00:28:53 · David Senra
[00:28:53] S0: I really love your insight. It's like, well, if you're running the team and you feel the pain, you might just take the first candidate that comes along. But your whole thing is like, we know our strategy works, so now we're just gonna spend all of our time on talent. The conclusion you just shared here reminds me of Brad Jacobs, who was on this show last year. He says... He has a great maxim where he's like, an empty seat is less damaging than a poor fit. Oh, yeah. He was just like, I'll leave the position empty. Like, it's gonna be painful, but it's gonna be not... It's gonna be way worse than if we hire the wrong person. And he'll just leave it indefinitely till they find the right person. It's very similar to what you're saying.
00:29:25 · Luca Ferrari
[00:29:25] S1: Yeah. Completely. And look, I I I think in general, having sharp job descriptions is bad. You wanna have a... There is a a blob of work that needs to be done, and different things are differently important... Urgent. And if you have a team where people don't feel siloed, they're just responsible for the company's success. Again, just like a startup. If you're failing to hire someone who's supposed to take care of like a little part of this blob of potential work, It's not that that blob is ignored if it's really important. Someone will basically postpone something that's a little bit less important to take care of it. I always say, I generally talk to new hires. We have sessions where we discuss some of our cultural principles and other things. And one of the things I sometimes say is that we all have the same job at Bending Spoons, all of us, starting with me, and that's helping the company succeed. On a daily basis, it's helpful to say you're a software engineer or a product manager, just so we know Stefan and each other's sales too much. But essentially, everybody's job is the same: do whatever is needed to help the company succeed. And so I'm not worried about a seat being empty, because I don't think the concept of seat even exists, really. We'll just adapt and take over and and complete the work that needs completion. And, you know, we'll just not do some other work. Not the end of the day. Like, very little work in a company, especially digital business, is strictly necessary. Almost all of it is elective, optional. It's just a matter of what's high priority and lower priority.
00:30:53 · David Senra, Luca Ferrari
[00:30:53] S0: Say more about this. [00:30:55] S1: Well, almost everything you do, could also not be doing. Almost all of it. So winning starts with doing what's ROI positive, which is only a small portion actually of the complete universe of possible projects and tasks. And then doing things in order of priority, from say highest ROI, I mean, the risk of being a little bit simplistic and and your resources will be limited. I think most companies do things that are ROI negative. You know, there is a 100 things they could be doing, but only 10 are ROI positive, many companies are doing 40 things. Hopefully, at least they do the 10 that are ROI positive too. In some cases, tragically, they're now doing some of the ROI positive things despite doing so many other things. [00:31:37] S0: Wait, so why do think they're doing this? Is this a lack of talent, an issue of focus, not understanding prioritization? What's going on there? [00:31:45] S1: All sorts of reasons. For the [00:31:46] S0: companies you buy, because obviously you're buying things that are, there's a brand that's well known, there's a customer, there's a product there, but in almost, I think, every single example, you've massively improved everything you've purchased. So what are the most common mistakes that people under previous management were making?
00:32:02 · Luca Ferrari
[00:32:02] S1: A lot of the reasons for those opportunities not being seized, frankly, lay outside of their control. Some of it is perverse incentives. If you're running a business on a standalone basis, especially for a public company, but also private companies, ultimately they're aiming to to go public, so it's kind of the same. You'll be judged on what I often... You'll be judged on what I would, let's say, consider ultimately secondary, if not even vanity metrics, rather than, let's say, value creation through cash generation. For instance, if you are running a business where most of the revenue comes from subscriptions, you know maybe that the optimal price is a higher price, like in every pretty much with any product in a free market, if you raise prices, you're gonna have fewer customers, which can be fine. You know, maybe you have 30% fewer customers, but each ultimately contributes twice as much or better off. Right? However, often the markets will punish you dramatically if you do that because when they see that the number of subscribers has gone down, even if revenue has gone up, they would not like it. We could debate why that's the case, it's an interesting discussion. But if you're a management team, ultimately, in that particular context, you will have to heed the opinion or expectations of of the market, and you will not do that pricing change even if you know that it's gonna be positive. However, if a company or business is run within the broader benchmarks where none of the businesses, let's say ends with itself, but it's a piece of a broader puzzle, a source of cash for further deployment and growth, then it's much easier to make those otherwise unpopular decisions. And even investors would potentially support them because they're not focused any longer on, I want, say, Evernote to have as many subscribers as possible. Yeah, all else being equal, I want to have more subscribers, but I would rather have an Evernote that generates more revenue, more cash flow, so that it's more accretive to bigger Bending Spoons and we can go after bigger acquisitions and thrive. So there are incentives, and this is one example. Another one is talent. Sometimes businesses, when they have matured and, you know, everybody understands and sees they're somewhat...
00:34:21 · Luca Ferrari, David Senra
Have somewhat saturated their opportunity, you know, maybe they're growing 15%, maybe they're flat, but they're not doubling every year or something. Often they have long stopped attracting some of the most hungry, ambitious talent. And so these executive teams have access to preferably valid talent, but maybe not against standout talent. [00:34:42] S0: Wait a minute. So I just I think it just clicked on one of the unexpected benefits of what you're doing. It's like, you buy AOL and I'm working on AOL. I don't think I'm working for AOL. I think I'm working for Bending Spoons. [00:34:54] S1: Exactly. So I... Some... You know, I I don't have consulting, like, you know, the big strategic consulting companies, McKinsey, BCG, Bing. [00:35:03] S0: Did you have a... You got hired there. Right? [00:35:05] S1: I got hired... It's... I got hired there because we had... We saw in parallel with the startup we were talking about. Yeah. So I have a I have a background [00:35:11] S0: Tell tell the story. We're gonna go back on Bending Spoons. This is a hilarious story, dude. [00:35:14] S1: So I have a background in engineering physics. And with two friends of mine, also engineers, we had this idea of building that company, that AI self writing diary I was describing earlier, Evernote. But we had no money, you know, all of us, you know, coming from countryside in in the Northeast Of Italy. [00:35:32] S0: You come from like a town of what, 900 people or something like Yeah. [00:35:35] S1: Least at the time. Yeah. I'm fewer than a thousand.
00:35:35 · Luca Ferrari, David Senra
[00:35:35] S1: Least at the time. Yeah. I'm fewer than a thousand. [00:35:37] S0: I don't think anybody in your family went to college. Think your parents cut hair. Yes. Right? Okay. [00:35:42] S1: Almost every time now, but, yes, they they used to to to... Maybe some of those billions you [00:35:47] S0: got in your pockets are helping them retire. Well,