Okay, the clock has started. Good afternoon, I'm John Blackledge, Internet Analyst at TD Cowen. We're happy to have Vanna, CFO of Grindr. Thank you for participating.
Yeah, my pleasure. Thank you.
Good to see you. Maybe we'll kick it off. I think a lot of people know the Match story and the Bumble story. Maybe you could talk about how Grindr is differentiated from those two public peers.
Yeah, sure. So, thanks for having me. W e're in the same vertical as Match and Bumble, clearly. But I think there's a lot of differentiating factors. So first off, we've been around for 15 years, and it was primarily developed to connect the community. So that connection has been extremely successful in the 15 years of its life. We're in 180 countries. We have 85% brand awareness in the States and over 60%-65% internationally. We have about an hour of engagement a day for our monthly active users. That's well above average. We are really ubiquitous with the community. I mean, I think as the folks become 18 years old, which is the first age you're allowed to be on our app, they start chatting. So we have 121 billion chats on our app every year, 121 billion.
Per user, that's more than WhatsApp. What that allows us to do is to really be a place for social connection. That social connection does monetize, you're right, as a hookup app or as a dating app. There's no question about it. However, it's just so much more than that. I'm sure we'll get into it, but it's a lot more than that.
Also, a bit of a difference. I t's not swiping, right? And so does that you mentioned the hour of engagement. I think when Match went public, their Tinder was 35 minutes a day. So it's well ahead of that. That was years ago. But so the non-swiping is another kind of differentiator.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
So it's a geolocation-based. And so you can see 100 profiles for free around you. And then once you start the paying tiers, the first tier is called XTRA. That tier gives you 500 more. And then the premium tier is called Unlimited. And that gives you unlimited profiles as well as a bunch of other premium features such as Incognito, which really comes in handy for quite a few countries where there's a safety concern and other things like that. So the lack of swiping really does change it and enhances the whole chat and connection app.
That makes sense. Maybe we could pivot to strategic priorities. One of the things when we were ramping up on the company, there's a lot of low-hanging fruit seemingly out there for you guys. No pressure. But from a, you know, kind of, monetization rate relative to Tinder, it's, you know, Grindr's just lower at this point. So can you talk about some of the things you're looking to broaden the functionality of the app, maybe some use cases beyond casual dating? Maybe we start there.
All right. So, John's right. We're at about 7%-7.4% paid penetration. We've been, in the six or seven quarters that George and I have been here, taking that steadily up. We've had a nice tailwind of MAU growth at the same time. So, 8% MAU growth last year. And so what we're finding is that we only really have the two subscription tiers that I talked about, XTRA and Unlimited. And then we have really one main à la carte called Boost. And so that's a lot less than Bumble or Match offer. So we are much lower in our monetization journey at the beginning of our curve. And so I think what we're thinking about is not only lower price tiers because you always want to meet your users where they are, but also potentially higher price tiers.
Dating could be a more, you know, a higher price tier, premium tier because we're going to really try to get the matching right and offer more to our users. In addition, you might have noticed that last year we grew pretty nicely at 33% revenue growth and 42% EBITDA margins. We really had a home-run product with our XTRA weeklies. So again, the XTRA product, but all it was, was a change in the duration. And that change in duration for $12.99 brought in significantly more users. And so when I say significantly more, we grew our average paying users by 19%. We grew ARPU by 17%. We really ended up finding that our users were looking for that lower price point. So that was the one thing we did. But you're right, John. That isn't really like a new, new product. It's a new tier.
There's lots of things that we have in mind. Maybe I could touch on the global Gayborhood in your pocket.
Yeah.
So George Arison, George is our CEO. He coined this phrase, your Global Gayborhood in your pocket. And so what we're really mimicking in the digital front is what you notice in maybe West Hollywood or Greenwich Village or places like that where people feel like they're part of the community. And in that, what we're noticing with the chats that are 121 billion in the year is that people are chatting about travel, safe places to travel, places where they're welcome to eat, as well as like men's health. So there's these different vectors that the community naturally talks about. And we think it's a real invitation for us to, I would say, solve those use cases that they're already mentioning.
Yeah. That makes sense. Maybe we could rewind to first quarter and then kind of look out for the year and touch on your guidance and whatnot. 1Q results were good. Revenue growth 35%. Margins expanded. What, talk about maybe some of the drivers in the quarter?
We had a very good beginning to the year. We're firing really on all cylinders. We get revenue in three ways. The first way is our subscription tiers that I've talked about. The second way is our à la cartes. We have one primary à la carte. It's called Boost. I would say that what I've learned in my time here is that we put a product out and it does nicely. We can usually juice it a little bit more from tweaking the product just a little bit. We put out Boost originally. In that original use case, we had folks in New York City get 1,000 Boosts and folks in the Midwest getting like 65. Neither one actually was happy with that proposition. One was overwhelmed and one didn't feel like it was worth it.
And so even just tweaking the use case so that you get like a number that was manageable and appropriate really changed, I would say, the success of that product and how our users reacted to it and resonated with it. And then our third is advertising. We get about 14% of our direct revenue from advertising. That advertising is both brand and third party. And I think that's a little bit higher than our peers again.
For sure. Yeah.
What we really find is that we are a really very nice spot for brands to advertise that want to reach this cohort. So we have some work to do to make it even better for them. But all three direct revenue lines were really performing very nicely. We reintroduced what we call the banner, a bottom banner in our advertising last year. And we're seeing the compound effect of that.
Right. And I have always wondered why the other players, particularly Tinder, didn't monetize via advertising more, whereas, you know, it's very, very small for them. The other thing before I want to talk about 2024 in your guide, but the community, like if you look at you guys' relative, let's say Tinder, which is the bulk of the payers are male, going back to the monetization gap between, say, you and Tinder's at about 20% monetization of their MAUs. You guys are at 7% and change. That's what kind of got us excited, right, about the company, about your opportunity. Again, no more, no pressure, but you would think that the cohort would be spending, and would be willing to spend to, so I think it's for you guys to introduce the products and, to continue that.
Yeah. Our primary focus is increasing the number of paying users. So getting to this paid penetration rate, that is our primary focus. We view ARPU as an output. It happened to be that our $12.99 weekly product outperformed. And so what I mean by outperformed is we actually had folks renew. And so as soon as you renew a $12.99 product, you end up more expensive than the monthly. And that drove our ARPU up last year. But we really, really are focused on providing compelling products that people find value in, that they want to pay. That's it. We've also got our paywall pretty far over on the free side. What that does is continues to grow our MAU and continues to make it, make the marketplace fresh. And so pretty much most folks in the community know about our app or are on it at some point.
The other thing, for the community relative to the issues that Tinder's facing probably more directly, is issues with Gen Z. Your core demo is pretty young. It doesn't, with your MAU growth, it doesn't look like you guys are seeing similar issues.
We actually aren't because I think we've had some questions like this before from lots of buy-side guys who've been coming in. We took a deep look. It turns out that as you turn 18 and you can get on our app, it's a place, like I said, where they chat, where they meet folks in the community. They share their experiences of coming out. So we aren't finding that at all for the younger demo. They continue to come on our app in the same way.
Right. So, zooming back into 2024, you guys, like I said, you did, I think, 35% top-line growth in the first quarter. Kept 2024 revenue guide outlook of 23%.
We kept it.
You're going to be comping the weeklies coming up for this quarter, and then just tougher comps. But how do you feel about that guide and the 23% plus top-line guide ?
Yeah. So George and I are very united in our philosophy of only providing a guide based on something that we have line of sight for. And I would say we have three products kind of on the horizon or we're already in testing with respect to, well, one, we put out the Unlimited weekly. So our lower price tier we put out last year, it was a home run product. We put out, and that was really based on the lower price. The Unlimited, which is our highest premium price, we put out in February as a weekly option, lower price, $24.99. That's really about immediacy. So that's the other kind of, I would say, driver and compelling factor for people to turn from free to paid. That use case, we've seen some nice results to date.
I would say that, you know, I'm probably like lots of finance people, a little bit on the conservative side. I want to take enough time to look at the cannibalization that this may or may not have. Last time we had very, very little cannibalization on the XTRA, but, you know, this is a new product and a new, I would say, price point. So I think we really need to look at the cannibalization and we need to look at the uplift in signups to see just for a longer period of time to see if that's going to outperform. Roam and Right Now are really, really, really new. They're only being tested in certain markets. And so there's just not enough there to really change any guides yet.
Right. That makes sense. So you couple, you know, strong top-line growth with margins. Your margin guide for the year was 40%+ . You did above that in 1Q.
We did.
The margins are incredible. Tinder's margins are a little over 50%, which is incredible too. Your margins are incredible because you don't really advertise at all. I think it was $3 million in advertising last year or $1 million or $3 million. It was like virtually nothing. How should we think about the margins? So with the beat and with above, you know, kind of full year margin in 1Q, how should we think about it the rest of the year?
Yep. So our guidance is 40% and above. And so we're very, very committed to hitting our numbers, as you know. What I would say is we do have a structural advantage in not using paid media. We're able to fill the top of the funnel pretty much, in a very, very efficient manner without any paid media. And that gives us a structural advantage because I believe folks are spending between 15%-25% of their revenue on that. It's essentially the biggest line item after headcount. And so that gives us a structural advantage. On our side, we did, we do want to actually invest a little bit in brand marketing. And so that brand marketing is to evolve our reputation, to really take hold of our narrative.
I think being a public company and coming out with new management, that's something that we view very, that's very important to us. It also will help our advertising revenue growth because, we want to go to more and more premium advertisers. And that's going to require us to really own our narrative. With respect to just the margin profile, I think we're not necessarily at full scale and leverage point. You can't possibly be at 7.5% or 7.4% paid penetration. So I think there's still some room there. What we kind of are imagining is that given there are broader use cases for our, basically our cohort and our use, our users, that we're going to invest up to that level to continue to innovate. And so that's what you should expect.
Everything that we talk about was within, is within that envelope, but we are going to invest.
Yeah. No, and that, that makes sense. And I think, I think if there's a balance of strong top-line growth and strong EBITDA growth, maybe, you know, take margins down a little bit. I don't think anyone will care because of that opportunity. I know you've touched on it, but it is one of the questions is, is the payer conversion question. I know we've kind of touched on it. I don't know if you have anything else to kind of add there, but, like I, if I think about our model, I think we got, we have you Grindr getting to 10%-ish payer penetration in the out years of our model. And we're hoping that it's, it's better than that. And you did say that there's a couple of new products that are probably more 2025 impact. Could you just talk about those products?
Yeah. So I think we could talk a little bit more about Roam. And what we've noticed about our demo is that, our demo tends to travel more than heterosexual couples. They, they tend to have also higher disposable income. And that naturally leads to travel. And so what Roam does is you're able to put your profile in another geo in advance of going there. And, George uses this term that I think is cute. It's called, Pre-Hunt. And so you can go there and, we've got that testing in 1 or 2 markets right now. It's coming along nicely. Again, these products, I would say we are, we haven't fully invented. We are listening to our users and they're, providing us their suggestions. And they're also essentially telling us how they are jerry-rigging the app now to get what they want.
And so that one we're pretty excited about. There's another one called Right Now. And Right Now means that you can actually change your filter to provide your intent. And so that intent is truly Right Now. We're also starting that testing out. I think that will evolve over time in the same way that I just gave you a quick example of Boost and how some folks got 1,000 likes and some people only got 65. I think what we're imagining for Right Now is a whole suite of drumbeats of how we're going to evolve that product and make it pretty fun for our users. So those are the two things on the agenda.
Yeah. They should be good. That it'll be interesting as we go along here.
Yeah.
How engagement is with them. Maybe on the, broaden out a little bit on the macro side, you've heard from some of the other players. There's some pockets of weakness, seeing some à la carte weakness. What are you, what are you seeing from the community on the macro side?
You know, we continue to look, obviously. I mean, that's the job. And we just have not seen that. I think we saw last year when I got a little nervous, let's say, when some of my colleagues kept telling me about the student loans coming back in and you had to start paying the student loans in September. And so I was really quite biting my nails, I would say, and nothing happened. And so we just aren't able to see what other companies seem to be seeing in à la carte or subscription.
Okay. Good. Maybe pivot over, said 180 countries. Let's talk about the international opportunity. Yeah, how should we, how should we view that over the next, say, couple of years?
Definitely. So, I mean, I don't think that it's a surprise to suggest that our conversion rates are highest in North America and they're not as high in every other country. I think that's natural for any direct-to-consumer business. I would say that there is an opportunity to change that because one thing that we have noticed is our localization is relatively poor. And what I mean by that is the simple translation isn't always right. And the images aren't exactly the ones that would be most resonating with users in a certain country. And so we think by just basic steps, even on translation, we should be able to improve our conversion rates in some of the countries. Also, I think that as more countries become more liberal, as we've seen in the United States, I think that's a natural tailwind.
In addition to, we even continuously see data that says that folks in Latin America, 20% of people identify as fluid. And so when you just have a more open environment, I think we're going to see things change. Again, I agree it's not, it's not 2025 necessarily even, but I think over time we'll put more effort into that.
What about just like basic stuff like pricing? Can you do things there? Like how is the pricing structure?
Yeah.
Like can you make it more dynamic?
I think what we've noticed when we originally joined the company, we thought the pricing seemed less scientific than we were hoping. We did a little bit of A/B testing and what we're finding is that potentially the prices are more inelastic than we thought, meaning the folks that want to pay for it actually might have a higher propensity to pay for it. And the folks that are not ready to have Grindr on their Amex statement, it may take a minute and we may need to change things. So I think this pricing internationally might be a little more nuanced than just taking the prices up or just taking them down. I think they're going to be more nuanced. So you know, I think there's work to do there, but it's not hard work.
It's just A/B testing and we'll do it.
Right. And we mentioned before the, you know, the very low dollars spent on advertising, you know, because it's a great word of mouth. And you mentioned maybe getting some, you know, putting some dollars behind brand advertising. Would we see that like, would that be like global or would that just be in a couple of countries or?
So we're going to test it out. What you'll see there's a Grindr bus that's traveling across America right now for Pride Month because June's here practically. But I would say that to me is relatively small from the perspective of international markets. We're going to test it in three markets. And that really is to test raising our brand awareness. So like I said, we were 85% in North America, but 60%-65% outside of North America. And what we actually noticed in our user research is if they've heard of Grindr, they tend to use it first. And if they haven't, they'll go to Tinder.
Okay.
In international markets. We think there's probably real ROI there.
Okay. Great. Well, we're running, we're just about out of time. You guys have your first investor day coming up. June 26th.
Yep.
New York City.
New York City. That's where it should be.
Yeah. What would, what should we be thinking about?
So it'll provide an opportunity for folks to see AJ Balance, who's our Chief Product Officer, and Tristan, who is our Chief Brand Officer. I think what you'll get the opportunity to see is really what's on their roadmap, how they're thinking about the app, how they're thinking about evolving it. I think right now we only talk about 2024 essentially in terms of our roadmap. We hope to provide a three-year timeline. We'll provide some financial metrics, broad strokes for a three-year timeline as well as our capital allocation theory because we generate a lot of free cash flow. We have a little bit of debt, but seems like people are curious on that. So we'll provide a little bit of guidance on that too.
That's great. What did I miss? Did I miss anything?
I don't think so. I think we got there.
Okay.
With perfect timing, I would call it.
All right. Thank you so much.