EXCLUSIVE: Dave CEO Talks Long-Term Vision, Q2 Earnings, And Operating Plans

Jason Wilk is the Founder and CEO of Dave DAVE, a banking app on a mission to level the financial playing field. Following Dave’s Q2 earnings report on August 11, 2022, Wilk took questions from retail investors via Public.com. Here’s an exclusive recap of the Town Hall event for Benzinga readers.

What are your long term goals for Dave?

Jason Wilk: Our long term vision is to provide access to financial opportunity for everyone. With technology, the world is flattening and being able to provide access to financial products that enable people to achieve their goals no matter how big or small is an exciting opportunity. There are still close to 2 billion people on the planet that are unbanked.

What is your product doing that others would have a difficult time replicating?

Jason Wilk: Our overdraft product, ExtraCash, has been used over 60 million times and as such, we think the speed and value we can deliver to customers is unparalleled based on how much our underwriting algorithms have been able to improve. No other incumbent bank offers customers the ability to get money in their account the same day they join, especially without interest, late fees or a credit check. This is hard to replicate at scale.

On your earnings call, you talked about cutting back marketing spend. Why did you make a decision to reduce spend in that area?

Jason Wilk: The first half of the year has given us huge confidence in our ability to acquire customers at scale. On our earnings call last week we talked about how we increased marketing spend during the quarter by 70% with just a 3% increase to new member acquisition costs. Because we have strong conviction that our roadmap over the next few quarters will see improvements to variable margin and lifetime value, we felt it was a prudent decision to save on some marketing spend until we could realize the benefit of those stronger investment returns. Better margins and lifetime value against a stable CAC is a winning outcome. In this more moderated investment scenario, we still believe we can grow the business at a strong clip, with the added benefit of giving us more cash on the balance sheet to further de-risk the need to raise additional equity capital on our path to profitability.

Can you provide context around why you adjusted guidance for the remainder of the year on your recent earnings call?

Jason Wilk: We updated our revenue guidance, which reflects performance in the first half of the year combined with our expectations for the second half of the year, taking into account our proportionately lower level of marketing spend. We now expect total non-GAAP operating revenues to be between $200 million and $215 million for the year, narrowing the range from $200 million to $230 million that we gave on our Q1 call.

How do you plan to become profitable?

Jason Wilk: We expect to achieve profitability in 2024. Improving margins and customer lifetime value will only make us a stronger company once we achieve profitability status. It’s our goal to not only be profitable, but continue our rapid customer and average revenue per user growth, creating a very strong financial model as we scale.

What would you say the top priorities are for Dave in the next 6 months to 1 year?

Jason Wilk: On the product side, we are focused on driving more adoption of our debit card and ultimately direct deposit from our members. Recurring banking members are the most retentive. On the operating side, one of our areas of focus is on improving margins.

Public.com members can view the full Q&A in the app. Open To The Public Investing is a member of FINRA and SIPC. This content is not investment advice. Investing involves risk of loss.