Luca Ferrari: Scaling to 500M Downloads, $360M in Reported 2023 Sales and a $2.55BN Valuation |E1127

Luca Ferrari is Co-Founder and CEO of Bending Spoons, one of the most incredible but untold success stories in startups. Luca and the team have scaled Bending Spoons to 100M monthly active users and $380M in sales in 2023. The company’s products include Evernote, Meetup, Remini, and Splice and their products have now been downloaded more than 500M times. ----------------------------------------------- Timestamps: (0:00) Intro (00:41) Luca’s Background (02:51) Early Days of Bending Spoons (07:33) Acquiring & Improving Products (10:25) Bootstrapping & Long-Term Vision (22:42) Misjudgments & Lessons Learned (28:22) Challenges of User Acquisition (31:10) Building Margins of Safety (31:51) Taking Too Much Risk (34:59) Learning from Mistakes (35:27) Caring About Other’s Opinions (37:39) Resilience & Self-Criticism (39:29) Talent & Motivation Density (41:43) Assessing Talent & Motivation (43:35) Biggest Mistakes in Hiring (46:20) Ambition & Hard Work (49:47) Building Strong Co-founder Relationship (50:55) Choosing Investors (52:18) Improving the Fundraising Process (53:45) Immovable Terms in Fundraising (55:06) Quick-Fire Round ----------------------------------------------- In Today’s Episode with Luca Ferrari We Discuss: 1. From McKinsey Associate to $2BN Founder: What was Luca like as a child? How would his parents have described him? Why did Luca share his McKinsey salary with his co-founders? What were Luca’s biggest lessons from his failed startup? 2. Bootstrapping Bending Spoons: Why did Luca decide to bootstrap Bending Spoons? What does Luca think about the EU vs. US startup environment? Why did Luca kill a $7M project? What were his lessons? How did Luca pick his investors? 3. How to Find the Best Talent: What are the 3 key traits Luca looks for when picking the best talent? Why does Luca think traditional interview strategies do not work? What tests does Luca conduct for each candidate? What were Luca’s biggest hiring mistakes? 4. Mastering Acquisition & Growth: How does Luca determine which products to acquire? How does he identify signals? How does Luca approach pricing assets? How does he win every bid? What are Luca’s biggest lessons from acquiring Evernote? What key lessons on risk management does Luca wish he’d known 10 years ago? What are Luca’s biggest challenges on user acquisition? ----------------------------------------------- Subscribe on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3j2KMcZTtgTNBKwtZBMHvl?si=85bc9196860e4466 Subscribe on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-twenty-minute-vc-20vc-venture-capital-startup/id958230465 Follow Harry Stebbings on Twitter: https://twitter.com/HarryStebbings Follow Luca Ferrari on Twitter: https://twitter.com/luke10ferrari Follow 20VC on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/20vchq Follow 20VC on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@20vc_tok Visit our Website: https://www.20vc.com Subscribe to our Newsletter: https://www.thetwentyminutevc.com/contact ----------------------------------------------- #20vc #harrystebbings #venturecapital #founder #lucaferrari #bendingspoons #mckinsey #hiring #startup #investmentstrategy #evernote #growth #investing