DATA Vs AYX: Disrupting the Disruptors

Quick post…at work so I need to do my actual job at some point.

Bert sent out some thoughts on DATA’s most recent quarter. I can’t emphasize strongly enough how valuable subscribing to Bert’s Ticker Target newsletter is. In general he takes a much deeper dive into the technology aspect of these businesses so it’s a great mix with the discussions we have here. Basically what I took from it is this:

Tableau Prep is NOT gaining the traction that the Tableau Bulls and AYX Bears were afraid of. DATA basically started the disruptive data visualization SaaS category, but I think AYX is showing more and more signs of disrupting Tableau.

DATA’s growing numbers are slowing, operating cash flow is declining, and their Net Rev Expansion is in the 90% range which means customers are spending less over time.

All of AYX’s numbers have been heading in opposite directions. I think their product and the Alteryx Community/Podcast they are growing are true differentiators in their business model.

It is increasingly more challenging to build a moat in today’s innovative, disruptive world, but a tribe/community of raving fans is a pretty strong moat. AYX is building just that.

One more sign of AYX’s strength is the partnerships we’re seeing between the two companies. For the last couple years, I think AYX needed the partnership more than Tableau did. However, I now believe the opposite is true.

I’m excited to see if Alteryx has benefited from Tableau’s struggles.

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Tableau Prep is NOT gaining the traction that the Tableau Bulls and AYX Bears were afraid of. DATA basically started the disruptive data visualization SaaS category, but I think AYX is showing more and more signs of disrupting Tableau.

That was so predictable and exactly why I didn’t invest in Tableau and didn’t want to stick around too long in Splunk at massively high valuations, ridiculously high SBC levels and unconvincing profitability - I mentioned this several times on this board.

Data processing and visualisation companies always get disrupted almost immediately after reaching their day in the sun.

To me the lesson is less about Alteryx vs Tableau on a current basis but that we should take care with Alteryx as they will no doubt face the same fate from the next big thing pretty quickly.

Ant

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Ant, I don’t know that AYX will. I think the massive community of fans/ambassadors/data scientists they are growing with their online community, podcast, and Inspire conferences is their moat.

This reminds me of Salesforce and the moat they have built.

https://community.alteryx.com/

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