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spk07: Good day, and thank you for standing by, and welcome to WAG Fourth Quarter 2022 Earnings Call. At this time, our participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you'll need to press star 1-1 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star 1 again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Dawn Frankfort, Managing Director at ICR.
spk08: You may begin.
spk01: Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining WAG's conference call to discuss our fourth quarter and full year 2022 financial results. On the call today are Garrett Smallwood, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman, Adam Storm, President and Chief Product Officer, and Alex Davidian, Chief Financial Officer. Before we get started, please note that today's comments include forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties and involve factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such statements. A discussion of these risks and uncertainties are included in our SEC filing. Also during the call, we may present both GAAP and non-GAAP financial measures. Reconciliations to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures are available in our earnings release, which we issued today. The earnings release is available on the investor relations page of our website and is included as an exhibit in the form 8K furnished to the SEC. Lastly, you can find our earnings presentation posted on our IR website and with the SEC. And with that, let me turn the call over to Garrett.
spk12: Thanks, Don. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us to discuss our fourth quarter and full year 2022 performance and strategic priorities for 2023. I'll begin by reflecting on WAG's first year as a public company, which was topped off with our best quarter to date. We're building a strong, non-discretionary, consumer-branded, premium pet care platform that is transforming the pet industry by becoming an all-inclusive, trusted partner for the premium pet parent. In 2022, we transformed WAG from a service business to a premium platform for pet care needs. This inflection is centered around our belief that being busy shouldn't stop you from owning or taking care of your furry family members. We saw the guilt and stress that pet parents have in not being able to provide their pets sufficient attention and care. And as such, our mission is simple. We exist to make pet ownership possible for busy people and to bring joy to pets and those who love them. And in 2022, we have made this possible. The year was defined by our commitment to healthy and disciplined growth, which we accomplished with our success in the wellness category, increased WAG premium penetration, robust partnership momentum, operating efficiency and discipline, and the acquisition of Pharmacy.com. Our accomplishments this quarter and for the full year would not be possible without our passionate and hardworking team at WAG, who have laid the building blocks for long-term success in 2023 and beyond. We couldn't be more excited about what we have accomplished and we are just getting started. To frame the rest of our discussion today, we will review our 2022 financial results and cover our compelling growth strategy that positions us to deliver predictable and sustainable financial performance while combining all corners of the pet market into our trusted platform. After another exceptional quarter, we are raising our 2023 guidance for both revenue and adjusted EBITDA from what we previously provided in our deal announcement presentation at the beginning of 2022. Before turning it over to Adam, President and Chief Product Officer, who will give an update on our strategy and key initiatives for the year, I will give a high-level summary of our fourth quarter and full year 2022 performance. Then Alec, our Chief Financial Officer, will discuss our fourth quarter and full year 2022 results in more detail, our capital allocation priorities, and our guidance for 2023. In the fourth quarter, we continue to execute on our discipline strategy and achieve record revenue of 17 million, up 110% year over year, driving full year revenue growth of over 173% to 54.9 million. Importantly, we continue to invest in our business, focusing on our highest ROI assets while being disciplined, delivering fourth quarter adjusted EBITDA loss of approximately 400,000, an improvement from 2.5 million loss the year prior. Further, we saw healthy platform participants of more than 434,000, and WAG premium penetration remained strong in the fourth quarter at 54%, as we rolled out 1499 pricing tests in key markets across the United States, resulting in WAG premium price increase for new pet parents to 1499 from 999. As a reminder, WAG premium penetration is key to the platform resiliency as it builds a deep and repeatable relationship with pet parents, driving strong cross-sell rates and an increased LTB. As we mentioned last quarter, we continue to test WAG premium pricing and benefits to maintain our long-term premium penetration target and add value to premium. During the quarter, we saw continued momentum in our wellness business, which is a testament to our ability to transform WAG into a holistic pet care platform that can meet any and all needs of pets and those who love them, as well as strengthen our overnight services business, led by great relationships between pet parents and pet caregivers, which drives long duration overnight stays and was accelerated by incremental weather and canceled flights throughout the US, which led to stronger than expected AOVs. Turning to LTV to CAC, for the fourth quarter, we saw an increase to seven to one, demonstrating our operational excellence, efficiency and marketing spend, all of which prove that WAG is a non-discretionary post-pandemic need. During the quarter, we leaned into strategic partnerships, where we did not have to invest in traditional marketing channels, which resulted in an organic user acquisition rate of 70%. We continue to pursue partnership opportunities in 2023, such as with Alignment Healthcare, where members enrolled in eligible plans that have qualifying conditions can use the WAG app to receive their covered pet care benefits when they have an upcoming procedure, are hospitalized or need support post discharge. Moving to the supply side of the marketplace, we continue to believe that WAG is the best gig in America. We know that dedicated pet caregivers who have chosen to provide their services through us have contributed to our success, which is why we are constantly collecting feedback to ensure that pet caregivers are equipped with the tools they need to not only have a successful service, but a prosperous book of business. By investing into the pet caregiver experience, and not only the pet parent experience, we are distinctly positioned to maintain a strong leadership position within the supply side of the market. This is evident by continued significant interest in the pet caregiver gig, despite the macro environment. The average price that pet caregivers are paying to join the platform goes from around $41.50 in Q3 to around $53.30 in Q4, and even further from the $29.95 at the start of the year, based on real-time supply and demand equilibrium. For this reason, we have been able to maintain a negative supply-side CAC. Before I pass the call over to Adam to discuss our growth initiatives, let me summarize why I'm so bullish about the future for our shareholders and position as a category leader in the pet care industry. One, our 2022 financial results demonstrate the effectiveness of our strategy and the benefits of continued investment in our current product offerings and measured expansion where advantageous. evidenced by our above-targeted returns across the business. We continue to be the trusted on-demand digital marketplace for premium pet parents. Two, we have the capability to grow while sustaining impressive operating margins as a result of our performance-driven culture, our exceptional talent, the inherent cross-out capabilities within our platform, as well as across markets within the pet industry, and the continued humanization of pets paired with our customer-centric technology. WAG is an accessible, multifaceted platform that is consolidating the fastest growing secular growth areas within the pet industry. And finally, we are proactively managing and deploying our capital to be accretive for shareholders as seen through the dog food advisor acquisition in January of 2023. All of these factors contribute to my excitement and confidence about the future of WAG. And with that, Adam will provide additional color on our strategy.
spk04: Thanks, Garrett. I will now walk through the five top-level elements of our strategy driving long-term shareholder value and how they evolve going into 2023. One, accelerate growth in existing markets. Two, expand premium subscription offerings. Three, platform expansion. Four, opportunistic M&A. And five, operating scale. We made significant progress in 2022 accelerating growth in existing markets, capitalizing on the slow and steady return to office and post pandemic activities. At 50% return to office per the CASEL back to work barometer, we have significant room to run in 2023. We believe the demand for high quality personalized pet care far exceeds the existing market due to the increases in pet adoption and return to office policies. We plan to continue to grow within existing markets and capture additional share of wallet through the compounding effect of our premium subscription and additional product lines. Coming out of the pandemic, there is an influx of new pet parents who will also participate in the return to normal shift and will need to utilize our non-discretionary services. With the continued trend in the humanization of pets, we believe we are entering a secular trend in the pet health and wellness categories. Led by millennials and Gen Z, many pet parents increasingly consider the needs of their pets not just equally important to those of the rest of the family, but more important. Approximately 70% of U.S. households, or about 91 million homes, owned a pet as of 2022, and 70 million of those are dog households. Of those, we specifically target the premium pet parent, or roughly 15% of households in the current market who have a proven propensity towards premiumization across pet categories. In 2022, we hit our long-term premium penetration target of 50% due to the success of our second growth driver, expanding premium subscription offerings. We plan to continue testing premium pricing tiers, subscription tiers, and product bundling throughout 2023 to grow revenue and drive additional value to the pet parent. As a result of our testing in Q4, we are raising prices for new premium pet parents to $14.99 per month. As a reminder, WAG Premium subscribers receive a 10% discount on all services, VIP customer support, and unlimited 24-7 expert pet advice, which drives customer satisfaction and retention and their willingness to cross-sell to our expanding set of products and services. Third, we continue to focus on platform expansion and diversifying the products and services within the platform, including new features such as browse and book refined search, which helps pet parents find the perfect match based on pet caregiver specialties, notes from pet caregivers, allowing them to make a more informed decision before requesting a service, and the launch of super and ultimate endorsements, which allow colleagues and existing pet parents to boost a pet caregiver at the beginning of their small business journey to show the pet parent community how great the pet caregiver is. Importantly, in the fourth quarter, we renewed our partnership with Alignment Healthcare, which provides Alignment Healthcare plan members with WAG services. We will continue to grow the marketplace business through thoughtful product development and expanding the set of services available through our platforms. WAG's partnerships add value not only to us, but our pet parents as well, and we plan to build upon those relationships in 2023. Fourth, in 2022 and going forward, we're prioritizing growth through opportunistic M&A. We believe that over time, we can enhance the value of WAG with strategic acquisitions in the pet industry. In the fourth quarter, we acquired Pharmacy Inc., a concierge prescription and compounding service that delivers pet health directly to the pet parent's door. Additionally, we recently announced the WAG entry into the pet food and treat category by successfully completing the acquisition of Dog Food Advisor in January, which helps busy pet parents make decisions about dog food through the website dogfoodadvisor.com. This is an illustrative example of us building out the premium pet care platform. The fifth element of our strategy is operating scale, which I will briefly touch on and Alec will provide more detail. We are laser focused on our unit economics and fixed cost operating leverage, which drove operating margin improvements across the board. Our customer acquisition unit economics, as seen in our seven to one LTV cap ratio, continue to outpace our expectations for the quarter and year. Adjusted EBITDA margin improved by 42% in 2022. In 2023, we continue to build our platform by investing in growth levers with a fast payback cycle, low fixed costs, and low OpEx. We will continue to be disciplined operators and remain laser-focused on managing growth, margin, and profit.
spk11: And with that, let me turn the call over to Alec.
spk06: Thank you, Adam, and thank you, everyone, for joining our fourth quarter and full year 22 earnings call. It has been an incredibly exciting and successful year for the WAVE team as we grew the business through a diversified revenue stream, launched new products, and executed with operational excellence. As a result, we finished 22 with all-time record results significantly ahead of our expectations. I'll walk through our financial numbers by providing an overview of our fourth quarter and full year 22 results, and then an overview of our updated 23 guidance. Closing out our outstanding year, Q4 22 was another record quarter. with our highest quarterly revenue since inception, totaling 17 million, up approximately 110% from Q4 21. Adjusted EBITDA loss for the quarter improved to 0.4 million compared to 2.5 million in Q4 21. On a full year basis, full year 22 revenue increased 173% to 54.9 million compared to 20.1 million in 21, while adjusted EBITDA loss improved to 3.9 million compared to 9.9 million in 21. Our acceleration is the outcome of pet parent demand, new partnerships, expansion into additional markets, testing and bundling wide premium offers, and continued marketing efficiency. As expected, we saw a shift of pet parent needs from walking to sitting and boarding in the fourth quarter, in line with the usual seasonal demand mix and inclement weather across the country. We also experienced continued strong demand for wellness services, which contributed to 66% of revenue in Q422 compared to 45% in Q421. Our wellness suite of services include valuable offerings such as expert pet advice, wellness plans, pet insurance comparison options, and new and 22 pet prescription and compound medicine via pharmacy. Turning to expenses during the fourth quarter. Cost of revenue excluding depreciation and amortization was $1 million in Q422 or 6% of revenue compared to $0.8 million or 10% of revenue in Q421. For the full year, cost of revenue excluding depreciation and amortization was $4 million or 7% of revenue compared to $2.8 million or 14% of revenue in Q421. The dollar amount increase was a direct result of increased demand driving incremental payment processing fees and background check costs via an increase in pet activity and caregiver applicants. Nevertheless, cost of revenue decreased as a percentage of revenue as our technology scaling initiatives took place. Platform operations and support expense was $2.8 million in Q4 2022, or 16% of revenue. compared to $2.6 million or 32% of revenue in Q4-21. For the full year, platform operations and support expense was $13.8 million or 25% of revenue, compared to $10.3 million or 51% of revenue in Q4-21. While there has been an increase in expense in dollar terms year-over-year, driven by personnel-related compensation costs and stock compensation expense as we hire and retain talent, Platform operations and support expense have more than halved as a percentage of revenue as a result of operational scale. Sales and marketing expense was 10.5 million in Q4 22 or 62% of revenue compared to 65% of revenue in Q4 21. For the full year, sales and marketing expense was 35.2 million or 64% of revenue versus 10.2 million or 51% of revenue in 21. The dollar amount increase in sales and marketing expense is driven by partnership activity, cost of new product initiatives and launches, and general marketing spend in order to harness net new pet parents and cross-sell them complementary platform offering via the WAG ecosystem. G&A expense was $3.9 million in Q4 22 or 23% of revenue compared to $2 million or 25% of revenue in Q4 21. For the full year, G&A expense was $32.4 million, or 59% of revenue, compared to $7 million, or 35% of revenue in 2021. Notably, 2022 includes approximately $21 million in transaction and integration expenses in connection with the IPO. When excluded for like-for-like comparison, G&A expense represents 21% of revenue in 2022, which is a decrease of 14 percentage points year-over-year. The dollar amount increase in G&A expense is driven by personnel-related compensation costs and stock compensation expense as we hire and retain key talent, M&A-related costs, and public company compliance, including expenses related to the compliance with the rules and regulations of the SEC and NASDAQ via legal audit and consulting fees. Adjusted EBITDA, which is an important profitability measure that we use internally to manage the business, improved $2 million to an adjusted EBITDA loss of $0.4 million. This compares to an adjusted EBITDA loss of $2.5 million in Q4-21. Adjusted EBITDA loss for the year improved $3.9 million versus $9.9 million in Q4-21. Turning to our balance sheet, we ended the fourth quarter with over $39 million in cash and cash equivalents. This is primarily due to the IPO transaction cash proceeds and financing net of issuance costs that occurred in the third quarter of 22, together with 9.8 million cash received from a forward share purchase agreement in the fourth quarter. Aside from these transactions, the increase was due to cash generated from our business operations. Our balance sheet remains strong in the context of our operating cash use and puts us in a strong position to comfortably fund our growth objectives while also maintaining flexibility to pursue strategic M&A when we believe the opportunity aligns with our goals. I also want to highlight WAG's overall headcount efficiency, which is another indication of our operational excellence. Despite the 173% revenue growth we have seen in the past year, we have only grown headcount by 9%, bringing our total headcount at WAG to 82%. Including all headcount, counting platform operations and support, We reach 0.8 million revenue per employee based on a Q4 22 run rate, well ahead of industry pairs. We have accomplished this through intense focus on systems automation, proprietary technology, and a robust infrastructure, which enables the platform to scale without additional headcount. We are efficient and remain judicious about hiring and headcount. Our focus remains on employing and empowering the very best people in key positions, which has also come into play with recent aqua high transactions and M&A strategy. We are building a team of best in class builders, doctors, designers, founders, engineers, and pet lovers. Our vision is the special forces as opposed to a broadly talented Navy. In addition to building a great business, we are also passionate about building a great company, and that can only be done by fostering a strong culture and dedication towards our customers and our community. In 2022, we have already begun to bring focus and accountability to our ESG efforts. We are measuring, managing, and reporting on some of our key diversity, equity, and inclusion metrics and priorities, which we look forward to sharing with you in our upcoming 10K. Moving to our guidance for 2023. As Garrett mentioned, we are very pleased with the strong performance we saw during the fourth quarter and the year. As a result, we are raising our full year 23 guidance that we previously included in our April 22 investor deck. For the full year 23, we now expect total revenue in the range of $75 to $77 million, an increase of 37% to 40% year over year, and a 7% improvement versus our prior forecast at the midpoint of the range. This forecast builds on our strong results in 22 while retaining an appropriate level of conservatism as we continue to face a very dynamic backdrop. Adjusted EBITDA loss in the range of 0 to 2 million, and 91% improvement versus our prior forecast at the midpoint of the range. This range contains multiple levers, including sales and marketing spend, product development and expansion, and pricing power. Our financial guidance includes the following assumptions. The White House plans to terminate on May 11 both the public health and national emergencies declared in response to COVID pandemic, as stated on January 30, 2023. A continued trend in return to office as measured by the Castle Back to Work meter. The accretive impact from the acquisition of Dog Food Advisor in January 23, which we expect will contribute 3 million of revenue and 1.5 million of positive adjusted EBITDA in 23. continued acceleration in wellness, including new ventures, expansion into additional markets, testing and bundling of WAG premium offers, and improved marketing efficiency. In summary, as illustrated by our strong Q4 22 and full year 22 results, we have been and are currently experiencing demand in the face of a very dynamic backdrop. Our ability to execute on that demand, achieve results above our previously announced plan, focus on operational excellence and integrate and operate well-thought-out enterprises through M&A is a testament to our business strategy for 22 and for the future. And with that, we now welcome Q&A.
spk07: And thank you. As a reminder to ask a question, please press star 11 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star 11 again. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. And we do ask that you limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. Again, we ask that you limit yourself to one question and one follow-up.
spk08: And one moment for our first question. And our first question comes from Tom White from D.A.
spk07: Davidson & Company. Your line is now open.
spk05: Great. Thanks, guys, for taking my questions. Nice results in the quarter. A couple questions, if I could. I guess just first on WAG premium penetration, I think you've exceeded kind of that long-term target you first talked about. So I guess, you know, when you guys refer to kind of, you know, testing and bundling, is that more about sort of extracting kind of maximum maximum revenue from this group of, you know, kind of premium pet parents, if you will, that have sort of already already signed up and that are willing to kind of accept the price? increases, or is it kind of more about, you know, introducing new bundles to maybe kind of maximize, you know, the penetration and come up with offerings that appeal to kind of a broader swath of pet parents? And then I had a quick follow-up.
spk04: Hey, Tom. Thank you for your question. Yes, so I would say the primary motivation at the $14.99 price point is finding the price ultimately, the right price for the current bundle of WAG premium. That said, we're going to continue to test price and different bundling combinations that might be priced lower or higher. $14.99 was just kind of the optimal given the current benefits.
spk05: Okay, great. Garrett, I was hoping maybe you'd give us an update on the overnight stay part of your business. I think you touched on it briefly in the prepared remarks, but curious how that's been performing. Obviously, a lot of the earnings results we've heard from the OTAs and stuff suggest that consumer travel, that recovery has been very robust overall. But just curious, like how you guys think about overnight stays as kind of a compelling opportunity, maybe an opportunity for you guys to to increase your share there. I know it's not been a historically necessarily a huge part of a huge focus of you guys. But, you know, I saw that browsing book feature, which would maybe seem to appeal to parents who are contemplating a longer stay. Maybe just maybe just comment on kind of that opportunity around overnight stays.
spk12: Absolutely. And again, thanks, Tom. Great to hear from you. Taking a step back, look, we aim to be the premium pet platform for the premium pet parent, right? So that means solving their needs, whether it's overnight care and that's sitting and boarding, drop-ins, which is a reminder we launched 20, 30, and 60-minute drop-ins in totality across the U.S. in 2022, which are really great for cats and kind of non-dogs or even sometimes senior pups. So we really do like the overnight business. I think you saw with Browse and Book, which is a great mention, which is gated behind premium in some cases, as a way for pet parents to discover great local pros in their neighborhood and actually message them ahead of submitting a request, as well as our WAG Neighborhood Network pages. So we're going to continue to build tools to enable great sitting and business. And Keith alluded to it in the last few minutes. It was certainly a healthy sitting and boarding time for the business, as it usually is in Q4, particularly driven by incremental travel, longer stays, unfortunately due to a lot of just functional flight cancellations, believe it or not. I think you all saw the Southwest news. So, yeah, it was just a great, great feat. I think we'll continue to lean in.
spk08: Great. Thank you. And thank you. And one moment for our next question. And our next question comes from Matt Kurander from Roth MKM.
spk07: Your line is now open.
spk03: Hey, guys. Good afternoon. Just curious if you could maybe touch on platform participation trends and the number of platform participants quarter over quarter. Anything you saw in terms of churn as you raised price with the 1499 tier with Maybe if you could also just clarify when that was implemented and sort of how far along you are in terms of that implementation on the tiered pricing.
spk12: Yeah, so the way to think about it, and again, great. Thanks for the question, Matt. Appreciate the time. Taking a step back, usually we expect to see some degree of what we'll call seasonality in Q4 as a function of the services business transitioning from what we'll call high-frequency services, things like daytime walking and drop-ins, to longer duration overnight stays or drop-ins. And that's certainly what we saw in this quarter. And we'll probably, I mean, I don't know for sure, we'll see what the trend looks like this year, but I'm assuming that'll be a consistent trend in our business. We raised premium pricing throughout Q4 only for net new subs. So it did not affect existing subscribers. And I think it's really important to call out. And what that means is, you know, the premium trend should stay pretty resilient as a result. And what we're really doing, to Adam's point earlier, is focused on making sure we're maximizing the value we provide and the price we can then capture from net new pet parents. And we've discovered that that is actually about 50% higher, especially in a monthly basis. So it didn't affect existing subscribers. It only affects net new subs. I'll pause there if there's any other questions.
spk03: Okay. No, that's very helpful clarification there. So thanks for that, Garrett. And then, I guess, just in terms of the 23 outlook, I wanted to see if you guys could clarify or help us understand services versus wellness in the outlook there. It was helpful to have Dr. DeVizer broken out, so I appreciate that. But just any further breakdown of the services versus wellness growth outlook, and then any help on just sort of the contribution from pharmacy as well, and I noticed that wasn't necessarily in the broken out either, so. just help on that would be great.
spk12: Yeah, a lot of great questions. I'll do my best to parse them that. So I think Q4 is probably a pretty healthy indication of kind of future mix, frankly. We're really excited about the wellness business. We have great leadership there, a phenomenal team in place, and just generally incredible things happening there, as you can see in Q4. Again, we're leaning into all parts of the business. What we're really trying to do is just maximize our ability to recycle capital efficiently on a tight timescale. And so Wellness has demonstrated that. First, we really think about it as like an optionality, something we're excited to test, begin integrating, we think has a real future potential within the business. But again, that is a California-specific pharmacy and compounding business that's working directly with vet clinics and pet parents. You'll see us in Q4, we experimented with some customer offers, with scaling into quarterback planets and building relationships.
spk11: You'll probably continue to see us do this, but it's not a material part of the wellness as revenue today. Okay, very helpful.
spk08: I'll jump back to you guys. Thanks. And thank you. And one moment for our next question. And our next question comes from Jeremy Hamblin.
spk07: From Craig Hallam, your line is now open.
spk09: Thanks, and congrats on the momentum in the business. I wanted to just first talk about seasonality a little bit in terms of platform participation in Q4 versus kind of typical expectation you have to start the year, certainly getting some great indicators with the CASEL return to work barometer that you are getting more and more people back in the office. Want to get a sense for how you expect that to impact your business. Assuming that's more for the services segment. But also wanted to get a sense for what you are seeing on your wellness platform and whether or not growth there is being driven more by engagement on the insurance marketplace or if that's coming a little bit you know more from you know the the other portions of of that segment I'll take this one Jeremy always a treat yeah hopefully everyone sees I did there okay in terms of seasonality again I think we generally expect q4
spk12: um to be a unique time period for the business where our services platform participants specifically transition from high frequency daytime to more overnight i don't think that'll be you know unique to this year or anything else um i would say that yes the castle back to work barometer is a great indication we've mentioned that a few times in the past um about how services Pet parents are thinking about their pets as people return to office. They start thinking about more than just leaving their pet. They think about their pet's well-being, talking to a vet, maybe buying insurance, maybe needing their pet's RX and things delivered instead of picking it up. So all those things are great. And certainly we think that CASEL and the go-forward trend is a reason why we updated guidance, frankly, from our original forecast. And I think you're seeing it with Amazon and Disney and everyone else. Okay, so that's the first question. I think the second one was wellness growth. Look, we're excited about all facets of wellness, frankly. We love the ability for pet parents to communicate directly with pet experts. We love that they can compare insurance quotes. We love that they can look through reviews for great pet insurance companies. There's a ton of great value add in our wellness category. But I generally think the two places you'll see us really doubling down this year are going to continue to be pet parents' ability to compare and read and review pet insurance options. That seems to be a no-brainer in terms of the value it provides pet parents, and two, is their ability to shop and receive compound, Rx, and other prescription meds directly at the doorstep or from their vet in a really simple way.
spk11: Those two things seem to be a great lever for us and the things that pet parents really want to drive forward.
spk09: Okay, got it. And then that was notable regarding your employee head count. You have seen a little bit of a step up here in your G&A cost. I wanted to get a sense for what we saw here in Q4. That's kind of more of a new baseline. You brought in, obviously, some people from transactions, pharmacy. You're going to add in possibly some staff from DFA acquisition as well. I just wanted to get a sense for where your baseline is on that, if Q4 is somewhat reflected or if there was anything unique or specific to that step up in your G&A.
spk12: No, I think Q4 is probably a helpful baseline. And look, I think in the way we think about the business, Jeremy, at this point in 2023, it's just where are we going to be investing incremental dollars to maximize output? I think that's functionally our job, obviously. But really, it's headcount, sales and marketing, possibly M&A. But I think Q4 is a pretty good indication of G&A trends. There might be other opportunities that would be surprising and we'd share with you if that was more M&A or things like that, but I don't expect that. No surprises. So again, I think Q4 is a good baseline for the future.
spk09: Okay. And then last one for me, in terms of what you're seeing from key competition, You know, whether it's, you know, the kind of dollars being spent to attract new customers, you know, or whether it's, you know, competition for kind of the existing set. What are you seeing out there from some of your peers? You know, you had a slight step down, you know, in your CAC. you know, in the quarter or your LTV to CAC. You know, do you have, you know, is that more a reflection of the value is slightly stepped down or more that the cost to acquire customers is up a little bit?
spk12: It was more our willingness to participate, knowing kind of where we were. And so, again, I think what we originally said was, When we targeted three to one, we were six, seven to one. I think, you know, the trend is really good in terms of LTV to CAC or recycling these customers really quickly. And they're paying themselves back really quickly and efficiently. I don't know. I can't speak a ton for our competitors. I think generally last year, Jeremy, we said that we think this year there'd be a huge opportunity to be really thoughtful about marketing. We thought this would be kind of a culling of DTC companies and brands. People would have to pull back pretty significantly as interest rates rose as you know, the, The networks functionally change, whether that was Facebook or Apple, and we're seeing that. We're really good at marketing, frankly. We're really good at partnerships. We're really good at really just building relationships with customers, and we'll continue to do that. If anything, we've seen it be a bit less, I wouldn't say competitive, but a bit less noise in the marketplace.
spk11: And again, we're just going to be really disciplined with the dollars we allocate.
spk09: Got it. Last one. We didn't talk as much on this call on your pet caregivers, and you've experimented in terms of, you know, the fee charged to join the platform. You know, is that reflecting that you feel like you're getting closer to finding that right price point to have, you know, PCGs join the platform or, you know, any color you can share on that? Thanks.
spk12: Yeah, it's really going to be continued. We're not done, to answer your question, Jeremy. We're really focused on the equilibrium and the market clearing price. It's the best gig in America, I think, right? I think the whole team thinks that. And so we're really focused on the market clearing price to become a pet caregiver in the WAG ecosystem. And I think we'll continue to test different mechanisms to make sure the best caregivers are getting the best gigs and are rewarded accordingly.
spk11: So work is far from done there.
spk09: Thanks, guys. Best wishes.
spk08: And thank you. And one moment for our next question. And our next question comes from Jason Hellstein from Oppenheimer.
spk07: Your line is now open.
spk10: Hey, Garrett and team. I'll ask two questions. One, Garrett, can you talk philosophically about, you know, marketing versus cash flow? Now that you've clearly shown, to your point, you're good at marketing, you've got you know, very nice leverage in the business of the past year. You know, how are you thinking about leaning into marketing now going forward relative to cash flow? Is it maintain kind of break-even cash flow and just keep leaning into marketing? So that's the question. And kind of maybe speak on a multi-year basis, right, just beyond 23. And then question number two, we've seen kind of, geographically, you know, different patterns with the return to work, right, with, I think, the East Coast returning more than the West Coast. Can you talk about maybe, like, what you're seeing and if, you know, to the extent you've already seen, like, good data from the East Coast and the West Coast is taking longer to return to work, how you potentially can extrapolate that and how you factor that into 23 guidance? Thanks.
spk12: Yeah. Hey, Jason. Again, thanks for the time. Great to hear from you. Always fun to hear your voice. Uh, look, I think this market is a very dynamic one. And so we have been intensely focused on getting to scale one. That was the most important part. Remember, uh, you know, a couple of quarters ago, I think we said we were pretty early and I think we're getting to a point of what we call real revenue scale and hopefully happen in the back half of this year. And so what we're then focused on is, uh, just making sure we're investing incremental dollars profitably into the platform. So I don't think this business is in a position anytime soon to be just, you know, pumping out dollars functionally. There's too much opportunity ahead. We're really going to continue to lean in thoughtfully, but I don't think that's going to be at a significant, you know, cost basis to our shareholders. So I've answered your first one. The second one in terms of geography, you know, look, the Castleback work barometer is a great indication for kind of what you're seeing with pet parent trends generally. You know, as you think about it, like I think we were at 50-ish percent earlier this month or in January, but like the biggest markets are lagging the average. LA, SF, New York City, et cetera, still pretty far behind. You look at Florida, parts of Florida and Texas are kind of way more open. So we think there's kind of outsized room to return to normal in the upside case. I don't think we're certainly planning for that, but that would be certainly where the opportunity would be, is in these larger markets, which are significantly lagging. If they were to have a real kind of return to normal, that'd be great. But I think that the trend is generally similar to what you're seeing on back there. back to office in terms of capital.
spk08: Thank you. And thank you. And one moment for our next question. And our next question comes from Brian Dobson from Chart and Capital Markets.
spk07: Your line is now open.
spk02: Hey, thanks so much for taking my question. So I guess to return to the subscription service, it's pretty impressive that you see pricing power in that monthly product. I suppose, what kind of lifetime value are you seeing with your current subscribers? And do you think you'll experience the same retention rate at that higher pricing level?
spk11: Yeah.
spk12: So, um, w we've been really thought again, great here from Brian. We've been really thoughtful about premium from the start. Um, one thing I would remind us, Brian, is that we are significantly ahead of where we thought we'd be with premium penetration. I think our long-term goal was something like 50%. We got there a couple of years early. Um, and I think there's a couple of reasons for that. One is we've added so much value to that subscription since we started, uh, that it's just, we're really just catching up in terms of pricing. And two is we're really rapidly experimenting with the benefit that you get as a premium pet parent. And it's just a really delightful experience. So I think, you know, the best way to think about LTV and kind of dollars captured for the pet parent is revenue into platform participants and kind of what we've been capturing. But you saw, I think, in the LTV graphs we published in our deck last year, kind of each cohort of pet parents outperforming the previous. That's generally our goal as operators and builders and engineers and product aficionados. It's really just to increase the dollars we capture from the pet parents that are participating. So I don't think we would do this with, we thought it was going to be a drag coefficient, frankly. But anyway, we actually think it's going to be a tailwind. Does that answer your question?
spk02: Yeah, absolutely. And then I guess turning over to Dog Food Advisor, it's great to see that accruing in year one. I guess what are some of the cross-selling, what is the cross-selling avenue that you're most excited about when you're looking into, like, call it 2023 and 2024?
spk12: Yeah, I mean, thank you. I mean, we love that business. And huge shout out to the founder, Dr. Mike Zagman, who built it over the last 14 years. He's just done a tremendous job. And we're really excited about taking on the opportunity to continue to serve millions of pet parents who are looking for great, real recommendations on pet food. So first and foremost, if you think about pet parents, every single person who owns a pet has one thing in common. They got to feed it. And so the idea that we now have Dog Food Advisor, which we believe is really the premium number one pet food recommendation engine on the web, we can tie that really nicely into our own ecosystem. We can get really intelligent offers in front of our own services, pet parents. Pet parents might be buying pet insurance at the right time. People are talking to a vet through the platform. There's a lot of levers in terms of how we get thoughtful about personalized recommendations. And then two, on the other side of things, when you're thinking about food and you're purchasing food maybe for the first time, It's a bunch of levers then to go back and upsell things like services or finding the perfect pet insurance plan. So just a lot of great synergies. We're not going to rush it. You know, these things are sensitive. You got to do it right, especially at this scale and age. But we're very, very excited about having something that's so evergreen for the pet parent.
spk02: Great. Thanks. And congratulations on a very good quarter.
spk07: And thank you. And I am showing no further questions. This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating.
spk08: You may now disconnect.
spk05: The conference will begin shortly. To raise and lower your hand during Q&A, you can dial star 1 1.
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