Grindr Inc (GRND) 2024 Q4 法說會逐字稿

Good afternoon. My name is Kelvin, and I'll be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Grindr fourth-quarter and full-year 2024 earnings conference call. (Operator Instructions)

午安.我叫凱爾文，今天我將擔任您的會議主持人。現在，我歡迎大家參加 Grindr 2024 年第四季和全年財報電話會議。（操作員指示）

Thank you. I would now like to turn the conference over to Tolu Adeofe, Grindr's Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

謝謝。現在，我想將會議交給 Grindr 投資者關係主管 Tolu Adeofe。請繼續。

Thank you, moderator. Hello, and welcome to the Grindr Earnings Call for the Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2024. Today's call will be led by Grindr's CEO, George Arison; and CFO, Vanna Krantz. They will make a few brief remarks, and then we'll open it up for questions.

謝謝主持人。您好，歡迎參加 Grindr 2024 年第四季和全年財報電話會議。今天的電話會議將由 Grindr 的首席執行官喬治·阿里森 (George Arison) 主持；和首席財務官 Vanna Krantz。他們會發表一些簡短的講話，然後我們會開始提問。

Please note, Grindr released its shareholder letter this afternoon, and this is available on the SEC's website and Grindr's Investor page at investors.grindr.com.

請注意，Grindr 今天下午發布了其股東信，可在美國證券交易委員會的網站和 Grindr 的投資者頁面 investors.grindr.com 上查閱。

Before we begin, I will remind everyone that during this call, we may discuss our outlook and future performance. These forward-looking statements may be preceded by words such as we expect, we believe, we anticipate or similar such statements. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties, and our actual results could differ materially from the views expressed today. Some of these risks have been set forth in our earnings release and our periodic reports filed with the SEC.

在我們開始之前，我要提醒大家，在這次電話會議中，我們可能會討論我們的前景和未來的表現。這些前瞻性陳述之前可能會出現諸如“我們期望”、“我們相信”、“我們預期”或類似的詞語。這些聲明受風險和不確定性的影響，我們的實際結果可能與今天表達的觀點有重大差異。其中一些風險已在我們的收益報告和向美國證券交易委員會提交的定期報告中列出。

During today's call, we will also present both GAAP and non-GAAP financial measures. Additional disclosures regarding non-GAAP measures, including a reconciliation of GAAP to non-GAAP measures are included in the earnings release we issued today, which has been posted on the Investor Relations page of Grindr's website and in Grindr's filings with the SEC.

在今天的電話會議中，我們還將介紹 GAAP 和非 GAAP 財務指標。我們今天發布的收益報告中包含了有關非 GAAP 指標的額外披露，包括 GAAP 與非 GAAP 指標的調節，該報告已發佈在 Grindr 網站的投資者關係頁面和 Grindr 向美國證券交易委員會提交的文件中。

With that, I'll turn it over to George.

說完這些，我就把麥克風交給喬治。

Thank you, Tolu, and hello. I very much appreciate everyone who is joining us today. 2024 was a landmark year for Grindr. We grew full year revenue 33% year over year to $345 million, 10 percentage points higher than the initial guidance we provided on our Q4 call last March and our adjusted EBITDA margin was 43%, 3 percentage points higher than our initial guidance.

謝謝你，Tolu，你好。我非常感謝今天與我們一起參加的每個人。 2024 年對 Grindr 來說是個里程碑式的一年。我們的全年營收年增 33% 至 3.45 億美元，比我們去年 3 月在第四季度電話會議上提供的初步預期高出 10 個百分點，我們的調整後 EBITDA 利潤率為 43%，比我們的初步預期高出 3 個百分點。

These results were driven by our relentless focus on user experience, our commitment to delivering great products and the continued expansion of our advertising business. Users continue to have incredible engagement with app. In 2024, they spent more than 130 billion chats, shared more than 2 billion albums and spend more than 70 minutes on average on the app a day.

這些成果源自於我們對使用者體驗的不懈關注、對提供優質產品的承諾以及對廣告業務的持續擴展。用戶繼續與應用程式保持著令人難以置信的互動。到 2024 年，人們將進行超過 1300 億次聊天，分享超過 20 億張相冊，平均每天在該應用程式上花費的時間超過 70 分鐘。

When Grindr went public in November 2022, we faced certain hurdles from prior Chinese ownership, such as significant technical debt and a need for a long-term vision and a team to deliver on ambitious goals.

當 Grindr 於 2022 年 11 月上市時，我們面臨著來自先前中國所有者的一些障礙，例如巨額技術債務以及需要長期願景和團隊來實現雄心勃勃的目標。

Today, as discussed in greater detail in our shareholder letter, those challenges are largely behind us. I'm especially part of our fast-moving performance-driven culture, which has enabled us to chart a clear path for long-term compelling growth as a Global Gayborhood in Your Pocket, a robust product road map of AI-first experiences are user reserved, while continuously delivering excellent financial results.

今天，正如我們在致股東的信中詳細討論的那樣，這些挑戰基本上已經過去了。我特別認同我們快速發展的以績效為導向的文化，這種文化使我們能夠以「口袋裡的全球同性戀社區」的身份，為長期顯著增長規劃出一條清晰的道路，我們擁有一個強大的 AI 優先體驗產品路線圖，可供用戶保留，同時不斷提供出色的財務業績。

Our strong momentum in 2024 is continuing into 2025. In January, we released our first annual product road map shared by user input, building on products we laid out last summer at Investor Day. In February, we redeemed our warrant cleaning up our balance sheet. And here in March, we are announcing our first share repurchase program for up to $500 million worth of shares. The buyback program underscores the Board and management's confidence in Grindr's long-term potential and affirms our commitment to returning excess capital to shareholders.

我們 2024 年的強勁勢頭將延續到 2025 年。今年 1 月，我們發布了第一份由用戶輸入共享的年度產品路線圖，該路線圖以去年夏天在投資者日上展示的產品為基礎。二月份，我們贖回了認股權證，清理了資產負債表。今年三月，我們宣布了首次股票回購計劃，回購股票價值高達 5 億美元。回購計畫凸顯了董事會和管理層對 Grindr 長期潛力的信心，並肯定了我們向股東返還多餘資本的承諾。

Also today, we are laying out a strong initial guidance for 2025, which Vanna will provide, along with our focus on 4 key priorities: First, rapidly shipping products as we elevate Grindr to a world class app. We expect our users to appreciate new products such as A-list, For You and Discover. These and many other products we're working on will allow us to maintain strong product-led growth in the years to come; second, strengthening our global brand by actually promoting better global understanding of who we are and what we stand for, for Grindr our creative content that brings the full possibilities of the Global Gayborhood to life. Third, executing on the Gayborhood expansion by launching our first product outside of the core app in the health and wellness space. The test beta launch in limited markets is expected to start in the coming months.

今天，我們也制定了 2025 年的強有力的初步指導，Vanna 將提供該指導，同時我們將重點關注 4 個關鍵優先事項：首先，在將 Grindr 提升為世界級應用程式的同時，快速推出產品。我們希望用戶能夠喜歡 A-list、For You 和 Discover 等新產品。這些產品以及我們正在開發的許多其他產品將使我們能夠在未來幾年保持強勁的產品主導型增長；第二，透過切實促進全球更好地了解我們是誰以及我們代表什麼來加強我們的全球品牌，對於 Grindr 來說，我們的創意內容將全球同性戀社區的所有可能性帶入生活。第三，透過在健康和保健領域的核心應用之外推出我們的第一個產品來執行 Gayborhood 擴張。預計未來幾個月將在有限市場啟動測試版。

Stay tuned; and fourth, further increasing talent density to execute on our ambitious plans.

敬請關注;第四，進一步提高人才密度，以實現我們雄心勃勃的計劃。

I have great confidence in our team's ability to continue to drive strong shareholder value through outstanding execution on the needs of our users. I'm proud of the foundation that we've built in the 30 months since I became CEO and enthusiastic for what lies ahead. As always, we greatly appreciate the support of our shareholders and the user community. In closing, I would encourage you to read the shareholder letter for greater detail on the points I discussed.

我非常有信心，我們的團隊有能力透過出色地滿足用戶的需求，繼續為股東創造巨大的價值。我為我們擔任執行長以來 30 個月來建立的基礎感到自豪，並對未來充滿熱情。一如既往，我們非常感謝股東和用戶社群的支持。最後，我鼓勵您閱讀股東信，以更詳細地了解我所討論的要點。

Now I'll turn it over to Vanna, who will speak to our financial results, warrant redemption and share buyback plan in greater detail and provide 2025 guidance.

現在我將把時間交給 Vanna，她將更詳細地介紹我們的財務業績、認股權證贖回和股票回購計劃，並提供 2025 年的指導。

Thank you, George, and hello, everyone. I'll walk you through our fourth quarter and full year results, provide an update on our completed warrant redemption and recently announced share repurchase program before sharing our guidance.

謝謝你，喬治，大家好。在分享我們的指導之前，我將向您介紹我們的第四季度和全年業績，提供有關我們已完成的認股權證贖回和最近宣布的股票回購計劃的最新資訊。

As George highlighted, 2024 was a phenomenal year for Grindr with revenue growing 33% to $345 million for the full year. And we achieved 43% adjusted EBITDA margin for a total of $147 million. Our strong performance was driven by merchandising new and existing features in our core subscription tiers. We also optimized payrolls in our foundational products while continuing to maintain excellent engagement. These enhancements increase our conversion rates of users from free to paid.

正如喬治所強調的，2024 年對 Grindr 來說是非凡的一年，全年營收成長 33%，達到 3.45 億美元。我們的調整後 EBITDA 利潤率達到 43%，總計 1.47 億美元。我們的強勁表現得益於核心訂閱層中新功能和現有功能的推銷。我們也優化了基礎產品中的薪資單，同時繼續保持出色的參與度。這些增強功能提高了我們從免費用戶轉換到付費用戶的轉換率。

Grindr's advertising business had a fantastic year, growing 56% year-over-year. Our refreshed go-forward strategy developed under the experienced new leader we brought in last spring has driven growth in both third-party advertising and the direct advertising business. We are in the early stages of enhancing our ad tech, which offer new ad formats and increase CPMs over time. All business KPIs grew again in 2024.

Grindr 的廣告業務今年表現出色，年增 56%。去年春天，我們在經驗豐富的新領導的領導下制定了全新的前進策略，推動了第三方廣告和直接廣告業務的成長。我們正處於增強廣告技術的早期階段，該技術可提供新的廣告格式並隨著時間的推移提高 CPM。2024年所有業務KPI均再次成長。

Average monthly active users increased 7% over the prior year to 14.2 million. Average paying users increased 15% over the prior year to 1.1 million bringing payer penetration to 7.6% for the year. And our average direct revenue per paying user increased 12% over the prior year to $22.53.

平均每月活躍用戶比上年增長 7%，達到 1,420 萬。平均付費用戶比前一年增加 15%，達到 110 萬，全年付費用戶滲透率達 7.6%。我們每位付費用戶的平均直接收入比上年增長了 12%，達到 22.53 美元。

Turning to the fourth quarter. Revenue was $98 million, up 35% year-over-year from $72 million. This comprised $80 million in direct revenue, which was up 28% year-over-year and $18 million indirect revenue, which was up 85% year-over-year. As a reminder, our advertising business benefited from a large direct brand campaign in Q4 that significantly outperformed expectations in December.

轉向第四季。營收為 9,800 萬美元，較去年同期的 7,200 萬美元成長 35%。其中直接收入 8,000 萬美元，年增 28%；間接收入 1,800 萬美元，年增 85%。提醒一下，我們的廣告業務受益於第四季度的大型直接品牌活動，該活動在 12 月的表現大大超出了預期。

Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was $39 million with a 40% margin, strong even when we executed on some of the planned investments late in the year.

本季調整後的 EBITDA 為 3,900 萬美元，利潤率為 40%，即使我們在年底執行了部分計畫投資，業績依然強勁。

Turning to our balance sheet. We ended the year with $59.2 million in cash and cash equivalents and a gross leverage ratio of 2x based on our full year adjusted EBITDA, which reflects a reduction of $51 million in leverage paid down during the year. As we've reported early in the new year, we executed a redemption of outstanding warrants associated with our go public transaction. The redemption was completed last week and out of the 37.4 million outstanding warrants eligible for redemption, a total of 36.8 million warrants were exercised.

轉向我們的資產負債表。截至年底，我們的現金和現金等價物為 5,920 萬美元，根據全年調整後的 EBITDA，總槓桿率為 2 倍，這反映了本年度支付的槓桿減少了 5,100 萬美元。正如我們在新年初所報告的那樣，我們執行了與上市交易相關的未償認股權證的贖回。贖回工作已於上週完成，在符合贖回條件的 3,740 萬份未償還認股權證中，共有 3,680 萬份認股權證被行使。

This includes 9.5 million warrants exercised on a cashless basis at an exchange ratio of 0.361 shares per warrant, resulting in the issuance of 3.4 million shares and 27.3 million warrants cash exercised, resulting in the issuance of 27.3 million shares and generating $314 million in cash proceeds to the company.

其中包括以非現金方式行使的 950 萬份認股權證，兌換率為每份認股權證 0.361 股，從而發行 340 萬股，以及以現金方式行使的 2,730 萬份認股權證，從而發行 2,730 萬股，並為公司帶來 3.14 億美元的現金收益。

Our pro forma cash balance as of December 31, 2024, after giving effect to the net proceeds from warrant redemption stood at approximately $370 million. This was a significant financial milestone for the company that simplifies our capital structure and enables Grindr to move forward with our capital allocation planning as we initially discussed at our Investor Day last June.

截至 2024 年 12 月 31 日，我們的預期現金餘額（計入認股權證贖回的淨收益後）約為 3.7 億美元。這對公司來說是一個重要的財務里程碑，它簡化了我們的資本結構，並使 Grindr 能夠推進我們的資本配置計劃，正如我們最初在去年 6 月的投資者日上討論的那樣。

In keeping with that plan, you've seen today that our Board of Directors has authorized a 2-year stock repurchase program of up to $500 million of our common stock. The program signals our confidence in the company's strong performance now and into the future.

為了執行該計劃，您今天已經看到，我們的董事會已批准了一項為期兩年的股票回購計劃，回購金額高達 5 億美元的普通股。該計劃表明我們對公司現在和未來的強勁表現充滿信心。

Now let's turn to our guidance for 2025. As a reminder, we set our annual guidance in March and update it as appropriate on a quarterly basis as we move through the year. Our initial 2025 guidance calls for revenue growth of greater than 24% and an adjusted EBITDA margin of 41% or greater, reflecting our expectation for another strong year of growth and profitability.

現在讓我們來看看 2025 年的指導。提醒一下，我們在三月制定了年度指導，並在一年中按季度進行適當的更新。我們最初的 2025 年指引要求營收成長率超過 24%，調整後的 EBITDA 利潤率達到 41% 或更高，這反映了我們對另一年強勁成長和獲利的預期。

As we've always said, we set our initial guidance based on what we have a clear line of sight to for the year, and we'll keep you posted. Overall, we are excited about our momentum entering into 2025 and the opportunities that we have on tap.

正如我們一直所說的那樣，我們根據對今年的明確目標制定了初步指導，我們會隨時向您通報最新情況。總體而言，我們對進入 2025 年的勢頭和即將面臨的機會感到興奮。

And with that, operator, we'll now take questions.

接線員，我們現在來回答問題。

(Operator Instructions)

（操作員指示）

Andrew Marok, Raymond James.

安德魯馬羅克、雷蒙詹姆斯。

Wanted to start on products. So obviously, very strong execution so far. And the January road map was really encouraging. We've seen everything either on track or ahead of expectations versus the Investor Day. I guess my question is, what were the surprise factors in those intervening in 6 to 9 months?

想要開始做產品。顯然，到目前為止，執行情況非常強勁。一月份的路線圖確實令人鼓舞。與投資者日相比，我們看到一切都進展順利或超出預期。我想我的問題是，在 6 到 9 個月的干預中，有哪些令人驚訝的因素？

Was it a little bit of conservatism embedded in the Investor Day? Or was it maybe a little bit easier going than you thought as you started developing these products.

投資者日是否體現了一點保守主義？或者當您開始開發這些產品時，事情可能比您想像的要容易一些。

Andrew, good to talk to you, and hello, everybody.

安德魯，很高興與您交談，大家好。

We -- I think we're a company -- is a young company, still that recently went public. And we are working on a lot of things, as everybody knows. And we also went through a pretty significant change in the team that we have. 75% of people who work at Grindr now have joined since I joined, and we've been really focused on driving productivity levels to be signal higher. As one example that we gave in the shareholder letter we are seeing 3x as many check-ins in GitHub on a monthly basis per engineer today -- sorry, in 2024 versus what we were seeing in 2022.

我認為我們是一家年輕的公司，最近剛上市。眾所周知，我們正在做很多事情。我們的團隊也經歷了相當大的變化。自從我加入以來，Grindr 的員工中已有 75% 加入了我們，我們一直致力於提高生產力水平。正如我們在股東信中舉的一個例子，我們看到今天每個工程師每月在 GitHub 上的簽到次數是 2024 年的 3 倍——抱歉，是 2024 年的數字，而不是 2022 年的數字。

So there's no question that our productivity has gone up, which has allowed us to ship dramatically more stuff and work on a lot more things. And I think that's something that we, as a company, are really proud of. So a significant set of things that we added to the product road map, came from our ability to be able to build more things as a result of us being a lot more productive. And I think that's awesome. We also have added a team in Colombia in the last year of dedicated engineers, and they're also very helpful and additive in our ability to ship more things.

因此，毫無疑問我們的生產力已經提高，這使我們能夠運送更多的貨物並處理更多的工作。我認為這是我們公司真正引以為傲的事情。因此，我們在產品路線圖中添加的一系列重要內容，源自於我們由於生產力提高而能夠建立更多東西的能力。我認為這太棒了。去年，我們還在哥倫比亞增加了一支由專業工程師組成的團隊，他們也為我們運送更多產品的能力提供了極大的幫助和增強。

And then the other thing here is that as we learn more about how you react to certain products and how they engage with them, we come up with additional things that are more responsive to their needs concurrently with -- as we learn more about Gen AI and what Gen AI can do, being able to take advantage of that as well in product development. So that is also helping our ability to deploy more products.

然後這裡的另一件事是，隨著我們更多地了解您對某些產品的反應以及他們如何與這些產品互動，我們會想出更多能夠同時滿足他們需求的東西——隨著我們對 Gen AI 以及 Gen AI 可以做什麼的了解越來越多，我們也能夠在產品開發中利用它。這也有助於我們部署更多產品。

One of the things you'll see this year is that a lot of the products we're building, we'll be using our Wingman technology as a backbone. And obviously, being able to build Wingman first and launch it quickly, way ahead of schedule is making that possible. And so we're excited about that as well.

今年您會看到的一件事是，我們正在開發的許多產品都將以 Wingman 技術為支柱。顯然，能夠率先建造 Wingman 並提前完成快速發射，使這一目標成為可能。因此我們對此也感到興奮。

Very helpful color. And maybe one more quick one, if I could, on the share repurchase program.

非常有用的顏色。如果可以的話，我再快速問一下股票回購計畫。

So that $500 million figure is not a small number. But one piece of feedback we've heard from investors recently was kind of the challenges around liquidity and float and things like that. So I guess how do you balance your ability to buy back shares in the context of still having an appreciable amount of your shares held in private hands?

所以說，5億美元並不是一個小數目。但我們最近從投資者那裡聽到的一個回饋是有關流動性和浮動資金等方面的挑戰。那麼我想問一下，在仍有大量股份被私人持有的情況下，您如何平衡回購股票的能力？

I appreciate the question. I do realize that for some people the float is a topic. We also can say that from the time when we went public to today, the float has doubled and so there's a lot more float available now.

我很感謝你提出這個問題。我確實意識到對某些人來說，浮動是一個話題。我們也可以說，從上市到今天，流通股數已經翻了一番，因此現在可用的流通股數要多得多。

And whenever I was asking about the float in 2022, early '23, I would try to say that it would take care of itself, and I think it has been able to take care of itself in that sense. At the same time, I think the fact that we do have these long-term holders who are, frankly, in some respects, doubling down on the company. One of them exercised all of these warrants in cash, and that's a pretty significant increase in his financial stake in the company and the amount of cash that he's put into supporting Grindr, I think signals something very strong.

每當我問到 2022 年或 2023 年初的浮動利率時，我都會說它會自行解決，而且我認為從這個意義上來說它已經能夠自行解決。同時，我認為我們確實擁有這些長期持有者，坦白說，在某些方面，他們對公司的投資是加倍的。其中一人以現金行使了所有這些認股權證，這讓他在該公司的財務股份和他為支持 Grindr 投入的現金數額有了相當大的增加，我認為這預示著非常強烈的信號。

But our job is to ensure that we: a, invest in the business and set it up for growth; and then b, return the excess capital beyond what's necessary for that to our shareholders, and we're doing that. So I think our shareholders that I've, at least, spoken to, have been very happy about us having a clear capital allocation strategy that we've been asked about that quite a bit, and we're now coming back with the answer for what that is and how we're going to deploy it. So my general sense is the float take care of itself over the long term.

但我們的工作是確保：a、投資於業務並為其成長做好準備；然後 b，將超出所需的多餘資本返還給我們的股東，我們正在這樣做。因此，我認為，至少與我交談過的股東對我們擁有明確的資本配置策略感到非常高興，我們也經常被問到這個問題，現在我們來回答一下這個策略是什麼以及我們將如何部署它。所以我的整體感覺是浮動資金從長遠來看會自行恢復。

John Blackledge, TD Cowen.

約翰·布萊克利奇（John Blackledge），TD Cowen。

Two questions. First, on the '25 revenue outlook, given the 24% or greater revenue growth guide for 2025, how should we think about the mix of kind of paying user growth and ARPPU growth? And given we're kind of a little over 2 months into the first quarter, any color on how 1Q is trending would be great. And then I have a follow-up after that.

兩個問題。首先，關於 2025 年的營收前景，考慮到 2025 年的營收成長指南為 24% 或更高，我們應該如何考慮付費用戶成長和 ARPPU 成長的組合？考慮到第一季已經過去兩個多月了，任何有關第一季趨勢的資訊都將非常有用。然後我也會進行後續跟進。

Sure. Thanks for the question.

當然。謝謝你的提問。

So let me just put the guidance in a bit of perspective. As you know, we guide to what we have line of sight to and we update the guide as we learn more throughout the year. We have a very robust product road map that we shared in June and we refreshed 1 in January. So as that testing reaches statistical significance, we'll certainly update you. As you know, our business model really, if we outperform that revenue tends to flow directly to the bottom line.

因此，請容許我稍微闡述一下該指導。如您所知，我們會根據我們所能看到的範圍提供指導，並且隨著我們全年了解更多信息，我們會更新指南。我們有一個非常強大的產品路線圖，我們在 6 月分享了該路線圖，並在 1 月更新了該路線圖。因此，一旦測試達到統計意義，我們一定會向您更新。如您所知，我們的商業模式確實如此，如果我們表現優異，收入往往會直接流向底線。

With respect to ARPU and a mix of new payer growth, I'd say that we have a lot of new features and those features we have been showing over the last couple of years that our conversion rates from free to paid have been going up in a steady perspective.

關於 ARPU 和新付費用戶成長組合，我想說我們有很多新功能，而且我們在過去幾年中已經展示了這些功能，從免費到付費的轉換率一直在穩步上升。

I think we expect that to continue. So you should see some payer growth this year as well as ARPU, if you think about international versus domestic book levers are moving nicely. So I would say probably more of the same, quite frankly.

我想我們預計這種情況將會持續下去。因此，如果您考慮國際與國內的帳面槓桿走勢良好，那麼今年您應該會看到付款人以及 ARPU 有所增長。所以坦白說，我想說可能情況大致相同。

And just as a reminder, we are guiding to 100 basis points higher than our original guidance last year at 24% revenue growth and 42% EBITDA margin, really at the top end of our ranges that we gave out -- sorry, 42% of EBITDA margin. And those are really on the top ranges of what we gave out in our June Investor Day. So we're pretty happy with what we're showing so far. I think that addresses both of those questions.

提醒一下，我們預計營收成長率和 EBITDA 利潤率將比去年的原始預期高出 100 個基點，分別為 24% 的營收成長率和 42% 的 EBITDA 利潤率，這確實處於我們給出的區間上限——抱歉，是 42% 的 EBITDA 利潤率。這些確實是我們在六月投資者日提供的最高範圍。我們對目前所展示的內容非常滿意。我認為這回答了這兩個問題。

And just to be specific on the numbers, it's 24% or higher revenue growth and 41% or higher EBITDA for the year.

具體來說，今年的營收成長率為 24% 或更高，EBITDA 成長率為 41% 或更高。

The only color I would like to add just a little bit on this is we are still, again, in very early stages of monetizing this product and our approach is create a lot of new features and products for people and through that drive monetization.

我唯一想補充的是，我們仍然處於將該產品貨幣化的早期階段，我們的方法是為人們創造許多新功能和新產品，並以這種方式推動貨幣化。

I think what's going to happen this year and especially next year is a lot of our paying tier here -- that both our paying tiers are going to have a lot of new features added to them, which will be creating a lot of value to users. And there is a real argument on kind of what -- how much of a value is that, right? Is it a justified amount of value for $40 or is that value that we're now giving them worth more. And that's something we're going to have to learn about over the coming, say, 24 months.

我認為今年，特別是明年，我們的許多付費層級都會增加許多新功能，這將為用戶創造大量價值。關於這一點存在著真正的爭論——它到底有多大價值，對嗎？40 美元的價值是否合理，或者我們現在賦予他們的價值是否更高。這是我們在未來 24 個月內需要了解的事情。

And at the same time, in the free product, we're also creating a lot of value. Right now, it's a huge addition to the product that's going to be really benefit to people. And we are having really great results from that in the 2 test markets. 25% of our WOW are using right now every week, which is really fantastic and frankly, higher than we would have expected. So the intentions based methodology here is working really well.

同時，在免費產品中，我們也創造了許多價值。現在，它是產品的一大補充，將真正造福人們。我們在兩個測驗市場都取得了非常好的成績。目前，每周有 25% 的 WOW 在使用，這真是太棒了，坦白說，比我們預期的要高。因此，這裡基於意圖的方法確實很有效。

And so as you do that over time, we believe that you can drive more people to start paying for the product because they're seeing so much value out of what you're giving that.

因此，隨著時間的推移，我們相信您可以吸引更多的人開始購買該產品，因為他們看到了您提供的產品的巨大價值。

That's super helpful. And just a follow-up on the margin like you said, 41% or greater margin. Just any further color on kind of key investment areas in 2025 would be helpful.

這非常有幫助。正如您所說，只是關於利潤率的後續問題，利潤率是 41% 或更高。關於 2025 年關鍵投資領域的任何進一步說明都會有所幫助。

Sure. So with respect to investment, as you know, we have a very robust product road map and a fairly lean team. So you'll see us to continue to add headcount in these key areas of technology AI and data science. Really, as you can see, the product road map is getting more and more sophisticated with respect to AI. We've been really leaning into it.

當然。因此，就投資而言，如您所知，我們擁有非常強大的產品路線圖和相當精簡的團隊。因此，您將看到我們繼續在技術人工智慧和數據科學這些關鍵領域增加員工人數。確實，正如你所看到的，產品路線圖在人工智慧方面越來越複雜。我們確實一直傾向於此。

So think about it in those kinds of dimensions.

所以請從這些維度來思考這個問題。

Eric Sheridan, Goldman Sachs.

高盛的艾瑞克·謝裡丹。

Thanks for all the details in the shareholder letter. I want a big picture question, maybe for George. George, we get asked a lot by investors with so much product and platform innovation ahead of you as a company over the next couple of years.

感謝股東信中的所有詳細資訊。我想要一個宏觀問題，也許是針對喬治的。喬治，投資人經常向我們詢問未來幾年貴公司將面臨多少產品和平台創新。

How do you think about what signals you're looking for to sort of accelerate pace of innovation or prove things from beta into wider expansion across the platform? Just philosophically lay out sort of your management view about what you'll be watching for and what we should be sort of analyzing the outside looking in, it could possibly even speed up the rate of innovation.

您如何看待您正在尋找什麼訊號來加速創新步伐或證明事物從測試階段走向整個平台的更廣泛擴展？只要從哲學角度闡述你的管理觀點，說明你要關注什麼，我們應該從外部分析什麼，甚至可能加快創新的速度。

And based on my comments on the advertising business, I wanted to ask one quick follow-up on just how much, in terms of the ad tech stack and the positioning of the ad business in the marketplace is now behind you as opposed to ahead of you and it really is just about execution and sort of closing the sort of marketplace view on the advertising business and sort of bringing in revenue on the execution side as opposed to more of the building block side.

根據我對廣告業務的評論，我想快速問一下，就廣告技術堆疊和廣告業務在市場中的定位而言，你們現在落後了多少，而不是領先了多少，這實際上只是關於執行，以及關閉廣告業務的市場觀點，以及在執行方面而不是在構建模組方面帶來收入。

Yes. So I'll take the first question, and Vanna will probably take the second.

是的。我來回答第一個問題，Vanna 可能會回答第二個問題。

We are building a lot of things, no question, and we'll be proud of the team's ability to do that. Just the speed at which we're shipping now is not comparable to what we were doing before. Some days early this year, we would sit down to have product updates and I have like 3 or 4 of the day.

毫無疑問，我們正在建立很多東西，我們為團隊做到這一點的能力感到自豪。我們現在的運輸速度與以前是無法相比的。今年早些時候，我們會坐下來討論產品更新，我每天大概會花 3 到 4 個小時更新產品。

And then my head would be a little bit spinning because I'm like, wow, I mean we are working on so many really cool things. And a lot of these things are like way ahead of even most much larger companies in terms of how they deploy the tech and what kind of tech they're deploying, which is really awesome.

然後我的腦袋就會有點暈，因為我會想，哇，我們正在做這麼多非常酷的事情。就如何部署技術以及部署什麼樣的技術而言，這些東西甚至比大多數大公司都要領先，這真的很棒。

So for right now, I don't think we want to add many more things to the list of things we're working on in shipping. And a really big thing for us will be getting it out into the market, getting user feedback for them and then making changes as needed, if those changes are necessary, and then putting them back out of the market with those changes in place. No matter how much do you ask users as a survey, hey, do you want to X or do you want Y? Frankly, people oftentimes respond one way into a survey in another way when the product is live.

因此就目前而言，我認為我們不想在航運工作清單上添加更多內容。對我們來說，真正重要的事情是將其推向市場，獲取用戶回饋，然後根據需要進行更改（如果這些更改是必要的），然後將這些更改後的版本重新推出市場。無論你以調查的方式向用戶詢問多少問題，嘿，你想要 X 還是想要 Y？坦白說，當產品上線時，人們常常以一種方式對調查做出回應，而以另一種方式。

And so I think having a real product out in a minimum viable product way is really critical, and that's generally our approach, and then we can add more features to it over time. Those kinds of things we track when we do that is obviously, usage, right, for example, for right now with 1/4 of our weekly active users in Washington, D.C. using it. That's a really positive signal for getting it deployed to many more users.

因此，我認為以最小可行產品的方式推出真正的產品非常關鍵，這通常是我們的方法，然後我們可以隨著時間的推移為其添加更多功能。當我們這樣做時，我們追蹤的事情顯然是使用情況，例如，現在華盛頓特區 1/4 的每週活躍用戶正在使用它。這對於將其部署給更多用戶來說是一個非常積極的信號。

It's also just the quality of the product. Initially, when you have a minimal viable product, everything that the users want is in the product. And so understanding then, hey, like if you had XYZ feature, that would be really helpful is something that we are always looking for as a data point. And then thirdly, I think with so many new things happening at the same time, you don't want to release those things all at once, you want to release things for them to settle in for people trying to engaging and using them and then release more. And so some of this stuff will simply be driven by the fact that we don't want to put out everything all at once out into the market.

這也只是產品的品質問題。最初，當你擁有一個最小可行產品時，使用者想要的一切都包含在產品中。那麼理解一下，嘿，如果你有 XYZ 功能，那將會非常有幫助，這是我們一直在尋找的數據點。第三，我認為，由於有這麼多新事物同時發生，你不想一次發布所有這些事物，而是希望先發布一些事物，讓人們適應並參與其中，使用它們，然後再發布更多。因此，我們之所以採取這些舉措，只是因為我們不想一次性將所有東西推向市場。

My general view is the core things inside Grindr today that are working really, really well, we don't want to touch. So the grid, for example, that is the kind of core of Grindr. We don't want to touch that. We don't want to make that different.

我的總體觀點是，我們不想觸及 Grindr 目前運作良好的核心功能。以網格為例，這是 Grindr 的核心。我們不想觸及那個。我們不想讓情況變得不同。

We did add to it ability to recommend some additional users to a person below the first 100 that I see. That's been a really popular feature. And so that is one change that we need to the grid, but beyond that, we are not going to be starting with -- let's change a lot of stuff on the grid. We will actually first launch a Discover tab, which will be a separate new space in the app where you will have people presented to you not by geography but rather by likelihood of you finding them not interesting and potentially later on them finding you interesting.

我們確實增加了向我看到的前 100 名以下的人推薦一些額外用戶的功能。這是一個非常受歡迎的功能。這是我們需要對電網進行的改變，但除此之外，我們不會從改變電網的許多東西開始。實際上，我們將首先推出「發現」選項卡，這將是應用程式中的一個單獨的新空間，在這裡，您將不是根據地理位置來向別人展示人物，而是根據您認為他們不感興趣，而他們以後可能會覺得您有趣的可能性來展示人物。

And in that space, we will have an opportunity to do a lot more experimentation around how do we help you with Discovery and what kind of people we show you based on either inference or other things that you tell us about yourself.

在那個空間裡，我們將有機會進行更多的實驗，圍繞如何幫助您進行發現，以及根據推斷或您告訴我們的關於您自己的其他信息，我們向您展示什麼樣的人。

And so that will give us another opportunity to have much better experimentation in the platform. We're not really creating any risk for the core product and how we experiment with it.

這將為我們提供另一個機會在平台上進行更好的實驗。我們實際上並沒有為核心產品及其實驗方式帶來任何風險。

I hope that answer the question, and I'll let Vanna talk about advertising, and I'm happy to come back and more to this, if you have a follow-up.

我希望這能回答這個問題，我會讓 Vanna 談論廣告，如果您有後續問題，我很樂意回來進一步討論這個問題。

Eric, yes, 2024 was a great year for advertising, both on the third-party advertising side. And on the brand side, you saw a nice little bump in Q4, which was really part of the outperformance.

艾瑞克，是的，2024 年對廣告業來說是一個偉大的一年，無論是在第三方廣告方面。在品牌方面，您會看到第四季度出現了小幅成長，這確實是優異表現的一部分。

We bought in a new experienced leader. He's really doubled down on advancing the ad tech to allow us to generate these higher CPMs as we introduce native ads and rewarded video.

我們聘請了一位經驗豐富的新領導者。他確實加倍努力推進廣告技術，以便我們在推出原生廣告和獎勵影片時產生更高的每千次曝光費用。

We believe there continues to be significant room in addressing both volume domestically and internationally as well as higher CPMs with this elevated ad tech specifically on your question of how much is behind us versus ahead of us, I would say that -- we still have a long way to go on advancing our ad tech, so still a long way ahead of us, but we're really pleased with our performance to date and continue to be comfortable in achieving the target of 15% of our total revenue coming from advertising revenue, where we are right now in ad tech.

我們相信，隨著廣告技術的進步，我們在解決國內外銷量以及更高的 CPM 方面仍然有很大的發展空間，特別是關於你問的我們落後了多少和領先了多少的問題，我想說——我們在推進廣告技術方面還有很長的路要走，所以仍然遙遙領先，但我們對迄今為止的表現感到非常滿意，並且仍然能夠輕鬆實現 15% 的總收入。

[Samuel Lawrence], [BH] Capital.

[塞繆爾·勞倫斯]，[BH]資本。

Some pretty fantastic results there. Firstly, you've got some exciting features on the road map around the core dating product. So it'd be great to hear some examples of how users are using the app in different ways and how you're thinking about the long-term potential to build some features and functionality around these edge cases as you drive towards the vision of becoming a sort of lifestyle and community platform for gay men.

那裡有一些非常出色的結果。首先，您已經在圍繞核心約會產品的路線圖上看到了一些令人興奮的功能。因此，如果您能聽到一些用戶以不同方式使用該應用程式的例子，以及您如何考慮圍繞這些邊緣情況構建一些特性和功能的長期潛力，並努力實現成為男同性戀者生活方式和社區平台的願景，那就太好了。

Thanks, Sam. It's a great question.

謝謝，山姆。這是一個很好的問題。

So we do have a lot of ideas for how to kind of service the users in the way that they want. And also in the way that the culture and society is moving forward. On the second point, we recently did a survey last year and one of the really interesting data points we found was 50% of people, 35 and under and people being gay by men with a survey of 1,400 gay and by men in the United States want to be in a long-term relationship at some point in their lives, which is a much higher number than I think you would have gotten from gay men, say, 20 or 25 years ago, especially kind of the younger cohort.

因此，我們確實有很多關於如何以用戶想要的方式為他們提供服務的想法。並且也體現了文化和社會的進步方式。關於第二點，我們去年做了一項調查，我們發現一個非常有趣的數據點是，在美國，35 歲以下的 1,400 名男同性戀和男同性戀者中，有 50% 的人希望在人生的某個階段建立長期關係，這個數字比 20 或 25 年前從男同性戀者那裡得到的數字要高得多，尤其是年輕一代。

And then secondly, 25% of those same 35 or under respondents said that they wanted to have children, which is an exponential high number. Like order in the magnitude of high number than I think you would have seen previously. And so as we know what users want and as we think to what users will want in the future based on what they're telling us, it is imperative for us to be building features that respond to that.

其次，35 歲或以下的受訪者中，有 25％ 的人表示他們想要孩子，這是一個非常高的數字。就像按比我認為你以前見過的更高的數字進行排序一樣。因此，當我們知道用戶想要什麼，並根據用戶告訴我們的情況思考用戶未來想要什麼時，我們必須建立能夠滿足他們需求的功能。

And so dating actually is a good example of how we are thinking of introducing features into the product without really fundamentally changing the product. We are going to, as I described earlier, launch a Discover tab and that will be a place where you will see people from all over the world based on things that we infer about you or we infer about them, obviously, all with user consent.

因此，約會實際上是一個很好的例子，說明我們如何考慮在產品中引入功能，而無需從根本上改變產品。正如我之前所描述的，我們將推出一個「發現」標籤，在這裡，您可以根據我們對您或他們的推斷，看到來自世界各地的人，顯然，所有這些都是在用戶同意的情況下進行的。

We just went through a lengthy process of getting user consent to use AI through the product and the rates of response were very, very high in the positive, which is fantastic. And within that, then you could easily see a world where we build an additional feature that shows you people not just based on pure interest, but actually who are interested in dating.

我們剛剛經歷了一個漫長的過程，獲得用戶同意透過產品使用人工智慧，並且積極的回應率非常非常高，這太棒了。在此基礎上，您可以輕鬆看到我們建立的附加功能，它不僅向您顯示基於純粹興趣的人，還向您顯示實際上對約會感興趣的人。

So is that happy to create a totally new space for dating. We can use something that we are already building to allow a person to see a set of people that are interesting for them from the dating perspective. And then step beyond that would be okay, not just that they're interesting to you from a dating perspective, but actually based on what we know about them, it's more like that they were also like you. So then the quality of people that we're showing you is very, very high, right, because these are like highly qualified people for a dating perspective that are really interesting both for from your perspective and from their perspective of you.

那麼很高興能創造一個全新的約會空間。我們可以使用我們已經建立的東西，讓人們從約會的角度看到一組他們感興趣的人。然後超越這一點就好了，不僅僅是從約會的角度來說你對他們感興趣，而且實際上根據我們對他們的了解，他們更像是和你一樣。所以，我們向您展示的人的素質非常非常高，對吧，因為從約會的角度來看，這些人都是非常合格的人，無論從您的角度來看還是從他們的角度來看，他們都非常有趣。

And we think that is a great user experience and a lot of value without having to create like a totally new space where that happens. And then at the same time, it's also something that probably ultimately should be something we charge a significant amount of money for because the value that we're creating in that is so significant, right? Because ultimately, our job is to facilitate as good of a connection as possible. So that's just an example of how we think through that.

我們認為這是一種非常棒的使用者體驗，而且價值巨大，無需創建一個全新的空間來實現這一點。同時，我們最終也應該為此收取一大筆費用，因為我們在其中創造的價值非常巨大，對吧？因為最終我們的工作是盡可能地促進良好的連結。這只是我們思考這個問題的一個例子。

I think that's why building Wingman is so important because that technology can allow us to do a lot more of these shortcuts around how we build product without really disrupting the app, and that's something that is very useful, I think, for us.

我認為這就是為什麼建立 Wingman 如此重要的原因，因為這項技術可以讓我們在構建產品的過程中使用更多快捷方式，而不會真正破壞應用程序，我認為這對我們來說非常有用。

I do want to -- as I'm assuming you want to go back to the previous question on what can we accelerate? So one thing I did not talk about is the Gayborhood initiatives. We obviously talked about that and invested in. We think those are huge opportunities for Grindr to build businesses on top of the core brand of business that are very appealing to our users.

我確實想——我假設你想回到之前的問題，我們可以加速什麼？我沒有談到的一件事是同性戀社區計劃。我們顯然討論過這個問題並進行了投資。我們認為，對於 Grindr 來說，這是一個巨大的機會，可以在核心品牌業務的基礎上建立對我們的用戶非常有吸引力的業務。

We are going to be launching the first one this year in beta and really excited about that. So if there is an area where we might see acceleration beyond all the things that we're already building would be in the Gayborhoo initiatives because those we definitely could speed up. There's a limit to how many we can do at once. But certainly, we do think that with more right resources and right as the really imperative term there, we could accelerate some of those things faster. And we're definitely working on that.

我們將在今年推出第一個測試版本，對此我們感到非常興奮。因此，如果有一個領域可以讓我們超越已經在建設的所有項目，看到加速發展的話，那就是 Gayborhoo 計劃，因為我們肯定可以加快這些計劃的速度。我們一次能做的事情是有限的。但當然，我們確實認為，有了更多正確的資源和正確的真正必要條件，我們可以更快地加速其中的一些事情。我們確實正在努力實現這一點。

Maybe 1 more for me, please. So you're, clearly very early in this journey and have a ton of opportunities to invest in. But on the other side, you remain pretty laser-focused on maintaining high efficiency within the company. Could you maybe just discuss how you're thinking and looking to manage this.

也許請再給我一個。所以，顯然您才剛踏上這段旅程的早期階段，並且擁有大量的投資機會。但另一方面，您仍然非常專注於維持公司內部的高效率。您能否討論一下您的想法以及希望如何解決這個問題？

Yes. Look, we've gone through a lot of change as an organization. As I mentioned earlier, 75% of the team has been hired since I became CEO. So in some ways, that's really helpful because they've been hired with a clear understanding of the culture that we have.

是的。你看，作為一個組織，我們已經經歷了許多變化。正如我之前提到的，自從我擔任執行長以來，團隊中 75% 的人已經受聘。因此從某種程度上來說，這真的很有幫助，因為他們在被聘用之前就已經清楚地了解了我們的文化。

And we do have a very high performance driven, hard charging, clear and accountability culture and one that we want people to obviously join, but they need to be on board with what they're joining. Our culture is not for everybody, but for people who want to be in a culture that excels and costly strives to ask more people by unleashing their potential and allowing them to grow and improve as employees and as professionals, and this is a really great culture to be. And additionally, it's also how we comp, right?

我們確實擁有以績效為導向、充滿幹勁、清晰且負責的文化，我們希望人們加入這種文化，但他們需要對自己所加入的內容有深入的了解。我們的文化並不適合所有人，但對於那些想要融入一種追求卓越、努力激發更多人的文化的人來說，這是一種非常棒的文化，它能夠激發人們的潛能，讓他們成長和進步，成為員工和專業人士，這是一種非常棒的文化。此外，這也是我們的補償方式，對嗎？

Our compensation is very much performance focused, and I think people really appreciate that. So we're in a really good place in that regard where we are, but we're going to continue improving our talent density and that's why talent at that is one of our key priorities for next year. Where I believe we have a really big opportunity is actually at the middle layer below kind of my immediate executive team, the next layer of managers, we definitely needed additional ones on the team.

我們的薪酬非常注重績效，我認為人們非常欣賞這一點。因此，就這一點而言，我們目前處於非常有利的位置，但我們將繼續提高人才密度，這就是為什麼人才是我們明年的重點之一。我認為我們真正擁有巨大機會的地方實際上是在我的直屬管理團隊之下的中間層，下一層管理人員，我們肯定需要為團隊增加更多人員。

My team has been feeling that pretty strongly because they've oftentimes had to do both their day-to-day role and also the role of somebody below them that they would normally be playing. We are going to be adding a few folks like that to the team across many different departments in product, finance, engineering and others, that's coming soon. We're not going to probably do a press release about it, but I think people will only then see as some of these folks come on board and that will be a really good addition.

我的團隊對此感受很強烈，因為他們經常既要完成日常工作，又要承擔下屬通常要承擔的職責。我們很快就會在產品、財務、工程等多個部門的團隊中增加一些這樣的人才。我們可能不會就此發表新聞稿，但我認為，只有當一些人加入進來時，人們才會看到，這將是一個非常好的補充。

And once we have those people, then we can more easily think about adding additional people to the team because there'll be more kind of folks who could provide the right management oversight and this performance-driven culture to the rest of the team.

一旦我們擁有了這些人，我們就可以更輕鬆地考慮在團隊中增加更多人員，因為會有更多的人可以為團隊的其他成員提供正確的管理監督和這種績效驅動的文化。

So I would expect us to continue to invest in the team. We added a significant number of employees last year, we're going to add a significant number of employees this year as well, while maintaining a very lean organization and one that is burning a lot of revenue per employee, which I think is something we are very proud of.

所以我希望我們繼續對團隊進行投資。我們去年增加了大量員工，今年我們將繼續增加大量員工，同時保持一個非常精簡的組織，每個員工的收入消耗量很大，我認為這是我們非常自豪的事情。

All right. So I think that's the question for today. We really appreciate everyone's time. This week already, we spent 2 days at the Morgan Stanley and the JMP conferences and had 2 fireside chats and really appreciated the incredible level of investor engagement that we got. I did not realize you could fit that many people into some of these small hotel rooms that the meetings are usually in as we had in a few of our meetings, it was really a lot of fun.

好的。我想這就是今天的問題。我們非常感謝大家的時間。本週，我們已經在摩根士丹利和 JMP 會議上度過了兩天時間，進行了兩次爐邊談話，我們非常感謝投資者的積極參與。我沒有意識到可以將這麼多人容納在這些通常舉行會議的小酒店房間裡，就像我們幾次會議一樣，這真的很有趣。

And so it's great to be out there talking to folks and telling you the story about awesome what we are doing is and all the potential that we have.

因此，能夠在這裡與大家交談並向你們講述我們正在做的事情以及我們擁有的所有潛力，真是太好了。

So it is a really beautiful day in the Gayborhood and look forward to speaking to everybody soon.

所以今天對於同性戀社區來說真是美好的一天，期待很快能與大家交談。

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes your conference call. We thank you for participating and ask that you please disconnect your lines.

謝謝。女士們、先生們，你們的電話會議到此結束。感謝您的參與，並請您斷開線路。