that away, and surprise, you realize you’re jacked up on hopium while riding hype trains. Don’t worry, we’ve all been there.

If you’re looking for a place to park millions of dollars, how about that Stenonymous guy? I hear his writing has shifted real-world industries. Seems like the kind of person that would work tirelessly to make sure you saw a return on your money, if only he had a suitable salary and staff.

Or you can trust the corporate types.

More than anyone, I know the comfortable lie beats the cold, uncaring truth.

But what if one could master both?

Advantage Software’s Digital Lean…

I was pretty down on Stenograph for its heavy jump into digital court reporting, among other things. A reader submitted for my consideration this announcement of a partnership between LegalCraft / LEXEL and VIQ Solutions, the parent company of Net Transcripts and other digital-ish initiatives. Who’s LEXEL partnered with?

Advantage Software partnered with LEXEL.

Advantage Software will also be an exhibitor at AAERT 2023.

Perhaps the main lesson stenographers can learn from this is to withdraw trust from businesses. Corporations are basically wealth extraction machines. They don’t have loyalty. They want dollars. They all see the money being poured on digital and they want in.

Unlike Stenograph, I have not heard of Advantage’s support quality declining yet, so that’s a positive. But if you were someone like me that was thinking Advantage was squarely on the side of steno, then this was probably informative for you.

For the record, VIQ Solutions was mentioned on this blog a while back. It continues to bleed money while its stock declines, but that doesn’t seem to have stopped anyone from believing that dIgItAl iS tHe fUtUre.

VIQ Solutions stock price falling
VIQ Solutions Net Income of nearly negative $20M
VIQ Solutions propped up by financing?