Aussie entrepreneur Amy Benson is the driving force behind Diolog, a tech start-up founded to reinvent how public and ASX-listed companies communicate, and to rebuild the trust, and investor ‘stickiness’ lost as a result of inflexible and outdated one-way communications methods.
With economic conditions making investors more cautious than ever, Diolog is on a mission to help businesses attract and retain investors, and ultimately to set a new bar for two-way investor communications.
The Diolog platform, which launched recently, is free for all retail investors, reducing barriers to entry and keeping engagement high by offering easy access to earnings updates and board responses to bespoke questions.
From an investor perspective, Diolog dispels market gossip by offering a centralised view of each company’s reports and their interactions with the business in an easy-to-navigate mobile app. On the corporate side, companies are armed with real-time investor sentiment data, a collaborative response registry and risk-management protocols to make communication better and faster.
Already counting publicly trading and listed companies such as Nova Eye Medical (ASX:EYE) and PlayOk as customers, Diolog has its eyes set on expanding its services to private companies in the coming months. I spoke to Amy about the background to her start-up, the challenges she faced in getting it off the ground and her plans for its future.
ISB: Please tell us briefly about your professional background prior to launching Diolog, and the inspiration behind founding the company.
Amy Benson: My background in innovation and investor communication, alongside having worked in tech companies previously, turned out to be the perfect combination required to launch Diolog in the Australian market. After all, Diolog was created to make market communication better, which meant innovating in a legacy investor communication industry and filling a gap in the market that has been long neglected.
“Diolog empowers companies to scale two-way communication in a way that saves time and enhances their investor-relations capability.”
In my previous role at a private equities firm, I noticed that no matter the size of the company, they struggled to build strong relationships and communicate effectively with their investor base, largely due to a strictly one-way communication pattern. It became clear that the investor relations industry was ripe for intervention and the reception we’ve had from both listed and unlisted public companies shows they’re actively welcoming the opportunity to increase confidence and facilitate greater engagements with their investors.
As founder and CEO of Diolog, I oversee everything from product development, to the company’s growth trajectory, to pitching and communicating with potential clients and investors. The journey has been fast paced and exciting so far, I look forward to growing alongside Diolog’s rapid growth trajectory.
ISB: How does Diolog provide a solution to the issue it was launched to address?
AB: In a nutshell, Diolog makes investor communications better. It is the world’s first two-way investor communications software that enables public companies to build trust, increase confidence and facilitate greater engagement with shareholders.
In today’s economic climate, it is more critical than ever that investors and public companies foster relationships with one another to support the ecosystem as a whole. This means enabling companies to receive and respond to shareholder communications efficiently, while shareholders are empowered to communicate via text or voice with the company, via the Diolog mobile app.
Long gone are the days when twice-yearly earnings updates and once-yearly general meetings were a sufficient source of information to make investment decisions. Diolog provides a single source of information for company updates and, in doing so, bridges the gap for investors who lack the ability to attend company meetings, navigate complicated investor portals and understand lengthy announcement lists on the ASX.
For listed and unlisted public companies, Diolog enables ‘stickier’ relationships with investors by building trust and increasing confidence. The software provides companies with the tools they need to scale effective two-way communications by introducing streamlined investor communication risk management, measuring unique satisfaction data and saving board members valuable time during earnings season and beyond.
ISB: I understand you have a ‘freemium’ model for businesses, with the option to upgrade to a premium package – please tell us about the core functionality of each option.
AB: Diolog’s freemium model is designed to give companies access to effective two-way investor communication no matter their size, budget or resources. Every company should be able to achieve the gold standard, best-practice investor accessibility and Diolog’s free plan focuses on enabling the core function; two-way communication.
The Premium plan on Diolog provides greater opportunity to scale two-way communication with larger shareholder bases and have access to insights specific to their investors. With the paid plan, companies can see their investor satisfaction score, build out a comprehensive question registry, collaborate with board members or the C-suite, understand how to keep investors happy and have documented investor communication protocols.
ISB: What have been the biggest challenges in disrupting an archaic, legacy system with regards to investor relations and communication, and how have you met them?
AB: One of the biggest hurdles for the industry is its legacy systems. Until now, companies and investors alike have been forced to rely on one-way communications, which has damaged relationships and eroded confidence.
These archaic processes are leading to a lack of trust from investors and affecting investor retention, as businesses struggle to understand and respond to shareholder needs, whilst also opening companies up to communication risks.
This is exactly where Diolog comes into the picture. Through the development of world-first two-way investor communications technology, we are championing radical industry overhaul and setting a new bar for proactive investor communications, which empowers companies to scale two-way communication in a way that saves time and enhances their investor-relations capability.
ISB: How do you see Diolog growing and developing in the next couple of years?
AB: We see Diolog as the Xero for investor relations. Just as Xero disrupted a traditional and manual accounting industry, Diolog will do the same for investor relations, helping investor relations officers streamline their workflows and, more broadly, make market communication better.
What we’re seeing is that investor communications is not just a problem in Australia. The ASX only makes up 1.9 per cent of the market capitalisation globally, so the opportunity to raise the bar worldwide is ripe. Our five-year vision is to become the global leader in two-way investor communication technology, and along that journey we’ll expand our solution to serve both public and private companies in Australia and beyond.
This article first appeared in issue 42 of the Inside Small Business quarterly magazine
