Luca Ferrari says Evertale failed because users found its data collection invasive and rarely came back, and the team spent too long testing ideas internally.
Bending Spoons began with about €40,000 left over from Evertale, which its investor gifted because liquidating the company was not worth the legal costs.
Bending Spoons bootstrapped its growth, raising over $500m in debt for acquisitions and mostly secondary equity sales, with revenue a little above $300m.
A failed startup became a $300m app platform
Bending Spoons grew out of the ashes of Evertale, a failed startup, and was built as a durable platform for running many small digital products rather than one big bet. Its founders survived a brutal start, stayed profitable, avoided early equity and later used cheap debt to acquire products. Ferrari credits culture, hiring and tenacity, and calls luck a large factor.
Takeaways
Bending Spoons is built as a platform, not a product. Started in June 2013, it was designed with shared technology, competencies, employer brand and culture to run many digital products. It starts with small, low-risk products, reinvests their cash, then acquires or launches new products. It now has revenue above $300m.
Evertale failed by skipping customer testing. Evertale raised €1m for a self-writing diary app. Users found the background data collection invasive, and those who accepted rarely returned. The team built too long among themselves, so Ferrari urges rough MVPs early and less time in the garage.
Culture and hiring drive near-zero turnover. With about 500 employees, Bending Spoons sees almost no unprompted departures. Ferrari credits hiring people who fit the culture, then giving freedom and responsibility. He avoids over-specified criteria, which he says yield mediocre hires, and prefers practical tests to biased interviews.
The early years nearly broke the founders. The company began with about €40,000 left over from Evertale, gifted by its investor. Thousands of emails won only one client project worth maybe €10,000 to €20,000. Ferrari cried at least once and says he might not have started had he known.
Bootstrapping first, then cheap debt for acquisitions. A failed startup would have made equity costly in valuation and governance, and early profitability removed the need. Later it raised over $500m in debt for acquisitions, plus $70m to $80m of mostly secondary equity.
Failure is survivable with trusted co-founders. Failure carries more stigma in Europe than in the United States. Ferrari found treating Evertale's shutdown after two and a half years as a fresh start energising, and says co-founders he trusted helped carry the burden.
Entrepreneurship only makes sense without money motives. Ferrari says the work is brutally hard and financial expectations usually disappoint once upside is weighted by its probability. He says luck plays a big role, and only a strong urge to build justifies the path.
Ferrari's leadership advice
Step back regularly and track where your time goes, hour by hour, for a few weeks.
Be uncompromising on hiring and coaching.
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On this episode 2
Show 1
Use practical tests rather than interviews, which he considers biased.
Learn to make decisions that upset some people. Ferrari calls himself a people pleaser.