Thanks to @Wini and @JPPicard for sharing their thoughts on XRef and it's another reminder about how I need to continually keep myself honest. I think I've been actively avoiding discussing XRef as it's been a VERY painful hold over the past 18 months. But the share price performance is not the same as the business progression. Notwithstanding the general slowdown that has impacted the underlying business the general progress of the business has been positive on most fronts. When I reflect on where XRef was when I first pitched it, it was largely a one-trick pony. It had carved out a very bespoke niche in automated/workflowed reference checking, it did a little bit of crypto-account setup checking, didn't have a recurring revenue model and was generating barely half the revenue it is likely to leave this year doing on a runrate basis.

Roll forward to today and it now can genuinely call itself a survey platform. It has solutions for the whole employee lifecycle - so-called Hire to Retire -, it is transitioning to a much more valuable recurring revenue model, it's added the already profitable Voice Project business as a premium offering (and at a reasonable acquisition price) and it's managed to do all that without many of the transgressions that have impacted its peers. It hasn't raised capital, it hasn't put its employees on big share equity schemes, it's continued to generate cash to the point it no longer needs to lodge 4Cs, it hasn't turned over management to any significant extent, it's done just a single tactical acquisition and it hasn't been overly promotional (it could afford to do a little more in this space in my view).

BUT if I left it there I would fairly be criticised for wearing rose tinted glasses, if not shilling for the company. It has been impacted by a slowing employment market and organic growth is likely to be minimal this year. Frustratingly it does continue to tinker with its reporting cadence and content, which does seem a little unnecessary and invites criticism of cherry picking data. It has also been somewhat slow to communicate with shareholders. The recent release of a Product Development Update and Investor Snapshot, as well as today's Investor Hub launch, may signal the Board feels completion of the platform is a logical time to start to address that gap.

As painful as the share price performance has been, I wouldn't be surprised if it gets further hit by tax loss selling in coming weeks, which may present a possible opportunity.

Overall I think it's got some mates in the microcap space when you look at the divergence between share price performance and progression of the business. There's plenty of crap that's now being valued like crap, but the market seems to be happy to shoot first and ask questions later - and seems to be content to wait quite a bit later. While the company isn't beyond reproach I haven't seen anything that would push me out of my position or make me think it won't stand up to questioning when the questioning comes.

[Held]

@Noddy74 -- I salute the candour sir, and can certainly emphasise with your experience. It's been a painful re-rate for many growth oriented companies over the past little while.

There's a difference between companies that never live up to expectations, versus ones that just take longer than you expect. And I think you make a good case with Xref, especially given there's a lot less expectation in the current price.