Assessing a Company by its Forums

Every so often, I get asked by one of my venture capitalists acquaintances to look at a later stage company that they find interesting and provide my perspective.
There are the obvious due diligence items including the market opportunity, positioning and go-to-market, the  strategy, the technology, the team, and others. I will not discuss those in this post... But rather, one of the first things I do these days is check the company's forums.

Why check the forums and what can you learn?
The forums generally represent where the company is with regards to customer perception and how it is going to do in the future!

The main items I look for are:

• Is there real activity by customers? What are the main types of issues and concerns and what is the tone?
• How is the company responding to the posts? Unanswered posts lingering forever is a big warning sign of neglecting the customers.
• Is there a community of customers that is responding? A community of customers that takes on itself to answer questions quite often reflects a very solid ecosystem!

How is your company doing when you look at yourself through the "forum mirror"?