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Wall Street Journal
22-05-2025
- Business
- Wall Street Journal
How to Break the Buy-and-Replace Trap - Your Money Briefing
Full Transcript This transcript was prepared by a transcription service. This version may not be in its final form and may be updated. Imani Moise: Here's Your Money Briefing for Thursday, May 22nd. I'm Imani Moise for The Wall Street Journal. We've all been there. It's easy to convince yourself that that shiny new gadget, living room upgrade, or new car with that fresh leather smell is technically an investment when you first buy them. But odds are you'll be eyeing a new version long before you get your money's worth. Jeff Galak: That's the treadmill, where we're just constantly chasing our tails, looking for the next thing to make us happy. That's fine if you can afford it. But unfortunately, the reality of the world is that most of us have budget constraints. Imani Moise: This cycle of consumption, buying, replacing, and then buying again, can take a real toll on our wallets. So, how do we break free? We'll talk with Wall Street Journal contributor Jeff Galak about how to trick your brain into being happy with what you already have. That's after the break. Buying new things makes us happy, but for how long? Research shows that we tend to get bored with our things before they actually need to be replaced. A recent Wall Street Journal article outlined ways to beat boredom, boost happiness, and save money along the way. The writer of that article, Jeff Galak, joins me to explain. Jeff, let me start with a confession. I bought a couch during the pandemic that I loved. It was plush. It was stylish. It made my living room feel like a hotel lobby. But now I barely notice it. And when I do, it feels kind of blah. What's going on in our brains when that shift happens? Jeff Galak: So, you're not alone in this situation. This is what we typically call hedonic adaptation. Some people call it satiation. Some people call it habituation. Others just call it boredom. What you're seeing is that most products that we want to buy that are enjoyable, they start out that way. But unfortunately, our brain tends to reduce that amount of enjoyment as we continue consuming or being exposed to any product that we might have. An example I always like to give is a simple one. If you take a bite of pizza, it's delicious. But by the 10th or 20th bite, it's just pizza at that point. It doesn't really have the same value, the same utility. It's the same thing that's going on with your couch. Imani Moise: So, if this feeling of boredom with our stuff is natural and pretty much universal, why should we resist it? What does it mean for our wallets? And what's the cost of constantly chasing that sense of newness? Jeff Galak: There's a phenomenon called the hedonic treadmill. And it's this idea that every time we buy something, as we just said, it becomes less enjoyable with time. And then what we're forced to do to regain that initial high level of enjoyment is to buy the next new flashy thing. And then that, once again, succumbs to hedonic adaptation or hedonic decline. And then we again have to buy that new thing. And so that's the treadmill, where we're just constantly chasing our tails, looking for the next thing to make us happy. That's fine if you can afford it. But unfortunately, the reality of the world is that most of us have budget constraints. And certainly, the more we consume, the more environmental impact that has. So there's a real negative effect on us as individuals from a financial perspective and on our planet from an environmental perspective. Imani Moise: So, now let's talk about solutions. How can I keep my brain happy without succumbing to the urge to buy a new couch? Jeff Galak: There's a few things you can do. The easiest is to think about what is your couch? Is it just the thing that you sit on in your living room or wherever you have it? Or is it also the accessories that happen to be on that couch, like your throw pillows or your blankets or whatever else you might be keeping there? Replacing a couch is expensive and costly. Replacing the covers on your throw pillows could be a few dollars or a couple dozen dollars. And that small change might be just enough to revitalize the enjoyment that you get from that couch. So, changing some of the accessories that go with it could be enough to reset that level of enjoyment at a much more financially and environmentally friendly way. Imani Moise: In your story, you also talk about how you don't necessarily need to buy something in order to trick your brain into getting more enjoyment out of it. How does that work? Jeff Galak: There's a couple ways we could do this, but I think the one you're talking about is this idea of just rearranging something. There's a study, not my own, that was done that looked at how novelty is perceived and experienced when the core features of it are just merely rearranged or reorganized. So, a real-world example of that might be, if you look at your closet and you're tired of your wardrobe, okay, you could go buy new clothing. That's an option. But of course, as we said, that's expensive. Or you could literally just rearrange how you organize your closet. Put your shirts where your pants usually are, put your pants where you keep your socks, and so on and so forth. And merely that act of moving things around makes the entire set of clothing that you have feel new, even though nothing has actually changed. Imani Moise: And that also reminds me of this social media trend that I've seen, where people aren't just rearranging things, they're changing how they engage with those things. For example, wearing your pants as a top or a blouse as a skirt. Can you talk a little bit about how engaging with things in a new way can also give you that sense of novelty? Jeff Galak: Yeah, absolutely. One of my favorite studies that I've read about, again, not my own here, is about consuming food, so popcorn in this example. Most of us will use our fingers to eat popcorn. But in this study, they asked people to eat popcorn with chopsticks. Most of us don't eat popcorn with chopsticks. And it turns out your enjoyment lingers for more. So, if you change the way you're consuming something to something that's unexpected, that will keep happiness with that popcorn lasting longer. And that's true of anything we do. So, I can't speak to the fashion choice of using your pants as a shirt or a top. But I can certainly say that that would be a new way to reconsume the exact same thing you have without being forced to buy something else. That's what we're trying to avoid here. Imani Moise: Okay. So, if someone out there is listening and they're thinking that they're really feeling this itch to buy something new, what's one quick thing that they can do to try to revive joy in what they already own? Jeff Galak: Instead of saying, "I don't have any shirts that I like," is there a way you can reuse one of your shirts, as you pointed out, in a novel way? You could also think about taking that product and changing it in some way. I mean, you can dye your clothing to be a different color, and that doesn't require a new purchase. It's simply making a superficial change to the existing items you have. So, just being creative with new uses for existing products is surprisingly effective at not just reducing financial burden but in increasing happiness, which is kind of what I'm mostly after. Imani Moise: But modifying things you already have can also be expensive. Going back to the example of my couch, getting it reupholstered would probably cost more than getting a new one. Is there a rule of thumb to help you decide when it's better to refresh or replace? Jeff Galak: The answer to that is incredibly idiosyncratic to the situation we're talking about. So, like, reupholstering a couch, I agree with you, that could be more costly than buying a new couch. And so you have to weigh that financial decision for yourself. Is that the appropriate thing for you to do? To buy a pack of dye to change a white shirt to a red shirt is pretty costless. How much does dye cost? A couple of dollars. So, that might be an easy one to do that'll maintain the happiness. But if the financial burden is high, then sure, that's probably not a reasonable solution for you. So, in the article, I also talk about a paint job for your car. That could be hundreds or thousands of dollars. That's cheaper than tens of thousands of dollars to replace a car. But obviously, that's a decision you might want to take a little more time with. So, I would scale the time you spend with the cost of the decision that you're facing. A new shirt doesn't have to be expensive. A new car is almost certainly going to be expensive. I'd take a lot more time on the expensive purchase than I would on the less expensive one. Imani Moise: That's WSJ contributor Jeff Galak. And that's it for Your Money Briefing. This episode was produced by Ariana Aspuru, with supervising producer Melony Roy. I'm Imani Moise for The Wall Street Journal. Thanks for listening.
National Post
13-05-2025
- Business
- National Post
VIQ Solutions Posts Fourth Consecutive Quarter of positive Adjusted EBITDA, Driven by Scalable AI Platform and Structural Margin Gains
Article content MISSISSAUGA, Ontario — VIQ Solutions Inc. ('VIQ' or the 'Company') (TSX: VQS), a global leader in secure, AI-driven voice and video capture technology and transcription services, today announced its financial results for the first quarter ended March 31, 2025. All figures are in U.S. dollars and prepared in accordance with International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). Article content Article content Revenue of $9.6 million, down 3% from $9.9 million in the comparative period in 2024 due to foreign exchange Gross margin increased to 51.9% up 7.6 percentage points from 44.3% in Q1 2024 Net loss of $1.8 million, same as comparative period in 2024. Adjusted EBITDA for Q1 2025 was $0.9 million, a strong improvement from negative Adjusted EBITDA of $0.1 million in Q1 2024, representing a $1 million turnaround compared to the same period in the prior year. It also reflects solid sequential growth from $0.5 million in Q4 2024, marking the fourth consecutive quarter of positive Adjusted EBITDA. This continued progress underscores the impact of automation-led productivity gains and disciplined cost optimization across the business. Adjusted operating loss of $0.7 million, an improvement of $1.1 million from $1.8 million in the comparative period of 2024. FirstDraft™ SaaS adoption grew 72% year-over-year, underscoring its precision, efficiency, and growing strategic value to clients in regulated industries. Its ability to process complex, high-volume content with speed, accuracy, and compliance has become a critical market differentiator. Article content 'Following a record FY2024, we entered 2025 with clear operational focus and sustained momentum. Q1 marks our fourth consecutive quarter of positive Adjusted EBITDA, reinforcing our trajectory toward scalable, tech-enabled profitability,' said Sébastien Paré, CEO of VIQ Solutions 'Despite foreign exchange headwinds, particularly from a weaker Australian dollar relative to the U.S. dollar, we continued to expand gross margin and reduce our cost base. These results demonstrate the scalability and resilience of our platform automation-first model and validate the structural changes we have implemented over the past year. Article content Q1 2025 marked a decisive shift from reactive cost control to structural, margin-led execution. VIQ achieved its highest levels of workforce flexibility and throughput efficiency to date and significantly lowering unit production costs. These improvements are not one-off; they reflect embedded automation and vertical AI-driven workflow redesign that is expected to further strengthen unit economics as adoption deepens across the platform. Article content Targeted AI enhancements, including automated formatting, speaker diarization, scoring agents, and quality assurance tools, are already delivering measurable gains in consistency, speed, and output quality. The continued scaling of NetScribe™ and FirstDraft™ across enterprise and public sector clients reinforces VIQ's differentiated position in regulated, multi-speaker content-intensive compliance environments. With usage expanding and efficiencies compounding, VIQ is well-positioned to accelerate margin expansion and unlock sustainable operating leverage through 2025 and beyond.' Article content A copy of the Company's unaudited financial statements and accompanying MD&A for the three months ended March 31 st 2025 (collectively, the 'Financial Information') will be available under the Company's profile on SEDAR+ at Article content VIQ will host a conference call and webcast to discuss Financial Information on May 13, 2025, at 11:00 a.m. (Eastern time). The call will consist of updates by Sebastien Paré, VIQ's Chief Executive Officer and Alexie Edwards, VIQ's Chief Financial Officer followed by a question-and-answer period. Article content Investors may access a live webcast of the call on the Company's website at or by dialing 1-888-440-4052 (North America toll-free) or +1-646-960-0827 (international) to be connected to the call by an operator using conference ID number 4983233. Participants should dial at least 10 minutes before the call starts. Article content A replay of the webcast will be available on the Company's website through the same link approximately one hour after the conference call concludes. Article content VIQ Solutions is a global provider of secure, AI-driven, digital voice and video capture technology and transcription services. VIQ offers a seamless, comprehensive solution suite that delivers intelligent automation, enhanced with human review, to drive transformation in the way content is captured, secured, and repurposed into actionable information. The cyber-secure, AI technology and services platform are implemented in the most rigid security environments including criminal justice, legal, insurance, government, corporate finance, media, and transcription service provider markets, enabling them to improve the quality and accessibility of evidence, to easily identify predictive insights and to achieve digital transformation faster and at a lower cost. Article content Certain statements included in this press release constitute forward-looking statements or forward-looking information (collectively, 'forward-looking statements') under applicable securities legislation. Such forward-looking statements or information are provided for the purpose of providing information about management's current expectations and plans relating to the future. Readers are cautioned that reliance on such information may not be appropriate for other purposes. Article content Forward-looking statements typically contain statements with words such as 'anticipate', 'believe', 'expect', 'plan', 'intend', 'estimate', 'propose', 'project' or similar words, including negatives thereof, suggesting future outcomes or that certain events or conditions 'may' or 'will' occur. These statements are only predictions. Forward-looking statements in this press release include but are not limited to statements with respect to the Company's ability to accelerate automation, optimize costs, and improve scalability in the future, expected margin improvement, the Company's focus and its priorities, the filing of the Financial Information on SEDAR+ and the conference call to discuss the Company's financial results. Article content Forward-looking statements are based on several factors and assumptions which have been used to develop such statements, but which may prove to be incorrect. Although VIQ believes that the expectations reflected in such forward-looking statements are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on forward-looking statements because VIQ can give no assurance that such expectations will prove to be correct. In addition to other factors and assumptions which may be identified in this press release, assumptions have been made regarding, among other things, recent initiatives, cost savings from workforce and product optimization, cost reductions from the Company's workflow solutions and that sales and prospects may increase revenue. Readers are cautioned that the foregoing list is not exhaustive of all factors and assumptions that have been used. Article content Forward-looking statements are necessarily based on a number of opinions, assumptions and estimates that while considered reasonable by the Company as of the date of this press release, are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties, assumptions, and other factors that may cause the actual results, level of activity, performance or achievements to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements, including but not limited to the factors described in greater detail in the 'Risk Factors' section of the Company's annual information form and in the Company's other materials filed with the Canadian securities regulatory authorities. Article content These factors are not intended to represent a complete list of the factors that could affect the Company; however, these factors should be considered carefully. Such estimates and assumptions may prove to be incorrect or overstated. The forward-looking statements contained in this press release are made as of the date of this press release and the Company expressly disclaims any obligations to update or alter such statements, or the factors or assumptions underlying them, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law. Article content VIQ Solutions Inc. Interim Condensed Consolidated Statements of Loss and Comprehensive Loss (Expressed in US dollars, unaudited) Three months ended March 31, 2025 2024 Revenue $ 9,579,025 $ 9,921,673 Cost of sales 4,603,885 5,529,115 Gross profit 4,975,140 4,392,558 Expenses Selling and administrative 3,810,642 4,310,774 Research and development 140,519 165,110 Stock-based compensation (817 ) 28,533 Loss (gain) on revaluation of restricted share units 1,929 (28,777 ) Gain on revaluation of the derivative warrant liability (7,022 ) (57,165 ) Foreign exchange (gain) loss (84,032 ) 102,833 Depreciation 164,683 194,984 Amortization 707,577 806,457 Interest 488,622 388,924 Accretion and other financing costs 419,030 326,878 Restructuring recoveries (1,284 ) (9,694 ) Strategic review costs 1,175,603 – Other income (6,207 ) (11,205 ) Total expenses 6,809,243 6,217,652 Current income tax expense 34,279 15,044 Income tax expense 34,279 15,044 Net loss for the period $ (1,868,382 ) $ (1,840,138 ) Exchange loss on translation of foreign operations (1,088 ) (312,031 ) Comprehensive loss for the period $ (1,869,470 ) $ (2,152,169 ) Net loss per share Basic (0.04 ) (0.04 ) Diluted (0.04 ) (0.04 ) Weighted average number of common shares outstanding – basic 52,334,019 44,782,398 Weighted average number of common shares outstanding – diluted 52,334,019 44,782,398 Article content The following is a reconciliation of Net Loss to Adjusted EBITDA, the most directly comparable IFRS measure for the three months ended March 31, 2025, and 2024: Article content Three months ended March 31 (Unaudited) 2025 2024 Net Loss (1,868,382) (1,840,138) Add: Depreciation 164,683 194,984 Amortization 707,577 806,457 Interest expense 488,622 388,924 Current income tax expense 34,279 15,044 EBITDA (473,221) (434,729) Accretion and other financing costs 419,030 326,878 Loss (Gain) on revaluation of RSUs 1,929 (28,777) Gain on revaluation of the derivative warrant liability (7,022) (57,165) Restructuring costs recovery (1,284) (9,694) Strategic review costs 1,175,603 – Other income (158,067) (11,205) Stock-based compensation (817) 28,533 Foreign exchange (gain) loss (84,032) 102,833 Adjusted EBITDA 872,119 (83,326) Article content The following is a reconciliation of Net Loss to Adjusted operating loss, the most directly comparable IFRS measure for the three months ended March 31, 2025, and 2024: Article content Non-IFRS Measures Article content The Company prepares its financial statements in accordance with IFRS. Non-IFRS measures are provided by management to provide additional insight into our performance and financial condition. VIQ believes non-IFRS measures are an important part of the financial reporting process and are useful in communicating information that complements and supplements the consolidated financial statements. Article content Adjusted EBITDA and adjusted operating loss are not measures recognized by IFRS and do not have a standardized meanings prescribed by IFRS. Therefore, Adjusted EBITDA and adjusted operating loss may not be comparable to similar measures presented by other issuers. Investors are cautioned that Adjusted EBITDA and adjusted operating loss should not be construed as alternatives to net income (loss) as determined in accordance with IFRS. For a reconciliation of net income (loss) to Adjusted EBITDA and adjusted operating loss please see the Company's MD&A for three months ended March 31, 2025. Article content To evaluate the Company's operating performance as a complement to results provided in accordance with IFRS, the term 'Adjusted EBITDA' refers to net income (loss) before adjusting earnings for stock-based compensation, depreciation, amortization, interest expense, accretion, and other financing expense, (gain) loss on revaluation of options, (gain) loss on revaluation of restricted share units, gain (loss) on revaluation of derivative warrant liability, restructuring costs, strategic review costs, loss on modification of debt, impairment of property and equipment, impairment of goodwill and intangibles, other expense (income), foreign exchange (gain) loss, current and deferred income tax expense. We believe that the items excluded from Adjusted EBITDA are not connected to and do not represent the operating performance of the Company. Article content We believe that Adjusted EBITDA is useful supplemental information as it provides an indication of the results generated by the Company's main business activities prior to taking into consideration how those activities are financed and taxed as well as expenses related to stock-based compensation, depreciation, amortization, impairment of goodwill and intangibles, loss on modification or extinguishment of debt, other expense (income), and foreign exchange (gain) loss. Accordingly, we believe that this measure may also be useful to investors in enhancing their understanding of the Company's operating performance. Article content The term 'adjusted operating loss' refers to net income (loss) excluding the impact of strategic review costs. Management believes it is appropriate to adjust for this item because strategic review costs do not relate to operating activities of the Company and is useful supplemental information as it provides an indication of the results generated by the Company's main business activities. The presentation of this measure enables investors and analysts to better understand the underlying performance of our business activities. Article content This press release includes trademarks, such as 'NetScribe', which are protected under applicable intellectual property laws and are the property of VIQ. Solely for convenience, our trademarks referred to in this press release may appear without the ® or TM symbol, but such references are not intended to indicate, in any way, that we will not assert our rights to these trademarks, trade names, and services marks to the fullest extent under applicable law. Trademarks that may be used in this press release, other than those that belong to VIQ, are the property of their respective owners. Article content Article content Article content Article content Article content Article content
