Lessons (Un)Learned: Successes & Setbacks on the Road to $1B with Docebo

saastr
Lessons (Un)Learned:  Successes & Setbacks on  the Road to $1B with Docebo
Lessons (Un)Learned:  Successes & Setbacks on  the Road to $1B with Docebo
3 things
most people
DON’T KNOW ABOUT ME
Bootstrapped a rock-venue age 18,
“The Borderline”
First real tech job - age 19. Wages were 250
Euros/month, with a 5 hours commute/day.
“Outbounded” my way through every tech job I ever had.
First one happened via Napster.
Landed Docebo via Linkedin.
1 thing
most people
KNOW ABOUT ME
Lessons (Un)Learned:  Successes & Setbacks on  the Road to $1B with Docebo
The Docebo “recipe” has been
18 years in the making.
It all started as..
Spaghetti Learning
Great things come, with time.
Like wine, balsamic vinegar, and parmigiano reggiano.
Customers 1,2
(USD) ARR 1
Subscription Revenues 4
$173M
3,591
94%
Employees
Offices: Toronto, Athens-GA,
Melbourne, Milano, Munich,
London, Paris, Dubai
800+
8
(1) As at June 30, 2023. Refer to “Non-IFRS Measures and Reconciliation of Non-IFRS Measures”” in the Appendix to this presentation
(2) Historically, in calculating average contract value, all references to the number of customers or companies we serve included separate accounts per customer based on their installation(s) count. For the third quarter of the
fiscal year ended December 31, 2020 and going forward, any separate accounts that our customers may have will be aggregated and counted as one customer based on the contracted customer for the purposes of
calculating our average contract value to provide a more precise understanding of this metric.
(3) For the three months ended June 30, 2023.
Nasdaq and TSX
Dual Public
Listings
Active Monthly Users
2.2M
~US$7M
Cash burn since 2016 to
grow ARR2 to US$173M at
the end of Q2 2023
(1) Free Cash Flow refers to Cash flow from
operating activities less additions to property
and equipment. Refer to “Non-IFRS Measures
and Reconciliation of Non-IFRS Measures”” in
the Appendix to this presentation
(2) “Cash Burn” refers to cumulative negative free
cash flow since Docebo received its initial
investment from Intercap and Klass in 2015.
A culture of efficiency rooted in the founding team
$74M
($1M)
$47M
$30M
$18M
$11M
($4M) ($3M)
($5M) $4M ($4M)
$118M
$157M
$1M $5M
$173M
Free Cash Flow(1) Total ARR (USD)
Upmarket Execution driving ACV Growth since 2016
Customers1
3,591
Growth in average contract
value since 20162
~4x
Net Dollar Retention Rate
in 20223
109%
of ARR added in 2022
represented by customers that
chose multi-year contracts
81%
(1) As at June 30, 2023
(2) Average contract value is calculated as total ARR divided by the number of active customers. Historically, in calculating average contract value, all references to the number of customers or companies we serve
included separate accounts per customer based on their installation(s) count. For the third quarter of the fiscal year ended December 31, 2020 and going forward, any separate accounts that our customers may have
will be aggregated and counted as one customer based on the contracted customer for the purposes of calculating our average contract value to provide a more precise understanding of this metric. The figures
presented for 2016 to 2020 have been adjusted to reflect this methodology change.
(3) As at December 31, 2022; see Appendix for definition of Net Dollar Retention Rate.
Customer growth by year Average contract value (USD)
Market Size: US Corporate LMS market sizing (internal and
EE) is large (~$8.4B TAM), of which ~20-25% is served today
TOTAL US CORPORATE LMS MARKET SERVED
~$8.5B
~$2.3B (27%)
INTERNAL US CORPORATE LMS MARKET SERVED
~ $2.8B
~ $1.6B (57%)
EXTERNAL US CORPORATE LMS MARKET SERVED
~ $5.6B
~ $0.7B (12.5%)
COMPLIANCE
Compliance Training
Navigating a Complex Product-Market(s) fit
EXTERNAL TRAINING
Customer Training
Partner Training
Membership Training
Retail / Franchise /
QSR Training
REVENUE ENABLEMENT
Sales Enablement
Support Enablement
Services Enablement
Marketing Enablement
TALENT DEVELOPMENT
Employee Onboarding
Professional
Development
Leadership
Development ~ 65%
of customers (by ARR) use
Docebo for external training or
hybrid training use cases
The real beauty of learning is in the journey.
> Docebo LMS starts in Brianza
2023+
2013 2014 2015 2017 2021
Project Spaghetti soon becomes “Docebo”, founded by Claudio Erba (CEO) and Fabio Pirovano (CPO) in a
small town near Milan called Macherio
Started Open Source, GPL 1.0, and focused on the Italian Corporate Market
Claudio signed the first customer, tied to the Berlusconi family, before having incorporated the Company
2005 2012 2016 2019 2020 2022
> Docebo goes SaaS
Full rewrite of our Open Source Technology
Docebo has about 50 paying customers, in a professional services revenue model
Started SaaS GTM with “Freemium”, 3 distinct users plans 5 - 50 - 500 targeting the VSB and SMB
Moved to 14 day trial soon after, and switched to yearly contracts only in 2017, dropping credit card
Channel first GTM model in 012-013, direct sales model following that, leveraging 50 VARs
Internationally
2023+
2013 2014 2015 2017 2021
2005 2012 2016 2019 2020 2022
> Docebo NA opens in Athens Georgia
Docebo North America forms in Athens GA (Go Dawgs!)
Athens GA is the home of UGA, and the renowned homebase of the famous REM
What appeared to be a early-days location, ended up being a strategic catalyst for our long term
growth
We bring the Docebo-expert personnel of our US-based VAR in-house and create Docebo NA
2023+
2013 2014 2015 2017 2021
2005 2012 2016 2019 2020 2022
> Early commercial traction
We hired our first senior account executive from Marketo in Athens Georgia, who became our
first Director of Sales soon after
We averaged 1000 “new trialers” per month, focusing on Demand Capture and Hand Raisers
conversions to new customers
We had early signals that our market fit was not in VSB nor it was SMB, and started gearing
towards Mid Sized Enterprise
Reached 2M ARR on this year and ~200 paying customers, ACV is still in the avg ~10K/customer
2023+
2013 2014 2015 2017 2021
2005 2012 2016 2019 2020 2022
> Canadian investors fuel growth
We were seeking capital and met with the Klass Capital and Intercap team in Toronto, Canada
We developed strong chemistry with them, and agreed to an investment of ~3M at a whooping 8M
valuation
The relationship with our investors was a catalyst to growth
Our GTM focus continued to shift from to VSB and SMB to mid enterprises, executing product and
marketing strategies in synergy with that direction
2023+
2013 2014 2015 2017 2021
2005 2012 2016 2019 2020 2022
> Learning as a Business, and 1st 7 figure customer
Identified an addressable market of “Learning as a “Revenue Channel” which fueled growth, aka
Extended Enterprise
Signed our first Million+ paying customer, Thomson Reuters, defeating the then LMS category
market share leader, valued at +1B in the public markets
This customer taught us many lessons, pre and post acquisition and was a catalyst to growth and
product stabilization in the Enterprise space
2023+
2013 2014 2015 2017 2021
2005 2012 2016 2019 2020 2022
> Docebo names me as CRO in 2016
Between 2012 and 2013, I was focused on the transition from OpenSource to SaaS
Between 2013 and 2015, focused on our North America bootstrap and fundamentals
In 2016, my family and I moved to Toronto Canada to launch our Canadian presence
2023+
2013 2014 2015 2017 2021
2005 2012 2016 2019 2020 2022
> Building the “Outbound” and “OEM” genes
First outbound team leader hired. Previously 100% of the business was inbound
First OEM customer signed, today one of Docebo’s largest “Customers” in aggregate
First UK commercial hub opens in London UK
2023+
2013 2014 2015 2017 2021
2005 2012 2016 2019 2020 2022
> Docebo goes public in TSX in 2019
Thanks to the guidance of a competent team of industry veterans, we go public in the
Canadian Exchange in October 2019
The public listing process was a journey in and on itself for a still relatively small team who
had never done an IPO before
2023+
2013 2014 2015 2017 2021
2005 2012 2016 2019 2020 2022
> Nasdaq 2020 and 1st acquisition!
On this year we also complete our first acquisition of Formetris, and open our first France
commercial operation
In the midst of Covid, we completed our Nasdaq follow-on listing, and started trading on the
US exchange on December 2, 2020
Signed another transformational customer in Amazon AWS
2023+
2013 2014 2015 2017 2021
2005 2012 2016 2019 2020 2022
> $100M ARR and launching the “Suite”
From mono product to modular suite solving for an increased amount of problems
2023+
2013 2014 2015 2017 2021
2005 2012 2016 2019 2020 2022
> Acquired Skillslive (our 2nd VAR)
2023+
2013 2014 2015 2017 2021
2005 2012 2016 2019 2020 2022
We acquired for the second time a commercial reseller and services organization our of
Australia to accelerate APAC GTM
> Acquired Edugo
2023+
2013 2014 2015 2017 2021
2005 2012 2016 2019 2020 2022
First movers on GenAI in Learning Platforms
> Acquired PeerBoard
A tuck-in acquisition to strengthen our External Training capabilities with a community
product
> A catapult in the future 2023-2026
● Acceleration of Gen Ai features in product reducing time to value: we recently bought a Gen AI
company, Edugo
● Hyper content personalization and automation are the future of the Learning Industry
● Acquiring market share in the Government sector and executing verticalization strategy
● Continue to execute across our established regions and geographies
● Continue to innovate and never stop testing new hypothesis to fuel growth and drive demand
2023+
2013 2014 2015 2017 2021
2005 2012 2016 2019 2020 2022
Lessons learned and reflections
Lesson Learned
● From a European focused business to North America: requires an intentional playbook
● Going from 1 - 200 ARR as a “first timer”: it can be done, don’t let them box you in!
● A cohesive leadership team: complimentary skills make a team unstoppable
● In-house built productivity systems: acceleration at first, and then a real beast to untangle
● Personal development: mentors, studying, developing your weaknesses, and acceptance of who you are
● Data enrichment by gut : data quality is a priority, your gut is a critical data enrichment tool
● Test and experiment in a measured way, but execute ruthlessly when the sauce is right
● Running a Public business: the implications you rarely hear about
If I had to do it all again?
Lesson (Un)Learned
● Not think about profitability as the procrastinated enemy, but as the fundamental goal
● More time thinking pricing strategically, way sooner
● More focus on Customer Success, no later than 100 paying customers
● More time spent directly with customers
● Charge the big customers a lot more than we used to
● Create deep data education and better financial education across senior management
● When the business grows to 500 people plus, get hyper selective in new leadership
● When you have great leaders, get out of their hair more, and just empower them to do more and faster
● Accept sooner the fact that you can not anymore know it all
● Remind everyone that it never gets any easier, we all just get more used to it and get a bit wiser
And finally…
NEVER STOP
Rolling up
sleeves
and
Getting your
hands dirty
Thank You
Lessons (Un)Learned:  Successes & Setbacks on  the Road to $1B with Docebo
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Lessons (Un)Learned: Successes & Setbacks on the Road to $1B with Docebo

  • 4. Bootstrapped a rock-venue age 18, “The Borderline” First real tech job - age 19. Wages were 250 Euros/month, with a 5 hours commute/day. “Outbounded” my way through every tech job I ever had. First one happened via Napster. Landed Docebo via Linkedin.
  • 7. The Docebo “recipe” has been 18 years in the making. It all started as..
  • 9. Great things come, with time. Like wine, balsamic vinegar, and parmigiano reggiano.
  • 10. Customers 1,2 (USD) ARR 1 Subscription Revenues 4 $173M 3,591 94% Employees Offices: Toronto, Athens-GA, Melbourne, Milano, Munich, London, Paris, Dubai 800+ 8 (1) As at June 30, 2023. Refer to “Non-IFRS Measures and Reconciliation of Non-IFRS Measures”” in the Appendix to this presentation (2) Historically, in calculating average contract value, all references to the number of customers or companies we serve included separate accounts per customer based on their installation(s) count. For the third quarter of the fiscal year ended December 31, 2020 and going forward, any separate accounts that our customers may have will be aggregated and counted as one customer based on the contracted customer for the purposes of calculating our average contract value to provide a more precise understanding of this metric. (3) For the three months ended June 30, 2023. Nasdaq and TSX Dual Public Listings Active Monthly Users 2.2M
  • 11. ~US$7M Cash burn since 2016 to grow ARR2 to US$173M at the end of Q2 2023 (1) Free Cash Flow refers to Cash flow from operating activities less additions to property and equipment. Refer to “Non-IFRS Measures and Reconciliation of Non-IFRS Measures”” in the Appendix to this presentation (2) “Cash Burn” refers to cumulative negative free cash flow since Docebo received its initial investment from Intercap and Klass in 2015. A culture of efficiency rooted in the founding team $74M ($1M) $47M $30M $18M $11M ($4M) ($3M) ($5M) $4M ($4M) $118M $157M $1M $5M $173M Free Cash Flow(1) Total ARR (USD)
  • 12. Upmarket Execution driving ACV Growth since 2016 Customers1 3,591 Growth in average contract value since 20162 ~4x Net Dollar Retention Rate in 20223 109% of ARR added in 2022 represented by customers that chose multi-year contracts 81% (1) As at June 30, 2023 (2) Average contract value is calculated as total ARR divided by the number of active customers. Historically, in calculating average contract value, all references to the number of customers or companies we serve included separate accounts per customer based on their installation(s) count. For the third quarter of the fiscal year ended December 31, 2020 and going forward, any separate accounts that our customers may have will be aggregated and counted as one customer based on the contracted customer for the purposes of calculating our average contract value to provide a more precise understanding of this metric. The figures presented for 2016 to 2020 have been adjusted to reflect this methodology change. (3) As at December 31, 2022; see Appendix for definition of Net Dollar Retention Rate. Customer growth by year Average contract value (USD)
  • 13. Market Size: US Corporate LMS market sizing (internal and EE) is large (~$8.4B TAM), of which ~20-25% is served today TOTAL US CORPORATE LMS MARKET SERVED ~$8.5B ~$2.3B (27%) INTERNAL US CORPORATE LMS MARKET SERVED ~ $2.8B ~ $1.6B (57%) EXTERNAL US CORPORATE LMS MARKET SERVED ~ $5.6B ~ $0.7B (12.5%)
  • 14. COMPLIANCE Compliance Training Navigating a Complex Product-Market(s) fit EXTERNAL TRAINING Customer Training Partner Training Membership Training Retail / Franchise / QSR Training REVENUE ENABLEMENT Sales Enablement Support Enablement Services Enablement Marketing Enablement TALENT DEVELOPMENT Employee Onboarding Professional Development Leadership Development ~ 65% of customers (by ARR) use Docebo for external training or hybrid training use cases
  • 15. The real beauty of learning is in the journey.
  • 16. > Docebo LMS starts in Brianza 2023+ 2013 2014 2015 2017 2021 Project Spaghetti soon becomes “Docebo”, founded by Claudio Erba (CEO) and Fabio Pirovano (CPO) in a small town near Milan called Macherio Started Open Source, GPL 1.0, and focused on the Italian Corporate Market Claudio signed the first customer, tied to the Berlusconi family, before having incorporated the Company 2005 2012 2016 2019 2020 2022
  • 17. > Docebo goes SaaS Full rewrite of our Open Source Technology Docebo has about 50 paying customers, in a professional services revenue model Started SaaS GTM with “Freemium”, 3 distinct users plans 5 - 50 - 500 targeting the VSB and SMB Moved to 14 day trial soon after, and switched to yearly contracts only in 2017, dropping credit card Channel first GTM model in 012-013, direct sales model following that, leveraging 50 VARs Internationally 2023+ 2013 2014 2015 2017 2021 2005 2012 2016 2019 2020 2022
  • 18. > Docebo NA opens in Athens Georgia Docebo North America forms in Athens GA (Go Dawgs!) Athens GA is the home of UGA, and the renowned homebase of the famous REM What appeared to be a early-days location, ended up being a strategic catalyst for our long term growth We bring the Docebo-expert personnel of our US-based VAR in-house and create Docebo NA 2023+ 2013 2014 2015 2017 2021 2005 2012 2016 2019 2020 2022
  • 19. > Early commercial traction We hired our first senior account executive from Marketo in Athens Georgia, who became our first Director of Sales soon after We averaged 1000 “new trialers” per month, focusing on Demand Capture and Hand Raisers conversions to new customers We had early signals that our market fit was not in VSB nor it was SMB, and started gearing towards Mid Sized Enterprise Reached 2M ARR on this year and ~200 paying customers, ACV is still in the avg ~10K/customer 2023+ 2013 2014 2015 2017 2021 2005 2012 2016 2019 2020 2022
  • 20. > Canadian investors fuel growth We were seeking capital and met with the Klass Capital and Intercap team in Toronto, Canada We developed strong chemistry with them, and agreed to an investment of ~3M at a whooping 8M valuation The relationship with our investors was a catalyst to growth Our GTM focus continued to shift from to VSB and SMB to mid enterprises, executing product and marketing strategies in synergy with that direction 2023+ 2013 2014 2015 2017 2021 2005 2012 2016 2019 2020 2022
  • 21. > Learning as a Business, and 1st 7 figure customer Identified an addressable market of “Learning as a “Revenue Channel” which fueled growth, aka Extended Enterprise Signed our first Million+ paying customer, Thomson Reuters, defeating the then LMS category market share leader, valued at +1B in the public markets This customer taught us many lessons, pre and post acquisition and was a catalyst to growth and product stabilization in the Enterprise space 2023+ 2013 2014 2015 2017 2021 2005 2012 2016 2019 2020 2022
  • 22. > Docebo names me as CRO in 2016 Between 2012 and 2013, I was focused on the transition from OpenSource to SaaS Between 2013 and 2015, focused on our North America bootstrap and fundamentals In 2016, my family and I moved to Toronto Canada to launch our Canadian presence 2023+ 2013 2014 2015 2017 2021 2005 2012 2016 2019 2020 2022
  • 23. > Building the “Outbound” and “OEM” genes First outbound team leader hired. Previously 100% of the business was inbound First OEM customer signed, today one of Docebo’s largest “Customers” in aggregate First UK commercial hub opens in London UK 2023+ 2013 2014 2015 2017 2021 2005 2012 2016 2019 2020 2022
  • 24. > Docebo goes public in TSX in 2019 Thanks to the guidance of a competent team of industry veterans, we go public in the Canadian Exchange in October 2019 The public listing process was a journey in and on itself for a still relatively small team who had never done an IPO before 2023+ 2013 2014 2015 2017 2021 2005 2012 2016 2019 2020 2022
  • 25. > Nasdaq 2020 and 1st acquisition! On this year we also complete our first acquisition of Formetris, and open our first France commercial operation In the midst of Covid, we completed our Nasdaq follow-on listing, and started trading on the US exchange on December 2, 2020 Signed another transformational customer in Amazon AWS 2023+ 2013 2014 2015 2017 2021 2005 2012 2016 2019 2020 2022
  • 26. > $100M ARR and launching the “Suite” From mono product to modular suite solving for an increased amount of problems 2023+ 2013 2014 2015 2017 2021 2005 2012 2016 2019 2020 2022
  • 27. > Acquired Skillslive (our 2nd VAR) 2023+ 2013 2014 2015 2017 2021 2005 2012 2016 2019 2020 2022 We acquired for the second time a commercial reseller and services organization our of Australia to accelerate APAC GTM
  • 28. > Acquired Edugo 2023+ 2013 2014 2015 2017 2021 2005 2012 2016 2019 2020 2022 First movers on GenAI in Learning Platforms > Acquired PeerBoard A tuck-in acquisition to strengthen our External Training capabilities with a community product
  • 29. > A catapult in the future 2023-2026 ● Acceleration of Gen Ai features in product reducing time to value: we recently bought a Gen AI company, Edugo ● Hyper content personalization and automation are the future of the Learning Industry ● Acquiring market share in the Government sector and executing verticalization strategy ● Continue to execute across our established regions and geographies ● Continue to innovate and never stop testing new hypothesis to fuel growth and drive demand 2023+ 2013 2014 2015 2017 2021 2005 2012 2016 2019 2020 2022
  • 30. Lessons learned and reflections
  • 31. Lesson Learned ● From a European focused business to North America: requires an intentional playbook ● Going from 1 - 200 ARR as a “first timer”: it can be done, don’t let them box you in! ● A cohesive leadership team: complimentary skills make a team unstoppable ● In-house built productivity systems: acceleration at first, and then a real beast to untangle ● Personal development: mentors, studying, developing your weaknesses, and acceptance of who you are ● Data enrichment by gut : data quality is a priority, your gut is a critical data enrichment tool ● Test and experiment in a measured way, but execute ruthlessly when the sauce is right ● Running a Public business: the implications you rarely hear about
  • 32. If I had to do it all again?
  • 33. Lesson (Un)Learned ● Not think about profitability as the procrastinated enemy, but as the fundamental goal ● More time thinking pricing strategically, way sooner ● More focus on Customer Success, no later than 100 paying customers ● More time spent directly with customers ● Charge the big customers a lot more than we used to ● Create deep data education and better financial education across senior management ● When the business grows to 500 people plus, get hyper selective in new leadership ● When you have great leaders, get out of their hair more, and just empower them to do more and faster ● Accept sooner the fact that you can not anymore know it all ● Remind everyone that it never gets any easier, we all just get more used to it and get a bit wiser

Editor's Notes

  1. Tell 3 fun facts about me to break ice and create engagement
  2. 3 fun facts that leads that retrospectively mean a lot to me in the way I think about business today
  3. Leo and I cooking in the weekends and making fresh pasta together!
  4. Using the prior slide to connect to the concept of Docebo “recipe” been in the works since 2005 and start the Docebo story
  5. Starts the Docebo story, Spaghetti learning as founding name, sooner transitioned to the “Docebo” brand as we know of it today
  6. 6m+ registered users and 2.2m active monthly
  7. Docebo is worth $1.49 Billion today, doing $173,000,000 in ARR. We are growing 40%+ on a constant currency basis. Docebo is cash-flow positive, and … we only burned $7,000,000 to get there. Story is efficiency & frugality Alessio to add lessons learned across business phases and mistakes along the way
  8. Bridge slide from hard numbers to a timeline based story telling of key milestones and facts. Emphasys that the journey is with the eyes of the CRO as a end to end timeline across all dimensions would be a lot.
  9. EMPHASIZE THAT THIS IS A GTM FOCUSED TIMELINE Move from Open Source to SaaS We found / dev under GPL license - acquired knowledge about what people needed from an LMS - seamless switch to SaaS True in Domestic market - but need grow global, launch Broaden horizon - adding leads from around the world. Cultural difference How do we go in to NA? This all applied nicely in a domestic market like Italy - but we hadn’t commercialized outside of Italy - we launched Saas, we launched trial (PLG - freemium experience), it was painful but it helped us gain market fit more globally. Broaden horizon of usage. Leads coming in from SA, NA, Germany, Norway - now we started being exposed to cultural differences that exist in the market and it helped us understand how we could expand globally. What year
  10. Move from Open Source to SaaS We found / dev under GPL license - acquired knowledge about what people needed from an LMS - seamless switch to SaaS True in Domestic market - but need grow global, launch Broaden horizon - adding leads from around the world. Cultural difference How do we go in to NA? This all applied nicely in a domestic market like Italy - but we hadn’t commercialized outside of Italy - we launched Saas, we launched trial (PLG - freemium experience), it was painful but it helped us gain market fit more globally. Broaden horizon of usage. Leads coming in from SA, NA, Germany, Norway - now we started being exposed to cultural differences that exist in the market and it helped us understand how we could expand globally. What year
  11. We found / dev under GPL license - acquired knowledge about what people needed from an LMS - seamless switch to SaaS True in Domestic market - but need grow global, launch Broaden horizon - adding leads from around the world. Cultural difference How do we go in to NA?
  12. Andrea to drop in images.