Monday.com shows it’s possible to post great results even in a slow market

Monday.com is continuing its streak of quick growth following its IPO.

In addition to reporting a 42% rise in its revenue for the second quarter of 2023, the cloud-based platform that lets users create apps narrowed its operating loss and net loss, and improved its cash generation, too. Investors seem to like the progress, with its stock up by nearly 15% this morning.

Notably, however, Monday.com is enduring the same sort of slowdown in net retention growth that we are seeing at many software companies. As a reminder, software-as-a-service (SaaS) companies grow by selling their products to new customers, and by selling more products to existing customers. Monday.com, which charges on a per-seat basis, is one such company.

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Slower growth of net retention, a metric which includes existing customer churn and upsells, means it can be harder to increase your revenue and make it costlier to do so, as it is more expensive to sell to new customers than to juice existing accounts for more seats.

The slowdown we’ve seen in net retention comes at a difficult time for many tech companies, looking to conserve cash while keeping growth warm. Startups, doubly so. So how did Monday.com delight investors while also seeing its net retention moderate? Let’s find out.

It’s not as bad as it looks

Monday.com reported revenue of $175.7 million in Q2 2023, but narrowed its operating loss to $12.2 million from $46.2 million a year ago. The company also managed to dramatically narrow its net loss to $0.15 per share from $1.01 per share.

Excluding one-time costs, Monday.com reported adjusted operating income of $16.6 million, far better than $15.4 million a year earlier.

The company also made impressive strides in improving its cash flows. In the company’s own words: