Three Things The Market Is Missing With DAVE

An honest view of the DAVE risk/reward, a look into trailing vs. future growth, and some empathy for the people behind DAVE's "revenue"

Good morning all, and to the wave of new followers and subscribers, welcome. However you found your way here, this is a place to learn, sharpen your thinking, and become a better investor over time. My goal is simple: deliver Wall Street–worthy analysis without the jargon, the bias, or the incentives that usually come with it.

The best part of this blog isn’t the calls. It’s the community. I’ve met some genuinely impressive people through this work. Successful, curious, and still hungry to learn in the Charlie Munger sense. That part has been deeply rewarding.

The second best part is that I get to be honest. So today I want to talk about DAVE (Dave, Inc.).

I’ve seen more shallow “line go up” commentary on DAVE than almost any fintech name recently, and in my view most of it misses the actual risk–reward setup. More importantly, it misses the human reality embedded in the numbers.

That revenue growth everyone loves to cite doesn’t come from an abstract spreadsheet. It comes from the lower-income cohort of the so-called K-shaped economy. Real people. Real stress. Rent due before paychecks clear. Short-term liquidity gaps that hurt like hell in the real world and show up as a ARPU in our models.

This post isn’t a moral lecture, it’s more an attempt to understand the business honestly. You can’t evaluate Dave’s durability, growth, or valuation unless you start with who the customer actually is and what economic conditions they live in.

So with that framing, let’s get into the full analysis. For those short on time, each post includes a short TL;DR at the top.