Oct 10, 2017 · 23m · top-founders
808: AdTech: AdForm Beats $40m Revenue Monetizing These 3 Days
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gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
In this episode of The Top, host Nathan Latka interviews Gustav Mellentin, founder and CEO of Adform, exploring how the adtech company scaled from a bootstrapped trio into an international powerhouse generating over $40 million in revenue across ad trading, ad serving, and enterprise data management.
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 44% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
Nathan as informed peer 3.7 Guest teaching 1.3 Guest disagreement 0.8 Nathan pushing back 1.3
speaking balance: gold is Nathan, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 6:11 Defending take rate against industry middleman norms
Gustav counters Nathan's suggestion that a 10% cut is low by arguing that 50% cuts taken by competitors are completely unsustainable.
Hardest push from Nathan ▶ 4:27 Insisting on specific percentage revenue breakdownNathan cuts through Gustav's general explanation to demand exact percentage splits for Adform's trading business.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 6:40 Explaining ad tech platform acronyms and DMP functionGustav clarifies industry jargon, defining DMP and explaining how modern ad tech platforms manage and activate customer data.
Nathan holds their own ▶ 5:10 Synthesizing Adform's multi-tiered revenue model on the flyNathan instantly organizes Gustav's disparate comments into an exact breakdown of Adform's three revenue streams and price points.
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: Adform's Monetization Model | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | The episode opens with Nathan summarizing company metrics and giving a promotional pitch for getlatka.com before engaging in light introductory banter about Gustav's European holiday. | |
| Breaking Down Adform's Revenue Streams | 6 | 1 | 1 | 3 | Nathan presses Gustav to give exact percentage breakdowns and pricing figures for his business units, synthesizing them cleanly into a structured breakdown. | |
| Ad Trading Take Rates and Industry Transparency | 5 | 2 | 2 | 2 | When Nathan questions whether a 10% take rate is fairly low, Gustav defends the margin as sustainable compared to opaque 50% competitors before reflecting on the company's early founding days. | |
| Funding Strategy and Debt Financing Structure | 6 | 2 | 1 | 2 | Nathan probes how the $20 million venture debt was secured and structured, with Gustav explaining that Nordic pension funds provided non-asset backed trust-based debt. | |
| Scaling Leadership and Executive Management | 3 | 1 | 0 | 0 | A cordial discussion covering Gustav's age, career longevity, and how Adform scaled executive leadership and processes across 750 employees. | |
| Data Management Platform (DMP) Expansion | 5 | 3 | 1 | 2 | Gustav explains the DMP acronym and enterprise client tiers, while Nathan extracts revenue figures confirming they crossed $40M in 2016 and target up to $100M in 2017. | |
| Founder Work-Life Integration and Personal Priorities | 4 | 2 | 2 | 3 | Nathan inquires about Gustav's past marriage and personal sacrifices, prompting Gustav to thoughtfully nuance the balance between business ambitions and personal relationships. | |
| The Top Inbox Product Acquisition Announcement | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | The segment features a mid-roll acquisition promo for thetopinbox.com followed by standard, friendly Famous Five rapid-fire questions. | |
| Episode Recap and Conclusion | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Nathan delivers a rapid solo summary of Adform's history, headcount, revenue streams, and financial milestones before signing off. |
Statements from this episode (13)
Mellentin: Most of Adform's revenue comes from programmatic ad trading
“Most of the business today is actually in the trading space. So most of the revenue is coming from there.”
Mellentin: Data management is Adform's fastest-growing unit at 10% of revenue
“And the data model is the fastest growing part of the business. So it's a product we launched just a couple of years ago. So it's definitely the fastest growing, but it's probably down to around 10% of the actual business. A lot of the growth is coming from th…”
Mellentin: Leading with data is the best strategy to sell to CMOs
“I'd say in most conversations with new clients and onboarding new clients, the story we lead with is around data because that's really what's on the CMO's mind and is the best way to initiate a”
Mellentin: Adform takes around 10% on trading ad spend
“Yeah, so I would say, let's say around 10%, right?”
Mellentin: 50% margins in adtech are totally unsustainable
“I think, yes, there are people who do 50%, but I think that's totally not sustainable, and it's a different business model than ours.”
Mellentin: Middlemen rarely sustain take rates above 10% long-term
“I think over time, I think it's hard to imagine industries where the middleman Takes out a lot more than 10% for facilitating the trade.”
Adform reached 750 employees across 18 global offices by 2017.
“Today we're around 750 people around the world with 18 offices.”
Adform bootstrapped eight years before raising $5M equity and $20M debt.
“So the first like seven, seven, eight years was all bootstrap. And then we decided to take a little bit of money just to do the international expansion and so on. So we took in some, and I mean, I think overall we were taking in equity just around five million…”
Adform's $20 million venture debt facility is not asset-backed.
“Yeah, so we don't, it's not backed against anything. There's a lot of clauses, and I cannot remember them all. Relatively complicated, and I know that I've known, know that I've signed my life away 10 times during all these negotiations, and at the end of the …”
Mellentin: Adform has around 100 standalone DMP customers
“So now there's going to be a bit of a guess, but I would say maybe maybe a hundred.”
Mellentin: Adform targets between $50M and $100M revenue in 2017
“So so we don't know what publish, but let me just say it's somewhere between 50 and a hundred million. Yep. Somewhere in, in, in, in, in, in, in there.”
Mellentin: Adform approached or broke $40M revenue in 2016
“Yes. Yeah, we brought, yeah. We're close to it.”
Mellentin: Preserving a marriage is not the end-all, be-all for founders
“I don't think it's, I mean, I don't think it's the, you know, end all be all to keep your marriage alive, I mean, you know, I think there are other ways of having great personal relationships with friends and with your kids and so on, but I think, you know, yo…”