I was discussing zoom with a coworker and it lowered my confidence in the company.
We felt that it’s relatively easy to code a video conference call program (limited coding experience here). Which can be verified by googling video conference call and scrolling through all the companies that do it. Or reading online articles about video conference calls.
https://www.pcmag.com/roundup/268017/the-best-video-conferen…
Nothing is stopping a big tech company from getting into the field and using their name recognition to sell their services. I must be missing something about zoom and what all their customers love about it, that will let it continue to grow in a very crowded field. Heck even slack has video conferencing.
Thanks,
Drew
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We felt that it’s relatively easy to code a video conference call program
Seriously?
🆁🅶🅱
I can see by your coat, my friend, you’re from the other side…
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People have been debating this issue since zoom was at its earliest stages
Here is some insight from an early stage VC of ZM
https://twitter.com/KiteVC/status/1119272893882478594?s=19
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Zoom’s CEO used to work for WebEX, and talks about how he aimed to differentiate their business in this interview with Tom Gardner (interview starts around the 19 minute mark). My favorite part of the interview is when Tom gives him some advice on how to spend their cash horde (around 28:20) after the CEO expresses uncertainty. He seems to like the advice!
https://www.fool.com/podcasts/motley-fool-money/2019-06-28-b…
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Drew,
Big corporate players are already making video conferencing apps. The CEO of ZOOM though he could make a better one and he seemed to have been right. You’ll rarely find a stock like AYX that has no competition. Mostly you’ll be looking for market disruptors when investing in growth stock.
I assure you it is not easy to create a video conferencing app. It’s easy to create a rudimentary one, but to make an app that is reliable, performant, easy to use and running on all major platforms is really really hard.
The ease with which a competitive product can be coded isn’t the issue. There’s already a bunch of competitors in the field: Webex, Skype and several more. If you want to worry about something, worry about what makes Zoom sticky? What’s their moat?
So far as I can tell, their moat is the same thing that makes them easy to replace, which is ease of implementation (users can self on-board) and ease of use. I have a relatively small position in Zoom and I’ll let it grow organically, I have no plans of adding to it. It’s in my lower confidence group. So long as they keep growing, I’ll hang in there, but it won’t take much for me to exit.
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…their moat is the same thing that makes them easy to replace, which is ease of implementation (users can self on-board)…
I don’t think of that as a moat, that’s what adds to their popularity and quick growth with end use customers (same with Netflix).
What you are missing is that Zoom’s product is more reliable, better quality audio and video, and a million times easier to use in pretty much every way. I have used it as my conferencing solution for my own small business, and have also been an end user for larger corporate clients. For web training, which I’ve been doing a lot of, it beats the pants off WebEx and Microsoft solutions.
I’ve talked to a number of people who have refused to use their company’s Skype/teams/webex conferencing solutions in favor of free zoom accounts. I’ve done this myself, and my clients thanked me for it.
In short: Zoom is focusing on making their product awesome to use. Their competitors don’t appear to be.
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