Bruce Buchanan

Co-founder, CEO & Chairperson, Rokt · 2 appearances on the record.

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founderexecutive

Bruce Buchanan is an Australian business executive who previously served as the Group CEO of low-cost airline Jetstar Airways from 2008 to 2012. He is the co-founder, CEO, and chairperson of e-commerce technology company Rokt.

33statements → 23claims → 2claims resolved → 3.76/5average certainty → 1.15/5average debate potential → ≈4.0/5argument clarity, estimated →

1 supported 1 partly supported 0 contradicted 21 not checkable as stated how the 23 claims stand · each chip opens the sources

4 predictions · 19 assertions · 1 opinion · 2 insights · 7 disclosures · every statement was checked. The predictions and assertions are the 23 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 2 are resolved, and 21 name no date, number or outcome precise enough to check. Everything else (opinions, insights, what ifs, disclosures) can never be settled by the record, so it carries no assessment.

The record, in short

What the tape says about how Bruce argues and how the claims held up. Everything they said, and everything said about them, is in the tabs below.

Their most notable supported claim

Prediction Held up
Rokt projects 2021 revenue of $170M despite COVID impact
“Our revenue numbers this year will be about one hundred and seventy million, but we also measure our underlying distance. That ticketing vertical and our travel vertical is still massively affected. So we should, Surpassed two hundred million in the underlying…”
Bruce Buchanan Mar 22, 2021 ▶ 2:50 Rokt Breaks $90m Gross Profit Coming out of Pandemic, 3 Revenue LInes, $500m+ Valuation?

How they sound: not measured why? →

We measure speaking style by listening to the audio itself, and a fair number needs at least 2,000 words from one person on tape we have measured. There is too little of Bruce Buchanan on measured tape to publish a rate. This says nothing about how they speak.

Everything Bruce Buchanan said on Top Founders that made the record, most notable first. Filter by type, assessment or year in the ledger →

Prediction Held up
Rokt projects 2021 revenue of $170M despite COVID impact
“Our revenue numbers this year will be about one hundred and seventy million, but we also measure our underlying distance. That ticketing vertical and our travel vertical is still massively affected. So we should, Surpassed two hundred million in the underlying…”
Bruce Buchanan Mar 22, 2021 ▶ 2:50 Rokt Breaks $90m Gross Profit Coming out of Pandemic, 3 Revenue LInes, $500m+ Valuation?
Prediction Partly held up
Rokt expects 2021 gross profit of just under $90M
“No, we, our gross profit, if you will, it will be about just under ninety million. So we measure it It's a slightly different way we measure it, but yeah, if you looked at it on a gross profit or gross contribution level, it's about ninety million.”
Bruce Buchanan Mar 22, 2021 ▶ 3:33 Rokt Breaks $90m Gross Profit Coming out of Pandemic, 3 Revenue LInes, $500m+ Valuation?
Disclosure
Rokt operates a closed walled garden for advertising data
“Unlike a typical advertising value ecosystem where, and this is slightly different from product and marketing which the other two sides of our business, but on the advertising side, we are a closed wall garden, similar to like a Google. And so we clear everyth…”
Bruce Buchanan Mar 22, 2021 ▶ 5:41 Rokt Breaks $90m Gross Profit Coming out of Pandemic, 3 Revenue LInes, $500m+ Valuation?
Disclosure
Rokt nets 7 cents per ad dollar, passing 50% to partners
“Their contracts like JV's where we passed 50% of the transparent relationship. We then wear all the costs, which is about 43 cents in a dollar. So 50 cents goes apart. Now they see exactly what's happening. We're very transparent. We spend about 43 cents on te…”
Bruce Buchanan Mar 22, 2021 ▶ 6:26 Rokt Breaks $90m Gross Profit Coming out of Pandemic, 3 Revenue LInes, $500m+ Valuation?
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Rokt boosts add-on product take rates by 50% to 60%
“So if you sell insurance or whatever through rock and a customer's buying an airline ticket, you'll sell 60% more insurance because we get the right product, the right price. In front of that consumer when they're buying, we can manage the consumer relevancy a…”
Bruce Buchanan Mar 22, 2021 ▶ 8:11 Rokt Breaks $90m Gross Profit Coming out of Pandemic, 3 Revenue LInes, $500m+ Valuation?
Disclosure
Rokt raised an off-market $80M at a $450M pre-money valuation
“We raised eighty million dollars. It was a closed round, so we didn't go out to market. And so we raised it at four 50 pre-money.”
Bruce Buchanan Mar 22, 2021 ▶ 9:52 Rokt Breaks $90m Gross Profit Coming out of Pandemic, 3 Revenue LInes, $500m+ Valuation?
Insight
Buchanan: Complex lock-in contracts slow down enterprise sales cycles
“Don't try and lock in clients with complicated contracts. It just slows down the sales cycle.”
Bruce Buchanan Mar 22, 2021 ▶ 15:20 Rokt Breaks $90m Gross Profit Coming out of Pandemic, 3 Revenue LInes, $500m+ Valuation?
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Rokt maintains low single-digit gross churn on core e-commerce clients
“Our revenue churn on a gross level for those is low single digits. So we are net negative churn, if you will, on our e-commerce clients, but on our advertising or product sale clients, it's a bit more fickle, like, you know, whatever products being sold and wh…”
Bruce Buchanan Mar 22, 2021 ▶ 15:47 Rokt Breaks $90m Gross Profit Coming out of Pandemic, 3 Revenue LInes, $500m+ Valuation?
Opinion
Buchanan cites Cardlytics as a key business analogy for Rokt
“I mean, businesses that are somewhat, have some analogies to us are businesses like Cardlytics that do it in, you know, closed marketplace for banks in their, you know, in their apps.”
Bruce Buchanan Mar 22, 2021 ▶ 18:29 Rokt Breaks $90m Gross Profit Coming out of Pandemic, 3 Revenue LInes, $500m+ Valuation?
Disclosure
Buchanan: Rokt acquired calendaring SaaS CalReply for $15M
“No, we paid fifteen million for it.”
Bruce Buchanan Jun 6, 2018 ▶ 5:58 1047 Rokt CEO: Why We Acquired CalReply for $15m on $1-2m in ARR
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Buchanan: CalReply had $1.5M to $2M in SaaS revenue at acquisition
“Revenues, revenues of one and a half to two million sort of range on, on a SAS basis.”
Bruce Buchanan Jun 6, 2018 ▶ 6:02 1047 Rokt CEO: Why We Acquired CalReply for $15m on $1-2m in ARR
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Buchanan: Rokt is cash flow and P&L positive
“We tend to run it quite conservatively on cash. So we're a cash flow and P and O positive business.”
Bruce Buchanan Jun 6, 2018 ▶ 12:13 1047 Rokt CEO: Why We Acquired CalReply for $15m on $1-2m in ARR
Insight
Buchanan: Marketing is shifting from ad tech to owned media assets
“What is happening, which is an evolution from, you know, the ad tech world and the traditional media agency world to much more marketing tech and own media assets and businesses trying to control the destiny with the customers much more directly.”
Bruce Buchanan Jun 6, 2018 ▶ 16:32 1047 Rokt CEO: Why We Acquired CalReply for $15m on $1-2m in ARR
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Rokt has about 3,000 clients, mostly in the enterprise sector
“I got about 3000 clients now, mostly enterprise.”
Bruce Buchanan Mar 22, 2021 ▶ 2:36 Rokt Breaks $90m Gross Profit Coming out of Pandemic, 3 Revenue LInes, $500m+ Valuation?
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Rokt's advertising gross contribution margin is about 50%
“It depends on what we're doing, but our gross contribution margin advertising about 50%.”
Bruce Buchanan Mar 22, 2021 ▶ 4:48 Rokt Breaks $90m Gross Profit Coming out of Pandemic, 3 Revenue LInes, $500m+ Valuation?
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Rokt expects SaaS revenue to reach $5M to $7M in 2021
“SAS for us is relatively small. The fastest growing part about SAS for us will be probably, you know, around five, six, seven million dollars. I think this year”
Bruce Buchanan Mar 22, 2021 ▶ 6:59 Rokt Breaks $90m Gross Profit Coming out of Pandemic, 3 Revenue LInes, $500m+ Valuation?
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Distributed commerce is Rokt's fastest-growing business line
“The fastest growing part of our business is product, what we call distributed commerce.”
Bruce Buchanan Mar 22, 2021 ▶ 7:08 Rokt Breaks $90m Gross Profit Coming out of Pandemic, 3 Revenue LInes, $500m+ Valuation?
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Rokt ticketing dropped 97% and travel dropped 60-70% during COVID
“So our whole ticketing and entertainment vertical dropped 97%. Our travel vertical dropped about 60 or 70%, so they just got really badly hit.”
Bruce Buchanan Mar 22, 2021 ▶ 10:28 Rokt Breaks $90m Gross Profit Coming out of Pandemic, 3 Revenue LInes, $500m+ Valuation?
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Rokt finished 2020 just shy of $100M in actual revenue
“We finished 20 20 just shy of a hundred on actual basis, but it would have been about a hundred and 35, a 140 if you'd adjusted it for COVID.”
Bruce Buchanan Mar 22, 2021 ▶ 11:26 Rokt Breaks $90m Gross Profit Coming out of Pandemic, 3 Revenue LInes, $500m+ Valuation?
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Rokt generated about $55M in gross profit in 2020
“About fifty five million in gross profit last year.”
Bruce Buchanan Mar 22, 2021 ▶ 11:48 Rokt Breaks $90m Gross Profit Coming out of Pandemic, 3 Revenue LInes, $500m+ Valuation?
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Rokt's revenue dropped 65% in March and April 2020
“March, April, we got smashed when COVID started. And our revenue tanked, 65%.”
Bruce Buchanan Mar 22, 2021 ▶ 12:36 Rokt Breaks $90m Gross Profit Coming out of Pandemic, 3 Revenue LInes, $500m+ Valuation?
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Existing client expansion drives 20% of Rokt's annual growth
“So we have lots of organic growth, about 40% growth, about 20% every year comes from existing customers growing into new products and just growing their footprint with us.”
Bruce Buchanan Mar 22, 2021 ▶ 15:00 Rokt Breaks $90m Gross Profit Coming out of Pandemic, 3 Revenue LInes, $500m+ Valuation?
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Buchanan: Acquire and Monetize drive roughly 90% of Rokt's revenue
“So those two products are the dominant revenue streams at the moment. Probably about 90% of our revenue flows for those two products.”
Bruce Buchanan Jun 6, 2018 ▶ 3:54 1047 Rokt CEO: Why We Acquired CalReply for $15m on $1-2m in ARR
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Buchanan: Rokt grew revenue approximately 100% year-on-year for three straight years
“We drove another last three years. We've driven a hundred percent revenue growth pretty much year on year. And last year we did the same thing”
Bruce Buchanan Jun 6, 2018 ▶ 7:08 1047 Rokt CEO: Why We Acquired CalReply for $15m on $1-2m in ARR

Show 9statements(9 left)

Appearances (2)

EpisodeDateSpeaking time
Rokt Breaks $90m Gross Profit Coming out of Pandemic, 3 Revenue LInes, $500m+ Valuation? Mar 22, 2021 12m
1047 Rokt CEO: Why We Acquired CalReply for $15m on $1-2m in ARR Jun 6, 2018 13m
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