4 ms·

I realize they are growing fast but isn't it a little early to declare success (as the title seems to) when you're generating $10.5 million with a cost structur

I realize they are growing fast but isn't it a little early to declare success (as the title seems to) when you're generating $10.5 million with a cost structure that includes 350 employees?

sytse 8y ago
Totally agree that those numbers would make an outsized burn rate. The team member number is from a different date than the revenue number. Our team member number is public on https://about.gitlab.com/company/team/ https://about.gitlab.com/company/team/ (currently 383). Our current ARR is multiple times the number cited. We're not profitable but on some months we're cash flow positive. We don't aim to be cash flow positive until 2022.
- Aeolun 8y ago
  Considering Gitlab’s revenue model, how come you’re only cash flow positive some months? I’d assume both income and employee count is mostly steady, unless you’re hiring people just about as fast as cash flow is increasing?
  - tracker1 8y ago
    Servers and Data Centers cost money... operations scaling, advertizing, etc.
  - sytse 8y ago
    Income as in revenue is steady. Cash flow has more variance since people pay for GitLab one or more years upfront. On average we have negative cash flow since we're investing the money we raised in growth by doubling incremental annual contract value every year. But in some months we have a few large orders that push us to cash flow positive. We could be cash flow positive every month but that would at the cost of our rate of development. Right now we're focussed on making GitLab a single application for the entire DevOps lifecycle. That means we have to make a lot of progress every month https://about.gitlab.com/2018/10/22/gitlab-11-4-released/ https://about.gitlab.com/2018/10/22/gitlab-11-4-released/
shafyy 8y ago
That's exactly what I thought. $10.5M yearly revenues with 350 employees is rather bad.
- ryanSrich 8y ago
  Yeah. I'm not trying to be a downer, but these numbers are not good. I'd expect to see them closer to $50m in revenue. I know they pay their employees very little, so perhaps that's how they're able to keep a high headcount, but even so, seems really off balance.
- dblessing 8y ago
  Please see Sid's comment at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18443014 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18443014. The numbers are from two separate points in time.
  - shafyy 8y ago
    Fair.
robotresearcher 8y ago
$30K/yr revenue per employee. Hmmm.

I realize they are growing fast but isn't it a little early to declare success (as the title seems to) when you're generating $10.5 million with a cost structure that includes 350 employees?

sytse 8y ago

Totally agree that those numbers would make an outsized burn rate. The team member number is from a different date than the revenue number. Our team member number is public on https://about.gitlab.com/company/team/ https://about.gitlab.com/company/team/ (currently 383). Our current ARR is multiple times the number cited. We're not profitable but on some months we're cash flow positive. We don't aim to be cash flow positive until 2022.

Aeolun 8y ago
Considering Gitlab’s revenue model, how come you’re only cash flow positive some months? I’d assume both income and employee count is mostly steady, unless you’re hiring people just about as fast as cash flow is increasing?
- tracker1 8y ago
  Servers and Data Centers cost money... operations scaling, advertizing, etc.
- sytse 8y ago
  Income as in revenue is steady. Cash flow has more variance since people pay for GitLab one or more years upfront. On average we have negative cash flow since we're investing the money we raised in growth by doubling incremental annual contract value every year. But in some months we have a few large orders that push us to cash flow positive. We could be cash flow positive every month but that would at the cost of our rate of development. Right now we're focussed on making GitLab a single application for the entire DevOps lifecycle. That means we have to make a lot of progress every month https://about.gitlab.com/2018/10/22/gitlab-11-4-released/ https://about.gitlab.com/2018/10/22/gitlab-11-4-released/

shafyy 8y ago

That's exactly what I thought. $10.5M yearly revenues with 350 employees is rather bad.

ryanSrich 8y ago
Yeah. I'm not trying to be a downer, but these numbers are not good. I'd expect to see them closer to $50m in revenue. I know they pay their employees very little, so perhaps that's how they're able to keep a high headcount, but even so, seems really off balance.
dblessing 8y ago
Please see Sid's comment at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18443014 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18443014. The numbers are from two separate points in time.
- shafyy 8y ago
  Fair.

robotresearcher 8y ago

$30K/yr revenue per employee. Hmmm.