Mar 23, 2023 · 20m · top-founders
Sourcepoint Hits 500 Customers for Data Privacy Product, Will "definitely hit $50m in 2024"
0:00 / 0:00
gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
Nathan Latka interviews SourcePoint CEO Ben Barokas on scaling an enterprise data privacy platform to 500 customers, discussing his AdMeld exit to Google, multi-tiered SaaS monetization, regulatory market tailwinds, and the roadmap to $50 million in ARR by 2024.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. Nathan holds 37.3% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
Nathan as informed peer 5.0 Guest teaching 3.1 Guest disagreement 2.6 Nathan pushing back 4.1
speaking balance: gold is Nathan, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 15:04 Blunt dismissal of secondary liquidity
Brokus flatly responds 'Certainly not' and rejects Latka's premise that founders should offer secondary liquidity to early employees.
Hardest push from Nathan ▶ 18:16 Refusing deflection on ARR calculationLatka refuses Brokus's evasive answer on revenue and directly points out the mathematical contradiction between 500 customers and a $100k ACV.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 12:35 Macro data privacy regulatory dynamicsBrokus explains how the lag in US federal privacy laws relative to GDPR explains why 60-70% of his company's revenue originates in Europe.
Nathan holds their own ▶ 18:01 Deconstructing disclosed ACV against customer countLatka traps the guest using his own previously stated metrics, forcing an admission that not all 500 customers are paying the $100K enterprise ACV.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Nathan as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Nathan pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Episode Preview: SourcePoint's Growth and Scale | 5 | 3 | 3 | 4 | Latka presses Brokus on the exact purchase price of AdMeld and whether raising $40M was capital efficient. Brokus clarifies the accounting bonuses on top of the headline price and notes that $40M is still a substantial amount of capital. | |
| The Genesis of SourcePoint and Data Privacy Landscape | 3 | 5 | 1 | 1 | Brokus educates Latka on the evolution of digital privacy, explaining how real-time bidding protocols he helped build at Google created widespread consumer data exposure across the ecosystem. | |
| Business Model and Three-Tiered Pricing Structure | 6 | 3 | 1 | 3 | Latka drills down on SourcePoint's pricing structure, verifying whether the third tier functions as a basis-point take rate under 1% on protected advertising spend. | |
| Scaling from Inception to 500 Enterprise Customers | 7 | 4 | 4 | 7 | Latka strongly challenges Brokus on why a previously exited founder would take venture capital and whether 40% annual growth aligns with top-tier VC expectations of 200-300%. Brokus defends his strategy, noting US regulatory headwinds where 60-70% of current revenue comes from Europe. | |
| Growth Funding and Secondary Liquidity Philosophy | 6 | 3 | 5 | 6 | Latka asks if early employees were granted secondary liquidity after five years of tenure. Brokus firmly rejects the idea, stating he does not hire employees with the expectation of option cashouts before a strategic exit. | |
| Team Structure and Enterprise Sales Strategy | 5 | 3 | 2 | 4 | Latka inquires about early sales rep economics including quotas and OTE. Brokus details how former colleagues joined and set an initial team target of $1M per quarter. | |
| Revenue Realities and the $50 Million ARR Roadmap | 8 | 4 | 5 | 8 | Latka calculates ARR by multiplying 500 customers by $100K ACV to arrive at $50M. When Brokus deflects with 'you can do whatever you'd like', Latka forces a direct answer, prompting Brokus to admit $50M is not yet accurate across all products. | |
| Interview Conclusion and Key Takeaways | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Latka delivers the closing solo summary and recap of SourcePoint's business metrics and timeline. |
Statements from this episode (12)
Google paid significantly more than $400M for AdMeld, says Ben Barokas
“There's a, there are bonuses on top of the cat price that was paid that were given to employees. And so it was significantly above that in terms of price, but it's also, you know, what gets recorded in the purchase price is the complexity of the of the exact p…”
Ben Barokas's team at Google developed the real-time bidding protocol
“While I was at Google, after we almost created the problem while there, we developed a protocol that, Called real-time bidding. And the RTB protocol enables marketers to bid on individual users based on their data profile. And that made data available on just …”
Sourcepoint averages roughly $100,000 in annual contract value, says Ben Barokas
“Something between call it a 100,000 dollars a year in annual contract value. And our clients are the biggest media companies in the world.”
Sourcepoint charges basis points on enterprise ad spend for data protection
“So with companies that spend, you know, hundreds of millions of dollars in marketing in buying advertising or buying data to inform addressability, we, depending on how much your spend is, we take basis points in order to protect that spend and make sure that …”
Sourcepoint has averaged 40% year-over-year growth since acquiring its first clients
“I think we've averaged about 40% growth year over year.”
Sourcepoint serves approximately 500 enterprise customers as of March 2023
“We're solving problems for about 500 customers today.”
Ben Barokas targets 40% to 50% revenue growth for Sourcepoint in 2023
“And, you know, we're hoping to, again, grow by 40 to 50% this year.”
The US is still years away from federal privacy laws, says Barokas
“And still to this day, we don't have national data privacy legislation that has been passed. And we're probably a couple of years away”
Europe accounts for 60% to 70% of Sourcepoint's total revenue
“That would account for. 60 to 70% of our revenue coming from Europe.”
Ben Barokas strictly opposes secondary liquidity for employees before an acquisition
“I'm not hiring people with the incentive of being able to cash out their options. If the company does well, and if a strategic comes along and purchases the firm for a very high price, then fantastic. And then we'll all share in those spoils. But if not, I don…”