Exclusive: Thryv Holdings CEO Joe Walsh On SaaS Platform's Guidance Beat

When Thryv Holdings Inc. THRY listed on the Nasdaq Oct. 1, it bypassed the initial public offering route and went straight to a listing. It's not the usual way for a company to go public.

The Dallas-based company has a habit of defying expectations, according to CEO Joe Walsh.

Thryv's Latest Earnings: Although it's relatively new to the Nasdaq, Thryv has been operational under different names for roughly 125 years, with an initial mission as a telephone directory publisher.

Today, its primary focus is a software as a solution management platform for smaller businesses that bears the company’s name, along with marketing services tied to its proprietary search sites, including Yellowpages.com and Superpages.com.

In an interview with Benzinga, Walsh highlighted Thryv’s fourth-quarter and fiscal 2020 earnings, which were released last week. The new data showed the company outpacing the guidance set for each revenue stream:

• SaaS revenue was $34.9 million while its guidance was $33 million,
• Marketing services revenue was $212.1 million while its guidance range was $190 million to $200 million,
• Total revenue was $246.9 million while its guidance range was $223 million to $233 million.

For fiscal year 2020, the company further outpaced the guidance that was initially called:

• SaaS revenue was $129.8 million while its guidance was $128 million,
• Marketing services revenue was $979.6 million while its guidance range was $955 million to $965 million,
• Total revenue was $1.1 million while its guidance range was $1.08 million to $1.09 million

“We beat it right across the board,” said Walsh. “We had guided quite comprehensively last fall to help investors, as we were a new public company.”

Walsh credits the company’s performance to the ability to stay “pretty focused on small businesses and their needs,” adding that Thryv attempted to address the myriad of concerns that this sector has been facing over the past year.

“This platform allows a small business to update their store hours, update their COVID safety protocols, anything they need to tell the marketplace in real-time,” he said. “It keeps their SEO nice and tight and up to snuff, so that they can continue to be found online, and it manages managing ratings and reviews tied to their social media reputation.”

As for the company’s marketing services, Walsh said this aspect of Thryv “really outperformed expectations,” which he credits to “very mature customers” who were willing to work with the company during the pandemic, particularly in the migration from the traditional employment setting to a remote workforce.

“We call it moving the unclouded into the cloud,” he said.

What’s Next For Thryv: Looking ahead, Walsh is putting a greater emphasis on Thryv Pay, a proprietary payment system that was introduced in the fourth quarter.

“We're excited about that — it is becoming a really important piece of what we do,” he said, adding the coming months will also see the “building of a dedicated sales team around our SaaS business. We’re seeing the growth rate of new customer acquisitions expand — we’ve found the sweet spot of customer engagement by getting them to use the software and benefit from it.”

Photo courtesy Thryv Holdings.