sydneysezzle incs chief executive realized last year that if he wanted the us buynowpaylater provider to become profitable he would first have to explain to staff what a profit was australialisted sezzle on monday reported net income for november of us200000 compared with an average monthly net loss of 86 million for 4q 2021 the swing followed a 50 cut in staff numbers an exit from unprofitable international markets and a timeconsuming failed merger with australian rival zip co the pursuit of profit began in earnest in late 2021 when it was becoming apparent that investors were running out of patience with unprofitable growth including in the buynowpaylater sector ceo charlie youakim said sezzle initiated regular staff meetings to explain the strategy shift but it became apparent that some employees who began careers after the 2008 global financial crisis first needed to learn the basics mr youakim told the wall street journal in an interview they didnt even know what this profit was mr youakim said on monday wed start the town halls with business lessons heres what gross profit is heres what opex operating expense is our goal is to make sure gross profits greater than opex acknowledging that one months performance doesnt constitute a trend mr youakim said that sezzle will target positive net income and adjusted earnings for 2023 a lot of companies will have like 10 goals mr youakim said we had one singular goal get to profitability and that made every person within the company think about profitability in their choices profitability has been elusive for most buynowpaylater providers who attracted millions of users and thousands of merchants particularly as the covid19 pandemic accelerated the shift to online shopping growth subsequently slowed and analysts expect higher interest rates to put pressure on retail spending in 2023 investors have already prepared offloading tech stocks and dropping companies with high cash burn the techfocused nasdaq composite is on course for its worst year since 2008 and tech is the worst performing of the australian markets 11 sectors down 32 so far in 2022 shares in sezzle jumped about 6 on monday but were still down 82 so far in 2022 shares in larger uslisted rival affirm holdings inc are down 90 over the same period sezzle and zip scrapped an allscrip merger in july as interestrate hikes pushed up funding costs and macroeconomic uncertainty decimated buynowpaylater stock valuations i think we have a year maybe 24 months left of tough times mr youakim said so to get to profitability early is really critical because i think this is going to continue