A net income beat versus plan?!
February 20, 2024
We've had no shortage of records and firsts in the past few months but this one is likely the most significant. We just posted our first ever net income beat vs. plan in January, no small feat given how tightly we modeled out our plan for each month in 2024. This stemmed from a combination of a sizable revenue beat and being prudent about expenses.
On the revenue front, we did exactly what we thought we were going to do in January for the marketplace business. We projected $[ ] in revenue and we hit $[ ]K. The mix though was slightly different as we were well short on the Percent underwritten deals but we found an opportunity to make up for it with third party underwritten deals. This give and take will likely be a consistent theme throughout the rest of the year as the borrowers that come to market through us or other underwriters is going to vary month to month. The upside then came from the things we weren't in a position to accurately project out last year, including deposit interest from our investors which we started to accrue in December and the private deal that will be paying dividends for us in January as well. This was a solid $[ ]K revenue beat that we should not take for granted.
On the expense side, the only major miss was mis-forecasting what a specific line item around taxes was going to be. This is a bit of an amorphous calculation that Justworks makes and it varies every single month, but it did come in $[ ]K above our plan. We made up for some of this by being $[ ]K better than plan for legal (definitely a first!) and $[ ]K better than plan for software licenses. All in all, the fact that everything else came in about where we expected it to be is telling of how we can manage expenses through the rest of the year.
More than just a revenue beat, a net income beat versus plan is a big deal. It brings down our net burn, extends our runway, and gives our equity investors both old and new confidence in our projections for the rest of the year. Let's keep this momentum going
