Tegus vs User Intuition: Expert Opinions or Actual Customer Evidence for Deal Decisions?

Tegus pioneered the platform-first expert network. Its searchable library of 100,000+ transcripts lets PE analysts immediately find expert perspectives on a company, sector, or competitive dynamic — faster and cheaper than traditional networks like GLG and Guidepoint.

User Intuition serves a different diligence layer — the customer layer. Rather than asking experts what they think about retention, it interviews 50-200 actual customers. Each uses AI-moderated 5-7 level laddering to surface why they buy, what would make them leave, and how they perceive alternatives.

The distinction matters because expert opinions and customer evidence often diverge. A Tegus expert might report strong product-market fit. Meanwhile, 150 customer interviews might reveal 30% are actively evaluating alternatives due to a competitor's new feature. That customer-level evidence directly impacts valuation in ways expert opinion cannot.

Tegus pioneered the platform-first expert network. Traditional networks operate call-by-call; Tegus recognized that transcripts become more valuable when searchable, indexed, and accessible firm-wide. The result: a compounding library where each expert call adds to institutional knowledge.

User Intuition's Intelligence Hub applies the same philosophy to customer intelligence. Every interview is transcribed, analyzed through ontology-based extraction, and indexed. A firm evaluating its fifth SaaS deal can search across all previous customer interviews for patterns in churn drivers and competitive dynamics across their portfolio.

The divergence: when you search 'customer retention' in Tegus, you find experts interpreting customer behavior based on professional experience. In User Intuition, you find actual customers describing their renewal decisions, competitive alternatives, and the specific factors that keep them paying or drive them away. Primary evidence, traceable to individual customers, with 5-7 level laddering depth.

For market structure, regulatory dynamics, or industry trends, expert opinions are well-suited — professional experience and pattern recognition provide genuine insight. For customer behavior questions — retention, willingness to pay, competitive switching — customers know their own behavior better than anyone observing from outside.

A Tegus expert might say enterprise customers are sticky because switching costs are high. User Intuition interviews 100 actual enterprise customers and reveals 65% plan to expand, 20% maintain, and 15% are evaluating alternatives — primarily due to customer support frustrations. That specificity directly impacts valuation and post-acquisition planning.

Expert opinions are subject to recency bias (knowledge decays after leaving a role), survivorship bias (positive-experience experts are more likely to accept calls), and small sample size (10-15 opinions cannot represent thousands of customers). Customer interviews provide first-party data at 50-200 participants — enough to identify patterns with confidence.

Tegus offers subscription-based access to the transcript library plus expert calls at lower rates than GLG/Guidepoint ($500-$1,500/call). Firms can search existing transcripts without incremental cost — a major advantage for thesis development. Economics improve with volume.

User Intuition charges $20 per customer interview with no subscription, licensing, or minimum commitment. A 100-interview study costs ~$2,000. A comprehensive commercial due diligence study with 200 interviews runs $4,000-$8,000. Both are dramatically cheaper than traditional alternatives — Tegus versus legacy expert networks, User Intuition versus $50K-$200K consulting-led customer research.

Tegus's speed advantage lies in existing coverage. For sectors already in the transcript library, analysts can access expert perspectives in minutes. For new targets or specific diligence questions, custom expert calls take 1-2 weeks to source, screen, and schedule.

User Intuition is built for deal speed. The 4M+ panel independently recruits actual customers of the target. AI-moderated interviews run asynchronously — 50-200 interviews completed simultaneously in 48-72 hours. Results stream in real time, so deal teams review evidence within hours of launch. Each interview runs 30+ minutes with 5-7 levels of laddering depth.

In a 3-4 week exclusivity window: Tegus delivers 10-15 expert calls in weeks 2-3. User Intuition delivers 150+ customer interviews in the first week, leaving time for modeling and IC memo preparation.

Retention and churn are among the most deal-critical variables. A Tegus expert might offer: 'Their retention is strong because switching costs are high.' User Intuition interviews 150 actual customers and produces quantified evidence: renewal likelihood by segment, specific churn drivers, competitive threats customers are actually evaluating, expansion intent, and whether retention reflects genuine satisfaction or just switching cost inertia.

The same principle applies to growth validation. Tegus experts assess TAM, competitive intensity, and market trends. User Intuition measures expansion intent, willingness to pay, cross-sell receptivity, and growth constraints directly from the customers whose spending determines outcomes. A market expert might estimate 15% growth potential; 150 customer interviews reveal 40% plan to expand but 20% of expansions are contingent on a specific product improvement.

For IC memos, the difference matters: '68% report high renewal likelihood, with a quantified at-risk segment of 15% driven by customer support dissatisfaction' is evidence. 'Our expert believes retention is strong' is opinion.

A combined workflow: Week 1 — search Tegus transcripts and launch a User Intuition customer study simultaneously. Within 48-72 hours, have 150 customer interviews alongside expert market context. Week 2 — synthesize. Where experts and customers agree, confidence is high. Where they diverge — a risk not yet visible to industry observers, or lower actual risk than experts suggest — that's where the most important investment insights live.

On compliance, Tegus manages MNPI risk for expert calls — screening, monitoring, and audit trails designed for investment firm workflows. User Intuition is ISO 27001, GDPR, and HIPAA compliant with SOC 2 Type II in progress. Independent recruitment from the 4M+ panel means the target company never knows a diligence process is underway — preserving deal confidentiality while producing rich customer evidence. Both support SSO, audit trails, and participant anonymization.

The budget math works: instead of $80K-$150K exclusively on expert calls, allocate $40K to Tegus (targeted calls plus Forum) and $8K to User Intuition (150+ customer interviews). Lower combined spend, dramatically richer evidence.