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Let me jump in and join the dots, being somewhat informed on the telco and SaaS industry...

"Pay as you go" is pay per minute per participant. It's very lucrative. Think about one audio call at 6ppm for 10 participants, that's £36!!! If one user has 20x calls a month that's an annual ARPU of £8,640. Now times that by 50 active users and that's £432,000. The other advantage of this model, Loop could sell to an organisation and have them agree every employee can be invited to have an account and be trained to use and if they don't use, they don't incur a cost. This internal growth can be called organic growth but be sure it's driven by Loop having access to and training the end users aka land and expand. This approach with conferencing dates back at least 20 years.

Oh and be sure Loop on that ppm typically contracted all their customers for 2-3 years, and often charged a small monthly cost per active user too!

As for rolling contracts, these will likely have happened over recent years when traditional customers started getting itchy feet seeing all-inclusive and IP alternatives, choosing to not terminate the service providing they didn't have to contract.

The conversion to a licence per user model, has been forced by SaaS, where even £50 per person per month all-inclusive is considered expensive. Now take that same organisation, with 50 users, their annual spend has just dropped to £24,000.

Remember Loop are now focusing on Team, with their telco minutes bolted on. Even better, scaling by providing bolted telco minutes for other suppliers of Teams and large global enterprises users of Teams, who buy direct from MSFT.

As for meeting zone, a lot of their business was WebEx, not low value but a Cisco license resale so not very lucrative. Turning those users to the Loop product was never going to happen. I'd really love to hear the exact number of customer they transitioned. Meeting Zone was a mistake and appropriately reflected by the drop from £4, which triggered the second drop because the funds had to pull out.

The new contracts will mostly be Teams + SIP + minutes, not Loops traditional PSTN conferencing product.

I pulled whey before the stop losses :-). Putting it all back into IOTA below $2.00. Which this morning rose from my reinvested position and I sold 50% at $2.40.
Generally crypto is funny money, the crash was imminent but triggered by a tweet about FBI probing historic crypto fraud! Bonkers.
IOTA has a very targeted purpose. Worth reading about if you don't know.
Back to Loop, wake me up if there's any activity.

I took a first step into Crypto early March, what a time to dive I. I could buy the curry house.
ETC return 105%,
IOTA 70%,
NEO 53% and so on, my worst performer
ADA at 8%.

Trailing stop losses set on all, literally feels like free cash.

The bull runs got to end soon, but the weekend might give a bit more.

Despite my optimism for Loops future, and the capability they are building. I agree with the sentiments here, not enough communication, and it's a big piviot.

They must be more explicit about what they looking to achieve, how they will be positioning their capabilities. I guess they will build a channel, I am concerned they have always talked about direct to market, rarely channel, therefore have limited to no expertise. That said if they were explicit about their GTM and onward capability, that would give me something to buy in to and support their enthusiasm.

As it stands I am considering putting my investment elsewhere, then if I see communications, and a rise over .90 I'll return.

Bigboo, I concur with everything in your last post except this "the other explanation being that they're planting foundations and working hard in the background. But alas, how do you know if they don't communicate"

Now they did whisper what's coming, but frankly, you'd need to understand Loops game to see this, originally I missed it.
Click on my name to see my last two posts - too much to copy and paste here.

francescolnd, to my Easter egg post + the reported transitional year, Loop don't have the 'new proposition' contract wins just yet. So far I expect they are just converting existing customers to Teams and catching a few new and taking advantage of their growing but very new regulated status across regions, however this direct to customer approach is not where I believe they see the forward business.

I guess the management didn't want to report "our traditional business is all but dead", and "we have this amazing idea but it's not ready". Previously Loop sold direct, the new play will be into the channel and targeting all Microsoft partners, not competing as most of us have assumed to date.

Most investors do not understand the telco market and would see this pivot, albeit a lean on core competencies, as a failure of the past strategy, rather than a very clever forward play. Contrary to your assertion the management has disappointed, I feel they are sharing the future, but with kid gloves in fear of investors that won't understand the value of their play, until it can be presented in figures... this does come with the cautionary message it may take more than a few quarters to demonstrate the new proposition sales and ability to scale.

Loop Up are not playing to be another vendor in the Microsoft ecosystem space, they are playing to be an enabler every MSFT partner needs to deliver a full end to end Teams solution. We shouldn't be comparing Loop with other Teams vendors, we should be comparing them with the propositions of a company like Voxbone <- look them up.

Treat my Easter musings as you see fit, however, I think this might be your favourite Easter Egg of 2021...

Perhaps many fellow board members and investors don't have the background to understand how painful it is to become a licensed telco, in one region let alone multiple regions. The reason being it's a legal nightmare, tax, service levels and regulations vary in every country. Why do you think Microsoft has never done this! Most Microsoft partners won't either, instead they source regulated partners, but then often have to manage multiple relations unless they can find one carrier license everywhere (hint there are very few). So while Microsoft catch revenue from all MSFT partners serving Teams, Loop will do so at the other end of the service delivery, with very few competitors. Loop are not positioning itself to compete for Teams enterprise customers, rather to be the global regulated service provider for all Teams vendors!

Explained in words from their annual report, that originally went over my head, and frankly delivered very softly...

"Many major global Microsoft partners have end customers that are considering moving to Teams cloud telephony, but few are licensed telecommunications service providers, at least on the multinational level of their end customers."

"strategic initiative to maximise its international regulatory compliance coverage, a key aspect of differentiation to our international enterprise target market."

"We are comfortably ahead of our stated target to be a fully-licensed telecommunications service provider in at least 60 country jurisdictions by the end of 2021."

Tommy that's a good synopsis of my post. I expect they prefer to target medium to large enterprise, but in the end they always win with medium to multi-office PS businesses. Do they have clients who operate from more than one country? I expect it's the exception, however they are advertising roles beyond the UK and have become regulated. <- This worked for Arkadin 20 years ago, with their then PSTN solution.

I think it's a weak strategy. I am all for jumping on the bandwagon and exploiting their "better than average" network to retain and grow a customer base they already have a relations, but it falls short when that appears to be all they are doing to grow. I'd like to see innovation, not adding value to Team, but building upon those relationships and competencies with new products from their own R&D.

I make efforts to buy stock in business and propositions I understand beyond the reporting, I am not sure the general market does. Even on this board many commented about the Teams business and got excited about it's prospects. You're the first other here to recognise Microsofts eco system is huge, and Loop despite claims to differentiate aren't that special.

This is why I am seriously thinking they are now building to exit, creating a niche market share for a big telco to acquire.

I am not being negative or trying to drive down, I've 100k of shares, a fifth of my total portfolio in LOOP. While I didn't share everyone's optimism for over £1, I thought we'd settle ~90p, not back to the low 80's.

Not wrong Tommy, but old news, I've shared a similar POV here for the past few weeks.

>> very few companies choose LOOP's core product offering, which means they're clearly doing something wrong
They have never had an in your face brand campaign like PowWowNow did. Instead of taking a below the belt direct GTM approach choosing the PS sector they have the most success with. So they were never positioned to be successful when Covid hit, albeit the PS sector continuing to use from home. However what did get tested, was the Loop Mantra that PS don't want video, and want simple PSTN audio... While they might feel that from some users, when the pandemic hit you can bet most of their customers have MSFT licencing which includes Teams, paid for... which by the way is why MSFT has been whey more successful than Zoom. Loop didn't know the pandemic was coming, so it was luck and spin that claimed they already had the pivot underway with the acquisition.. which btw mostly sold video not teams!

>> they talk of their Cloud Telephony solution being "internationally differentiated" - but is it?
1/ They have recently acquired telco licenses across many countries, the majority of same size competitors do not have these licenses so fall short of offering PSTN dial in numbers. 2/ they have invested in SIP trunking and audible quality for years, many of the competitors lack the quality control.

>> they describe Cloud Telephony as "enabling customers to make and receive external phone calls via Microsoft Teams". Note that Microsoft already offers this capability directly (see link at the bottom).
Microsoft don't, it is through partner. Microsoft doesn't wish to be a regulated telco.

>>It looks like there is some degree of faff in setting up and maintaining the system,
Faff to an end user, is what a MSFT certified engineer does for a living. I don't use Loop, I am not a certified engineer but I have integrated Teams - it's not for the non IT savvy, but nor is it rocket science. For medium to large enterprises, it's no more complex than buying from MSFT or from a MSFT partner.

>>But it remains to be seen how much additional value LOOP offers to make their stuff worth paying for.
Well, that's it, they are more or less offering what others are offering, the differentiation to many of teh smaller MSFT partners vanish when compared to the significant partners.

>>Again, their big differentiator is that their telephony network is designed for resiliency and higher quality calls - so it sounds like the same set of customers for both Cloud Telephony and Remote Meetings, hinting at risk of cannibalism.
Not really, rather growing their customer base into the new services, rather than losing them. If your point is it erodes their own intellectual property and original audio business, yes it does.

What they are doing is building a MSFT Teams market share of predominantly medium-size businesses, that have a presence in more than me cou

... is it? Perhaps the end game is just to be acquired by a bigger fish looking for market share, like NTT.

We are talking about becoming part of the Microsoft eco-system, there are many offering what Loop does. What they've done is recognise PS clients won't use even the best PSTN audio solution forever. Lost account reviews will have shown churn moving to video, VoIP and services like MSFT Teams that inherently bring people together. Increasingly those services are used not only used internally within organisations, but also with one time joining clients... Loop previously claimed they had a stronghold on PS businesses who for a long time would use their PSTN audio over and above those other services.

It's frustrating to see this happening, that they couldn't stay ahead with their own innovation. For example, using their infrastructure and skill to build CRM for remote and small to medium business like close.io, albeit that's specific to sales.

In the past, some of those huge SP drops on Loop were indeed funds that had to pull out owing to the Market Cap value. So we can deduce if the Market Cap holds above a certain value they can/will buy back in.

This is AIM! Spreads huge at 4p. I'll be pleased if it closes above 0.90.

The coCEOs from day zero are up, regardless of sales and buys they are still at the helm with a big stake. What is very clear they believe in the business, else they would have exited shortly after the IPO when the SP was at the heady ~£4.

I am sure reading their bios, and presumed network they could move on and build a new business, with equally large salaries.

I keep repeating the business needs to bring new revenue from innovation.

While Loop always have upbeat forward looking ideas, the acquisition seemingly for Teams capability could have been achieved organically without acquisition, and I realise Teams is huge compared to Zoom for enterprises, but why not be agnostic and offer Zoom trunking too. My thought, Loop should position as everyone’s audio bolt on. Pexip, Synergy Sky, Cisco, MSFT, Lifesize, Google... and all the other mediocre webrtc solutions. They need to build APIs like Twillio and become the favoured sip trunking to pstn partner to AWS... perhaps their acquisition should of been a bulk SMS business.

We can conclude the CEOs are long term, but does that show limited zest to move on, and reflect upon the limits to innovation and risk?

Administration?
Stew, not read that before. Please help me understand how the accounts to date suggest that as even a remote possibility

yrabsmurruc, specifically to your point regarding churn of staff at Loop, I don't think its prolific, in fact I really like what I've read about their staffing approach. See the link below, at least for their GTM staff they recruit groups which they call pods. Rather than bring in 'long in the tooth' telco sales people (with the promise of a Rolodex, but in reality failed to climb the ladder elsewhere), they recruit graduates. Naturally, some graduates take the role with view to moving on, others like the Loop mould and grow into the culture. What fascinates me which I heard Steve (CEO) say at an event the pods are collective success is rewarded which makes them quite competitive and if anyone is underperforming they tend to self govern with the pod, where failing parties choose to move on. Understanding this, it helps interpret their Glassdoor scores, where employee reviews either love the company or feel burnt rather than mixed.

Many of the new roles are Teams related in the field, rather than sales/GTM that would be in the pods. So I see this as investing in the pre-sales and support function as Loop grow Teams. Regardless of how the results come out and are interpreted in the judgment of revenue to date, I suspect they might present a long play for the ramp-up of the Teams business. I am not sure how I feel about that. Sustainable likely, growth opportunity of course, but they must deliver above and beyond the competition, and entangled in the Microsoft eco system, who are perhaps already established and serving the target audience of Loop, especially in their growing geos (outside US and UK). Not forgetting Loop have customers HQ'd in the UK and US, so these remote roles serve (and I expect are justified bY) organic growth, but of course, brings the opportunity to serve new.

Per my previous posts - Teams is a great growth play right now, but it is a bandwagon for the smaller players, as Microsoft always repay their star partners - identified because they bring volume like NTT/Arkadin, or amazingly innovative at creating growth <-Loop could do that. Else and by far the best approach for sustainability Loop need to bring new innovation with their own IP.

https://loopup.com/app/uploads/2018/01/451-research-loopup-slack-dropbox-communication-collaboration-saas-2017Dec.pdf

I have a position, I believe Loop up will grow and are undervalued

Are we not paying to much attention to the "bank trial", even if they win the contract the consumption and revenue may not be significant vs Loops collective net new business over a quarter, I'd be concerned if it was! Organic growth (existing clients using more) had traditionally seen up to 40% YoY growth, for me that's an interesting figure because overall business use of PSTN conferencing is actually diminishing. This raises the question why is Loop successful? Listening to their co-CEO I've decided it has to be Loops differentiation 1/ simple to use with low barriers for first time and one time users (ie clients of banks and prof services who won't use daily like an enterprise user with say Zoom or Teams) 2/ traditional competitors of audio conferencing using older technology turning off their platforms (for example BT, NTT etc) whose users swarm to Loop who want the reliability and accessibility associated with PSTN (but not necessarily PSTN) offered by Loop. Incidently those traditional players are changing to a resell of the likes of Zoom and Teams (for switching/connecting calls) and adding value by bolting their own SIP trunking... let's be clear while this is a game Loop has recently joined the eco system and control of is totally owned by MSFT. Microsoft care for volume and $'s and at ignite 2021 when they announced operator interconnect for Teams, its no suprise they splashed the logos of NTT, BT, Swisscom, BUT not Loop. If Loop had major innovation at play they should be fighting to be on stage with MSFT.. fact is they are one of many. I think I've also finally understood the last landslide drop, 1/ the acquisition, which dropped Loop just below the market cap value big institutions invest in, so 2/ they withdrew.

My other observation of past posts here, the assumption the big director in Asia will grow business, sure that's they idea, but he is really a senior account manager with the title director, from what I read Loop already had accounts and people in Australia for a number of years.

I do question the weighting of discussion and expectation of the bank deal and new appointments, relative to other factors that typically grow revenue for companies like Loop. By the same token, I believe the sway of investors has hindered the innovation of Loop, causing them to be more cautious. I'd prefer to support the management to be courageous, innovative and lead, and not be directed by gut feel of investors.

I am curious about this stock. It's doing well, and I like all things digital transformation, so I dug deeper into CLCO history, propositions and the employees backgrounds on LinkedIn.

CLCO propositions are straight sell-throughs of big vendors. Looking at the employee's skill set while they provide project management and support, it would appear this is to implement their vendors solutions, I expect in the most part post-sale they will handle relations with inlife support backed off to the vendor. Collectively from their backgrounds, they are predominantly a sales force. There's nothing wrong with the sales force for hire approach, but I will invest knowing they add value beyond end transactions. I am comparing to Loop Up and Pexip, who both ride the ecosystems of the big vendors, but also complement and compete with their own IP.

Give me your perspective, to an extent, I am playing devil's advocate hunting for the upside before I take a position.

It's my first time chiming in here, but long term and return investor to LoopUp. I bailed at £4 and returned at 60p. I have a few opinions that may help your thoughts on whats happened, and the direction we need to see.

The acquisition was a bad move, its intention was to turn the customers, predominantly webex users, to Loop up users. The two products are different propositions. The customers and staff that would stick to WebEx should have been spun out to another service provider, who in return would exclusively resell LoopUps telco/voip trunking for their Teams/Zoom/WebEx.

Instead of acquiring MeetingZone, they should have used the spend like PowWowNow did above the line in your face advertising, and Arkadins aggressive global growth.

Looking back at LoopUp's reporting it lacks hype, the type that stimulates interest but can be misleading, yet by the same token they have been very innovative. In 2009 under there former name Ring2 they powered BT's global audio conferencing!

All audio conferencing providers have churn, and it appears to be very regular without steep deviations, for this reason, all the talk about winning a big new customer may be exciting but it's not essential, providing existing users keep growing their use, and much is still charged per minute per user.

Teams, is this a good move? Yes because it serves a product their existing Audio conferencing customers are using, and it can take advantage of Loop Ups global trunking. This brings a big question, why don't Loop offer the same for Zoom? Sure Teams is bigger in big enterprises, but they really could serve both.

Loop do need to work on their own IP, for years they have said quality and secure audio is king for PS, for example it prevents lawyers arriving to court as a cat ... Ahh PS have started using video a lot more. Ok so let's say Loop is not a video king and they missed the boat... They need new propositions for which they build and own the IP and can leverage their infrastructure selling to their existing client base... a few ideas; virtual call centre, omni channel CRM, studio quality audio backhaul for broadcast events, enable water cooler conversations for enterprises/channels/ecosystems think clubhouse, with secure walls.

To sum up, they need the innovation that won them the BT business, to be disruptive with new product serving their existing PS clients and beyond. They need to be careful to use Teams and Zoom trunking to harvest clients for their own IP, rather than helping those vendors take Loops customers. Remember Teams was once Live Meeting, and Microsoft took all the margin from the vendors adding the license to their enterprise licenses. Overall the management are a good bunch and the co-CEO's always strike me as remarkably ethical. They simply must drop the caution when it comes to innovation and being disruptive, and start to play like its 2021.