01 · Watch the episode
The full conversation
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02 · The guest
Andy Rogers
Founder & CEO, Rokker
Andy has been an MD, CEO, Investor and Board member in the digital and gaming industries for 28 years (OMG). After studying Industrial Design at Brunel University, he started his career by launching his own full-service design agency in 1998 (actually 1 month before graduating), working through the dotcom boom and bust and helped develop the first online trading platform in the UK with Soc Gen and had a military database business with the former regimental Colonel of the special forces (as you do). After breaking up that business and selling the digital parts he went on to join Lightmaker as Sales Director, eventually becoming Managing director and helping that business become one of the world's leading digital agencies, with clients like Manchester United, Sony, Nintendo, Bacardi, Electronic Arts and Warner Brothers. After being offered a position with the UK's leading 'gaming TV' business ETV Media Group he went to London to set up their digital business, this was where he was first introduced to the gaming sector and worked on Gala TV, and shows for ITV, eventually building the world's first B2B social gaming platform and selling this to Scientific Games, ITV, Rank, Lottomatica and William Hill amongst others (also managed to party with Lou Ferigno and Dolf Lungren)... ultimately this business was bought by Mediatech in Spain, and Andy went to join that business as Managing Director and at that time ran about a 3rd of the online GGR of Spain through the Mediatech Platform. In 2015 Andy left Mediatech (just before it was sold to R Franco!) and founded Rokker, which acted as the incubator for other business including Random Colour Animal (which was sold to InclineBet in early 2024), Skull Mountain (which was transitioned back to the other co-founder in 2024) and Pretty Technical which continues today as part of the Rokker Group.
Follow Andy on LinkedIn →03 · Inside this episode
Moments worth queuing up
In his own words
“Our success is directly proportional to the number of times you've said: fuck it, I'll figure it out.”
“Investing is easy if you have an infinite amount of time.”
“It's expensive to be poor. You get worse deals, you get worse rates.”
“Run your own race... I'm comfortable in my own skin to run my own race.”
04 · Key takeaways
What to actually take from this one
Patience is a Competitive Advantage
A 10-to-15-year horizon lets you build value without the pressure of external shareholders.
The Expensive to be Poor Trap
Running a business undercapitalised forces you to take bad projects and suboptimal deals.
Don't Cut Costs to Growth
Cost-cutting your way to a growth target ignores the initial investment those numbers required.
Success is Contextual
Leaders must be honest enough to admit when luck played a role.
Back Yourself to Run Again
The highest leverage a young leader has is the conviction to run their own race.
This episode is sponsored by
Sumsub
The leading identity verification provider for iGaming operators.