→ I like that juxtaposition.
I felt the commentary, especially in the Q&A was pretty strong and frank.
A couple of further things that give me confidence:
- CFO stated that they will be FCF positive end of next fiscal year - so essentially in 1 years’ time: Q4 2024, so the quarter ended Jan 2024.
- break-even - meaning op margin positive - in the year thereafter, fiscal 2025
- they expect to have a strong 4Q (as per Zoro’s quote above). they are acknowledging that their Q4 sequential growth guide is half of their historical 40% qoq growth, but they also said that their guidance is much more conservative than the past. So even with a much more conservative guide they are planning to significantly outperform/i.e. take market share from CRWD.
- They have not seen weakness in SMB (same as ZS, in contrast to CRWD); they have rather seen the sales cycle lengthening in larger customers same as everyone else.
→ In a way my take-out from the call is similar to TTD; they are taking market share in a very tough environment. I also felt the commentary was frank, confident but sober.