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,
00:35:52 · Luca Ferrari
[00:35:52] S1: it's all virtual, Ivan. It's all a lot of stuff. So so anyway, we we wanted to to build that that that startup, but we had no money. And it wasn't... At least we thought it wouldn't wouldn't be easy to raise seed capital either. And maybe it's easier or it was was easier and certainly easier in The States. It wasn't for us. So we figured, how do we do this? And so the three of us, very good friends in the time and even more so today because we've gone through so much over the following fifteen plus years, We we figured, okay, we all all of us look for a job, and whoever gets the most lucrative offer accepts it and pays for rent and food for the other two. The other two would work on a prototype and basically the startup until we can convince someone to give us some money, so whoever is working can quit and we can all focus on the startup. We all look for a job and... Well, frankly, one of us was doing a PhD already, so that was our backup plan, but not a super lucrative job, so that, you know, we were hoping to do better than that. And I happened to get an offer from McKinsey for a consulting job, a strategic consultant. And so that was the best offer we got. And I remember I was terrified because I I mean, I'm close to incapable of lying or being opaque. I I always want to be honest and transparent, but that's why I decided I would tell the partner from McKinsey who extended an offer to me that, yes, I was going to work there if they wanted me, give it my 100%, but the plan was as soon as possible for me to quit, to go to the start. And I was so convinced that they would withdraw the offer, you know, because we want to hire someone who was kind of as a... Who's who's not wanting to for
00:37:38 · David Senra
[00:37:38] S0: a little bit. I'm trying to leave as fast as possible.
00:37:40 · Luca Ferrari
[00:37:40] S1: Exactly. Incredibly, that partner was enthusiastic about the project and said, yeah, it's great. We want to have you here. So very grateful, very inspired, worked very hard, as hard as I could. I was working on the on the startup in the, you know, basically during the night. But not like when people say during the night, I mean, 7PM to 9PM. I mean, like, from midnight to in the morning, And then on the weekends, and and then I remember after the one year at McKinsey, had my, I don't know, three weeks of vacation or something like that. I I spent to work, like, full time on the start. Anyway, about a year later, we managed to to raise about $500,000. And so I quit. I mean, I finished a project another two, three months, and then I I I left. So, yes, that's my stint in consulting. And I and I think I saw something there that I I think has some similarities to Banish most of the time. Most of the people who applied to work at McKinsey, and I'm pretty sure it was the same for BCG, Bing, these other consultancies, were very excited to be working there. They got some of the best graduates, at least from business, maybe not as much from engineering. But then you would end up serving telcos, banks, insurance companies to which you would never have sent your CV. And I think Bending Spoons is kind of similar for software engineers, product designers, product managers. I believe we got some exceptionally good talent, especially students, graduates, for reasons we can discuss, but talent density is one of them, career opportunities. And then you end up working on AOL or, you know, again, Evernote. Some of these businesses, these people would then have applied if the whole prospect had been to work there for five years or ten years, but they are incredibly excited, and rightfully so, to spend, say, twelve months or eighteen months on AOL rebuilding the technological foundation, rethinking the customer experience, monetization, that's a very interesting challenge because you get to change a lot of stuff on a very large user and customer base. So you get the best of a startup and a big corp. From the big corp, get... We're working on big user and customer bases. This is not... We're not trying to find product market fit. We have a lot of resources. But from a startup, you have a tiny team, lots of responsibility, we're actually making big changes.